November 17, 2025 • 13 mins
If your eight-year-old won’t walk into another room without you, this episode will change everything. Justin and Kylie unpack what’s really going on beneath “irrational” childhood fears—and why pushing independence backfires. Instead, you’ll hear the science of secure attachment, relatable stories, and simple steps that make your child braver because you’ve got their back.
KEY POINTS
- Your child’s fear isn’t irrational—it’s real to them.
- Why forcing independence increases fear and dependence.
- Resilience is relational: kids become brave when they feel safe.
- How modelling your own fears helps kids face theirs.
- Four practical, developmentally sound ideas to reduce anxiety and build confidence.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“Force creates resistance. The more we push independence, the more our kids cling.”
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Go with them—compassion beats coercion.
- Skip the praise for doing things alone; it creates pressure.
- Trust development—he’ll grow into independence naturally.
- Stay curious—watch for any underlying stressors or changes.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Life is full of tricky questions, and every Tuesday on
the Happy Families Pod we answer your tricky questions so
that you can make your family happier. Today we're talking
about quote unquote irrational fears eight year olds who won't
do simple things because they're terrified of life. If you've
got a child who has fears of the monster under
the bed, the ghost in the cupboard, or doing anything
(00:29):
without you being by their side, this is the episode
for you.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting
solutions every single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
We are Justin and Kylie Coulson and if you have
a tricky question for us, every Tuesday on the pod,
we answer them. All you have to do is go
to Happy Families dot com dot a, you scroll out
of the podcast section, press record, start talking. It's a
super simple system and we love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
A question one from Emily who asks the following, Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
My eight year old has big, sometimes irrational fears. He's
afraid to be alone, even if it means just going
to the other side of the house, which is within
earshot by himself. I want to help him become more
resilient and independent, but I'm struggling to know how to
do this. When he won't even go to his room
(01:26):
to get a book or a toy that he wants
unless I go with him, How can I help him?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I wish Emily was on the podcast because I would
love to ask her a million questions about her little boy,
and you know, when it started and how it started,
and whether or not it's an irrational fear or if
it's more about just wanting to be.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Close to mum.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Like there's so many different nuances to the question.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, as I listened to the question, I wrote down
about seven hundred things I haven't written so fast, So
I've got a lot to say on this one.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
That surprise.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, how about if I just get going and you
can just jump in and talk all of me as
we go. The first thing that I want to pick
up on is the word irrational. So make no mistake,
the fear is real for this eight year old. It
may seem irrational to you as a grown up, because
as a grown up, you don't get frightened walking to
the other side of the house, but for this little
(02:20):
guy he does. So therefore the fear is rational, it's real,
and there's this understandable striving that we have as parents
that our children will become independent and resilient. But the
great irony is the harder we push it, the faster
we try to force it. Like if I'm trying to
force you to become independent, I actually terrorize you and
(02:43):
make you more anxious, which increases you dependence. Force creates resistance.
The more I tried to make you independent by leaving
you to do things independently, the more frightened you become
of being left on your own, and therefore the more
reliant and dependent you become on me.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I remember having a conversation with someone one day and
they said, we've determined that the kids aren't allowed to
date until they're fully toilet trained.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, and so we haven't shared notes because I was
scribbing my notes down. But that's where I'm finishing today's podcast. Sorry,
that's fine, you take my line anyway, you didn't see
finish the thought.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I think it's a really important one.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And at the time I was grappling with a two
year old who just couldn't get her head wrapped around
what it meant to do a week in the Yeah,
and it was driving me crazy. But I'd also been
through it multiple times before and know that at some
point everything clicks into place.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, Like you're not allowed to date until your toilet trained.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Like eventually they're going to be motivated to go on
a date and say, all right, I'm going to have
to start using the potty right Eventually, Eventually it's going
to work out eventually, Emily. We don't meant to mock
your sons and your very real struggle here. But the
first thing that I wrote down when I listened to this,
other than irrational and question marks and circled the word,
(03:58):
was that resilience is relational. What I mean by that
is we develop a sense of resilience not by being independent,
but by knowing that we have people who've got our back,
people who are nearby that we can lean on, people
that we can rely on.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
And the way, No, we don't have to do it
all on our own, Like that, the idea that I
have to do it all on my own when it
feels so big, overwhelming and all encompassing, actually stops me
in my tracks. It freezes me. I'm not able to
move forward.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So here's a grown up example that may help shift
perspective just a little bit. I'd finish my PhD. I
was working at the University of Wollongong in the ila
Or Institute for Mental Health. I was working academically, writing
research papers, lecturing in the School of Psychology. I'm a
full grown adult with a mortgage and at the time
we had five of our six kids.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I decided that I wanted to start a business.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So let's just acknowledge you had no idea how to
start a business. You had no idea what that would
look like. You had no idea how you were actually
going to make it all work.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
No, but I knew people who had done that sort
of thing before, and I figured that it could be done.
And I had a PhD. So if I could get
a PhD, I can figure out how to own business.
There's plenty of people without PhD.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I'm just painting the picture. You weren't an expert in
not being a business owner.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No, but I guess what I'm highlighting here is we've
got an eight year old who he knows what's on
the other side of the house. He knows how to
get there, but it still feels frightening. So I'm a
grown up and I'm about to take on a huge
amount of financial risk by saying I'm quitting my stable,
secure job in academia and I'm going to start trying
to generate my own income off my own bat doing
my own thing. And I remember ringing my dad and
(05:33):
just explaining the situation, and I said, Dad, I don't
know if this is going to work. I don't know
how to do this. I'm pretty nervous. I didn't use
the word anxiety, but it fits with the theme of
what we're talking about today. And this is coming back
to the idea that resilience is relational. I said to Dad,
if this fails, is it reasonable for me to ask you,
(05:54):
could my family come and live with you? Guys, like,
can we move to the central coast. Dad's got a
really big garage with a sort of a It's not
self contained, but there's a bedroom ish I don't know,
a storage area underneath the garage that could use as
a place to live. And I just said, could we
come and squeeze into the house into the garage? Could
we somehow try to make this work, and it's huming
(06:16):
the business doesn't work. And Dad just said, no, you're
not going to live in my garage. You can live
in my house. And of course I'm here for you.
Go start the business.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's what you want to do. I believe in you.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I think you can do it, and even if you can't,
I'm here for you. And I was able to take
that step, obviously, with your support and with my dad's
promise that financially he would support us if need be.
He never needed to do that. But I was able
to do the quote unquote independent thing, the quote unquote
resilient thing. But I was not doing it on my own.
(06:45):
I was doing it knowing that I had a backstop,
I had a safety in net, I had somebody who
was in my corner. Well, I had multiple people who
were in my corner who wanted to see me succeed.
And when I think about this little eight year old
guy who we want to help them become resilient and independent,
the best way for him to become resilient and independent
is to know that somebody's got his back, that if
(07:07):
he falls, someone's going to catch him, that there's that
safety net there, and if going to the other side
of the house, going to his bedroom feels a little intimidating,
a little bit difficult. How much time and how much
disruption does it really make in your day to walk
with him. My guess is it's twenty or thirty seconds
out of your day, and it's an opportunity to hug
him and high five him and maybe bit by bit
(07:28):
to help him to stretch and say, well, I'll walk
to the end of the corridor here and I'll watch
you as you go into the room. I'm not going
to go all the way because you're eight years old
now and I believe in you. Or maybe you just
go all the way because that's what makes him feel
comfortable right now. I guarantee that when he's ready to
start dating, he's going to say I can do this
on my own. You can say, son, you're not allowed
to date until you can leave the house on your
(07:50):
own and take that romantic interest to the place that
you'd like to without me. And he's going to develop.
So this is about trust. This is about trusting in
his intrinsic developmental trajectory. He's going to get there. So
they are my initial thoughts after the break for developmentally
useful ideas that are going to help you to navigate
(08:11):
this situation, because the reality is it is sometimes inconvenient
when your children have things that they're afraid of, things
that are increasing their anxiety that you find inconvenient.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Stay with us, We're back. This is The Happy Family's podcast.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
If you're enjoying the podcast, please like, share, and rate
and review the podcast. It helps other people to find
the pod and make their families happier. Okay, Kylie, I've
got a couple of things that I reckon we can
do to help with these fears that Emily's son is expressing.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
What about you as you've been sharing and especially your
experience a bit about your dad and just how instrumental
that big leap of faith was and you know that
poignant moment in our lives, and how your dad's faith
in you gave you the courage to actually take that
big leap, massive leap. And I'm thinking about the experiences
(09:10):
that we've had with the kids, and I'm a bit
like that eight year old boy. I've got some really big,
irrational fears myself, and the kids have watched me over
the years as I have grappled with them, and I've
talked about them on the podcast from time to time.
I really really hate going to the theme parks and
going on those big scary rides, and I hate jumping
off rocks into bodies of water, and it doesn't have
(09:35):
to be a very high rock either, like it really
stresses me out. But the one thing that I have
always strived to do with my kids is to acknowledge
my fears and then show them them that I'm willing
to face them. And so there are some really big
moments in time where the kids will have recognized me
in a very very fearful jumping out of a plane.
(09:57):
That was a big moment, but I did and in
most cases I was grateful that I did it, But
there were a few times where I wasn't grateful that
I did it, and I was able to talk to
them through that process as well. I think our example
and our willingness to actually be human with them and
let them know that we have our own fears different
(10:17):
to theirs, but we are working towards facing them as
well is a really powerful teaching tool for our kids,
so they know they're not they're not They're not on
their own.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like it a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Let me go through a couple of other things that
I think are going to be useful scientifically. Secure attachment,
which seems to be something that this kid is really craving.
When a child feels really securely attached, that's when they
start to explore, and exploration literally becomes the natural white
product of that secure attachment. If he's feeling insecure, then
he runs back to that secure base. This is what
(10:50):
we call attachment theory. And my sense is that we
just we need to help him to feel secure. That's
first and foremost. He's only eight, he's still got his
l plates on. He is a little kid. He's a
learner at this point. So my four ideas and number one,
go with him. If you want him to go somewhere
and he's showing some concern, just go with him. Be compassionate,
go with him. It's not going to be a big
impact in your life, and he will appreciate it, and
(11:13):
eventually he'll be like, you don't need to come with
me anymore, Mum. It might take a while, but he'll
get their second thing. I wouldn't be praising, I wouldn't
be making a big deal when he does something on
his own. If you make too big of a deal
of it, what starts to happen is that number one,
it implies that he's wrong for wanting support from you.
Number two, it encourages him to try to please you
(11:35):
and ignore his own discomfort. And I don't know that
that's going to be the healthiest way forward. Number Three,
trust the developmental timeline. He is going to figure it out. Eventually,
he'll get there. And number four, I'm just throwing this
out there as a possibility. Maybe there are some underlying causes.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I think that this is it's probably not aligned with
the norm, but I wouldn't say that it's atypical. I'd
say that this still falls into the range of developmentally
typical behavior, certainly on the less common side, but it
still fits within parameters of something that's not that unusual.
Bottom line for me is safety through presents. That's what
(12:12):
we're looking for here. He's probably saying, I need more connection,
not less connection. And as we've already said, and as
you still my favorite my end line for this one,
he needs to be able to do it before he
can date. And I don't think you're going to have
any problems there and when you put in that perspective,
it takes the pressure off you because he's got at
least another six or seven years. And I just don't
know too many fourteen and fifteen year olds who are saying, Mum.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Walk me, walk me to my bedroom. Please. Hey, Emily,
thanks so much for the question. We really hope that
this helps.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
If you have a tricky question that you'd love to
ask us, you can send your email your voice note
to podcasts at happy families dot com dot you. That's
podcasts with an s at happy families dot com. You
anything about family relationships, well being, social media, screens, discipline,
you name it. Ask us anything, we'll talk about it
on the pod. Oh, you can go to happy families
dot com do you and just use the really super
(13:01):
simple system there. Press the button, start talking and we
will get your voice message. The Happy Family's podcast is
produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammets provides research,
admin and other support. And tomorrow on the podcast, I
Can't wait for this one, a conversation with a guy
who's just written this really really smart book about helping
kids to go further, do more, and be more than
(13:24):
they've thought that they could be.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Lond Mosconassi, the author.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Of Free Range Kids and the founder of the Let
Grow movement, put me in touch with Chris and we're
going to chat tomorrow about his new book and how
we can help kids to be resilient and do some
of the things that Emily's indicated today that she'd like
her eight year old to step into. That's tomorrow on
The Happy Family's podcast, Talk to You then,
Hi, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Life is full of tricky questions, and every Tuesday on
the Happy Families Pod we answer your tricky questions so
that you can make your family happier. Today we're talking
about quote unquote irrational fears eight year olds who won't
do simple things because they're terrified of life. If you've
got a child who has fears of the monster under
the bed, the ghost in the cupboard, or doing anything
(00:29):
without you being by their side, this is the episode
for you.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting
solutions every single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
We are Justin and Kylie Coulson and if you have
a tricky question for us, every Tuesday on the pod,
we answer them. All you have to do is go
to Happy Families dot com dot a, you scroll out
of the podcast section, press record, start talking. It's a
super simple system and we love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
A question one from Emily who asks the following, Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
My eight year old has big, sometimes irrational fears. He's
afraid to be alone, even if it means just going
to the other side of the house, which is within
earshot by himself. I want to help him become more
resilient and independent, but I'm struggling to know how to
do this. When he won't even go to his room
(01:26):
to get a book or a toy that he wants
unless I go with him, How can I help him?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I wish Emily was on the podcast because I would
love to ask her a million questions about her little boy,
and you know, when it started and how it started,
and whether or not it's an irrational fear or if
it's more about just wanting to be.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Close to mum.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Like there's so many different nuances to the question.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, as I listened to the question, I wrote down
about seven hundred things I haven't written so fast, So
I've got a lot to say on this one.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
That surprise.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, how about if I just get going and you
can just jump in and talk all of me as
we go. The first thing that I want to pick
up on is the word irrational. So make no mistake,
the fear is real for this eight year old. It
may seem irrational to you as a grown up, because
as a grown up, you don't get frightened walking to
the other side of the house, but for this little
(02:20):
guy he does. So therefore the fear is rational, it's real,
and there's this understandable striving that we have as parents
that our children will become independent and resilient. But the
great irony is the harder we push it, the faster
we try to force it. Like if I'm trying to
force you to become independent, I actually terrorize you and
(02:43):
make you more anxious, which increases you dependence. Force creates resistance.
The more I tried to make you independent by leaving
you to do things independently, the more frightened you become
of being left on your own, and therefore the more
reliant and dependent you become on me.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I remember having a conversation with someone one day and
they said, we've determined that the kids aren't allowed to
date until they're fully toilet trained.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, and so we haven't shared notes because I was
scribbing my notes down. But that's where I'm finishing today's podcast. Sorry,
that's fine, you take my line anyway, you didn't see
finish the thought.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I think it's a really important one.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And at the time I was grappling with a two
year old who just couldn't get her head wrapped around
what it meant to do a week in the Yeah,
and it was driving me crazy. But I'd also been
through it multiple times before and know that at some
point everything clicks into place.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, Like you're not allowed to date until your toilet trained.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Like eventually they're going to be motivated to go on
a date and say, all right, I'm going to have
to start using the potty right Eventually, Eventually it's going
to work out eventually, Emily. We don't meant to mock
your sons and your very real struggle here. But the
first thing that I wrote down when I listened to this,
other than irrational and question marks and circled the word,
(03:58):
was that resilience is relational. What I mean by that
is we develop a sense of resilience not by being independent,
but by knowing that we have people who've got our back,
people who are nearby that we can lean on, people
that we can rely on.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
And the way, No, we don't have to do it
all on our own, Like that, the idea that I
have to do it all on my own when it
feels so big, overwhelming and all encompassing, actually stops me
in my tracks. It freezes me. I'm not able to
move forward.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So here's a grown up example that may help shift
perspective just a little bit. I'd finish my PhD. I
was working at the University of Wollongong in the ila
Or Institute for Mental Health. I was working academically, writing
research papers, lecturing in the School of Psychology. I'm a
full grown adult with a mortgage and at the time
we had five of our six kids.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I decided that I wanted to start a business.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So let's just acknowledge you had no idea how to
start a business. You had no idea what that would
look like. You had no idea how you were actually
going to make it all work.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
No, but I knew people who had done that sort
of thing before, and I figured that it could be done.
And I had a PhD. So if I could get
a PhD, I can figure out how to own business.
There's plenty of people without PhD.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I'm just painting the picture. You weren't an expert in
not being a business owner.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No, but I guess what I'm highlighting here is we've
got an eight year old who he knows what's on
the other side of the house. He knows how to
get there, but it still feels frightening. So I'm a
grown up and I'm about to take on a huge
amount of financial risk by saying I'm quitting my stable,
secure job in academia and I'm going to start trying
to generate my own income off my own bat doing
my own thing. And I remember ringing my dad and
(05:33):
just explaining the situation, and I said, Dad, I don't
know if this is going to work. I don't know
how to do this. I'm pretty nervous. I didn't use
the word anxiety, but it fits with the theme of
what we're talking about today. And this is coming back
to the idea that resilience is relational. I said to Dad,
if this fails, is it reasonable for me to ask you,
(05:54):
could my family come and live with you? Guys, like,
can we move to the central coast. Dad's got a
really big garage with a sort of a It's not
self contained, but there's a bedroom ish I don't know,
a storage area underneath the garage that could use as
a place to live. And I just said, could we
come and squeeze into the house into the garage? Could
we somehow try to make this work, and it's huming
(06:16):
the business doesn't work. And Dad just said, no, you're
not going to live in my garage. You can live
in my house. And of course I'm here for you.
Go start the business.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's what you want to do. I believe in you.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I think you can do it, and even if you can't,
I'm here for you. And I was able to take
that step, obviously, with your support and with my dad's
promise that financially he would support us if need be.
He never needed to do that. But I was able
to do the quote unquote independent thing, the quote unquote
resilient thing. But I was not doing it on my own.
(06:45):
I was doing it knowing that I had a backstop,
I had a safety in net, I had somebody who
was in my corner. Well, I had multiple people who
were in my corner who wanted to see me succeed.
And when I think about this little eight year old
guy who we want to help them become resilient and independent,
the best way for him to become resilient and independent
is to know that somebody's got his back, that if
(07:07):
he falls, someone's going to catch him, that there's that
safety net there, and if going to the other side
of the house, going to his bedroom feels a little intimidating,
a little bit difficult. How much time and how much
disruption does it really make in your day to walk
with him. My guess is it's twenty or thirty seconds
out of your day, and it's an opportunity to hug
him and high five him and maybe bit by bit
(07:28):
to help him to stretch and say, well, I'll walk
to the end of the corridor here and I'll watch
you as you go into the room. I'm not going
to go all the way because you're eight years old
now and I believe in you. Or maybe you just
go all the way because that's what makes him feel
comfortable right now. I guarantee that when he's ready to
start dating, he's going to say I can do this
on my own. You can say, son, you're not allowed
to date until you can leave the house on your
(07:50):
own and take that romantic interest to the place that
you'd like to without me. And he's going to develop.
So this is about trust. This is about trusting in
his intrinsic developmental trajectory. He's going to get there. So
they are my initial thoughts after the break for developmentally
useful ideas that are going to help you to navigate
(08:11):
this situation, because the reality is it is sometimes inconvenient
when your children have things that they're afraid of, things
that are increasing their anxiety that you find inconvenient.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Stay with us, We're back. This is The Happy Family's podcast.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
If you're enjoying the podcast, please like, share, and rate
and review the podcast. It helps other people to find
the pod and make their families happier. Okay, Kylie, I've
got a couple of things that I reckon we can
do to help with these fears that Emily's son is expressing.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
What about you as you've been sharing and especially your
experience a bit about your dad and just how instrumental
that big leap of faith was and you know that
poignant moment in our lives, and how your dad's faith
in you gave you the courage to actually take that
big leap, massive leap. And I'm thinking about the experiences
(09:10):
that we've had with the kids, and I'm a bit
like that eight year old boy. I've got some really big,
irrational fears myself, and the kids have watched me over
the years as I have grappled with them, and I've
talked about them on the podcast from time to time.
I really really hate going to the theme parks and
going on those big scary rides, and I hate jumping
off rocks into bodies of water, and it doesn't have
(09:35):
to be a very high rock either, like it really
stresses me out. But the one thing that I have
always strived to do with my kids is to acknowledge
my fears and then show them them that I'm willing
to face them. And so there are some really big
moments in time where the kids will have recognized me
in a very very fearful jumping out of a plane.
(09:57):
That was a big moment, but I did and in
most cases I was grateful that I did it, But
there were a few times where I wasn't grateful that
I did it, and I was able to talk to
them through that process as well. I think our example
and our willingness to actually be human with them and
let them know that we have our own fears different
(10:17):
to theirs, but we are working towards facing them as
well is a really powerful teaching tool for our kids,
so they know they're not they're not They're not on
their own.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like it a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Let me go through a couple of other things that
I think are going to be useful scientifically. Secure attachment,
which seems to be something that this kid is really craving.
When a child feels really securely attached, that's when they
start to explore, and exploration literally becomes the natural white
product of that secure attachment. If he's feeling insecure, then
he runs back to that secure base. This is what
(10:50):
we call attachment theory. And my sense is that we
just we need to help him to feel secure. That's
first and foremost. He's only eight, he's still got his
l plates on. He is a little kid. He's a
learner at this point. So my four ideas and number one,
go with him. If you want him to go somewhere
and he's showing some concern, just go with him. Be compassionate,
go with him. It's not going to be a big
impact in your life, and he will appreciate it, and
(11:13):
eventually he'll be like, you don't need to come with
me anymore, Mum. It might take a while, but he'll
get their second thing. I wouldn't be praising, I wouldn't
be making a big deal when he does something on
his own. If you make too big of a deal
of it, what starts to happen is that number one,
it implies that he's wrong for wanting support from you.
Number two, it encourages him to try to please you
(11:35):
and ignore his own discomfort. And I don't know that
that's going to be the healthiest way forward. Number Three,
trust the developmental timeline. He is going to figure it out. Eventually,
he'll get there. And number four, I'm just throwing this
out there as a possibility. Maybe there are some underlying causes.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I think that this is it's probably not aligned with
the norm, but I wouldn't say that it's atypical. I'd
say that this still falls into the range of developmentally
typical behavior, certainly on the less common side, but it
still fits within parameters of something that's not that unusual.
Bottom line for me is safety through presents. That's what
(12:12):
we're looking for here. He's probably saying, I need more connection,
not less connection. And as we've already said, and as
you still my favorite my end line for this one,
he needs to be able to do it before he
can date. And I don't think you're going to have
any problems there and when you put in that perspective,
it takes the pressure off you because he's got at
least another six or seven years. And I just don't
know too many fourteen and fifteen year olds who are saying, Mum.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Walk me, walk me to my bedroom. Please. Hey, Emily,
thanks so much for the question. We really hope that
this helps.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
If you have a tricky question that you'd love to
ask us, you can send your email your voice note
to podcasts at happy families dot com dot you. That's
podcasts with an s at happy families dot com. You
anything about family relationships, well being, social media, screens, discipline,
you name it. Ask us anything, we'll talk about it
on the pod. Oh, you can go to happy families
dot com do you and just use the really super
(13:01):
simple system there. Press the button, start talking and we
will get your voice message. The Happy Family's podcast is
produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammets provides research,
admin and other support. And tomorrow on the podcast, I
Can't wait for this one, a conversation with a guy
who's just written this really really smart book about helping
kids to go further, do more, and be more than
(13:24):
they've thought that they could be.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Lond Mosconassi, the author.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Of Free Range Kids and the founder of the Let
Grow movement, put me in touch with Chris and we're
going to chat tomorrow about his new book and how
we can help kids to be resilient and do some
of the things that Emily's indicated today that she'd like
her eight year old to step into. That's tomorrow on
The Happy Family's podcast, Talk to You then,
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