https://www.pahtiacounseling.com/, http://www.becomingathome.com/

Sidu Arroyo, LPC • Becoming at Home, Austin, TX (2025)

09/22/2025

I dare say this is the most important parenting truth you can put into practice.

09/17/2025

The biggest challenge I see for parents is that we want to get to the action.

How do I get my child to sleep through the night?

How do I get them to stop crying at drop off? How do I get them to do their homework?

How do I get my child to participate in sports, clubs, and social settings?

How do I get my teen to want to do better at school?

All are valid concerns and come from a desire for good things for your child. But before getting to the actionable steps, you want to consider where your child is.

If you are local to or be on the lookout for a new process +skill based group, I will be running for High Achieving Teens. More information is coming soon through my practice website.

Follow along for more on relationships you value most.

09/15/2025

10 years ago, mother's survey said they wanted to be a "perfect mom." While the survey is a decade ago, I have to wonder how many of these mothers are now experiencing chronic burnout, anxiety, and depression.

I have to wonder how much capitalistic parenting has contributed to the burnout rates in parents today. I say that knowing full well that I am on social media and also contributing to some aspect of capitalism, but here is something the "experts" are not saying. You have everything you need within you to raise a well-adjusted, emotionally secure child, but it requires you to be with more than to do. For those of us who learned that performance meant worth, the journey forward may bring discomfort we have been trying to avoid as learning to be with your child quite often requires us to be with ourselves.

09/10/2025

Having experienced good enough nurturing, emotional attunement, and responsiveness in the early years, children have amazing abilities to find their own creative solutions to distressing situations.

When your child finds themselves in distress, your ability to stay with them is often enough for them to move toward their own resolution.

Nuance: When a child experiences too much distress, the body and mind may not have access to creativity and adapting, and more support may be needed.

What questions do you have?

05/29/2025

Praise is a very appropriate behavior technique and better than focusing on the mishaps, but attachment is deeper and more complex than behavioral techniques.
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Some of the challenges with too much praise are:⁣⁣⁣⁣
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Your child primarily gets attention and validation when they do something that wins your favor, which can translate into your child learning to perform for you.⁣⁣⁣⁣( Acceptance and belonging come from performance.)
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You are the source of evaluation and judgment, whether good or bad, rather than themselves.⁣⁣⁣⁣
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Praise is often used as a way to notice and dismiss rather than see and be with.
“Wow, beautiful picture!” (Okay, now go back to what you’re doing so I can do what I'm doing…)⁣⁣⁣⁣

Generally speaking, praise to shape behavior disregards the developmental needs of the child and the nervous system needs of that particular child.
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Praise is not bad. Offering words of encouragement when you find the drawing to be beautiful is a completely normal human response, and for most of us, it is more authentic than saying things like "You used orange! You drew a house!"

But what I want to encourage you in is rather than praise your child for what you see, focus on validating your child for who they are. ⁣⁣⁣⁣
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When you validate from a relational perspective, you're noticing the relationship and your child for who they are (mishaps, ordinariness, and all😊).

Validation can:
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Build your child's self-worth. Self-worth leads to an alignment in values.⁣⁣⁣⁣
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Communicate that your connection and relationship are unconditional. ⁣⁣⁣⁣
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Build trust and build or shift your mindset. Shifting from conditional belonging to acceptance of who your child is and not for what you imagine them to be.⁣⁣⁣⁣
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If this concept is difficult for you, please share your questions below. Remember, your child doesn’t need to be doing anything extraordinary in order for you to remind them of your investment in them, so start today.

05/11/2025

To all the mothers and mother figures, I hope today and every day you honor yourself, you allow yourself to grieve as much as you allow yourself to access joy, you honor your limits, and your inherent worth.

As we do, may our daughters (and sons) witness our strength and humanity.

May they see that their mothers loved them deeply (not perfectly, but good enough) and that they took the difficult journey to learning to love themselves. With much love to each one of you.
Sidu 💛

05/05/2025

"My child won't listen! How can I get them to listen?"

How many of us have felt frustrated because our children are not listening to us? 🙋‍♀️ I know, I have.

While this statement often expresses frustration and maybe even a sense of powerlessness, it can be helpful if we consider the following:

Your child may and likely is hearing you, but to listen to someone, we need to be in connection with them.

To raise critical thinkers who are objective and considerate of others, we do not want to encourage blind sighted obedience. So, some challenge from your child is developmentally and wonderfully appropriate! Even if it is exhausting.

Instead, consider helping your child feel safe and regulated as a dysregulated body, and overwhelming feelings can prevent your child from listening to you.

How is your body? Are you dysregulated? If so, can you notice it and try to regulate so that you can step into your hierarchical "power" (more in my stories)?

Can you try to stay present rather than project your fears about your child's future or bring your past into the present moment?

Rather than getting your child to listen to you, can you view it as the two of you working together to get to a mutual outcome?

If this post resonates with you, give it a 💛 and as always let me know what questions you have!

05/02/2025

Read that again: Relationships cannot grow without conflict.

But conflict doesn't have to be volitale reactive. Your anger, rage, sadness, and disappointment can feel safe. Most of us want meaningful, deep relationships, and yet the deeper we go with another, whether it be your spouse, your parent, or a close friend, the more likely conflict will be present because you are two separate beings with different perspectives, feelings, wants, and needs.

You may avoid conflict to keep the peace, but at what cost?

Conflict can be safe and, in fact, incredibly beneficial to your relationships, but conflict doesn't always mean you both agree on the same thing. In fact, rarely does this happen. Instead, conflict can bring us closer to understanding the other person and being understood (the very thing we often crave). But to engage in conflict, we run the risk of many possibilities. Feeling rejected, feeling guilt, facing our shame or emotions that we avoid, or feeling held and loved. We risk so much, and it makes sense that we may avoid conflict.

While we cannot know how the other person will respond and the risk can feel grand, perhaps conflict may feel more tolerable if we learn and practice holding all of ourselves in safety. Then, the risk is not so great. We can engage in necessary conflict and know that we can hold ourselves no matter the outcome.

*This post addresses adult relationships. Conflict will also happen in the parent-child relationship, and it is in this relationship where the parent holds the child. It is never a child's responsibility to hold the parent. More on this in a future post.*

How does this post resonate with you? What is your relationship to conflict?

04/29/2025

The more (young) children are pushed toward independence the more they struggle in becoming independent. In contrast, the more a child can emotionally depend on you, the greater their desire to be independent.

Children are wired to seek independence. We see this in what has been terribly labeled, “the terrible twos.” Is a toddler being terrible, or are they wired to differentiate from their parents? Toddlers are wired to want independence and autonomy, which leads them to the inevitable NOs, “defiant” behaviors, and big risk-taking.

As children become more vocal and appear to be able to handle difficult emotions and situations, we expect them to conduct themselves as adults.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re six now. Why are you whining?”

“Go, play on your own. I’m making dinner.”

Yet, the more we push children away when they need us, the more they struggle to separate from us when they need or want to, such as at bedtime, school drop-offs, or at the playground.

When we demand they stop whining, go play on their own, or toughen up, we may see more whining, bigger emotions, clinginess, and more challenging behaviors.

While you cannot give your child what they want right away, and it wouldn’t be in your child’s best interest for you to drop everything either, what you can give them is emotional dependence.

You can listen and support, not rescue, them through their difficult emotions.

You can let your child know that they can stay near you if they want. You trust that when they’re ready they’ll go play, all while you gently encourage them to take a risk.

You can suggest they bring a few toys to the dinner table and play near you while you make dinner rather than sending them to play alone.

When your child knows that you’re there for them, all of them, they feel less afraid to separate from you. They’re more willing to venture off and chase after the independence they crave.

This does not address all situations, and there are certainly nuances. Eg. A child who early in life learns that their needs will not be met may not become dependent but rather hyper-independent.

How does this resonate with you?

04/21/2025

So what do you do? What's the alternative?

Recognize that the feelings that arise in you are your feelings and yours to address. They may be rooted in the past, reminding you of your dysregulated body that needed someone else to help bring it into safety. Your feelings may be rooted in the future with judgments of who your child will become, how others will see you, and what others will think. While your child certain can bring up all sorts of feelings, it is not their behavior that is at fault. It is not their behavior that is to be blamed for your yelling, punishing, or isolating your child. They are immature beings with the ability to self-regulate only 50% of the time in early childhood (the elementary years). That 50% ability to self-regulate assumes they've had good enough co-regulation to develop some self-regulation skills, and 50% isn't much.

Your emotions are not at fault either. Rather than blame your child, work with what comes up. Can you get curious about it? Can you accept the feelings? Can you find compassion for yourself while you work to learn a new way of relating?

As for your child, while they are immature beings, it's doesn't mean you let you have to let them run loose like wild monkeys. (Though, personally, I am a fan of embracing the wild child.) You can set boundaries and structure while protecting their immature minds, bodies, and always protecting their hearts.

04/18/2025

Children and teens are incredibly impressionable and tend to accept quickly, often "with child like faith." Yet God is too abstract of a concept for their developmenting brains to fully grasp, and it is our privilege and job to protect their hearts.

04/04/2025

“Daddy, love is really important, right?”⁣⁣
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My child asked my husband as we tucked the kids into bed.⁣⁣
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It sure is kiddo. It sure is.⁣⁣
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Here’s the tricky and amazing part, we can tell our children we love them day after day, and our words are important, but what is more important and what your child needs is to feel loved. When we feel loved, we know we are loved by another. ⁣⁣
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Your child knows that they are loved by the way you are with them.
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Is there anything you’d add?⁣⁣
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P.S. Emphasis on enough.

Sidu Arroyo, LPC • Becoming at Home

09/22/2025

09/17/2025

09/15/2025

09/10/2025

05/29/2025

05/11/2025

05/05/2025

05/02/2025

04/29/2025

04/21/2025

04/18/2025

04/04/2025

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