Sidu Arroyo, LPC • Becoming at Home

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Austin, TX
Sidu Arroyo, LPC • Becoming at Home

Family Psychotherapist helping you:
➡ Deepen connection with your child
➡ Increase emotional understanding
➡️ Become more at home within yourself

11/11/2025

Becoming a parent (or being a parent) can be terrific and life-giving, but parenthood is also:⁣⁣
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Crying as you rock your baby to sleep for the eighth time that night. ⁣⁣
Feeling as if you've messed up your child because your teenager is acting out.⁣⁣
Missing the freedom you had before children.⁣⁣
Feeling overwhelmed because you don't know how to support your child's feelings.⁣⁣
Feeling frustrated and angry because you don't know how to stop yourself from yelling.⁣⁣
Grieving the parenting experiences you needed as a child and adolescent.
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Parenthood is messy and raw. It challenges us beyond what we think we are capable of. It is never perfect, and yet there can be beauty and growth in the imperfections and messiness. ⁣⁣
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You are not alone. ⁣⁣
You matter.
You are the parent your child needs and the parent you need. ⁣⁣

In what areas are you growing as a parent? In what areas are you feeling challenged as a parent? Feel free to share below or in my stories.

11/06/2025

I'm a family psychotherapist and yes, I used the word never. 🙈😉

A child, whether two years old or 42 years old, never outgrow the need for parental care and openness. Our children will need different things from us as they grow but the longing for parental care remains.

How does this post resonate with you?

#

11/03/2025

Children push boundaries!

Is it because they're being defiant? Choosing to ignore you? Or trying to make your life miserable? Sometimes it may certainly feel like it but one reason children push boundaries is because nature has designed them to individuate. Their wants, feelings, and needs will not always align with yours or their siblings.

When your child pushes a boundary, how do you respond? What happens inside of you? Do you feel angry, frustrated, sad, hopeless? If any of these feelings show up what are you inclined to do? Punish? Negotiate? Isolate? Concede? Notice the pattern(s) and be curious about the stories interwoven into them.

As far as your child, when we as parents are wavering in our ability to lead, children notice. Our struggle to lead can create a dynamic which puts your child in charge, and children truly do not want to be in charge of themselves.

Be certain about your role. You have within you the instincts to care, nurture, lead, and guide your child. If these feel difficult, you may be needing these in your own life. 💛

Follow along for more on strengthening family relationships.

Does this resonate with you? Have you seen a partner struggle with this?

10/30/2025

What helps children thrive?

Caregivers who are accessible, responsible, and emotionally engaged often enough. You, as a parent, have all the instincts to offer your child what they need; I genuinely believe this and have seen it time and time again with the families I have worked with.

Yet when you didn't receive, or are now missing, nurturing, care, and responsiveness from your caregivers, village, friends, or community, these instincts can be diminished by inner criticism, shame, and the beliefs that you don't have what it takes, leading you to outsource your instincts.

When another (or others) holds you, you may begin the journey of releasing yourself from these unhelpful grasps and live more into the parent your child needs and that you desire to be.

Share or tag someone who needs this reminder. 💛

10/29/2025

Children who are struggling with anxiety, depression, clinginess, repetitive relational safety seeking behaviors, or over thinking to solve relational concerns are typically struggling with attachment panic, or attachment alarm.

While there are many reasons as to how a child got here, as their parent you have within you everything your child needs to find their way back to safety and security. When you look beyond the behaviors, which can feel distressing, you will often see your child—scared, lonely, and confused waiting for you.

This post is not to say that the care of your child all falls on you solely. Calling on your resources (your village) for support is brave and part of helping your child and yourself. Getting professional support to guide you in supporting your child and yourself is courageous.

# attachmentparenting

10/22/2025

Toddlers are my favorite! Who is with me? 🙃

I love their boldness, confidence to seize the day, and the tenderness they display. While toddlers are generally fantastic at speaking their mind, they cannot yet hold complexity.

They cannot hold love for a sibling alongside anger toward a sibling. They cannot hold the future of mom's return from work with the sadness they feel when mom leaves to work.

As the adults in their life, we get the privilege to hold complexity for them (and yes, it can be draining)!

What questions do you have? What's your favorite saying said by your toddler?

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 💛

Address

Austin, TX
78610

Website

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

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