August 31, 2025 • 17 mins
Why can’t kids just calm down? Here’s the truth: they’re not supposed to. Expecting children to manage their emotions alone is like expecting them to drive a car before they’ve learned to walk. In this episode, Justin and Kylie bust the biggest parenting myth about big feelings — and share 3 powerful, science-backed strategies you can use in the heat of the moment to help your child ride the emotional waves.
KEY POINTS
- Kids’ brains are on “L-plates” when it comes to emotion regulation — it’s a developmental process.
- Big feelings are normal, not a sign of “bad behaviour.”
- Three strategies parents can use:
- Distraction – helps reset the nervous system.
- Co-regulation – lending your calm to your child.
- Pause problem-solving – wait until emotions settle before teaching or fixing.
- Parents often feel judged when meltdowns happen in public — but compassion (for ourselves and our kids) is the game-changer.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“No one can think clearly in a fire drill — and that’s exactly what trying to reason with a child mid-meltdown is like.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Happy Families resources for parenting strategies & support
- Little People, Big Feelings Summit
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 (00:05):
This is the Happy Families Podcast, the place you come
when the kids are having big feelings, because that is
what we do. We help you to navigate those. Picture
it your six year old having a meltdown because their
toast broken half, Your nine year old sobbing because their
friend didn't sit with them at lunch. Your teenager has
just slammed the door because you asked them to put
(00:27):
the phone down for dinner. How dare you? And somewhere
in the back of your mind, you're kind of thinking,
why can't they just manage their emotions like a normal person.
So here's the plot twist. They're not supposed to. In fact,
expecting your children to regulate their big feelings is kind
of like expecting them to drive a car before they've
learned to walk. Today, we're busting the biggest myth in
(00:47):
parenting that kids should be able to handle their emotions
on their own, and we're going to give you the
science backed strategies that actually work when your child's emotional
world explodes. Stay with us, could they Welcome to the
Heavy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every single day. My
name's Justin with Kylie, my wife and mum. Do our
(01:10):
six kids. The most popular topics in terms of downloads
on this podcast ADHD and emotion dysregulation. Today we tackle
the latter big emotions with some quick reminders and some
useful tips for your child's next temper, tantrum, or emotional moment. Kylie,
you're looking at me with a strange look on your face.
(01:31):
It looks like you're about to have a big emotion
because your microphone has been switched off. I just realized
you're not saying anything. It is because I haven't turned
your mic on. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I find it curious and I fall into the same
trap that we're asking our children, yes, with their lack
of experience, lack of developmental progress, and just.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
A lack of time in the world. Yeah yeah, yeah,
to be able.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
To regulate their emotions when even us as the big people,
really struggle from time to time.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And when you say from time to time, you mean
most days.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, most days.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So let's start with the reality. I think that's just
this may be a sanity saver. Kids aren't supposed to
manage their big feelings. I mean, we want them to,
and eventually they will, but their brains are their brains
are wearing l plates, alplates, as in like a learner
plate that you put on the back of the car
that says, I still don't really know what I'm doing here.
Even more practically, kids start to develop some sort of
(02:30):
emotion regulation. Let's get clear on the definition of emotion regulation,
the ability to either turn your emotions up or down
based on the context and consistent with your long term goals.
Like three year olds don't have long term goals. They
have immediate goals. They want instant gratification. They don't understand
(02:50):
the idea of frustration tolerance, and it's inappropriate developmentally for
us to be trying to teach them that in any
meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But I also think that as a society we actually
looked down on big emotions. If someone's overly excited, it
makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. Often, if somebody's
overly angry, that leaves everybody definitely feeling uncomfortable. So in
some ways it's a little bit counter to what we're
actually wanting our children to do. We're wanting them to
(03:20):
experience their emotions and understand them, but we're also going
just make sure it's not too much.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, and that's appropriate that we want to help them.
This is called socialization, right, That's what our job as
parents is to socialize our kids. But they don't start
to get this until the age of three in a
really rudimentary way. And on average, most kids will be
able to have their emotions reasonably well regulated most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
By I love how you're sliding down, I would have.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Put a thousand caveats in here, because it depends on
how hungry and how tired, and how stressed and how
worked up and all those things. They are, right, I mean,
I'm saying nine. But one of my favorite things to
do when I'm teaching this stuff in my workshops and
my presentations, I mean schools or corporations, and I'll talk
about emotional regulation. I'll say, put up your hand and
tell me how old do you think the average child
(04:09):
is when they can regulate most of their emotions most
of the time under fairly standard circumstances. And usually the
first response from somebody who thinks they're so funny is
they'll say forty three, and then everyone will guff or
because it is just naturally it's hard to do this.
We are, as Brene Brown says, emotional beings first, and
(04:32):
when something happens, our rational brain has been bound and
gagged and stuck in the boot, and the emotions are
driving this down the highway. If that's the case for
us as adults, because we haven't understood principles of stolicism,
for example, we don't know how to regulate ourselves. Well,
what chance do our children have at the age of three,
or four, or five, or at the age of sixteen
(04:53):
when their brain's going through that second brain explosion. So
I guess there's one of my that I want to
pick up on now that you've pulled me up on that.
With all of my caveats, I did say most of
the time, and I did say on average, because even
when we're regulated, forty three year old still going to
have moments with emotions overwhelming the capacity.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, you're not forty three anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I'm not talking about me. If I was talking about me,
i'd say almost fifty year old. I had this happened
to me the other night. I'm going to share it
on them. Oh, this is a hard thing for me
to say. But I walked into the house and we've
got a twenty two year old, an eighteen year old,
a fifteen year old and an eleven year old, and
they're all doing stuff all and the house looks like
(05:39):
a bomb's gone off, and they it's like they're oblivious
to the fact that there's work to be done. And
I feel like I work pretty hard, and I feel
like you work pretty hard. We don't stop. And I
didn't regulate particularly well. I'm just saying, I mean I
didn't lose it, but I was not as regulated as
they're used to seeing me. I had some congestions for
(06:00):
them as to what might happen and when it might happen,
and why it shouldn't be me or you that was
doing it. Anyway, let's move on with this. In twenty
twenty five, we talk about dysregulation, we talk about neurodevelopmental
challenges and trauma. But what I want to emphasize here
is it's normal and natural to struggle to manage big feelings.
And a lot of the time what we're dealing with
(06:22):
is a stage, and a lot of the time we're
dealing with humanity and being a human And we just
need to trust our kids in eate development and trust
that we are setting a good example. And when you
understand that that's when everything changes. Instead of thinking why
can't you just calm down and why can't you be
like everybody else's children, what you do is you start thinking,
(06:44):
all right, how can I help my child to get
through this while their brain is learning how to do
it on their own.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I'm thinking back to my experience as a young mum,
young Kylie, dealing with young children and specifically a future
and with really big emotions, and those emotions would often
present themselves at the most inconvenient time. They were, you know,
as we're walking into the school ground and parents were everywhere,
(07:11):
or we were in the grocery store buying groceries, and
there's people everywhere, and my initial thought was not for
the care of my child. My initial thought in those
moments was everybody's looking at me. They're wanting me to
do X, Y and Z, and if I don't do
the right thing, then I'm a bad parent.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ego and pride and comparison and there's.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
So much pressure around that and we're well meaning, but
so often the comments that we make to other parents
in those moments, or the looks that we give them
just feel judgmental. What they actually need is a pat
on the back and say it's okay, today's going to
be okay, or can I help, or any number of
things than what we often say. But if we can
(08:00):
turn our attention not to how we're feeling, but to
have compassion for our child with the big emotions and
recognize that this is part of the human experience, we're
going to present ourselves differently. We're going to show up
differently for our kids in that moment.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I think we are. So after the break, we're
going to talk about a couple of things that you
can do when the kids are having really big emotions
so that they can and you can navigate it in
a way that everybody can feel good about, and somehow
you can look beyond the upturned nerveses and what we
might perceive as judgment from other parents. I reckon most
parents are not actually judging you. They're quite compassionate because
(08:38):
they've been there, and the ones that are you don't
need to worry about it anyway, because they're not the
kind of people that you want to hang around with.
Let's talk about solutions in just a sec Stay with us.
We're back with the Happy Families podcast Real Parenting Solutions.
(08:59):
Every single day. All right, Kylie, we need to talk
about how we're supposed to guide our children through their
really big emotions. I want to go through a couple
fairly quickly. Feel free to chuck anything in that you've
got in your mind. Here the first one I want
to talk about as the solution to big emotions. This distraction.
Distraction works. It gets a bad rap because we think
(09:19):
it's avoiding the problem, and if we use distraction consistently
then that's what it might be doing. But here's the neuroscience.
Child's emotional brain gets activated, thinking brain goes offline. You
can't reason with a disregulated nervous system high emotions, low intelligence,
can't think straight in a high emotion state, all those
things that we talk about on the pod all the time.
(09:39):
Distraction works because it gives the emotional storm time to
pass and it engages a different part of the brain.
So when your toddler is having that melt down over
the broken toast, pointing out the bird outside the window
is not a dismissal of their feelings. It's just giving
their nervous system a chance to reset. Some people will think, oh,
(10:00):
you're rewarding bad behavior. I don't think so I think
what you're doing is you're giving a child the best
chance possible to pull it together. Distraction buys you time
for their system to calm down enough that they're thinking
brain can come back online.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
What I love about this particular strategy is the fact
that it doesn't leave my child in distress for long
periods of time. When our granddaughter shows up and she
spends some time with us and she might hurt herself,
she will get really upset, and especially because Mum's not here,
and she, you know, kind of naturally is drawn to
go to Mum. And I'll just start singing with her,
(10:37):
and it's amazing how quickly she kind of shuffles away
from that massive emotion to a joyful moment.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Even with our bigger kids, like in their teens, having
a bad moment, Let's go for a walk like nature
is great, by the way, as a way to regulate
your emotions. Being in nature really really helps a lot.
But just going and doing something different, shifting your brain
into a different space, playing a game. I'm not big
on this, but even watching TV for half an hour
just to bring it all back down, you still will
(11:07):
usually need more than that. If you're going to use
a screen as a distraction. It's not particularly effective and
it gets used as an escape too much. But anyway,
that's my first one. Let's talk about the second one, coregulation.
If your child will allow it. So remember high emotions,
low intelligence. You might try to be close to your
child with their emotional and they're kicking and punching and
screaming and saying leave me alone, leave me like really
losing it when they're doing that. Give them the space
(11:30):
that they want. One of my favorite lines has always been,
do you want me to be with you and give
you a heart good? Just want some space?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I love that one, and I know I use it
with you all the time because it doesn't just work
with kids. I think coregulation is an incredible web. It's
a secret weapon, but that crucial caveat is really at
the heart of it. Some kids don't want to allow it,
and that's okay. You've got to respect their need for space.
For the kids who will let your help, the magic
formula is really simple. You say what you see and
(11:58):
then you listen. So it might be I can see
really frustrated right now, and then just stop talking, or
sometimes your sister really bugs you, doesn't she and then
stop talking. You want to jump in with solutions, you
want to jump in with explanations, you want to jump
in with life lessons. But instead I heard somebody use
this phrase, just bear witness. Just bear witness to their
(12:19):
experience and their challenge, and let them know that you
can see it. Because when you are calm, you will
help regulate their nervous system. But only if they're not
feeling crowded or controlled. And if they say leave me alone,
then honor that some kids need to process things internally
before they can connect with others. You can say, hey,
(12:40):
I'm here when you're ready. I've often said to our kids,
you can come and get a hug from me in
the next five minutes, or I'm going to check in
with you in two minutes and see how you're going,
and then you just give them the gift of space.
Cod regulation is not forced connection, it's offered connection.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The acknowledgement that our whole experience is not supposed to
be done alone in this world, We're actually supposed to
do it together. And the idea that we can utilize
someone else's calm, we can catch someone else's calm when
we're having these really big emotions. Is so powerful. I
(13:17):
love that there are a couple of safe places that
I can go to when I'm feeling really, really stuck
in big emotions.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So that's the critical thing. You're talking about what you
want as an adult when you're feeling emotional, and the
kids are the same. It's just that we don't give
it to them.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
We as because we find their emotions they're inconvenience. They
never happen when we've got the time and the energy
and the space.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You know, it happened when we're not in the middle
of a really important email or a really important game,
or stirring the sauce but on the stove, or try
to get somewhere and do something that's that's that's reality.
It's just a pain.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
But isn't that parenting. There's nothing convenient about it?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Really, Yeah, that's right. I was going to say, if
you wanted to be convenient, get a dog, but even dogs, No, no,
just don't do it. And I don't have a pet either. No,
but you don't have kids because you want a convenient life.
They give you that meaning, that purpose. All right, our
time is all but up. We need to wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, what's the last one.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Well, there's a million more that we could talk about,
but the last one that I wanted to talk about
today was just the natural inclination that we had to
try to fix things, Like when the kids are having
big emotions, we want to fix it, we want to
calm them down, we want to get everything sorted out.
And I think the ability to stop and not try
to fix things immediately might be the hardest, but probably
(14:30):
the most important when it comes to kids. In emotional regulation,
the rules as follows, no problem solving until emotions are stable.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
If we go back to your original conversation around distraction
actually works, especially when we're dealing with older children, we
don't just because you've distracted them in the moment doesn't
mean that you can't revisit it. But once their emotions
are calm, that's when you're actually able to do the
heavy lifting when it comes to processing emotion.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
If you're trying to problem solve during emotional dysregulation, aslect.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Or even speak logic to an illogic.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
No, it's like trying to have a board meeting during
a fire drill. The alarms are sounding and everyone's running
out of the building. You're saying no, no, no, But we
need to sit down and have this conversation about these
finances and the rest of the board's going not now,
this is not the time for it. No one can
think clearly. Everyone's in survival mode. We just need to
wait until emotions to return to baseline, because then we
can have a conversation without the emotional charge, and that's
(15:32):
when you get to move into problem solving.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And I love the way that Disney movie Inside Out
depicts what's going on up inside a brain when these
big emotions are being felt. And the thing that stands
out to me is that often there's not just one
emotion that's trying to take control of the situation. There's
multiple emotions, and so that's where these big feelings come from,
(15:56):
because you're trying to understand what it is you're feeling,
but there's too many emotions to kind of work it
all out in that moment.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So there's some ideas that should be helpful. I mean,
we could talk about this for hours. There's so much
more that we could have discussed. I do want to
highlight this though. Sometimes sometimes you just need to let
them have their tantrum. Sometimes nothing you can do is
going to make any different. Sometimes they're just upset and
they're going to blow their top. And the interesting thing
about emotions is they're just like waves on the beach.
They come in and then they go out. Some ways
(16:25):
is bigger than others, and some ways kind of knock
you down, but they always go back out and you
can get back up and dry off and work things out.
You're the parent, make the call if they need to
have that moment, let them scream, just give them the
space and go back to them when things are level
and balanced. Really hope that some ideas here have helped
with your children and their big emotions and the stages
(16:46):
they go through. If you know somebody who would benefit
from this podcast, please share it. The more we share
the pot, the more you share the pod, the more
families we get to help in the bigger influence we
get to have on the world, which is what we're
looking for. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Rulin from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds assists with research, admin and
other support, and there's a whole lot of resources to
help you with all of these challenges and more at
(17:07):
happy families dot com. Dot au
This is the Happy Families Podcast, the place you come
when the kids are having big feelings, because that is
what we do. We help you to navigate those. Picture
it your six year old having a meltdown because their
toast broken half, Your nine year old sobbing because their
friend didn't sit with them at lunch. Your teenager has
just slammed the door because you asked them to put
(00:27):
the phone down for dinner. How dare you? And somewhere
in the back of your mind, you're kind of thinking,
why can't they just manage their emotions like a normal person.
So here's the plot twist. They're not supposed to. In fact,
expecting your children to regulate their big feelings is kind
of like expecting them to drive a car before they've
learned to walk. Today, we're busting the biggest myth in
(00:47):
parenting that kids should be able to handle their emotions
on their own, and we're going to give you the
science backed strategies that actually work when your child's emotional
world explodes. Stay with us, could they Welcome to the
Heavy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every single day. My
name's Justin with Kylie, my wife and mum. Do our
(01:10):
six kids. The most popular topics in terms of downloads
on this podcast ADHD and emotion dysregulation. Today we tackle
the latter big emotions with some quick reminders and some
useful tips for your child's next temper, tantrum, or emotional moment. Kylie,
you're looking at me with a strange look on your face.
(01:31):
It looks like you're about to have a big emotion
because your microphone has been switched off. I just realized
you're not saying anything. It is because I haven't turned
your mic on. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I find it curious and I fall into the same
trap that we're asking our children, yes, with their lack
of experience, lack of developmental progress, and just.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
A lack of time in the world. Yeah yeah, yeah,
to be able.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
To regulate their emotions when even us as the big people,
really struggle from time to time.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And when you say from time to time, you mean
most days.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, most days.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So let's start with the reality. I think that's just
this may be a sanity saver. Kids aren't supposed to
manage their big feelings. I mean, we want them to,
and eventually they will, but their brains are their brains
are wearing l plates, alplates, as in like a learner
plate that you put on the back of the car
that says, I still don't really know what I'm doing here.
Even more practically, kids start to develop some sort of
(02:30):
emotion regulation. Let's get clear on the definition of emotion regulation,
the ability to either turn your emotions up or down
based on the context and consistent with your long term goals.
Like three year olds don't have long term goals. They
have immediate goals. They want instant gratification. They don't understand
(02:50):
the idea of frustration tolerance, and it's inappropriate developmentally for
us to be trying to teach them that in any
meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But I also think that as a society we actually
looked down on big emotions. If someone's overly excited, it
makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. Often, if somebody's
overly angry, that leaves everybody definitely feeling uncomfortable. So in
some ways it's a little bit counter to what we're
actually wanting our children to do. We're wanting them to
(03:20):
experience their emotions and understand them, but we're also going
just make sure it's not too much.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, and that's appropriate that we want to help them.
This is called socialization, right, That's what our job as
parents is to socialize our kids. But they don't start
to get this until the age of three in a
really rudimentary way. And on average, most kids will be
able to have their emotions reasonably well regulated most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
By I love how you're sliding down, I would have.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Put a thousand caveats in here, because it depends on
how hungry and how tired, and how stressed and how
worked up and all those things. They are, right, I mean,
I'm saying nine. But one of my favorite things to
do when I'm teaching this stuff in my workshops and
my presentations, I mean schools or corporations, and I'll talk
about emotional regulation. I'll say, put up your hand and
tell me how old do you think the average child
(04:09):
is when they can regulate most of their emotions most
of the time under fairly standard circumstances. And usually the
first response from somebody who thinks they're so funny is
they'll say forty three, and then everyone will guff or
because it is just naturally it's hard to do this.
We are, as Brene Brown says, emotional beings first, and
(04:32):
when something happens, our rational brain has been bound and
gagged and stuck in the boot, and the emotions are
driving this down the highway. If that's the case for
us as adults, because we haven't understood principles of stolicism,
for example, we don't know how to regulate ourselves. Well,
what chance do our children have at the age of three,
or four, or five, or at the age of sixteen
(04:53):
when their brain's going through that second brain explosion. So
I guess there's one of my that I want to
pick up on now that you've pulled me up on that.
With all of my caveats, I did say most of
the time, and I did say on average, because even
when we're regulated, forty three year old still going to
have moments with emotions overwhelming the capacity.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, you're not forty three anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I'm not talking about me. If I was talking about me,
i'd say almost fifty year old. I had this happened
to me the other night. I'm going to share it
on them. Oh, this is a hard thing for me
to say. But I walked into the house and we've
got a twenty two year old, an eighteen year old,
a fifteen year old and an eleven year old, and
they're all doing stuff all and the house looks like
(05:39):
a bomb's gone off, and they it's like they're oblivious
to the fact that there's work to be done. And
I feel like I work pretty hard, and I feel
like you work pretty hard. We don't stop. And I
didn't regulate particularly well. I'm just saying, I mean I
didn't lose it, but I was not as regulated as
they're used to seeing me. I had some congestions for
(06:00):
them as to what might happen and when it might happen,
and why it shouldn't be me or you that was
doing it. Anyway, let's move on with this. In twenty
twenty five, we talk about dysregulation, we talk about neurodevelopmental
challenges and trauma. But what I want to emphasize here
is it's normal and natural to struggle to manage big feelings.
And a lot of the time what we're dealing with
(06:22):
is a stage, and a lot of the time we're
dealing with humanity and being a human And we just
need to trust our kids in eate development and trust
that we are setting a good example. And when you
understand that that's when everything changes. Instead of thinking why
can't you just calm down and why can't you be
like everybody else's children, what you do is you start thinking,
(06:44):
all right, how can I help my child to get
through this while their brain is learning how to do
it on their own.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I'm thinking back to my experience as a young mum,
young Kylie, dealing with young children and specifically a future
and with really big emotions, and those emotions would often
present themselves at the most inconvenient time. They were, you know,
as we're walking into the school ground and parents were everywhere,
(07:11):
or we were in the grocery store buying groceries, and
there's people everywhere, and my initial thought was not for
the care of my child. My initial thought in those
moments was everybody's looking at me. They're wanting me to
do X, Y and Z, and if I don't do
the right thing, then I'm a bad parent.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ego and pride and comparison and there's.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
So much pressure around that and we're well meaning, but
so often the comments that we make to other parents
in those moments, or the looks that we give them
just feel judgmental. What they actually need is a pat
on the back and say it's okay, today's going to
be okay, or can I help, or any number of
things than what we often say. But if we can
(08:00):
turn our attention not to how we're feeling, but to
have compassion for our child with the big emotions and
recognize that this is part of the human experience, we're
going to present ourselves differently. We're going to show up
differently for our kids in that moment.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I think we are. So after the break, we're
going to talk about a couple of things that you
can do when the kids are having really big emotions
so that they can and you can navigate it in
a way that everybody can feel good about, and somehow
you can look beyond the upturned nerveses and what we
might perceive as judgment from other parents. I reckon most
parents are not actually judging you. They're quite compassionate because
(08:38):
they've been there, and the ones that are you don't
need to worry about it anyway, because they're not the
kind of people that you want to hang around with.
Let's talk about solutions in just a sec Stay with us.
We're back with the Happy Families podcast Real Parenting Solutions.
(08:59):
Every single day. All right, Kylie, we need to talk
about how we're supposed to guide our children through their
really big emotions. I want to go through a couple
fairly quickly. Feel free to chuck anything in that you've
got in your mind. Here the first one I want
to talk about as the solution to big emotions. This distraction.
Distraction works. It gets a bad rap because we think
(09:19):
it's avoiding the problem, and if we use distraction consistently
then that's what it might be doing. But here's the neuroscience.
Child's emotional brain gets activated, thinking brain goes offline. You
can't reason with a disregulated nervous system high emotions, low intelligence,
can't think straight in a high emotion state, all those
things that we talk about on the pod all the time.
(09:39):
Distraction works because it gives the emotional storm time to
pass and it engages a different part of the brain.
So when your toddler is having that melt down over
the broken toast, pointing out the bird outside the window
is not a dismissal of their feelings. It's just giving
their nervous system a chance to reset. Some people will think, oh,
(10:00):
you're rewarding bad behavior. I don't think so I think
what you're doing is you're giving a child the best
chance possible to pull it together. Distraction buys you time
for their system to calm down enough that they're thinking
brain can come back online.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
What I love about this particular strategy is the fact
that it doesn't leave my child in distress for long
periods of time. When our granddaughter shows up and she
spends some time with us and she might hurt herself,
she will get really upset, and especially because Mum's not here,
and she, you know, kind of naturally is drawn to
go to Mum. And I'll just start singing with her,
(10:37):
and it's amazing how quickly she kind of shuffles away
from that massive emotion to a joyful moment.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Even with our bigger kids, like in their teens, having
a bad moment, Let's go for a walk like nature
is great, by the way, as a way to regulate
your emotions. Being in nature really really helps a lot.
But just going and doing something different, shifting your brain
into a different space, playing a game. I'm not big
on this, but even watching TV for half an hour
just to bring it all back down, you still will
(11:07):
usually need more than that. If you're going to use
a screen as a distraction. It's not particularly effective and
it gets used as an escape too much. But anyway,
that's my first one. Let's talk about the second one, coregulation.
If your child will allow it. So remember high emotions,
low intelligence. You might try to be close to your
child with their emotional and they're kicking and punching and
screaming and saying leave me alone, leave me like really
losing it when they're doing that. Give them the space
(11:30):
that they want. One of my favorite lines has always been,
do you want me to be with you and give
you a heart good? Just want some space?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I love that one, and I know I use it
with you all the time because it doesn't just work
with kids. I think coregulation is an incredible web. It's
a secret weapon, but that crucial caveat is really at
the heart of it. Some kids don't want to allow it,
and that's okay. You've got to respect their need for space.
For the kids who will let your help, the magic
formula is really simple. You say what you see and
(11:58):
then you listen. So it might be I can see
really frustrated right now, and then just stop talking, or
sometimes your sister really bugs you, doesn't she and then
stop talking. You want to jump in with solutions, you
want to jump in with explanations, you want to jump
in with life lessons. But instead I heard somebody use
this phrase, just bear witness. Just bear witness to their
(12:19):
experience and their challenge, and let them know that you
can see it. Because when you are calm, you will
help regulate their nervous system. But only if they're not
feeling crowded or controlled. And if they say leave me alone,
then honor that some kids need to process things internally
before they can connect with others. You can say, hey,
(12:40):
I'm here when you're ready. I've often said to our kids,
you can come and get a hug from me in
the next five minutes, or I'm going to check in
with you in two minutes and see how you're going,
and then you just give them the gift of space.
Cod regulation is not forced connection, it's offered connection.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The acknowledgement that our whole experience is not supposed to
be done alone in this world, We're actually supposed to
do it together. And the idea that we can utilize
someone else's calm, we can catch someone else's calm when
we're having these really big emotions. Is so powerful. I
(13:17):
love that there are a couple of safe places that
I can go to when I'm feeling really, really stuck
in big emotions.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So that's the critical thing. You're talking about what you
want as an adult when you're feeling emotional, and the
kids are the same. It's just that we don't give
it to them.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
We as because we find their emotions they're inconvenience. They
never happen when we've got the time and the energy
and the space.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You know, it happened when we're not in the middle
of a really important email or a really important game,
or stirring the sauce but on the stove, or try
to get somewhere and do something that's that's that's reality.
It's just a pain.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
But isn't that parenting. There's nothing convenient about it?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Really, Yeah, that's right. I was going to say, if
you wanted to be convenient, get a dog, but even dogs, No, no,
just don't do it. And I don't have a pet either. No,
but you don't have kids because you want a convenient life.
They give you that meaning, that purpose. All right, our
time is all but up. We need to wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, what's the last one.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Well, there's a million more that we could talk about,
but the last one that I wanted to talk about
today was just the natural inclination that we had to
try to fix things, Like when the kids are having
big emotions, we want to fix it, we want to
calm them down, we want to get everything sorted out.
And I think the ability to stop and not try
to fix things immediately might be the hardest, but probably
(14:30):
the most important when it comes to kids. In emotional regulation,
the rules as follows, no problem solving until emotions are stable.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
If we go back to your original conversation around distraction
actually works, especially when we're dealing with older children, we
don't just because you've distracted them in the moment doesn't
mean that you can't revisit it. But once their emotions
are calm, that's when you're actually able to do the
heavy lifting when it comes to processing emotion.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
If you're trying to problem solve during emotional dysregulation, aslect.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Or even speak logic to an illogic.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
No, it's like trying to have a board meeting during
a fire drill. The alarms are sounding and everyone's running
out of the building. You're saying no, no, no, But we
need to sit down and have this conversation about these
finances and the rest of the board's going not now,
this is not the time for it. No one can
think clearly. Everyone's in survival mode. We just need to
wait until emotions to return to baseline, because then we
can have a conversation without the emotional charge, and that's
(15:32):
when you get to move into problem solving.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And I love the way that Disney movie Inside Out
depicts what's going on up inside a brain when these
big emotions are being felt. And the thing that stands
out to me is that often there's not just one
emotion that's trying to take control of the situation. There's
multiple emotions, and so that's where these big feelings come from,
(15:56):
because you're trying to understand what it is you're feeling,
but there's too many emotions to kind of work it
all out in that moment.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So there's some ideas that should be helpful. I mean,
we could talk about this for hours. There's so much
more that we could have discussed. I do want to
highlight this though. Sometimes sometimes you just need to let
them have their tantrum. Sometimes nothing you can do is
going to make any different. Sometimes they're just upset and
they're going to blow their top. And the interesting thing
about emotions is they're just like waves on the beach.
They come in and then they go out. Some ways
(16:25):
is bigger than others, and some ways kind of knock
you down, but they always go back out and you
can get back up and dry off and work things out.
You're the parent, make the call if they need to
have that moment, let them scream, just give them the
space and go back to them when things are level
and balanced. Really hope that some ideas here have helped
with your children and their big emotions and the stages
(16:46):
they go through. If you know somebody who would benefit
from this podcast, please share it. The more we share
the pot, the more you share the pod, the more
families we get to help in the bigger influence we
get to have on the world, which is what we're
looking for. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Rulin from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds assists with research, admin and
other support, and there's a whole lot of resources to
help you with all of these challenges and more at
(17:07):
happy families dot com. Dot au
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