The power of being with

Ever felt like you’re failing because your child is upset and you can’t make it stop? We’ve all been there. We think that being a "good mum" means keeping our kids in a state of constant happiness. But what if we have it backwards? 

In this episode, Doctor Tash shares a perspective that is—fair warning—incredibly hard to swallow at first. It challenges the very core of our "fix-it" instincts. We’re talking about the uncomfortable, quiet and transformative power of simply staying put when things get messy. 

RELATED LINKS 

• Article: “The one thing your child needs more than a solution” by Doctor Tash
• Episode #3, Mum to Mum with Doctor Tash, "Rupture and repair"

NOTE: The information shared in this podcast does not constitute medical advice. It is for general and educational purposes only. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for advice specific to your situation.

Creators and Guests

Host

Dr Tash

With a focus on conscious, connected parenting and our own self-growth on the beautiful, messy journey of raising children, Dr Tash Ching aims to equip parents to navigate the parenting journey with clarity, compassion and confidence. She helps families build secure, emotionally attuned relationships that support lifelong wellbeing.

Host

Melody

Melody is a passionate advocate for empowering mothers through connection, faith and digital engagement. As the project leader for Mums At The Table, a vibrant community for mothers, Melody leads efforts to create meaningful content that helps mums navigate parenting while fostering deeper relationships with their children and local communities. With a background in media and communication, Melody uses her expertise to engage mothers in digital spaces, equipping them with practical tools for parenting and personal growth. She lives in Sydney with her husband and their primary-school-aged son.

What is Mum to Mum with Doctor Tash?

Parenting isn’t easy and some days, it feels downright impossible. That’s why Mum to Mum with Doctor Tash is here: honest, heart-centred conversations about raising emotionally healthy kids, one connection at a time. Join paediatrician Doctor Tash (Natasha Ching) and host Melody Tan as they unpack the big emotions, everyday struggles and lightbulb moments that come with modern parenting. From tantrums to teen moods, from discipline to self-compassion, each monthly episode offers practical wisdom grounded in science and guided by empathy. This is the place where you’ll find understanding, not judgement. Real talk, not quick fixes. Because parenting isn’t about perfection—it’s about learning, growing and connecting.

Brought to you by Mums At The Table, the team behind Life in the Grey.

MELODY: Today's topic is a very counter-intuitive one. One of which goes against every fibre of my being. I mean, our instincts as parents at the first sign of our child's discomfort is usually to fix the problem, remove the source of discomfort but it turns out it may be the last thing they need. Welcome back to Mum to Mum with Doctor Tash.

Hello Doctor Tash.

DOCTOR TASH: Hi Melody, it's lovely to see you again.

MELODY: It is and we're here to discuss an uncomfortable concept, the idea that when our children are in distress, sometimes it's not about telling them something like, you know, "It's okay, you're okay," even when that's the truth. Instead and I'm gonna defer to the expert here, Doctor Tash, what should we do?

DOCTOR TASH: Yeah, I think the easiest way to understand this is to actually picture yourself in a moment of distress. So imagine you've received really terrible news or something really unexpected and frightening has happened, your heart is racing, you feel shaken, you feel terrible
and someone you love looks at you and says, "It's okay, you're okay." Now, you may logically be okay but at that moment, you really don't feel okay and how does that land? For most of us, it doesn't calm us, like.

MELODY: Sometimes I feel like punching the person.

DOCTOR TASH: Yeah, I mean it makes you go like, you have no idea what's going on for me like and so it suddenly makes you feel totally alone because it's like, okay, we're in a complete disconnect at the moment in terms of I'm not okay, can you not see what's going on here?
I'm talking about us as adults like, you know, we've all had that experience. You're like, are you thinking, what are you thinking? And I'm not saying that to criticise us as parents but like I'm just trying to help us to understand what it feels like and in that experience we don't feel seen, we don't feel heard, we don't feel understood and that's exactly what happens with our kids. So our instinct as parents is because we love them we wanna make them feel better, we wanna remove that discomfort to reassure, to fix like, you know, we say things like, "It's okay, you're okay," cause we want them to be okay and we wanna try and distract them or solve whatever just happened, and I wanna say, don't get me wrong, there's a time and place for distraction. I'm not suggesting there isn't but the thing is, sometimes the child doesn't actually need the problem solved at that moment. What they need is to feel understood.

What they need to feel is I'm not alone in this feeling, a bit like, go back to what we're talking about before and you know, you're standing there feeling terrible. What makes most of us feel better in that moment is having someone just turn around and go, "It's really hard isn't it?" like, "I get it, like, it feels terrible." They're not fixing anything but all of a sudden you're thinking, you're right like, I'm not alone in this like, thank you for seeing my distress, thank you for seeing my discomfort, thank you for seeing my struggle and that's what I'm sort of talking about like, this is a concept of being able to be with someone in the experience of going, I'm not gonna fix my child's distress but I'm gonna offer emotional presence as the comfort and that is actually the foundation for co-regulation and so it's not doing nothing, it's actually doing something very,
very intentional that's very difficult to do, might I add, and it's choosing to acknowledge what's actually real for them instead of trying to move on quickly to the place that usually feels more comfortable for us, if that makes sense.

MELODY: Yes, because it's like, you know, when my kid say, for example, he can't, he's at the playground and he can't climb a certain thing or other and then he starts crying because he's upset about that, the natural reaction is, oh like let me help you you know, let me lift you up and
help you over the obstacle or something like that. Like we're talking something physical and so you're saying that well, there is that option but there is the other option is going, "Hey, you know, I understand it's really hard isn't it?"

DOCTOR TASH: I mean, if you use the physical example and you try and bring it back to the emotional as well, in that physical example, if we come in to the child every time really quickly and help them whenever they start to struggle, what they learn is I'm not supposed to struggle. It's supposed to be easy and the second it's hard, I need someone to do it for me because I can't do it myself and so they don't learn the resilience of going okay, I'm gonna struggle a bit, I might even fall a little bit on this but I'm gonna learn how to climb this and so it takes them much longer to get there, to be able to climb that structure.

It's similar from an emotional perspective as well. If every time our children are struggling, they sort of get hit with, I'm gonna fix your need, I'm gonna fix your need, the lesson they learn in that is struggling is wrong. Feeling discomfort or difficulty is wrong but resilience is learnt through hard times, not through good times. Like we get to be stronger, we get to be resilient, we get to
grow in that setting. Growth really happens when things are a little bit challenging. Not super challenging but just that little bit challenging, beyond just what we're capable of doing that pushes us so that, oh actually I can do this and then we come across that sort of situation again and we can do that as well and I think this concept of being able to be with someone it's not specific to just you're having a hard feeling or you're having a good feeling.

The concept is basically being able to go, okay, how do I just experience this journey with you. You're on a journey which is gonna have some ups, it's gonna have some downs and rather than feeling like it's only the ups that should ever be experienced, realising that the downs are a part of life and that we all have them and that there's just finding that place of balance I suppose you could say, of going how do we journey through this together? And I think the reason I try and give that analogy to us of, or not analogy, that experience of let's see it in our own eyes, is that when we see it in adult point of view, sometimes it's really easy. You go, "Of course I'd hate someone to speak to me like that. Like why would I be okay with that?" Like, or "Yeah, it makes me feel this," but we don't appreciate or see that's actually a bit like the experience our child's having, if that makes sense?

MELODY: I think it's because like the experience that the kids have is very different to what the adults have, like you know, when I vent, I know that when I vent to my husband, I know that it's not a problem that he can fix but I just wanted to vent and I just want him to listen but when it's our kid who is basically, I think in a sense you could say that they are kind of venting as well but because it's something that we know we can fix, we just go, "Oh well, I'm gonna fix it because you're venting. I can fix it I'll fix it."

DOCTOR TASH: Yup and it's because we wanna make it better for them. Like this is driven by love. It is always driven by love. You're trying to help them, you're trying to make it better for them but actually, helping them help themselves is probably the best thing we can ever do
so sometimes it's stepping back and going like, you know, "Oh okay, how can I help you?" and like or even not putting our hands on straight away, talking through it. Sometimes like, a child can do, achieve something just by being supported a little bit. It's like, oh okay, like let's work through this and let, don't get me wrong, we're talking about some physical stuff at the moment but when people are starting to get really frustrated, that's not the time to push on.
A sort of topic of itself as well but like, when kids are really struggling with a physical task, sometimes you push and go, you can do it, you can do it, no, no, no. Meet them where they're at. If they're saying, no, I really need your help, you need to meet them where you're at. Everything about being with someone is being able to just try and appreciate and recognise where are they at in this moment and sometimes, the same person is completely independent in one thing but actually genuinely still needs you to meet that need and so, significant frustration is not what you push through. It's going okay, let's do this together, I'm here with you. Connection always first. So when the connection feels like it's breaking, pull back and help a bit more. For instance in that sort of physical example, if you keep the focus on the connection and remember, connection doesn't have to mean happy but if you keep the focus on connection, then it can help you make, navigate those aspects, if that makes sense but yeah, I think it's really important to recognise as well that connection does not mean happy.

You can be connected to your child and the child can be incredibly unhappy and not thanking you in that particular moment and that doesn't mean you're not remaining connected or having an connected approach to the way you parent with your child. I think it's an important distinction because when we think that they have to be happy at all times we run a really big risk of trying to make everything easy or just give into every whim and that's not actually what our children need and sort of going back to what we're talking about before, like in the article, I shared a story about my toddler crying when we suddenly and unexpectedly left him alone in the corridor with a new nanny and from his perspective we disappeared. Like mum and dad are there, now they've just gone and so when my husband had tried to reassure him with that "It's okay, you're okay," he really meant well with what he was trying to do but from my son's perspective he really wasn't okay.

It's like, "I'm not okay. You just vanished. Like, where is this?" and so that reassurance didn't calm him, it actually escalated him for that same reason as what we described in the adult example before, he's going well, you don't see what actually just happened to me. I'm not okay, like, that was terrifying, like where were you? and the reason and so obviously, cause I know this, like I stepped into the doorway, looked at him mirrored some of the feeling he was having as that sort of visual cue that I'm experiencing what you're experiencing, I understand and all I said was, "That was really scary wasn't it?" and you could see it almost instantly, his body began to soften, his cry slowed. I gave him a cuddle and like, you know, it wasn't that long before he's back to his usual self and I remember both my husband and the nanny had said, yeah, and I sort of explained the concept to them and like, "Yeah, I need to try this more," because it was so visibly clear and I'm not saying that every time you're being with a child's feelings it's gonna be that obvious or that fast.

I think the only reason it was that quick was because it was a fear illustration, where it's like fear
is it, like you know, shock, surprise, fear was able to be navigated through far faster than say significant grief for instance or significant anger, they're big feelings that are gonna take a lot longer for the child to process. That's really what you're doing. You're trying to provide an emotionally safe environment, be the emotional anchor for the child to journey through whatever experience or feeling it is that they're trying to have, if that makes sense.

MELODY: Yes, but I do have a question.

DOCTOR TASH: Absolutely.

MELODY: So you know, you're talking about naming these emotions right, helping them name this fear, so in a way it's kind it's, I guess it's building emotional literacy and you're saying in your example, you're saying that you mirrored it and you voiced out the feelings that your kid is having. In your article you also talked about a child having a meltdown because they were disappointed cause they were given a potato cake instead of, because they were expecting a cookie so you kind of know you knew that right? You could mirror it because you could name what they're having but I'm thinking how sometimes you know, you don't know why they've got the big feelings or even how to name it. Are they frustrated, are they disappointed, are they sad, who knows? How do you like, how?

DOCTOR TASH: It's true. You don't. The reality is you don't but the thing is, you don't need to get it exactly right. You don't need to be perfect. In it also tone matters a lot. So sometimes it's just the emotional feeling, the tone that matters more than the exact words you say. So you don't need to get the emotion exactly right but before I keep going, is there a time that comes to mind to you when you weren't really sure what the feeling actually was?

MELODY: There was a reason why I asked that question. So I was just thinking back to my son. So he's in primary school. Homework. He does homework, he has homework right and every time when he needs to do homework, it's like massive, big feelings and I'm thinking he's angry because you know, he would rather be playing because well I mean, yes, which kid loves homework? So I usually like, I'll try to empathise with him right? I'll do the whole mirroring, oh I know you're angry, it's annoying that you have to do homework when you could be playing but it's what we have to do and he agrees with me. He even agrees with me but it just it didn't feel like it was working still. I mean, he agrees but there's still big feelings and it's still going. It didn't feel like it's working. Then months later and this was just completely by accident, I discovered that he doesn't like doing homework because he feels dumb. He's angry with himself and he's frustrated because he can't get the right answer so all these months, I've been naming the right emotion, he's angry, I guess but it was addressing the wrong reason and so I'm just thinking like, you know, if I had gone back all those months and gone I know you're angry because you feel dumb, I don't know, would it have solved the problem?

DOCTOR TASH: Yup, no, it's a great example and I think it does highlight a couple of things.
So firstly, we don't have to get it exactly right but another aspect of that is often, the child doesn't know and I mean that in the setting, if you think of us as adults, there's sometimes you're like, I'm feeling uncomfortable, I'm feeling this but you don't really know what your trigger was, if that makes sense. Like it takes a lot of time to really learn, to understand what our own emotion, what emotion is we are feeling and I think when you spend a lot of time as an adult doing it you get better at it but say you've never had that experience as an adult or you're still young as a child, you haven't really learnt what this feeling is, if that makes sense.

Like labelling feelings doesn't come intuitively. It doesn't come naturally. It actually comes with learnt experience and modelling and re-experiencing, going, that's what that felt like. Oh yeah, I think I am angry, like that, I see others, like it's two things. It's one, what you see from other people modelling that emotion and how they label it and two, that experience of feeling it inside
on a repeated basis and so at first, you can go, the child might be able to identify something feels icky or something feels wrong, I don't like this feeling, like I identify all that but in terms of teasing it out, am I feeling anger, am I feeling sadness, am I feeling frustration and then a step behind it, with, in your son's example, what's driving that, is actually a couple of more like, quite complex steps, if that makes sense, and so to begin with, they might not know. They really might not know and so when you go, I think you're feeling angry cause you wanna go play, he goes, "Yeah, that sounds like a great reason. Mum's more experienced and smarter than I am so surely that's what's going on," and so we gotta be careful with how we label it to our kids cause they're inclined to agree with us. Like if you think of a toddler, sometimes you're like, why did you keep saying yes when you like, someone ask them they go, yeah, yeah.

MELODY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

DOCTOR TASH: I know the answer is no, why are you still saying yes? There's an inclination to be agreeable especially with those they love a lot because you're wanting to please. There's a natural instinct to wanna please them cause you wanna stay connected and so firstly, they might not know and so within that, when they don't know and we can't label it, we shouldn't be feeling frustrated because the reality is we can't label this. We're trying to tease out, what we're trying to work through them is teasing out, how do I figure out what it is I'm feeling and how do I learn to label it with time and so rather than trying to be and the other, the second aspect of this is one aspect of emotional intelligence, when you sort of start looking into the deeper levels is that you can never ever know with certainty what someone else is feeling or experiencing unless they tell you.

MELODY: Yeah, I completely, true.

DOCTOR TASH: The thing is, you can have an inkling, so you can have an idea. I mean, if you've done a lot of work dealing with your own emotions, working with other people, you can have a degree of what we call attunement, an emotional understanding of what's going on but no matter how experienced you are, you can never know and that is the very concept of emotional intelligence.

When you do some of those things, they look at and go, oh okay what's this person feeling
and the whole concept is you answer and you go no. That's the thing, you don't know, like, unless someone tells you, you don't know and that's not to criticise us, that's actually to make it go, okay well, it's physically impossible to know with certainty what someone else is experiencing and feeling and so therefore what I like to say is, okay, given we know that in the language we use when we're talking to our kids, rather than being certain because the reality is we can't be certain, so try and be a bit more curious.

So instead of saying you're angry, it might be, this feels really hard, like, or I, you know, so state the observation for instance, it's like, "Oh, I see that this is really hard for you at the moment. You're having a hard time doing this homework," but rather than going straight to like going, "You're angry," it's like, "I wonder if, are we feeling a bit frustrated by something?" and so you can like, you can tell that they're frustrated so you can sort of say like, "I wonder if that's what you're feeling," but you're leaving a degree of openness to sort of give them a chance to talk back, if that makes sense, or add to the experience and the reality is when they don't know, early on, they might be like, yeah I don't, like, I don't know, like when our kids say I don't know, sometimes they really don't know what's going on and I think allowing space for that but by modelling that language and by getting used to speaking in that sort of way, that helps, it makes a really big difference in terms of going oh, okay and also doing it ourselves when we go, "Oh, I'm feeling so frustrated right now," like when something happens, we're actually modelling to our child that's watching us have that experience going okay, so that's the emotion you're feeling in this moment and how we respond to our own feelings also shows them whether that's acceptable or not acceptable as well but that's a whole big extra topic but I think in short, you don't have to get the emotion right cause the reality is you're not gonna know, not with certainty
but to shift to slightly more curious language in the way we approach it leaves that openness to be able to take that river journey, and I say river journey cause it's nice and curvy and you don't really know where you're gonna end up, to figure it out in time.

MELODY: It makes sense because yeah, what I do is, oh, you're feeling this because of this and that's just giving him the formula so to speak but instead, it's more of are you feeling this because of this?

DOCTOR TASH: Yeah or even just like, you know, "I see it's really hard, I see you're really frustrated, do you wanna talk about it?" yeah like, "What are you feeling?"

MELODY: I like your reminder though about the whole I don't know because yeah, there are times when I ask him why are you feeling this way or how you feeling or along those lines and then I get that I don't know and I'm like if you don't know, how do I know but yeah, you're right,
it's they really don't know.

DOCTOR TASH: They're not trying to, they're not just trying to be a pain in the butt for lack of a better term. It's sometimes, I don't know, like, I don't know why I'm feeling so angry, I don't know why I'm feeling so frustrated and sometimes that's because teenagers especially are big toddlers. Like no, seriously, toddlerhood is practising for teenagehood because it's navigating big feelings, big emotions and everything but with a whole lot more intelligence and ability to defend and talk back and everything else as well and so it's, our teens are really struggling.

Teenagers, like, adolescence is a really hard time because often you get projected as you're an adult in terms of, you should act like an adult but they're not. They're fundamentally, developmentally not and so they really mean it when it's like, I don't know, like, I don't know what this feeling is inside me. I don't like it, I feel icky and I'm gonna be irritable about it but I don't really know what's driving it.

MELODY: There's the other thing that I really liked about what you said before, about this whole thing of attunement right and I think yes, it does make sense because in recent times, okay one of the patterns I never noticed it myself but one of the patterns that my son has picked up in recent times I've noticed is that I do get a little bit stressed and a little bit short when I know I'm running late or when I'm trying to get out of the house and so now, every time my son pulls me up and he goes, "Are you feeling a bit stressed because you're late?" like he recognises it and he and then that's when I go, "Oh yes, I am," and so I well, you know, I like to think I'm attuned to my child but this time it's like my child's being attuned to me and yeah I like that it's like, you know, the more, I guess what I'm trying to think out of this is that the more you practise it, the more you're gonna be able to recognise it in each other.

DOCTOR TASH: Absolutely. Anything gets better with practise and I think it's always important to remember those analogies. Like my favourite one is the infant learning to walk. An infant learning to walk, when they first start trying, falls all the time, like face plant, pain here, everywhere but the more you practise, the better you get. You fall less, you start getting and that's the same with everything in life but very relevant to this sort of thing because I think sometimes, especially when parents are trying to do this sort of stuff for the first time, they're like okay, I've heard the concept, it makes sense, perfection, I'm gonna get it right but if you've never done it before, the reality is, you're not like, you're really not and that's okay because when you're learning a skill and this is a skill, you don't get it right straight away and it takes time and it takes practise and that's okay and so I think what's more is about normalising things, as in actually anything you choose to do, being attuned to your child, talking in emotional language, trying to sit with your child's feelings, rather than fix them, you go, okay cool, the concept makes sense. I like it, I'm gonna try it and then you go but I didn't get it right. Of course you didn't get it right. It's new and that's okay.

MELODY: It's funny that you said that because this is other thing that I feel like we need to normalise is the fact that you know, we talk about attunement, we talk about being with our kid but and I'm gonna normalise this. I feel uncomfortable when my kid has big feelings not just because I want to fix things for my child right, it's the fact that when they're crying, when they're upset, when they have these big emotions, I'm feeling all of that too and I do not like it. So I'm not calm but then you're saying, you know, we have to be calm and then let them borrow our calm and help them recognise all of these feelings, I can't do that.

DOCTOR TASH: I laugh because I don't doubt that there are parents listening right now who are thinking, yep, that's exactly it and because the other reality is, I totally hear you and I get it and like I want you to know that like, the other day, I had all three kids screaming in the car on the way to swimming and I don't mean like, you know little "ah".

I mean they were screaming screaming. It was loud, it was chaotic, it was not calm and I was not calm. I snapped and not unsurprisingly that just made it all louder and a bigger problem as well
and I felt that guilt almost straight away but actually that guilt really helped me in that moment
because it made me pause and go okay, I am flooded and realise that I was so frustrated and tense and built up and worked up in the moment that there was no calm that they were gonna borrow from me.

I had to do some me work before we're gonna get anywhere further and like, that help me with actually, that guilt help me just go, okay, I need a pause, stop, how do we do things differently and took some breaths, unclenched my jaw, let my shoulders drop and literally at this moment, I did nothing. So I'm sitting, trying to work on me while there is absolute mayhem still erupting around me but I knew that I was utterly useless to them until I was at least a little bit more grounded.

Now let's be real, I was never gonna find zen in that moment. I was never gonna find total peace and total calm but you're not aiming for that. You're just trying to get grounded enough that you can be the parent the leader, have some calm have enough calm that you can give them something to borrow, if that makes sense and so I focused on me until I'd calm myself down enough and then apologised, acknowledged it had been hard and slowly intensity in the car started to come down and I'm not gonna say it just came down straight away like it there was, even after the apologies, there's still lots of crying and lots of screaming but as I was calm and I was consistently giving them that message that I'm still there with them, that helped slowly to bring it down and acknowledging each of their feelings and where they were at with it.

The situation hadn't changed but because I'd changed and I changed the way I spoke to them, that was helping bring things down, if that makes sense, because when we're escalated, that's true for me when I'm escalated, everything else escalates too but when I'm grounded or I can find some calm, it actually gives them something to lean into and so you're right, our children cannot borrow calm that does not exist and it's not about faking it either. It's not about going, okay I gotta pretend I'm calm when I'm not calm. It's actually genuinely going, okay I can't be for you what you need me to be until I sort myself out first and so that might be, I'm taking a moment, I just need to have a second, I need a like, I need a second and it's, so the loving, the most loving thing you can do sometimes is to pause. Find a way to create the calm not by making something that doesn't exist but by working on you first, if that makes sense.

So what does that look like in real life? It can be something of just going up to them and going, I'm not calm right now. It's noticing I'm not calm right now, it might be taking some deep breaths, unclenching your jaw, it might be literally saying nothing for a few seconds because you just don't want to make it worse than you already have, if that makes sense and if you've already lost it, which we all do, trust me, I do, it's being able to go back and repair in that setting and going like, you know, it's the stuff we talked about before. It's going, yeah alright. Use that guilt. Let's turn back. I'm sorry for how I reacted. Not in a big dramatic way but just honestly and then sometimes, it's just being able to turn around and go, I just need a second. Mummy needs a moment, I'll be right back and not making it about them but it's, I need the moment, not you're annoying me so much, I just need a second. I need to calm down and I'll be right back.

MELODY: I'm imagining it right, like let's go back to the homework situation and you know, I'm sitting next to him, he's having this big massive emotions again and then my reaction will be,
you know, why are you so, you know, not calm and and so my reaction should probably, imagine ideal situation would be, you know what, I need a moment, walk out or whatever it is, take some deep breaths and then come back in and go, you don't sound, you don't seem like you're having a very good time.

DOCTOR TASH: Yep. If you're feeling strung or highly strung or whatever term you wanna use, if you're feeling on edge that is not the second to try and go, let's be connected. It's the second to go, okay I need to deal with me first before I can be anything to you and that's okay. Let's normalise that.

There are very few saints in the world who are in that zen and that perfect calm from the word go and those that are, the second aspect of that is, you need to understand that most of them have had that experience their entire life. They've had it modelled to them in the way they were raised or they've had a lot of experience in doing it. So people that just take to this like a duck to water, it's not that they've never experienced it, it's that they've either often grown up in that environment where they've had it modelled and modelled and modelled and learnt that this is just the way you respond and react and that's amazing but the other reality and truth is the vast majority of the population have not had that experience and so when you do this sort of work, you're actually making generational changes and shifts and it is much much harder, much more brave and much more difficult to do and that needs to be commended as well and that's really important to recognise that this is hard because it's change and changing from our innate experiences which have been those usually that we've been brought up in is really, really, really hard work because it is automatic for us to go instantly back to what we know best when we're feeling stressed and to change that narrative takes time.

Remember the infant learning to walk analogy and I like it because it's not like you know, sometimes you give the riding a bike analogy but sometimes people can just be like really good at it straight away, whereas there is no infant we've ever seen learning to walk that got up and walked. All of them have face-planted at some point. Like all of them have come with a bruise like, especially the ones that try really hard like because they fall and get a bruise here and there and so I love the analogy because I think it is a far more realistic illustration of what we actually experience. Like you try this and you go, wow I face-planted with like, emotionally face-planted with my attempt to try and be connected with my kid or sit with their big feelings but that's okay. I'm practicing, I'm learning, if that makes sense.

MELODY: That makes perfect sense because you know, I think about the fact that I beat myself up about the fact that you know, I can't do this you know, regulation with him and being there with him in his big moments well enough all the time, like I beat myself about it all the time but then you know, what you said just now about how this generational thing right and it really got me thinking about you know what, yes, that was what I grew up with. When we had big emotions, it's like, you know, just be quiet, you don't have to do this and it's like, when we have big emotions the adults have the big emotions as well and they come down really hard. So yes, it hasn't been modelled to me. I'm not blaming anybody, it's just what we've known but it's because so if it hasn't been modelled to me, of course it's gonna be hard and I like that little bit of grace that you've given me, given us and the other thing that I really liked about what you said as well is the whole toddler face-planting, having a bruise and it just makes me think about the fact that you know, when I try and I fail, I do feel very bruised because I feel like I failed but yes I'm still trying to walk.

DOCTOR TASH: So I want to normalise that for people that that's a part of the process. It is so normal to fall and get bruised. To try and "fail" as in like to try and not get it right, that's okay. Like sometimes we, especially parents that are really trying in this, they go, I get the concept, I love what you're saying, yes, I'm gonna do it and it's like, it didn't work or or not so much it didn't work but I sucked, like it just, I couldn't do it, like I tried so hard and I couldn't do it.

You never done it before, you're the infant trying to learn for the first time. Face-plant, it's normal, it's okay and with the generational thing, I know you said it but I really wanna say it again, we're not here to criticise our parents, we're not here to criticise the last generation like or every, any generation or our friends or anything. Most parents are doing the very, very best they can with the information that they have on hand, the resources they have around them, the support network they have, their own internal states and everything that they have within their capacity at that time and we know and appreciate that, does not mean that it was a perfect environment or it was a perfect setting but they've done the best they can and so it's not trying to knock down someone else by saying that, it's just acknowledging that that's a part of our journey that we all have, cause the reality is if you put them back, now go into their shoes, they probably had similar experiences and they've learnt from what they've learnt.

The reality is that these days we have so much more information which is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in the setting of we have the information and we have the ability to make the changes and to try and do better but we have so much information that it can feel like everything contradicts as well and everything saying this and saying that and if I don't do everything that everyone is telling me to do then I can't do it right and actually that's not helpful and so that's why I really wanna bring it back to normalising this, to normalising the struggle, to normalising the challenge and I mean, this isn't quite what the topic we're talking about but this is so important as well that it really is so important to be kind and gracious to ourselves and to others and to recognise that we're not always good at this.

I know I'm not, I'm like, I can be like critical of myself or in truth, I can be critical of my husband
in the way he approaches things too and it's actually having to try really hard to keep ourselves in check and to try and work through that compassion and grace that actually we're all doing the very best we can and how we're learning takes time. How we're learning takes time and that's okay and it's okay that we're not gonna get it right all the time and it's okay that I understand the concept and I'm not gonna suddenly feel calm or that you know, even no matter how much I did my me-work, that particular time I didn't manage to calm down, it exploded more and I just had to go back and repair. That's okay. If all you did was keep your children alive, safe and alright and you managed to repair later, you did a wonderful job.

MELODY: So now that we've, you know, hopefully encouraged some people and left them with less uncomfortable feelings, we're gonna have to wrap up but before that, as we do every episode, what's the one takeaway that you've got for our listeners?

DOCTOR TASH: I think that I would love people to take away the message that when our children have big feelings, our job is not to fix the storm, it's to be the steady anchor or to try to be the steady anchor, the steady safe presence that they can borrow until they find their footing again and that fixing is not the goal, it's just being there with them through it.

MELODY: Thanks for that. I suppose that's our challenge for today. When those big feelings hit, don't rush to repair. Just show up. You don't have to get it right, you just have to be present. Let us know how you go. You can write to us at [e-mail] with your thoughts, reflections or even a question that you've got about parenting.

Don't forget to read Doctor Tash's full article on being with our children at MumsAtTheTable.com or check out the link in the show notes. If you found today's episode helpful, please subscribe and share it with a friend who might need a little self-compassion today. See you next time on Mum to Mum with Doctor Tash and see you next time Doctor Tash.

DOCTOR TASH: See you later, thanks Melody.

MELODY: Bye.