Climbing Fish Parenting

Your teen's friends make a plan, like a haunted hay ride, and your teen is excited to be asked but dreading the plan itself. If you're wondering how to help your teen say "that's not for me" without losing their friends, whether it's Halloween, a horror movie, or any plan that doesn't feel right, this episode walks through what helps. In this episode: Why saying "that's not for me" about a hay rid...

Halloween isn't only about costumes and candy. For a lot of kids, it's a night of unspoken social rules: who's going with whom, who got invited, and what happens when your child's plans don't match everyone else's. If you're wondering how to help your child through the social side of Halloween, whether they're in elementary school, middle school, or wired differently, this episode walks through wh...

Your child falls apart, and in the moment you can't tell whether they're overwhelmed or upset that the answer is no. If you've ever wondered whether you're looking at a meltdown or a tantrum, and why the same response helps one day and backfires the next, this episode explains what's usually going on underneath and what each situation needs. In this episode: Why a child falling apart can come from...

Your child refuses the coat, insists they're not cold, or takes it off miserable ten minutes later, and every morning feels like a standoff. If you're wondering why kids fight the jacket even when they're clearly too cold, too warm, or uncomfortable, this episode explains what's usually going on underneath.   In this episode: Why a child who's running around can honestly feel warm while the adults...

Homework shouldn't take forty-five minutes for ten problems — but somehow it does, and it turns into a fight nobody wanted. If your kid stalls before starting, gets stuck demanding answers you can't give, or melts down the second you sit down together, this episode is for you. In this episode: Why the same homework meltdown can come from four completely different places What it actually looks like...

All summer they were around — at dinner, in the car, saying yes to things. Then the door started closing a little harder than it needed to. One-word answers. Everything you ask lands like too much. You didn't lose your kid. But you can feel the distance, and you're not sure how to cross it. In this episode: Why a withdrawn teen is usually running on a nervous system that's already on edge — and wh...

You're sitting on the edge of your kid's bed, reassuring them for the tenth time — you're safe, it's okay, that won't happen — and it lands for about ninety seconds before the next question comes. Forty-five minutes in, they're more wound up than when you started, and you can't shake the question: why is this getting worse? In this episode: Why reassurance, past a certain point, feeds a child's an...

Picture a teenager who was moderately engaged all summer — around, at dinner, saying yes to things. Then school gets close, and the door starts closing a little harder than it needs to. Moodier. Doesn't want to do anything, or only wants to be out with friends. Every question lands like too much. You didn't lose your kid. This is back-to-school anxiety, grown up. In this episode: Why teen overwhel...

You built the beautiful plan — the one where this is finally the year it all runs like a machine. And by day three you're standing in the kitchen realizing you've fed everyone but yourself, running on cold coffee and getting short with everyone, thinking: this is not sustainable. In this episode: Why the "fix everything" plan falls apart every year — and why it's a design problem, not a discipline...

Your kid was thriving all summer — handling things that used to be hard, genuinely in their element. And then, a couple weeks before school, they couldn't be in the same room as their siblings without it exploding, and refused fun activities they love. You have no idea what is wrong. Nothing was wrong. School was coming. In this episode: Why anxiety so often comes out sideways — as anger and meltd...

You've wondered — maybe more than once — whether there's something going on with your kid that has a name. And you've decided you'd rather not find out. Not because you don't care, but because a diagnosis feels scary, or final, or like it might change everything. In this episode: Why not knowing doesn't protect your child from who they are — and what it costs to keep guessing instead of understand...

It's eleven at night, everyone's finally asleep, and you're on your phone with a list of providers open in front of you — no idea how to tell one from the next, feeling like you were supposed to already know the difference. Nobody handed you the glossary. So let's sort it out. In this episode: Why an evaluation isn't a fixed product you buy — it's a judgment about what your specific kid actually n...

Two families, same neighborhood pool, same Saturday afternoon. One leaves after about forty minutes — daughter smiling, a little sun-pink, tired in the good way. The other stays the full four hours and leaves in a complete meltdown, son sobbing in the parking lot, nobody quite sure what went wrong. If you'd only seen them arrive, you'd have guessed it would go the other way. In this episode: Why "...

A dad spent three weekends trying to get his daughter to jump off the diving board — "just do it, you'll see it's fine" — and three weekends of tears. What actually worked was smaller than anything he'd tried: sitting on the edge with her feet in the water. By the fourth weekend, she jumped on her own. Often, parents think tiny steps are making it too easy, but that is the key to finally making it...

Two moms, same friend group, same parenting workshop, same exact tool — a five-step sticker chart with a small reward at the end of the week. One family used it for three weeks and mornings actually got easier. The other used it for four days before it fell apart completely, more conflict than before they'd started. Same chart. Same follow-through. Completely different result. In this episode: Wha...

It's day two of the trip you've been planning for months. Ocean house, grandparents, a countdown your kid had on their wall — and now they're on the floor, sobbing, over which beach towel they got. Not a preference. A full meltdown. Over a towel. In this episode: Why "keep the routine the same" doesn't actually work as vacation advice, and what to ask instead The four things — predictability, auto...

Two kids. Same overwhelm, same stress, sometimes even the same diagnosis. And somehow one of them is loud about it, and the other one disappears. In this episode, Dr. Kristi breaks down why the exact same struggle can produce two completely different-looking kids — and why it has nothing to do with which one is "doing better." Drawing on a real case of two brothers with identical diagnoses and opp...

A dad spends an entire summer teaching his son to ride a bike — holding the seat, running alongside, letting him wobble. Two weeks later, he's in the kitchen telling that same kid to "just calm down" during a meltdown over a broken cookie, with none of that same patience or teaching. No scaffolding. Just an instruction, expected to land on its own. In this episode: Why emotion regulation is a buil...

"You don't even like spending time with me." That's what came back after a mom asked her sixteen-year-old for one thing: text me when you get there. One line. Four seconds. And somehow it turned into a conversation about whether they'd ever have a good relationship. In this episode: -Why a request this small can detonate into something that feels like a referendum on the whole relationship -The br...

You've pointed at the Lego bin. You've listed the options. You've suggested the thing they asked for three weeks ago. And they're still standing there looking at you like you are personally responsible for the problem. "I'm bored" — and it's not even July yet. In this episode: Why the school environment was quietly functioning as an external executive functioning system — and why removing it is a...

School is out — and suddenly you're realizing your kid has no idea how to set the table, hasn't showered since Tuesday, and is tracking mud through the kitchen for the fourteenth time this week. Summer doesn't create new problems. It reveals the ones that were always there, quietly held up by structures that are now gone. In this episode: Why chores that seemed manageable during the school year su...

You've been in that room. The parent-teacher conference. The conversation with the coach or the family member who loves your child and is still somehow describing a person you don't quite recognize. And you sat there, nodding, holding it together, thinking: that's not my kid. That's a version of my kid. But it's not the whole thing. This episode is about why the picture you're carrying is more cli...

The shower drain kept clogging. They used Draino. They snaked it themselves. They called a plumber. Nobody connected it to their daughter. And then a mom went to smooth her daughter's comforter. And saw a clump of hair on the pillow. That pause — before she fully understood what she was looking at — is where this episode begins. Because a lot of parents of teenagers are living in some version of t...

You pick them up from school and the teacher says it was a great day. The report is good. By every external measure — fine. And then you get to the parking lot.  Or the dinner table. Or the moment the front door closes and the backpack hits the floor. And the child who held it together all day is suddenly a completely different kid. And you're standing there wondering what you did wrong — or wheth...

Mother's Day doesn't always look like the pictures. Sometimes it looks like a meltdown in the parking lot. Sometimes it looks like an hour finally to yourself that you spent thinking about your kid anyway. Sometimes it looks like buying the card yourself the night before and signing your child's name — because you knew it wasn't going to happen otherwise, and you didn't want there to be nothing on...