Healthy Child

10/06/2025

Your child’s explosive behavior isn’t the problem… it’s the clue.

09/29/2025

Gentle Peaceful Parenting is Not Permissive

It’s not about letting your child do whatever they want. 😉

Kids need clear limits. They need to know what you expect of them. This helps them to feel safe.

Many parents randomly set limits – sometimes trying to hold the line by making threats and other times ignoring what’s happening. This can make kids confused or anxious.

👉 Here’s how you can set and hold limits with confidence:

Get crystal clear on what you most value – what are your core family values? Your limits and boundaries come from your values.

Have an empowered conversation with your kids – share your family values (the WHY) and the limits to maintain these values (the HOW).

Get your kids’ input, get their buy-in – so there’s no confusion on what the limits are.

When you need to set a limit, understand your child is going to have strong feelings about it. Provide empathy. “You really wanted that and I see this is so hard for you.” They may not be happy about the limit at that moment, but they know you understand how hard it is for them. It’s completely different from a child being punished and going away with angry feelings.

👉 What’s the biggest reason why parents struggle with limits and boundaries?

Because they don’t know what to do when their child is upset or angry. It’s so difficult and painful to deal with these big feelings. They want to avoid conflict - the pushback and the tantrums. 😩

That’s why I teach about co-regulation. You need to know how to regulate yourself in the midst of a strong outburst so you can help your child through it, while continuing to hold the limit.

When you know what to do during a meltdown, you no longer have to fear it. And then you can set limits and boundaries with calm confidence.

09/24/2025

Did you know mood swings, tantrums, defiant behavior and aggression are linked to neurotransmitter imbalances?

When your child’s body is out of balance, their nervous system is on edge—making little triggers feel huge.

What’s a Neurotransmitter?

It’s a big word for tiny chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and GABA play a big role in your child’s mood and behavior.

The answer lies in looking deeper into gut health, nutrition, detox and stress. Your child’s gut is where neurotransmitters are produced. When this is out of balance – so is everything else.

💡 The hopeful part? With the right detective work and some simple changes to food, environment, and stress patterns, behavior can shift dramatically. You don’t have to accept constant meltdowns as your “normal".

✨ Healing starts when we look beneath the behavior to the real root causes.

👉 Follow me so I can help you get started.

09/23/2025

You’re child is in an explosive meltdown. 😫

Once you’ve calmed yourself and feeling more grounded (see previous post), your child needs to know they’re not alone with their big feelings.

That doesn’t mean agreeing with the behavior — it means letting them feel your calm presence. It means letting them know that even these feelings are valid and welcome.

Eye contact. Gentle words. Sitting nearby.

This connection says: “I’m here. I see you. You’re safe.” And safety is what turns their brain back on for cooperation.

When you’re calm and your child feels connected, something shifts — now they can actually hear you. This is co-regulation, and it is necessary before you can get into guidance, problem-solving, and setting boundaries.

Ever noticed how just being there (without words) sometimes helps more than talking?

09/22/2025

When your child explodes, the first instinct is to react — to stop the disturbing behavior fast. This is your nervous system in stress fight or flight.

Fight = yell or threaten
Flight = time-out for either you or your child

If your child has exploded in anger, their nervous system is already in stress (fight). They need you to help them through it so they can get to calm. Young children can’t do this by themselves.

Yelling or threatening will make it worse – they can’t hear you. Time out won’t help - they need you to be with them.

At this moment your child needs your calm presence. They need you to be with them in their big scary feelings.

But here’s the thing: Before you can calm them, you have to calm YOU.

Your nervous system sets the tone of your child’s nervous system. If you can get calm, your child will feel it and can start to come back to safety. Your calm anchors them to what they can trust.

💡 Try this:

First take a pause, then place your hand on your heart and take a few deep breaths into your heart. Say to yourself – “this is not an emergency. I can handle this”.

Your calm presence signals to your child, “You are safe. I’ve got you.”

Keep breathing deeply into your heart while tending to your child. Next post I’ll talk about how to help your child when they are in an explosive meltdown.

What’s one calming tool that works best for you? Share below.

09/19/2025

Do you end up yelling, threatening or bribing just to be heard? 😫

Most of the time kids want to cooperate, but their priority is to play and explore. They can get pretty wrapped up in their play to a point that they block out everything else.

Children’s brains are constantly absorbing all sorts of things all around them, so you are competing with a lot of stimuli to get your child’s attention.

Brain research shows that people are more open to another person’s influence if they feel connected to them.

The most effective way to engage cooperation with anyone is to first calmly connect and then make a request.

Calling out to them from across the room does nothing to get their attention. They can’t hear you since they are deeply absorbed in what they’re doing.

And if they’re playing at something that fully engages them, they might need some help to switch gears.

So here’s how to connect and get their attention:

Go over to where they are playing and get down on the floor with them. Touch their shoulder and say their name. Wait till you get eye contact and then say something that connects to what they’re doing. “This tower you’re building is really cool. I like that you’re using all these different colored blocks”

Let them respond. Then say, “It’s almost time for dinner. Do you want to come now and you can tell me all about what you’ve built while we’re setting the table? Or I can set a timer for 5 more minutes?

Connection is the reason kids want to listen and cooperate. When they feel seen, heard and understood, they are much more likely to go along with what you’re asking.

09/16/2025

Ever had one of those moments where your child is melting down and you’re desperately trying to remember what “peaceful parenting” says to do… but your brain goes completely blank? 😮

You want to stay calm.

You want to respond with connection.

But instead—you snap. You yell. And then the guilt comes in. 💔

It’s not your fault - it’s your body reacting to stress.

👉 Meltdowns aren’t bad behavior—they’re a cry for help.
👉 Your reactivity doesn’t mean you’re a “bad mom.”
👉 Most parenting advice doesn’t work because it skips over the real root causes.

The calm, connected mom you want to be is already inside you. Sometimes you just need tools that work in the moment when everything feels impossible. ❤️

✨ I’m curious: when your child explodes, what’s the hardest part for you?
👉 Staying calm yourself?
👉 Knowing what to say and do?
👉 Handling the guilt afterwards?

Drop your answer below ⬇️ — I’d love to hear.

09/14/2025

09/13/2025

Imagine this:

👉 When you ask your child to do something, they do it.

👉 When you ask them to stop doing something, they stop.

This level of cooperation can happen - most of the time. You don’t need to yell, threaten or bribe. 😊

Here’s the thing:
You can’t make your kids listen to you without doing some damage to your relationship. No one ever wants to be ordered around with threats.

Connection is the only reason your kids willingly follow your rules.

You can connect by getting curious – what’s really going on here? Allow your child to tell their story. Find the vulnerable feelings under the mean words and defiance.

When kids feel seen, heard and understood, they are more likely to cooperate. “I see this is so hard for you.” 💗

The most important things to begin to cultivate in your relationship with your kids:

👉 Connection
👉 Curiosity
👉 Emotional safety and understanding

When you have an emotionally connected relationship with your kids, they will actually want to listen to you and cooperate.

It doesn’t happen overnight; it can take time to change patterns. But totally worth it to spend the extra time to connect first, rather than slipping into yelling, threatening or bribing.

09/12/2025

What’s going on beneath your child’s behavior?

What's happening when your child melts down into an angry fit?
Or they hit or bite or throw things? Or they scream mean things at you? 😩

Consider this: Their nervous system is stressed - and they do not feel safe.

But wait, what?? Nothing stressful is happening and yet they go into a crazy meltdown for no reason - or it’s because they want something they can’t have.

It’s not always what it looks like on the surface.

Your child’s nervous system is picking up a signal that something’s not right; and that feels unsafe to them. So they’re having big feelings. In this stressed state of unsafe, their brains simply cannot connect the dots that there are consequences to acting this way. They can’t hear you.

The best parenting strategies will NOT work unless your child feels safe.

Punishments, consequences, time-outs, rewards, sticker charts – all these things will keep the meltdowns coming if you’re missing the root cause of the behavior.

The behavior is not the problem…rather a window to what is really going on.

There are plenty of reasons why a child’s nervous system perceives stress – emotional and physical.

Curiosity is the best parenting tool there is – ask yourself “What’s happening here?”

If your child is acting out, they need your help. They need your calm presence to feel safe.❤️

Here are the steps (the Calm-Connect-Guide Method):

1. Calm yourself first
2. In your calm state, help your child be with their big feelings
3. Once you’re both calm and connected, your child will be able to hear you, so you can begin to solve the behavior together.

06/24/2025

You have the unique power to shape the life of another human being.

You have the power to change the future of your own family (for generations), and at the same time the future of this world.

With empowered peaceful parenting you have the have the power to change the future of your own family and the future of this world.

05/15/2025

So true...

Parenting well is not something we inherit

It’s something we choose and practice every day

It is far more natural to repeat the patterns we were shown

To reach for what is familiar, even when it no longer serves us or our children

Change asks more of us:

Awareness⁠, courage⁠, and a willingness to heal what we did not break⁠

We are not failing because it feels hard

We are growing, for ourselves and for the ones who come after us ♥️

Are you on your journey of healing generational patterns? Get a copy of our FREE guide: Healing Generational Patterns, here: https://www.jaiinstituteforparenting.com/generational-patterns