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In this important episode, Jess and Scott dive deep into the root cause of challenging behaviours in both children and adults: separation. Jess explains how our core need for closeness drives many of our reactions, from clingy children to angry adults.
Jess shares some eye-opening insights on:
* Why behaviours like clinging, whining, and crying happen
* Why kids are so angry all the time
* Why common parenting strategies make behaviour worse
* How separation emotions manifest as frantic pursuit, anger, and eventually apathy
* Why "attention-seeking" behaviours are actually attempts to reconnect
* The importance of allowing children (and ourselves) to feel sadness and shed tears
* Real-life examples of helping children through separation struggles
Listeners will gain a new perspective on behaviours they may have labelled as "defiance" or "acting out" and learn practical strategies for rebuilding closeness and connection.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Do you have a question you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email to podcast@robotunicorn.net and let us know. We'd love to hear from you!
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
What was the top what was our topic of discussion today?
I just had the biggest deja vu.
I'm not even kidding
Like you've lived this before.
I've lived this before.
No, I swear to you that like two years ago, and this happens to be more often.
Two years ago, I swear, I had a dream that we were recording a podcast together talking about separation
And we were sitting like this talking about separation.
And now it's happening.
It's a glitch in the matrix.
Yeah, it is.
I'm I'm not kidding.
This has happened to me multiple times where I've had dreams about something.
And then all of a sudden, like one time I had a dream and then
We were like walking through this place and then years later we you and I were walking at Disneyland together and it was the place that I dreamed about like years prior.
Anyway.
Like on a running moon?
Yeah.
I don't know if you ever told me that.
I remember we were walking through Carsland and I was thinking to myself, like, I have dreamt this exact location.
And it was weird
So this is like almost eleven years later to the day and now you're just finally telling me that you're not going to be able to do that.
You'd think about going to Disneyland once a week?
No, like once a week I think about how weird it was when we walked through Dis Disneyland, the cars land, and in my head I was like
I've dreamt this exact thing, like doing this exact thing with Scott.
I think about that later.
But how is it that you've never told me this?
I don't know.
I thought I had.
Who are you?
I'm a dreamer.
Honestly, it's kind of weird.
But anyway, I dreamt this.
I dreamt this conversation before.
What is the point of this podcast today?
Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite topics of all time
Do you know what that is?
Separation.
Yep, I want to talk about separation today.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Yeah.
Especially the two youngest.
have been very clingy to you lately.
Yeah.
And whiny.
Yeah.
And there's been a few extra tantrums lately.
A few.
And you said that there is one major contributing factor to this.
Yeah.
So what is that?
Why is that happening?
Especially right now, why is that happening so much?
Like it should be kind of have we've been on vacation.
We're having
Fun as a family.
We're doing stuff outside.
We're not cooped up in the house because it's snowing or anything and cold.
We're actually outside doing stuff.
So why are they so whiny and clingy?
What's the reason for it?
Well, I want to talk about two things actually because I think when we're talking about why are our kids right now so whiny and clingy, right now
in the general context of things, it's two weeks before school starts, it's the end of the summer.
So I just feel like that needs to be noted and we've been really out of routine lately.
AK there's been no routine.
We were just on vacation.
There was no nap schedule.
Bedtime was late.
So I do feel like I have to say that first, right?
Like the kids have been tired.
They've been out of routine.
There's been a lot of big changes in their life.
So that's definitely impacting these clingy, whiny emotions a lot.
But I think if we talk about whining, clinging and challenging behavior as a whole, there's a deeper reason than just being tired and overwhelmed.
Of course there is.
Of course there is.
Why wouldn't there be?
Yeah.
And I actually told Scott I want to talk about this specific topic because it's been really on my mind lately.
Because I think that this specific reason that we're gonna get into today
is the reason why adults struggle with their behavior and the reason why children struggle with their behavior.
What do you mean by that?
How do adults struggle with their behavior?
Like what's an example of that?
Let's say an example of that is you are in an argument with your partner and you
are worried that they don't love you anymore or that they're mad at you or that there's some sort of rupture in your relationship and you're wondering why
your first instinct is to like be super nice to them, right?
Like to go above and beyond yourself.
Like a lot of people will do this, right?
Send them flowers, like do all of these things to pursue your partner, even if just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like I need some space
I just need some time to think about this.
Yep.
That would be one of the things that I'm talking about, how this comes out in adult behavior.
Or you have a friendship and
you're struggling with your friendship and you're doing everything that you can to keep that friend close, even though maybe that friend has hurt you a lot.
That's the kind of behavior I'm talking about that we see in adults.
Yeah, okay, I can see that.
Mm-hmm.
Being a boss, same thing, right?
Like it's a similar idea.
Yeah
Okay.
So the issue that I want to talk about today in depth that we haven't talked about that much is separation.
And when we
say the word separation.
Like we're really thinking about, okay, well, I'm just not with the person, right?
Like, oh, I have separation from my friend.
Yeah, my friend lives here and I live here.
We have separation.
But what I'm talking about is more of that emotional
separation from someone.
And so when we talk about separation being the root cause of so many behavioral struggles in adults and in children.
We need to look at why that is, right?
And why it is, is our core need as a human being on this earth is to feel some sort of closeness and togetherness with those that we love.
So a child, their core need, their number one need that they have is to feel dependent and close to their parent.
So our child, let's talk about whining, it's her
Core need to feel close to me.
Now, if something comes up that makes her feel not close to me, this is where separation comes in, right?
So there's so many things that can make a child feel this separation and my
mentor, colleague, Dr.
Deborah McNamara and Gordon Neufeld, they talk about it as separation emotions.
Like these emotions that come with separation come up.
Right.
So there's a lot of reasons why this could happen for a kid.
So for example, for us, we have a four-year-old going to junior kindergarten for the first time in two weeks
She knows that this big change is coming and that's gonna lead to separation from mom and dad.
And I can see in her clinging, crying, wanting to be close to me, that those separation emotions are completely taking over her brain right now.
She wants to stay close to me.
And so the behavior that we see is clinging, whining, crying, doing everything to keep me close, even though
It kind of pushes me away more because the behavior is frustrating.
But right now she is in the first stage of the separation emotions, which is like this relentless pursuit of the person who you feel separate to
school is a reason that might happen, but we also might see that in kids who just had a new baby come into the family and all of a sudden they don't feel that same closeness with their parent that they did.
Like we've had that with the girls and we've had new babies in the family.
And
their separation emotions, which are telling them I'm not close with mom and dad, like I need to stay close with them.
They start taking over and they become frantic to keep you close.
And you see it in hitting
Yeah, right.
You're trying to get that attention through.
Maybe not the best way, but still getting them attention.
They're trying to get attention.
They're trying to gain connection.
And I think a lot of times these behaviors that are
Frantic ways to keep you close are just labeled as they're just attention seeking.
And just ignore it.
Ignore it and it will stop
But what doesn't stop is the child's need for closeness.
What might stop is the frantic behaviors.
And so the frantic behaviors are actually a good sign.
they're a sign that their child's still trying to keep you close.
Once that stops, then we sometimes move to anger.
So sorry, you're saying that's a good sign.
So is it it's a bad sign if they just don't care at all?
Yeah
Okay.
I would rather see a child care and be frantic and trying to keep their parent close.
Yep.
Even though it makes us frustrated as parents and we can talk about how to deal with that frustration than a child who doesn't care at all
Like a child that is so shut down.
Like that's kind of the They're just apathetic towards the They're completely apathetic.
And that's kinda the final stage of the separation emotions, right?
So the separation emotions it starts with this frantic energy, right?
I gotta keep you close no matter what.
And that looks like the crying, the whining, even like the hitting of the baby.
Like I know if I hit my baby sister, then my mom's gonna give me attention because she's gonna be disciplining me, right?
After that, it turns into like a frustration or aggression.
So in our practice, we'll get a lot of kids come in that are quote unquote angry.
But when we unpack that anger, often underneath all of this anger is just this core need for closeness with their parent
that they're not getting.
And so maybe they tried these frantic behaviors to get close, but it wasn't working, they're being shut down
Now it's turning into anger.
It's turning into idol.
So it would be that would be the next stage of it?
Is that they Okay.
So like if you can nip it in the bud, then you could potentially forego the next stages.
Yeah
Okay.
I'm just trying to understand, like be able to comprehend how this works.
Or if it's they have to go through all these stages to No, it's not always linear either, right?
But these are the ways that separation struggles present themselves.
So sometimes we have a child who is presenting themselves as angry.
We see it all the time in kids.
They come in, the parents like they're still angry all the time.
It's like, okay, so let's talk about it.
How are you disciplining them?
What's happening?
Right?
Well, I send them to their room to deal with it, you know.
They can't treat their sister that way.
I send them to their room.
They have to sit alone and time out and think about what they've done
But what does sitting in a room alone with all these emotions signal to the child?
Right?
More separation.
I'm alone.
I'm alone with my feelings.
someone's not here helping me with them.
So a lot of the times the strategies that we are using to help a child who is completely overcome with separation struggles is to separate them from us even more.
Like that's the strategy.
And then we wonder why kids are more angry, more aggressive, or eventually shut down and are not close with the parent at all and don't feel comfortable talking to them.
because we're using strategies that are rooted in separation in order to fix those separation struggles.
Right?
It's the same for like sleep training a toddler.
A toddler who just wants to feel close with their caregiver and they come out of bed looking for you
Right?
These are all separation emotions taking over.
They lay in their bed and they're like, what the heck?
I'm supposed to lay here for ten to twelve hours by myself.
You know, they're not thinking that exact thing, but they're thinking that's the feeling in their that's the feeling.
Their nervous system
I'm alone.
I'm alone.
Wait.
I need to be close with someone.
I I don't know how to make sense of the world by myself, so they come out of bed looking for you.
And then we bring them back to the bed and we close the door and some sleep trainers will tell you just lock it.
Lock it, let them cry on the other side, they'll eventually learn.
This is common advice that is still being given right now and it's very, very upsetting.
It goes against child development.
And like or hold the door shut, let them cry on the other side.
Eventually they'll learn that you're not coming back in
Well what are we doing again?
We're treating a separation struggle with a solution that's rooted in more separation
So what are we doing to kids?
We're teaching them, you are alone with your emotions and I cannot help you with closeness.
And so what happens then is we have a generation of kids.
that are being trained this way that learned that they can't rely on their caregiver to help them cope with these feelings.
They don't have that
feeling of closeness and they have to turn down those instincts inside of themselves to preserve themselves from being hurt by their parent over and over.
And so we see kids that are angry, they have attention issues, they're struggling at school
But when we get to the root of it, what's there?
Do you know what I'm gonna say?
You tell me.
Sadness.
I did not have that
We have kids who are being labeled as angry kids who are sad and who are seeking closeness, but they seek closeness through ways that push us away.
And that's why I want to talk about separation today because I think we aren't seeing that.
We're missing that.
And I see it all the time in my therapy practice.
It's like
they're angry and the teachers are like, Well, how can we discipline them?
Let's keep them in at recess.
Let's tell their parents and then they get picked up early from school and the first thing their parents does like, How how could you do that?
No T V time for a week.
Go to your room as soon as you get home
Like we're dealing with these kids anger and aggression by more and more separation, which is just only leading to more challenging behavior.
When the answer is so clear, they need to get back into right close relationship with their caregiver.
And
I think where we maybe could have started is we did talk about this, but the child's number one need is closeness with their caregiver.
This is because when they're close with the caregiver, that's how they make sense of the world.
Right?
Like a toddler does not know how to make sense of the world.
Look at our toddler.
She's just like, oh, a light.
Okay, cool.
Let's go look at it.
Oh.
Yeah, right.
Like let's wander over here and look at this.
We look at our four-year-old
You know, she's trying to make sense of the world, but she doesn't understand most things, right?
She needs us.
Like
Oh, I'm just thinking about what she did last night at dinner.
Standing up on her chair and then all of a sudden, like almost basically like what is that proselytizing or like preaching at us basically.
And it was all a bunch of gibberish and moving her hands up and down and we had to copy her but she just making the connection that
if she does that and has a big smirk on her face, then we'll all probably just copy what she does and she has a lot of power in that situation.
Yeah, exactly.
And they act like they want to be in control.
They act like they want to be the leader.
They will say things that pain you, like, I hate you, mommy, or I don't want you.
or leave me alone.
But at the root of all of this and what Dr.
Gordon Newfeld would describe this is as like their alarm systems going off, right?
So instead of letting you hurt me, I'm just gonna be really defensive.
I'm gonna say I hate you, I'm gonna say I don't like you, I'm gonna push you away, I'm gonna hit the baby, I'm gonna
do all of these things so that I can't feel the pa' pain of not being close with you.
Okay.
Right?
And so we see this, especially as kids get older, they have their defenses up
And they push and push and push you away.
And my challenge to parents would be when your child is pushing you away, it's when they need you most.
And our job as their parent or their caregiver is to see how we can soften those defenses and come back into a close relationship with them.
So those instincts within yourself as their caregiver.
Like I know I had this this weekend when they were like clinging and crying.
I'm like, holy crap.
Like I need everyone off me.
I literally said that
Right.
I need everyone off me.
I need a break and that's valid.
That's valid feeling.
But I know that even though my instinct is to like push them away because I'm getting very frustrated by this behavior
These kids need me to be close with them.
They need those moments of connection.
And if they don't get that, like I'm at a very critical stage with them right now.
If they don't get these moments of connection, we're gonna start leading into aggression, we're gonna start leading to anger.
We're gonna lead to more of this alarm system going off.
And eventually, if I never get to that point of closest with them, we're gonna get to the point of apathy.
It's like fine, won't ask for you anymore then.
Yeah
And we don't want to get there with our kids.
Does that make sense?
I feel like I'm rambling as always, but I mean I think it does.
And I've been thinking about this so much because I think it's true.
even in our adult relationships.
Even in our relationships that might be broken or hurt with our own parents or our own friends.
Or our spouses.
When we feel a close attachment with someone, whether that's a friend, a parent, or spouse, we'll have these same reactions when separation happens.
Yeah, I mean you had that recently
And a relationship that you thought was real seemed to be uh not so real anymore.
And that I saw you doing that same thing.
I had these same things happen to me.
I had the first was like this pursuit of like no I I need to pursue.
I I need to stay in this close relationship and then it's do everything you can to fix it.
Do everything I can to fix this.
Yep.
when really what was happening at the root of all of my separation emotions that were going on was a sadness, was a loss of togetherness, was a loss of closeness.
Mm-hmm
And I think even as adults, if we can start to see that in our own patterns, a lot of people will have this especially in like romantic relationships.
I used to have this with you.
Where as soon as you'd be grumpy with me or mad at me, I would like start cracking jokes.
I would start doing all these things that you like, trying to break the tension.
And like try to pursue you to make you happy with me when really maybe you needed some space and we were actually okay in
in our relationship, but the separation emotions would take over because underneath what was all happening, which is like me trying to make you happy and all of this stuff
was this like deep fear of being alone.
Yeah.
Right?
And not being in right relationship with you.
And I see this happen with people with their parents all the time too, right?
Like
they are now grown and their parents don't agree with something that they're doing and their parents tell them and then they're still afraid as adults because we always crave relationship with our parents, they're still afraid of
losing that relationship with their parent.
So they'll abandon themselves and what they truly believe and feel to make things right with that parent.
And they'll relentlessly pursue that parent
And then if the parent's not reciprocating that, it turns into anger, it turns into aggression like frustration.
Oh, I hate my parent, they're the worst.
But underneath all of that is again the sadness and this longing to be close.
And sometimes the answer will not be, as an adult, being close with that parent.
Right.
I know you had that with one of your parents.
We went through the same stages, I think.
We went through the stage of like, let's make this work.
Let's do what what we can to make this work with this parent because we want a relationship with this person and
We went through the stages of anger and upset and all of that.
But I think the only way that you really healed with the relationship with your parent was when you became sad.
Yeah, I think that's true.
And I think in some times, sadness is the answer to separation struggles.
And like it wasn't until you were able to actually Well I probably never knew that it was sadness.
Yeah.
You know, it presented as anger for a really long time.
It wasn't until something happened that you were able to see, oh I'm just sad.
I'm grieving a loss
And that happened to me as well when I lost a close friendship, right?
It's like all of these feelings are happening and it's anger and it's this pursuit and it's all of these things.
But underneath all of that was just a sadness and a loss.
And sometimes as parents or as adults
When we have this happen, we need to get to the point where we can cry.
And we need to get to the point where we can release our tears and then we can move forward with our lives.
Just like children.
Just like children.
We are.
That's what I was gonna say.
Yeah, it was what I was gonna say.
Just like our kids.
So sometimes with our children and they have these this separation emotion, this energy, we can help them with it, right?
When it's to be close with us, we can help them with it.
We can help them release tears.
So for example, you have a new baby and your child is acting out, clinging, crying, whining, hitting the baby.
What you're gonna do is you're gonna see how you can find what we call tiny moments
like those tiny moments with your child and try and build closeness back in so that they know you're still caring for them.
It's things like, hey, I know it's really tough right now and I'm really missing hanging out with you.
Like what can we do together?
And
It's also allowing them to feel feel their tears about it.
You're not gonna fix it all.
But when we can get to the root of the separation struggles, which is like a sadness over maybe not being as close or
things in life changing and our child can cry about it, things can really shift.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger
siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
So Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent.
Education for years.
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read, facial cues.
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There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff, like tickling that goes too far, and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurtur
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So check the course out at nurturedfirst.
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And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
I'll give you an example.
So our daughter is starting a new school, junior kindergarten.
So first time going to kindergarten.
It's a big deal for a highly sensitive girl and for any child, truly.
And we've just had a lot of other changes in our life going on, so a lot of new things.
She hasn't cried about it at all.
But she's been very clingy and whiny and all of that.
Last night we are gonna go walk to the park
And Scott and I just bought a new wagon.
It's great.
We love it.
Our old wagon that we've been using is absolutely falling apart and literal trash.
Like it's so hard to do.
Just like our stroller was.
Just like our stroller was.
It's so bad.
Our daughter sits down in the old wagon and she goes, We're taking the old wagon to the park today.
I said, No, I'm not driving that thing to the park.
We have a brand new wagon.
It works great.
We're gonna go in in the new wagon
She says, nope, I'm not going in the new wagon.
And I said, I'm not going to the park with you unless you go in the new wagon.
Set a boundary.
That's fine.
she loses her mind.
Like she's sitting in the old wagon and she has not had a meltdown like this in a long, long time.
Like she's four and sh her meltdowns have been pretty rare lately.
Yep.
This was epic.
It was screaming, it was hitting, it was yelling, it was crying.
And I sit beside her as she's doing all this and I go, huh.
I wonder if sometimes new things are a little bit tricky.
And the tears just started streaming down her face.
And she just goes, news really hard.
And it just like starts bawling.
She's like
And I have to go to a new school too.
I'm like, oh, okay.
There it is.
Profound.
It was profound.
I said to Scott after I'm like
There it is, you know, like I could see this girl as being angry and defiant because she won't get in this new wagon.
But I immediately identified what was going on because I was like
Yeah, this is another change for you.
You know, and this is little, but sometimes the tears that need to come out will be over something that seems little, right?
But it's not about them.
But they're related.
But they're related.
And so I just sat by beside her and my other my toddler's running around.
And I just go, yeah.
New things are really tricky sometimes.
I'm just like, it's so tricky.
And like, I don't know, I I can't go to the new school.
It's so tricky.
I don't know anybody there.
And she just starts telling me all the concerns that she's having with the new school
And I just go, okay, well, how about you hop in the new wagon and let's talk about it on our walk?
And it was fine.
So it wasn't about the wagon.
Yeah.
And she didn't actually care about the wagon.
She loves a new wagon.
We know that, right?
So she hops in the new wagon the whole way over we talk about school and how we're gonna prepare for it and how mummy's gonna be looking out for her and
all the things that we're gonna do to help her feel close to me while she's at school, right?
Like we're gonna make matching bracelets and we're gonna write hearts on both of our hands and I'm gonna put notes in her lunch so she can think of me and and we do all of that and then she's feeling a lot better by the time we get to the park.
But those are the moments that I think we sometimes miss and then punish that child for, right?
So she's being quote unquote defiant.
She won't get into the wagon she's supposed to
If at that moment I said, okay, go on timeout, you're not listening to me, right?
And now I'm adding even more separation to
the situation that's happening because of those emotions, like what lesson am I giving her?
And and that's why I want to have this conversation because I think
It's so easy to slip into that because that behavior is so inconvenient to us and it's frustrating and it looks like defiance, but there's so much more going on underneath the surface
I was thinking about another example of this.
Scott and I, we went to Portugal for our 10th anniversary.
I feel like this is the prime example.
Oh, yeah.
Same daughter.
Yep.
Our highly sensitive kids will struggle even more with separation.
But same daughter.
So we went to Portugal right before our anniversary and I did everything I could to try and bridge the separation before we went.
Like I wrote her love notes, we talked about the trip, I put hearts on both of our hands, like I did all the things.
But while we were away on on the trip, it was the longest I've ever been away from her
Something like shut down in her towards me.
So we didn't even have like the anger, the aggression, the pursuit.
Yeah
She to preserve herself just shut down.
Yep, and I was her favorite.
Yeah.
When we got home, she would not be with me.
She would not have a hug from me.
She would not be
Buy me.
She called me gross and yucky.
She told me she didn't like mommy over and over and over.
She told me she only loved daddy.
Like she pushed me away so hard.
Yeah.
And it was honestly so difficult.
Like internally I was so sad.
My own separation emotions were coming up.
And so then I'm trying this like this pursuit to get her close, but it was just pushing her away even more.
And
I can't say I uh I didn't hate it.
Well you liked being the favorite one for a while.
For a while there is that.
But I've never seen that type of behavior from her before.
It was like she just shut down towards me and usually we're very close.
Yeah.
And it took me several weeks to rebuild that.
And it was showing up for her in tiny moments.
It probably took like a month.
Over a month maybe.
It took a long time to rebuild it.
Like for me as the parent, it was heartbreaking.
And I can see how parents who don't know that have to keep showing up, even when they keep pushing me away, right?
Like I would do things like I would just make her favorite food for dinner and be like, I'm thinking of you.
I made your favorite food.
I made your mac and cheese for dinner.
She'd be like, pfft, I don't like mommy.
And I have to control my reaction to that.
She doesn't want to feel hurt.
Yep.
She doesn't want to feel that separation again.
So I have to tell myself that, right?
Just keep showing up, Jess.
Keep showing up.
Even though she's saying she hates you and she doesn't like you.
So I kept doing these little things that I knew m mattered to her.
Did she say that or did she just say I like daddy?
No, she would say I don't like you, mummy.
Mummy, you're gross.
I don't like you.
Mummy's yucky.
I got a lot of that
And I kept showing up for her, kept doing little things that I knew that she would like, kept just saying, you might think I'm yucky, that's okay.
I do love you.
And like I just kept doing that over and over
And then one day Scott was away and we were watching TV and she wanted a certain show on.
I couldn't figure it out.
She said the show with the ball.
I'm like, every show has a ball in it.
Like I don't know what show you're talking about
And she got so mad again.
It was like this huge meltdown.
And she had not had a meltdown since before we left for Portugal.
And this was like a month later.
And I was like thinking to myself, man, this girl has some tears that have to come out eventually
Right and tears, uh who says this?
Gabor Dr.
Gabor Mate is like we'll all be saved through an ocean of tears or something like that, right?
Like we gotta have the tears.
So eventually she goes
Mom, you gotta put the show on with the ball.
And I'm like, I can't find it, hun.
I'm trying, you know, I'm trying to help her.
And she gets so mad at me, she starts hitting, yelling, having a meltdown.
I'm like, hun, why are you so mad
And she just goes, you know why I'm mad at you.
You left me.
I'm like, oh, finally, here we go.
It took a month.
And so I take her upstairs.
It's just the two of us.
And she's like, you left me, mommy.
And she's just slapping me, hitting me, and I'm I'm trying to set boundaries around it, but I know internally I'm so happy
Like internally, I was so, so, so happy because I was like, I know this will be a turning point.
She has to cry about how mad she was that I left on that trip.
And by the way, when I went to Portugal, I had just gone to Nashville for a work trip before that.
And I think I had one other work trip before that.
So I had work trip, work trip ten days away or whatever in Portugal.
So it it was a lot of separation for her.
That's why it was so hard.
Anyway, so she's hitting me, she's like slapping me.
You know why I'm mad at you, you left me.
And then I said, Yeah, I did leave you.
And that was really hard, wasn't it
And then she just sobbed in my arms.
She stopped hitting all the things for like 30 minutes.
She just cried.
And I of course I'm bawling too
And we have this this moment of like hugging on the bed and this repair.
And after that, there was no more you're yucky mommy, I don't like you.
It completely changed
And again, like in that moment when she's hitting me and the tears are finally about to come, those are the moments when parents are like, okay, go to your room, you're not listening.
You know, and I want to encourage parents, that's sometimes our children, they need to cry these tears, tears of futility, the tears about how hard life is, the tears of separation.
And when we allow sadness, we can get to it, then we can move forward and we see less challenging behavior.
You don't always have to fix everything, every single situation for your kids, because that's not reality either
I could never fix that situation.
It had to happen the way it happened.
We I mean we didn't have to go on a tenth anniversary trip, but we did.
You know, I can't fix it.
We went on that trip.
Like that happened.
And I'm not gonna sit there and be like I'm so sorry, Mummy should've never went on the trip.
Like that's not what it's about.
She needed to
feel the tears of how hard that was.
And when I can be that calm presence for her, she learns that she can navigate disappointment, she can navigate grief, she can navigate these hard emotions.
And how well will that serve her later in life?
Like how many adults do we know who struggle with angry?
Oh, that guy's really angry.
He's just an angry man.
Right.
That woman, yeah, she's just rude.
Like are they rude?
Are they angry or are they sad?
And they can't feel that sadness
I would argue that they're sad.
And underneath an angry man and an angry woman is those tears that can't come out because they're so highly defensive and they don't have a way to feel safe to let out those tears.
So that's separation for ya.
It's just very chill topic.
Very chill topic, yeah.
Well, I think that's a good place to end.
Yeah.
I think if people have uh any questions or comments, please send us an email.
But I think that's a good thing.
Yeah, and I'm sure you will send it.
This is
It's a big topic.
Yeah.
And it's one we'll talk about again and again, but it's something that I think is just incredibly important.
To have in mind.
A lot of that stuff is new information for me too.
So there you go.
Thanks for sharing
Well, thank you for listening again to my ramblings.
I'm happy you're here.
And Scott and I also just want to say, well, I'm just making this up, but I think you want to say this too.
Just thank you for the support of the podcast
Yeah.
It's been amazing support.
Yeah, it's been amazing support.
We read the DMs.
Like if you send them to me on Nurtured First, I read them to Scott.
We talk about them together.
Your feedback on this podcast is what shapes it.
Yeah, for sure.
We're trying to make it evolve into what people want.
So I mean, it being our first few months doing this.
We appreciate all the support and the uh the feedback that we've received so far.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Like we could never have imagined how many lives this podcast would already touch and that comes from you listening
sharing it, talking about it, and we just really appreciate you.
So thank you.
We're so glad that you're here.
Thanks.
See you next time
Talk next time.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode
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