When Your Kid's Anger Becomes Physical (punching, blocking, yelling and you're barely holding it together)

In today's episode, I invite you into my real-time coaching session with a mom of 2 who's carrying an impossible amount all at once. In the span of a few months, her kids lost their father and she became a single parent overnight. Now her almost 8-year-old son is going from zero to explosive the second she asks him to stop, come, or transition. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. A quick pause before we keep going. I want you to know you don't have to wait for a podcast episode or a coaching spot to get help. I launched Ask Julie just 2 weeks ago and parents have already sent thousands of questions, have received immediate answers, and have seen significant change in their homes. This is more questions than I could ever answer by hand in a whole year. This is private 24/7 parent coaching that talks back to you in real time, in my voice, built entirely on my research, my courses, and the Transforming Parenthood philosophy of high structure, high nurture parenting. Ask Julie is so much me that when my own sister or husband can't get ahold of me, they literally just ask Julie instead.

And honestly, she gave them better advice than I would have mid-launder anyway.

In all seriousness, it's the same guidance that I would give you in a session right in your pocket. The next time it's late, your kid just lost it, you need a clear next step, and you can't wait for office hours. You are not alone, and you also shouldn't be Googling. Just ask Julie. Okay, let's get back to it. If you have ever felt like you're walking on eggshells in your own home while stress, grief, or exhaustion pull at you, this conversation is for you.

I have two children. I have my daughter who will be 4 next week, and my son who is 7. He'll be 8 in November. We are having a little bit of a rough time. Last May, I asked for a divorce from my husband. He didn't take it super well. There was a history of alcoholism. Kids seemed to be adjusting all right. I did get my son into therapy at that point. In August, my father died, um, not completely unexpected, but a little faster than, than expected. And From the time I asked for divorce to November, my husband really struggled with the asking for divorce. Didn't quite see it coming and kind of really struggled himself, which kept him from seeing the kids super often. Did a couple things with them. I took the kids to see him a couple times. Um, but ultimately in November, my husband passed away. Um, so there's a lot of unsettledness in the past, really the last 9 months to 6 months. My son, you know, it's hard for both kids, but my son especially is the one that is struggling the hardest. We're having issues with, obviously there's underlying grief, probably wasn't super emotionally regulated before either, and Given the situation heading into divorce, definitely on my part, not a lot of boundaries. You feel really guilty and not so great about a situation you have your kids in, even if it wasn't as, you know, as bad as maybe it seemingly may be from the outside perspective. It wasn't abusive or anything like that. It just was, he just drank too much for whatever that's worth. But the issues we're running into now is my son goes to anger very quickly. And I, I struggle to navigate because I myself am dealing with quite a bit and I feel like there's so many different ways to approach things and all the different parenting, um, things you see about consequences, not consequences, boundaries, immediate consequences, no consequences. Um, but the issues we're having start from like a not listening issue, and then I think sometimes I get a little aggravated and then he explodes. So last weekend we were at my sister's and he was doing something outside. I cannot remember exactly what. Also, he does have ADD and I am cognizant that I probably hound on him quite a bit. And trying to be better about that, but he was doing something that he shouldn't have been doing. And I kept politely, calmly asking him to stop and just completely— it was as if I wasn't even talking to him. And then when I finally broke through and got his attention, it was quick to anger. And he has never been aggressive or violent historically. It's something that's kind of had an uptick in the past 3 months, typically at me, only really at me. Sometimes he's a little rougher, but that to his sister. But he is— got so angry and was— that he was basically blocking a door when I was trying to come in and out of the house. After I told him to stop doing, he kind of came up to the sliding glass door. I mean, this is in front of my sister, my mom, my brother-in-law. The other kids, and he's refusing to move. And you don't really remember all the specifics, but basically at one point I started to get a little more irate and, um, he ended up punching me in the chin. I have gotten, sadly, very good at trying to maintain a level of calm when he does that. There is not an instance of remorse when he does it, which is troubling to me. It then, like, my fault because you didn't do X, Y, or Z, you were in my way. And then he kind of stomps and humps, and typically there's some name-calling, you know. His favorite is that I'm an idiot. And I've tried a couple different approaches that this particular day, I did stay calm, and I kind of was like, you, you gotta get away from me because I am on such thin ice, and like, my nerves are so frayed that I am afraid that I erupt. We're not— I've never been a— we don't hit, but when someone's hitting you, you kind of can put your hands up, or, you know, I may hold him back and In his mind, it's always in some way, shape, or form, I am always hurting. And then he says, you're, you're kill— you're trying to kill me, which is just wonderful, especially if you're around other people. And it typically ends with him, me in tears at some point, probably, and feeling defeated. Mm-hmm. And I try to circle back. To what happened with him. Um, and a lot of times he does apologize, but the issues I'm having is we get to the point, and sometimes it doesn't end in the physicality, but there's always a level of anger that hits really, really hard. And it's hard on my end to get him to listen or do or whatever. And sometimes there are things that has to be done, whether it's leaving someplace or you heard a friend at the pool and having to listen to me, or it's time to go to bed. And it's always met with this level of anger, even if you're prepped, even if I'm being kind, even if I'm not yelling at him, even if he's not in trouble. And I just struggle with how to navigate that, cuz I don't always see it coming. His therapist is like, stop it before it gets to the point of eruption. Sure. But it's so fast with him that I, this point, I don't know what to do with it happens because that's the triggers. And you ask, you finally, hey, come out here, I wanna talk to you, or can you stop doing that? You're gonna break it, which, and he's seemingly fine. And just by those couple of phrases triggers him because it's either not what he wants to do, not what he wants to hear, not how he wants to act. Mm-hmm. And I know in our situation there's a whole underlying slew of issues that are not necessarily typical, but I think some of the behaviors are typical in some way, shape, or form to other kids' experience. And I'm just at a loss.

Sure. Sure. Thank you. I really appreciate your recap and your thoroughness and your awareness of the situation. And I hear you battling and going back and forth between all the things that you're trying and you're in this place of, am I being too soft? Am I being too strict? Why is what I'm doing not working? And I hear you kind of bouncing between all of these thoughts because really you're carrying an impossible amount of grief. You're also carrying an incredible amount of responsibility, and these two things combined create a whole lot of stress. And when we're parenting from a place of stress, That's really hard. In all moments, it's hard to drop our reality, right? That's just reality of what you're carrying with you. And so I think it's really important to first and foremost say that in the span of just a few months, your children experienced separation and loss of two significant people in their lives. And now suddenly you are a single parent, what feels like overnight. And so I don't see a parent who isn't caring enough. I see a mom who cares so much and that you're constantly carrying the weight of everyone else's emotions while also trying to manage your own in some way. Shape and form. And so even if what's happening here is not aligned with your value system, the way he's reacting, the way you're reacting, this is a very different situation than not having values at all. You wouldn't be here right now if you didn't care so much about what was going on with your son. And so we're going to dive in specifically to what's going on here because I don't hear that there's a parenting problem. I hear that maybe there's some work to be done, an approach that we need to take in terms of regulation and our leadership. But I just wanted to mention kind of the nervous system piece first and foremost, because acknowledging what you're going through is extremely important in this moment.

Funny that there's not a parenting problem because the amount of parenting advice and books and tidbits I've been reading is a book. Quite hefty. I'm just trying to establish a level of leadership that also maybe wasn't there amongst all this stuff going on, so I can actually raise good human beings that aren't disasters, and also that I enjoy being around.

I appreciate that, and I think it's important to recognize when the thoughts are going through your head of all of this responsibility lies on me. All of this weight is falling on me. I'm messing up. I am not doing this right. This is a disaster. When those thoughts start creeping in, we want to recognize them. There's nothing we can do about them. We can't just poof them and make them go away. They're real feelings, but we want to recognize them and notice them and kind of just be like, hey, You're those thoughts that keep coming up and they're not particularly helpful in these really hard moments. They make me yell. They make me raise my voice. They make me get really tense. And that's not helpful. The first thing that I wanna help you do is understand your son first. He's not ignoring you because he doesn't care. He has experienced something significant in his own life and he's, as you mentioned, struggling underneath. So if with a combination of ADHD, grief, stress, you know, kids being kids, this is kind of what not listening quote unquote looks like. He, yeah, he's, he's stuck when he has to shift his attention. He's stuck when he has to stop doing something that he's enjoying. He is emotionally flooded and overwhelmed, and he also might have underdeveloped executive functioning skills because of his ADHD. Now, does that mean that we excuse it?

No.

It just means that we have to shift our brain to stop thinking of it as disrespect and start viewing it as you're lacking a skill. When this whole thing transpired and he blocked you and ended up punching you, which, you know, the weight of that statement is incredibly heavy. You're in front of family, you're embarrassed, you're feeling like you're, you've messed everything up in this moment. What caused him to block the door in the first place?

I believe he got so angry at me for asking him to stop doing what he was doing that, and I, and I may have asked him to like come over and put sunscreen on or something like that in the same breath. And that he just went to straight anger, um, being told not to. Mm-hmm. I, I honestly can't remember. You kind of, you kind of black out, but you're there. Yeah. Um, especially with all the other components of, like you said, the embarrassment, the, your own nervous system. Mm-hmm. Um, so to be honest, I cannot remember. Sometimes it's just he continues the conversation. Fight, like, or the argument, you know, he had just stayed out where he was. I told him to stop. I went over there and helped him, and then he kind of followed me and then like was angry and calling me names. And then that's when he was like barricading the door. And when I asked him to move and I kind of slipped by him, he was so angry. And at that point I was getting a little worked up too.

Mm-hmm.

Not yelling, but like, He can tell in my voice and that's when he kind of ended up hitting me.

That's helpful in general, right? If he is just being asked to change what he's doing, he gets very worked up. He gets very tense. He gets, he can fall into that aggression mode. And so the first thing that I want to mention here is that he struggles to transition. I wouldn't see this as an anger problem. I wouldn't see this as an aggression problem. I see this as. He does not know how to change from one thing to the next. And this is all coming out as frustration and anger, of course, in the wrong ways and in inappropriate ways and in harmful ways. But the root of the problem is that he was asked to stop or come, or I need to put sunscreen on you, whatever it might be. That's like a total disruption to his nervous system. And so while it feels on our end like a super easy ask, like I need you to stop doing what you're doing, it's a big to-do because he has to physically bring his brain out of what he's doing and then somehow say okay and move his body away from something that he might enjoy doing. And you are the only thing standing between him and that enjoyment. And so What we wanna do is kind of get into the trenches with him when we're asking him to transition from one thing to the next. So whether it is one reminder first, hey, I'm— in one minute I'm gonna need to put sunscreen on your face. It's getting really sunny. While you're saying that, one of the most important pieces that parents often overlook is that we need to have our kids eye contact, and they need to actually pause what they're doing for a second while we give them that warning. And if we're not getting that, then it's almost as if the reminder never even happened. So if he's playing in the backyard and you're like 20 feet away shouting to him, hey, um, in 2 minutes I have to put sunscreen on you, and then 2 minutes comes and you're like, Okay, time's up. He's almost like, wait, what?

What just happened?

Because maybe that initial 2-minute check wasn't really sunken in for him. And so it was a huge disruption to his nervous system. Whereas if we say, hey, I need your eyes, pause what you're doing for a second. I'm not gonna ask you to stop what you're doing. I just need your eyes for a second. Then he's gonna look and you're gonna say, in 2 minutes, I need to put sunscreen on you. So whatever it is, whether he's throwing a ball, whether he's playing a game, it's, you can do one more round until you get to the end of the race, or you can have 5 more throws and then I need you to walk over to me. If not, I'm gonna help you walk over and I will carry the ball, right? It's almost like getting into the trenches of the transition with him first before feeling like the bad guy on the outside, just calling him constantly. Out of the moment that he has to transition out of.

I think I try to do that a lot of times, but it doesn't always— sometimes I think I'm doing it and he's looking at me, but not maybe really looking at me. So maybe getting a little bit more closely or making sure I have that confirmation that he's hearing me would be helpful. Cuz I do think that happens a lot where it's being said but not heard. And then it's like out of the blue we are asked to do what you're asked to do. Right.

And that's a good realization of just how his brain works versus how your brain works, right? It's very different. And so understanding that we're talking here about the explosive moments with your son. There's plenty of moments that probably go well with your son where you can sit with him and cuddle with him and talk with him and have conversations about his behavior and what happened and what's going on. So he's not always aggressive, which means we have to find that threshold of when he's not, right? Before it gets to that point of like, hey, I'm with you. We've got this. And it might look like super duper coddling at first. It might look like super duper babying at first, but sometimes we have to take 10 steps backwards to even take a step forward because right now it feels like we're fighting fire with fire. So getting that buy-in. Pausing his game and being firm about it, getting over to literally next to him. So we're not shouting across a room, creating any embarrassment of why he has to stop or what he's doing wrong. Take the ball, pause the TV, take off the blanket, say, I need your eyes, and wait.

Sit.

Make the fun stop for a second and say, you could resume this in 20 seconds. I just need your eyes. Now he's looking at you and he has to confirm what you said. So when you say, I need to put sunscreen on you in 2 minutes, or, right, this could work even better for his age group. Hey, I can put sunscreen on you right now, or you can have 2 more minutes with this game. You pick. And now what you've done is you've included a little bit of choice, but you're not gonna change your boundary. And right now I think we know pretty well that you're pretty good at sticking to your boundary. But now what we're doing is we're kind of getting a little more buy-in from him along the way, which I think makes a huge difference and kind of breaks that pattern of mom shouting from the side, giving direction, feeling ignored, and it ending in aggression.

I think it's definitely something I need to do better. And more often to make sure he's paying attention and giving him those, those kind of options so he feels a little more buy-in to whatever we're doing and a little bit more of a part of it as opposed to always being told what to do.

Mm-hmm.

So I think those are good tips to kind of, um, try to incorporate more into my day-to-day parenting. 'Cause, you know, I gave an example of a big issue, but there's lots of, you know, little ones that don't lead any aggression like you said, but lead into that little bit of tension between us that I think kind of sits underlying and continues to mount. So if we can kind of, if I can step back and do some of those tips, I think it'll help make things smoother more often, which can only be better.

I like that you're thinking big picture, right? Like where else is this happening and how can I start implementing this? Because you're right, it's a chain reaction. So these big breaking points are not just coming out of the blue. They're coming from a string of tension that's just being pulled and pulled and pulled inside of him. So we need to ask ourselves, where is this tension coming from? What am I doing that's tightening this string so that he feels the need to literally lash out aggressively? The second tool that I have for you is basically about kind of like the consequence here and also what happens in the moment gets to that point again. And so like, yeah, we're not gonna be able to avoid it every single time because this is a behavior that we're actively working to change. I sure as heck hope it doesn't get to the point where you get hurt, but we need to prepare ourselves for when the aggression reaches that point. And so the first thing that I wanna offer here is that when he's blocking you and what his body language is really saying in like, no, you can't go, you can't go, you can't go, is when my body gets to this point, my mom yells. And so he's basically stringing together this sequence of events in his brain. It's creating a habit of like, When I am tense, mom's body does this. And it's interesting in the body language of him blocking you. It's almost as if he's saying like, stop, stop, make this stop. And what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing from this visual that I have in my brain is I want my mom back. As hard as it is, you are being blocked. You're like, oh no, no, no, this is not gonna happen. You're trying to push past him. You're trying to get through. You're trying to fight and say like, this is not gonna happen. But what happens if we just stayed in the blocking moment for a second? And what I mean by that is stepping back, not trying to get past him, but taking a step back and saying, don't block the doorway. If you want to chat with me, or if you want my attention, I'm happy to go sit on those chairs over there, but I will not talk to you like this.

I think that may work better because what I end up doing is— I just remembered why he was angry, what he was getting in trouble with at the door. He was screaming into the house and my nephew was sleeping and my brother-in-law told him not to. And when I was trying to get him away, that's when he pushed in and blocked, and then I kind of pushed past him. So I think if I, and I was calm, but I didn't approach it where like, I'm right here, but I'm like, let's move over here and talk. It was more like a, I guess I wasn't super calm, but you know, you have to get away. Like we have to move and that level of urgency in moving him triggered him. So I definitely think if I had approached it more, I will say, calm firm, like, I'm here, I want to talk to you, we'll have to move, would be better. Because I get to the point where I get so emotionally, I guess, dysregulated, where you feel— you can feel it inside, and where I'm just like, almost like, get away from me. Like, your whole body tenses and Sometimes he's not being aggressive to that point, but kind of grabbing on you and it's, um, I think working through what I'm going through and taking that moment and saying, being a little bit more firm about, we're not doing this here. I'm here for you and let's move over here. Yep. Could be a helpful, um, tool to transition it out of this moment of just heightenedness on both of our ends. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I think it's interesting you say that because, you know, you mentioned consequences at the beginning of our conversation of like, when do I use them? How do I use them? What are the consequences here? And it's super important to recognize that you are the only thing that he wants. You are the only thing that he needs in these moments. And I know it's wild to say because you got hit, and I know it's wild to say because he's fighting you, but he's not fighting you. He's fighting for you. I want you to remember that, that he's saying, where is my mom? I need her. And he's getting so angry and so aggressive to the point where he's gonna lash out because now not only is he not feeling like he has you, but now you're leaving. And now he doesn't know what else to do to get you to stay. And so what I want you to realize is that even in those moments where you said you're sensory overload, right? Like he's grabbing you, he's touching you, he's this. Remember, you are the consequence. What does that mean? That means let go of my shirt and I will sit here with you. If you do not let go, I'm leaving. Now you've given him a choice. You've made it very clear. That this is not how you're going to get my love and attention, but here's how you can. Because when you know that that is the reward that he's actually looking for, it becomes very easy to manage these moments because you're getting through to his brain before he can even understand his brain. And I'm not saying in the heightened moment of him, you know, seeing red and punching, but I'm talking like in the moments leading up, in those little moments that you notice throughout the day. I want you to challenge yourself to stay and offer yourself as the consequence. If you lower your voice, I am happy to talk with you. If you keep yelling, I'm out. And start moving your body towards the door.

No, wait, wait, wait. I'll talk up.

Oh, great. Even if you hear a tiny bit of improvement and he's still yelling, I want you to work on this and say, awesome, thank you so much for speaking in a normal voice. I'd love to have this conversation with you. Let's sit on the couch together. And I want you to start retraining his brain and body to realize ways that he can get mom's love and attention, that he can get mom's connection, because you're literally laying it out on a silver platter for him in each of these moments where he's struggling to get it.

I think that's really insightful and definitely a big part of what could be helpful moving forward. The thing I struggle with, and I think probably most of us do, is in the moment, kind of re— reteaching ourselves that portion. Mm-hmm. Um, 'cause I'd love to be perfect at it tomorrow, but it's hard to get there sometimes. But I think trying to remember that, that I'm really what he wants. And trying to stay calm and basically offer like, I'm here, but you need to X, Y, and Z first, or I'm out. Um, and doing it maybe a little bit sooner when he starts to get worked up, or I see it, you know, you can see it coming, but typically when I see it coming, we're already kind of in it. And that would be a good time. Um, 'cause I like that. 'Cause it's hard to come up with consequences in theory. And sometimes it's like, what's the consequence for, I don't know, something that's like yelling at me in that moment. Mm-hmm. I think that that's a great piece to add in that could be very helpful.

I love your awareness in saying, you know, the mistakes are gonna happen. It's gonna keep happening again and again. We're gonna lose it. We're going to yell. We're not gonna be perfect. Perfect, and that's okay. We're still only human. But the idea is that while we're working to retrain his brain, it also takes a whole lot of work on our end to retrain ours. So when those angry statements are coming out, the threatening statements, we want to have tactics in our back pocket for not escalating these moments. And that's the last tool that I'm going to offer you. Is that when you feel he is starting to enter that triggering mom mode, can you think of like one or two of his triggers that just get you like, oh my gosh, he's doing it again?

It's the backtalk and just things said with like venom. Like he might not even be saying something mean, but there's this attitude there and it That's me where I'm on edge and then it's, it's a constant, you know, do not talk to me like that, say it differently. But it's so all the time. So then when we have a moment that's a little bit a different type of moment, I'm already to that point of easily agitated. Yeah. Uh, where I don't as quickly jump. Into things the way I'd like to.

Sure. I think everybody would feel that way when we're feeling challenged or with the pressure of what we said was wrong, or it's always this battle to prove right from wrong. And somebody's literally feeling like this little person is attacking everything that you're saying in the moment or making you feel bad with his words. And I think it's important to recognize that, and there's nothing that you can do other than not engage with it.

That's your power.

That's your leadership move in the moment. And what I want you to recognize, and hopefully this shift helps you, and this is the thing I'll leave you with, is that when his brain enters that disrespect mode, that is the same exact thing as a dysregulated brain. I want you to picture it as a 7-year-old or 8-year-old tantrum. Even though he's not wailing and throwing his arms and screaming on the floor, him saying like, you're stupid, or I'm not doing that, or whatever his comments are, all what I like to call sneaky little tantrums. His body is dysregulated and it's making him say these things that, like you described, these venomous things that will get a rise out of you in maybe 0.2 seconds. And what we need to recognize is that when he's doing that, it's a tool that he's using. He's doing it on purpose, whether it's voluntary or involuntary. His body has been trained to say, when I make these comments, my mom gives me more of her attention and focus. Whether it's good or bad, whether mom's screaming in his face, yelling at him, going back and forth with a power struggle, he doesn't care. He's getting mom and that's all he wants. And so we want to make sure that when we are giving him our attention, It's for good stuff, not for this garbage stuff, not for this back and forth arguing stuff that is just a waste of time and gonna end us both with being angry. So some tactics that you could do is recognize when he's entering into that power struggle. Say, I will not engage with you until you're speaking in a more respectful way and move your body to the sink. Don't leave him completely. Fold a blanket in the room, check something in a book, or reorganize the magazines on the table. But I want you to teach him that I don't even dip my toe into that. I will not. And you need to set that boundary very clearly in the smaller moments so that he knows, oh, this isn't going to work anymore. This is not getting me any more of my mom. I need to figure out something else. And actually, You told him what he can do to get your attention. You said you could ask for that more respectfully, or if you wanna have this conversation, I'd love to chat, but not with your tone like that. And now you're washing your hands or washing a dish or organizing the shoes.

You know, I say the things about saying it more with respect or saying use a different, different words or don't be disrespectful and I get wrapped into that power struggle cuz he'll say something back and then I will say something back.

Mm-hmm.

And, and not bad, but then we, as opposed to just, you know, giving a little bit of distance after I say it. So like I said it, either do it and I'm listening and I'm here in space to listen or continue and I'm kind of walking further away and doing something else cuz I'm not listening to it, I think is helpful. Because I do get myself tied into that little bit of back and forth. And when I'm doing it, I'm like, why am I doing this? So I like that idea of kind of being there, but finding another task to occupy myself. Um, so he knows I'm there, but I'm not going to partake in what he's dishing out.

I think it's powerful to just that little bit of physical distance, right? Even just with your eyes. Just move your eyes to something else so that he knows I've left the conversation. I will be back when I hear calmer words. And when you do, like I said, even if it's like a really poor effort on his part and it's like kind of still rude, if it's improvement, I want you to reward it and bring it to his attention. Like, wow, thank you so much for saying it like that. This is so much better.

And now I'm, I'm all ears.

I want to hear exactly what you have to say on this. And so that he realizes very quickly. That his efforts matter as well. Um, because remember, it's really hard for him. His body feels things intensely and it's a lot of work for him to start relearning these habits. And like you said, we say, I'm not gonna answer you back like that. And then they make one more comment and we do answer them back. And so we wanna make sure that our word means what it means. So if we say, I am not gonna talk to you if you're gonna speak to me like that, but you can say it like this and literally model exactly exactly the words that he should say, then step back and literally do not respond until he does. And the way I see it is that you're doing him a favor. You're saving him from, in a funny way, the wrath of mom, right? You're saving him from you getting to that point, being someone you don't want to be. You are literally saying, I will wait because this is not worth me changing who I am right now. To handle this moment with you. I wanna be myself, and so I'm gonna help you get there. I will wait and then we can talk. So I think that that will serve you well if you can kind of keep that in the back of your mind moving forward.

I think it's incredibly helpful to hear, and it's even just, it's little things. It's very obvious they can make a big difference. You know, as, as you're telling, explaining different ways to approach it, in my head I'm going, oh my gosh, if I did that, I pretty sure it would've worked. Or, you know, especially the last bit we talked about, about stepping away a little, just a little bit of distance. Because there is that dichotomy of knowing that they need you, but then you also needing, wanting space and stepping away. And so I think getting to the place where I'm comfortable with these tools and therefore not dysregulating myself. While setting and keeping the boundaries and the closeness that he needs is important.

I think that's a really solid reflection.

Thank you so much. It's very helpful and I will be implementing them today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

As we wrap up, remember this: when your child explodes at you, they are not fighting you. They are fighting for you. The anger, the backtalk, the blocking the door— these are not signs of a bad kid or a failing parent. They are a nervous system that doesn't have the skills yet to transition, to ask, to wait. Your child does not need a harder version of you or a softer version of you. They need you to stay, to be calm, because they can't find their way on their own. You are the only thing that they want most. That is not a burden. That is your power. Thank you for joining me in the Parent Coaching Chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture. And I'll meet you back here next week. Your ratings and reviews help this podcast reach more parents who need this message. If this episode helped you, please leave a rating or review. It really helps. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, www.transformingparenthood.com.