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Every parent has wondered: Am I doing this right?
In a world full of parenting advice, strong opinions, and endless information online, it can be hard to know who to trust. Hosted by clinical psychologists, researchers, and moms, Dr. Leslie Roos and Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, You're Doing It Right is a podcast for parents who want trustworthy information without the judgment. As parents of young children themselves, Leslie and Lianne understand the joys, challenges, and total chaos that come with parenting, bringing both professional expertise and humor to every conversation.
Each episode features conversations with experts about the questions families are actually asking, from sleep and screen time to behaviour, emotions, relationships, and family wellbeing. Together, they explore what the research really says, what it means for everyday family life, and how to cope when things don’t go exactly to plan.
This podcast is not about perfect parenting. It is about helping families feel more confident, more supported, and a little less alone. The are so many wonderful ways to parent and chances are, you're doing an amazing job.
~You're Doing It Right podcast was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)~
Transcript Episode 2
Are You Listening to Me? Meeting Your Child’s Needs
Hosts: Dr. Leslie Dr. Lianne
Guest Speaker: Dr. Brendan Andrade
Narration
Welcome to You're Doing It Right, a podcast for navigating parenting. On this episode, we explore what it really means to meet your child's needs. And understand behavior as communication. From meltdowns to clinginess, we unpack what our actually be trying to tell us.
And how slowing down, tuning in, and listening differently can help parents respond more understanding, connection, and confidence.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I'm Dr. Leslie Roos, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Manitoba. My work focuses on supporting family mental health and strengthening relationships starting as early as pregnancy. I spend my days researching what helped families thrive. And when I'm not at work, I'm also a mom to three wonderful chaotic kids. So I'm right there in it with you.
Dr. Lianne Tomfort Madsen
And I'm Dr. Lianne Tomfort Madsen. I'm a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. I study evidence-based ways to heal and stop the transmission of stress from one generation to the next. And I'm a mom of two kids, ages nine and two, so I'm navigating some very different parenting challenges, and I'm also right here with you.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Yeah.
Dr. Leslie Roos
We're also moms like when we are at work. We really recognize that as parents, you're juggling your identity of being a parent absolutely all the time, even when you are supposed to be in all trying to do other things.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Like the school is calling right now to tell me to come and get my son, even though I said please call.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
His dad. Please call his dad. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Always a great one. You have to say that one a few times, giving good directions. Between us, we've spent years in research, clinical work, and working alongside families, all trying to answer one big question.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
How do we actually make parenting feel doable and really enjoyable?
Dr. Leslie Roos
So in this podcast, we're talking all about that research.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And we're trying to turn it into practical, usable strategies that you can try in your real and everyday life.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Our goal is no perfection, no just expert advice.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
No judgment. Delivered with compassion and understanding.
Dr. Leslie Roos
This is, you're doing it right.
So across decades of developmental research and in the work of Canadian psychologist Dr. Brendan Andrade, we are reminding that behavior isn't random, it's communication. And this is particularly true for little kids.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Kids who have kind of shown difficult behavior tend to get a lot of negative from the world. And that's challenging, right? Because you're s you're hearing about a lot of the negative and you're not necessarily knowing or understanding what it is that you're doing that's actually not that.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Dr. Brendan Andrade is a clinical psychologist and he's an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. His work focuses on helping us better understand children's behavior and supporting parents with practical, compassionate, evidence-based approaches.
Dr. Leslie Roos
We're really excited to welcome Dr. Andrade today. His research explores why challenging behaviors develop and how intervening early can help children and families build healthier relationships and stronger coping skills. The goal is to not experience anger or frustration, it's to figure out over time what are some healthy ways that you can figure out skills so that you know what to do with it. I was very lucky to have the privilege of working with Dr. Andrade as my supervisor during residency at Cam H, and I learned so much about what I'd call compassionate. no nonsense ways of responding to challenging behavior.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Welcome Brendan. How are you doing?
speaker- 3
I'm I'm doing excellent. ⁓ thank you so much for that really nice introduction.
Dr. Leslie Roos
What made you want to work with kids tough behaviors? What made you want to support families?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
That's question I actually get asked quite a bit. What got me into the field really is a realization from a very young age that not everyone has the same opportunities. Or if given the right opportunities, people, kids, and their parents at the times would make different choices. Like I think people are constrained by what their environments are, by you know where they're at, what kind of skills and abilities they have. And it really became clear that helping people function in a way that would make their lives happier actually make me happier. So there's so much opportunity.
Opportunity for growth and learning, and so much opportunity for change. So, child psychology or child mental health seemed like a perfect fit.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
What challenges do families come to you with?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
The ones that I I focus most on are what are called externalizing problems, so challenging behavior. So children that tend to have more difficult time regulating their behavior, their emotion, they tend to react strongly in situations that maybe doesn't call for such a strong reaction. They tend to not comply or follow what
authority or adults want them to do, especially in situations that are really what the adults want. And at times that can contribute to more stressful interactions with adults and just stress overall for those families. So parents feel it, teachers feel it, and of course the child and their siblings feel it. They try and work with to really help them to figure out what's contributing to those difficulties and really figure out how to plan an approach that might fit their family's needs a little bit more closely.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Big feelers, children who experience and express emotions with high intensity or sensitivity. They often go from calm to really big reactions very quickly. And I think it's important that we remember that big feelers aren't just feeling things that are difficult. They're often also helping us tune into moments that are really positive. And I'm wondering if the kids that you mostly work with are big feelers.
Dr. Brendan Andrade
Well,
sometimes they're big feelers and sometimes they're actually kids that have a difficult time understanding emotion. So it it cuts kind of on both sides of the spectrum. So kids that are big feelers and might react strongly and some kids that really don't understand feelings or kind of have a difficult time taking another person's emotional perspective or understand other people's emotions and as a result don't know how to calibrate their behaviors. So it kind of goes both directions.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And do you see these as like aligning with, you know, particular neurodevelopmental diagnoses, things like ADHD or autism, or is it really non specific?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
It does tend to align a lot with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental difficulties. However, it also applies across the board. We think of it as quote unquote transdiagnostic, which means that these are things that occur across people and are not specific to anyone who's a specific diagnosis. So for example, a child who's showing
let's say emotion regulation challenges or like kind big feelings, they might also tend to have difficulties with skills in certain domains or might have difficulties with interactions in in different domains. And those those things kind of collect together. Similarly for kids that maybe don't understand emotion in the same way, they might have skills that are aligned with that. And then what happens is that those skills or those abilities then make it difficult for them to function in the world, which then makes the world a more challenging place for them. The difficult cycle that they get into very early on.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Yeah, that sort of that reciprocal cycle, that back and forth. One of the things you talked about was thinking about behavior as a form of communication. Can you break that down for us a little bit?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
Well, across development, children's verbal abilities and nonverbal abilities develop. When a child's younger, you know, they can't communicate their needs in the way that they would like to. Some children consistently struggle.
And what happens is that everyone's abilities are differently developed. We have different strengths and different areas of challenge. Verbal abilities is one, but also a person's ability to regulate their emotions, a person's ability to regulate their thinking, a person's skills or their ability to interact with the world, and a person's ⁓ ability to understand others' emotions. Now, different children have different strengths or areas of challenge in those different areas or domains.
And so if a situation arises that interact or kind of elicit a challenge in the child and they're not able to verbally communicate, people tend to communicate then through their actions. And their actions sometimes are not what people want to see in terms of how they're communicating frustration, how they're communicating a lack of skill, how they're communicating what they need in that situation. And they're doing it based on what
they're used to. So a child that might be frustrated, let's say, about a situation might throw something, right? And the throwing something is their way of communicating that they can't manage that situation or something about that situation has now crested their ability to deal with it. And so it's not about the throwing, it's about the underlying need that's not being met for that child.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Say you're someone who has a kid who has a hard time getting out the door in the morning for school and I'm a parent of saying, Hey bud, time to go, let's get going for school. Need you like put your book down, brush your teeth, you'd be like, No, I don't want to do that. What do you see as sort of a potential skills that is lagging going on there?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
That situation is a great example. This is actually a common thing that happens for all parents and all kids. And sometimes it's just a matter of a combination of factors. Although it's a morning routine, it might not be yet a routine for the child. Right. So maybe the multiple steps that are involved in that process are maybe overwhelming for the child. So that would be in that domain of thinking skills or the way that they regulate their thinking. They might not be able to
kind of compartmentalize and move through multiple skills or multiple expectations at once. So for example, some mornings are rushed and maybe a child might be tired or might be hungry or might physiologically in need of something. The other domain is what happens next. So the predictability, the structure, the getting to school, what's gonna happen at school, does the child like school, not like school? So what I typically say to parents and what we we typically do is we'll break down the situation and understand
Which buckets might the child might be having need that might not be sufficiently met? And then thinking about how to plan in the future for how to meet those needs differently. And then trial, how that might go. So that could be ways to build structure, ways to build predictability, ways to coach the child differently, ways at ways to support their emotion, ways to plan differently in terms of the biological or physiological ways to think about.
worries or thoughts that are on the child's mind, but just kind of having it all kind of an actionable plan that's broken up by domain.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Always shocked at the challenging behaviors that kids bring up that are are really normal. It's not unusual to throw something when kids are frustrated. How would I know if something is pretty typical or maybe something that I should think about seeking additional support for?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
I I typically look at it with regards to the the frequency, intensity, duration, and kind of the onset. So the acronym is FIDO. Idea is that if it's happening so frequently that it's concerning, like it's creating difficulty on a regular basis. The intensity is kind of it's making people feel like not at ease because it's overly intense during those times.
It's lasting an excessively long time and you can clearly see that the child is distressed and you're feeling distressed. And the onsets happening at a developmentally kind of doesn't fit with kind of what you would typically expect. If that's the case, and that's a time where you might think about seeking consultation. Like, is this something maybe with a pediatrician or with maybe someone at school, even or whomever, that might be able to provide provide you first steps into thinking this is something that's beyond the challenge is how to.
Get support at a time that you can kind of bolster your child's emotional and behavioral skills in a way that'll give them the best chance of being successful.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I think one of the pieces of advice that I heard early on was, if there's a big behavior, something that's distressing, give it like two weeks. Maybe there's something developmental going on, maybe there's something that's a change in routine that you're not really understanding as a as an adult. If this behavior is still really significant, causing a lot of distress after that adjustment period, then maybe revisit it. Would you sort of agree with that?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
I I think it depends on what age they're again and and what it is that's coming up. So I think at at younger ages, like with with young children, for sure.
'Cause they they go through different kinds of changes. And when I say young, like preschoolers, like but they're they go through a lot of changes and things are constantly evolving. It could be about sleep, it could be about eating, it could be about everything really under the sun. If we're talking about a youth and there was a concerning behavior that was, you know, you might wanna think about how to discuss or get on that a little bit quicker. So if it's more risky behavior, that might be something as an older child or youth, that might be something you'd wanna identify and seek support for earlier.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
You know, and in terms of seeking that support or trying to figure out how you can support your kid, one thing that you talked about is some of those underlying, reasons, what's going on beneath the surface. How would you suggest that parents start to look for those underlying needs in their kids?
Speaker- 3
That's the tough part and we kinda study this so we understand that these skills exist that underlie why people do the things that they do. And so for as a parent, it would be hard to isolate what those domains are. So what I would suggest is engage in a collaborative conversation with your child to to see what kinda once again, depending on age here again, because you know, depending if the child's able to communicate verbally in the way that expresses.
themselves, collaborative conversation with the child to kind of pinpoint what might be going on. The other thing that I would say is to really start thinking about what are the common situations that tend to cause difficulties for your child and what are some of the common things in those situations? Like, is there a lot of stimulation? Is there a lot of expectations? Are there a lot of things going on? Then start thinking about also how do you approach the situation with your child? What are your instructions like? What's your temperament like? What's your interaction like? Like, start thinking about.
External environments, then also start thinking about the times that things go well and what does that look like? Like what are the differences between those situations when it goes well and the situations that it doesn't go well? And start thinking about can they communicate their needs? Do they have an appropriate way of regulating their emotions? Do they have appropriate skills or strategies that they can use in that situation that are developmentally appropriate? And then maybe write them down or categorize it in a way like it's
It's hard to remember all this. Life is busy, right? So it's it's next to impossible to keep a mental track in your mind of all the things that are going on.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I know with my kids in the morning and also with other families that I work with, sometimes the ability to just give kids more time can be really helpful with instructions. I always am impressed by, you know, kids' brains sometimes work a little bit slower to work through things.
Dr. Brendan Andrade
What you just said is great. So allowing more time for the children. Noticing when your child does good things. So really emphasizing and helping your child to emphasize the times that
things they're doing are contributing to better outcomes. Kids who out kind of show difficult behavior tend to get a lot of negative from the world. And that's challenging, right? Because you're s you're hearing about a lot of the negative and you're not necessarily knowing or understanding what it is that you're doing that's actually not that. That's actually contributing to positive or things going well. So call it different things, but the idea of having specific praise or noticing or recognition of the child's positive qualities and things that are contributing to positive, I think that
That's one thing. And I found that associated with parents just spending time with children, noticing those positives to shift behavior. The other thing I found is parents really stepping back and thinking about, you know, how am I providing instructions? And what do my instructions look like? If I was given these instructions, are they clear? Are they easy to follow? Is it fitted to my child's kind of developmental level? Am I with them while they're doing it? Am I shouting it from a different
Room? Am I understanding what they're doing while I'm shouting it from a different room? Like all these kinds of things like that help instructions be either good or not so good. So thinking about instructions and how to provide instructions in a way that makes sense. The other thing is I think how to provide limits. Children really thrive in situations where they know the boundaries.
Our world, for better or worse, has a lot of rules. And I think those rules to some extent kind of contain people, right? So for example, on the street beside me, I know I'm not supposed to drive a hundred because the rule is that you're supposed to drive, you know, 50. But that keeps everyone roughly driving around 50. And when someone doesn't drive that way, they might get a ticket. But that containment keeps people functioning. And kids the same way, when they have kind of set expectations and set limits, they're able to function better.
And then having clear consequences for not following through with those. And they should be reasonable to whatever the challenges are. Understanding what the factors that are driving the behavior really allow a parent to think about the best way to support or provide those other structures that might help children develop their abilities are that are maybe underdeveloped.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I think about sometimes you know the communication piece of like screaming an instruction from the other room and it doesn't go as well. My urge sometimes be, I'll just scream louder to indicate that this is really important because like 'cause I'm busy, right? But it's what's actually called to be helpful is to go see, you know, what's going on, what needs to be interrupted and trying to give that direction, one on one, waiting, eye contact, all of those things.
Dr. Brendan Andrade
Yeah, which is really hard when you're busy in the morning, for example. Or and that that's why those situations tend to come up more at those times, or bedtimes, the other one, but that that tend to be more you you you want something to be accomplished by a certain time because there's something else depending on it. And it's and it's also the parents ⁓ stress that comes into play because parents and kids kind of feed off of each other.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Sometimes consequences work and sometimes it can feel like they don't work. What's your take?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
In in general, I think consequences are needed. Now let me just broaden it to positive consequences and negative consequences.
I think consequences are needed because positive consequences for doing something that you're successful on is a good thing, right? And a negative consequence is something that is not good that you were supposed to do differently and now you have this other consequence. Certain consequences work better for certain kids, and some kids don't respond as well to consequences for sure. It's not just about the consequences. Consequences don't actually teach anyone to do anything. It has to be balanced. That's why I started off mentioning the idea of noticing positive and helping build positive skills.
And coaching, supports, or emotions, and how to really help kids start doing things that are more functional and in combination with helping them know the limit. And the limit is set by a consequence. Like this, you did this, now this is the consequence. And when you start doing this, then this more stuff will keep on happening, right? So it's like there's a stop, and there also needs to be a start. Those things need to go hand in hand. One without the other.
For most kids is not really as effective.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Let's look at this for a moment. So one thing that really stands out to me here and comes through in a lot of this research is that we can't look at children's behavior as having just one simple cause, and that often things in children's behavior, particularly aggression, is communicating something. Communicating something to us.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
This is tricky for a few reasons. Some of Dr. Andrade's work shows that kids present in different ways and with different emotional needs underneath or driving what's going on, what can look like a really big behavior that you don't want to see. But figuring out as a parent, what do I do about my kid? How can I be curious about what's going on for them underneath? Because that's gonna give me ideas about what to try, how to respond compassionately, how to support them afterwards. Because if we just try to apply a one-size-fits-all approach, we could actually.
really miss what a child is trying to communicate and we're trying to solve the problem by like controlling the behavior instead of understanding what's underneath it.
News Clip
This morning we are joined by a registered child psychologist and co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology, Tany Johnson. Is there a clear line between what is normal development and what is not? So I think it's really important to keep in mind that childhood by design is just incredibly messy. When we look at that brain, it takes years to develop, and of course, the parts of the brain that come online first are the emotional centers of the brain. And then all those big, beautiful executive functions like regulation, perspective taking, it's much, much later. So those behaviors are often really in align with normal childhood brain development. But there are times when we start to worry.
I like this quote be curious and not furious, which is a really tall order, particularly if you didn't grow up in a house where anybody was curious about the way that your behavior was presenting itself. And so I think parents coming into this with a bit of compassion for themselves, particularly if this wasn't how they were raised, if they were reactive themselves. Like we gotta do some self-care in the moments when your kid pushes you because they're angry. We need a little bit of a pause moment sometimes for ourselves as parents.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I also think to give yourself credit when you are able to be successful at that, like be curious, not furious. And I think that that's the goal, right? It's like baby steps over time. You can communicate angry, and the best thing you can do is to just walk out of the room to take some time. Maybe tap off if you have a co-parent, take some time if you don't. And maybe you can be curious later about what was going on there. That sort of co-regulation can actually help everyone around you if you're not directly escalating.
And I think that's you that's so related to Brendan's research, which highlights how much our relationships and our environment can shape our behavior and what happens over time. What do we see more of, what do we see less of.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
You don't have to shift one specific behavior with specific tools, but sometimes you can really pour into the relationship. So having things like one-on-one time, feeling heard, having space to connect, like those aren't extras in the relationship. Those are foundational. And just finding a moment where you're really connecting with each other, you don't have to jump right into managing all behaviors immediately. And at the same time, we're not saying that you should remove expectations or boundaries. I think this like middle path parenting.
Can be really hard to wrap your head around because it's a constant recalibration for parents to be managing.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I think it's about being more intentional with boundaries. So having clear, consistent boundaries, but also not setting a boundary if you don't think your kid's in a headspace to be successful. Those are some of the ways that you could help build connection over time. Help kids feel safe and regulated. And like sometimes that means helping kids do something they know you can do. Your kid comes in and they really want help getting dressed. It's not just about getting dressed, right? They're asking for connection to me. Maybe they want a hug and a snuggle.
And if I can take an extra two minutes here to help them get dressed, they're communicating their need, then maybe the rest of our morning will go more smoothly.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And remembering that there's no one size fits all solution for every kid and for every moment. So what works for one child in one family might not work for another. And what works for your child in one moment might not work.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Another. And although that can feel overwhelming, like there's no one right answer how to deal with this, I think it can also be sort of freeing because it really allows you as a parent to get curious, experiment a bit, and try to tune in to what's gonna work for your child and for you as a parent. Let's come back to the conversation with Dr. Andrade and shift into understanding how to use one-on-one time in a really positive way.
Dr. Brendan Andrade
One on one time is time spent with a child in a more or less unstructured way that's child guided. So the child doing something and the parent following the child's lead. Why that's so important is the base of a relationship for children is really the feeling that their parent is with them. Their parent provides this kind of unconditional support for the child. It's like the base of a solid relationship. And that's the base that I think if can be preserved through development.
Children feel or children think that they can then rely on their parent as the base. So these other bad things can happen, and the parent is still gonna be that solid base for the child, right? The one-on-one allows the parent to emphasize that with the child, to really build that connection in a supportive and kind of loving way. So it's not about teaching anything, it's not talking about the school day, it's just really about helping the child know that you're there.
And that is both tangible and I've seen families that have gone and just done that for one week and then have come back and said so many things have changed now just because we're doing that. We haven't changed anything else. There's this almost like need for attention or need for closeness. And when that need for closeness is met, it removes the child's likelihood of doing other things that they're doing in an unhelpful way to get those same kinds of
reactions from their parents. Like they're getting it, but now in a positive way. So helping parents balance thinking and then also helping parents to recognize that they likely have buildup of stress and build up of emotion in their own selves. And what might need to happen for them to take care of themselves in a reasonable way. To allow themselves to take care of their child in in a reasonable way. And it's hard for parents because parents want to focus on their children. It's hard for them to know that focusing on themselves will also help their children.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
That ability to cope as a parent is so important. Being a parent is a tough job and there's no finish line.
Parents can have a really challenging interaction with their kids, and when they lose their cool, they're yelling, or things don't go the way they wanted them to, they can get really down on themselves. But this is just the human experience. We have to give ourselves permission to be human while parenting and also finding ways to repair things when kids don't go the way you want them to. I always think that if we mess up and then we can repair, it gives our kids the opportunity to mess up themselves and then to see how to repair in relationships.
Dr. Brendan Andrade
Kids seeing their parents as people is actually a good thing. People make mistakes, and sometimes people lose their cool. And it's okay to take ownership of that and try and repair that situation. I think we ask that of our kids, so we should be asking that of ourselves too. And I don't think that shifts any kind of power. I think it's just about understanding that there's problems that occur and it's okay, and there can also be a solution. It leads down to conversation of what…could be different from the parent side and from the child side to contribute to something. That's what kind of a collaborative conversation around what could be next steps or things that can make that better.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Are there any myths that you feel like parents come in with about their kids' behavior, about how they should be as a parent that you want to correct?
Dr. Brendan Andrade
Yeah, I think one is really that kids are doing things on purpose to be bad. Like and I don't think that that's the case at all. I think it given a different set of circumstances, children would choose to do different. Another is that the parent has caused the problem. Something about the parent has contributed or made that problem exist in the child. And we know that's not a one factor situation. There's a number of things that contribute to why children do things and why parents do things, right? And it's not just about one thing.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
So as we wrap up today, one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation for me is that behavior is really just communication. And when we pause and we take a breath, even a short one, and we get curious about what's underneath that behavior, it can completely shift how we respond.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And the reminder that your connection, your relationship with your kids is that's the most important thing, right? That's the foundation. And so trying to hold that in mind when you're trying to figure out how you're gonna respond or react to this really tough thing that happened is so, so important. And it should give you permission to pause that reaction, take a step back and figure out like, do I really need to come come at it this hard? Can we get curious about it later? What's required for me in this moment? Because big picture, it's you know, those small moments. One-on-one time, listening, being curious, being able to observe our kids. Those are the things that help kids feel safe, heard, understood, trusting, and just part of your family. And from that place, everything else can become a little bit more manageable.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And supporting the relationship and guiding the kid's behavior. So remembering that perfection isn't the goal here. It's not even close. It's really about connection and engagement with your kiddo.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And it doesn't mean that we don't set expectations or boundaries. In fact, clear, consistent boundaries, pre-teaching expectations in advance can help set kids up for success. That gives them a sense of structure, predictability, they know what's happening. And also give yourself grace. There's gotta be moments that feel messy, reactive, or hard. And that's part of being human, that's part of parenting. But what matters is that we keep showing up, repairing when we need to, and just staying open to learning about our kids and ourselves.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
So if there's anything from today's conversation that resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Your questions, your experiences, even moments that you're unsure about.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Because those are often the most important ones to talk about. You can reach out, share, connect with us anytime. We personally have probably encountered similar problems or worked with families that are struggling with the same things you're struggling with. Next time, we're gonna dive into one of the biggest stress points for parents right now, which is screen use. Until next time, this is your doing it right.
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