Parenting Your Sensitive Child

I want you to think about the process of creating a new habit. If you've ever set a New Year's resolution and lost track of it after a month, you're familiar with this. Change isn't that hard to initiate, it's maintaining the change that's tricky. It's tricky because we have a lot of practice with our old habits, our old ways of thinking, our old ways of reacting. When we allow ourselves to settle...

So often when our child is struggling, they struggle in more than one area of their life. This episode explores the value of focusing in on the most challenging area, and letting the rest slide. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/julia-mcgarey/support Get full access to The Blackbird Chronicles at juliamcgarey.substack.com/subscribe This is a public episode. If you w...

Today is March 1, 2022, and it seems more relevant than ever to discuss what to do when big scary things are happening in the world. Do we protect our children and preserve their innocence as long as possible? And while that might be possible if you are a parent to a young child, if your child is elementary school-aged or older, this becomes an impossible task as they pick up so much at school. No...

Our actions don't just come out of nowhere. There is always a thought (conscious or unconscious) and a feeling driving our actions. And when we look at it this way, it gives us a different perspective, a different sense of responsibility in regard to our own actions. Well, this connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions holds true for our kids, too. Their actions or behaviors don't just co...

I talk all the time about acknowledging and allowing our kids emotions, but I want to take some time here to really dig into what that means. I see a lot of people saying things like, "I know you're angry, but you still have to take a bath!" and calling it acknowledgment, and I want to be clear that that's not what I'm talking about. Slapping a label on your child's emotions and moving on is not w...

Screens are a big source of conflict for so many families. There's so much messaging about how bad they are, so much social pressure to limit screen time. And, it is one of the easiest "privileges" to revoke when something goes awry and you're floundering for "appropriate consequences." But in the end, setting limits on screen time and taking it away as a punishment only creates more conflict, mor...

I've talked about emotions and processing emotions on the podcast before, but we're exploring another facet of it this week. We are looking at what happens - what assumptions get taken on board - when nobody has ever taught you how to process your emotions. We're going to look at the misconceptions that come up with my clients (and other people I talk to) that actually prevent them from processing...

If you've been following along for a while, you know I like to take the time here to unpack common patterns I see in my clients and common beliefs we have carried forth unquestioningly from previous generations. Let's call those myths. When you're believing a myth and accepting it as truth, it definitely impacts how you show up and contributes to your own behavior patterns. And it will continue to...

There is a dynamic I see arise for many parents when they are trying to step away from more punitive ways of parenting. I call it the Sibling Dynamic. When you're trying to change the dynamic you experienced with adults as a child, it's easy to fall into another dynamic you may have experienced within your family: the dynamic you had with your siblings. It's a playfully antagonistic dynamic, and o...

Often when I talk to parents, they are overwhelmed and stressed. They are reaching out to me because all of the recommendations and everything they've tried with their child hasn't worked, and they don't know what to do next. They might be avoiding family outings or vacations because they're worried about how their child will behave. Or maybe they've just received a diagnosis for their child and t...

What would happen if you focused on allowing every experience, every emotion? So often we start the new year with an intention for what we want to create or bring into our life. What we want to DO. What shifts when you focus on what you're willing to allow for yourself instead? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/julia-mcgarey/support Get full access to The Blackbird...

It's December, and we're right in the middle of the holiday season here in the U.S. Whether you are busy this time of year or not, there's usually enough that's different to create some bumps for you or your kids. So, for the first few weeks in December, I'm going to focus on some tools you can add to your family toolbox - most of which are already available to you in this moment - to help you cre...

It's December, and we're right in the middle of the holiday season here in the U.S. Whether you are busy this time of year or not, there's usually enough that's different to create some bumps for you or your kids. So, for the first few weeks in December, I'm going to focus on some tools you can add to your family toolbox - most of which are already available to you in this moment - to help you cre...

I recently received a question on Instagram about self-care. And honestly, I don't talk about self-care in the mainstream sense all that much because it often gets confused with buffering or avoiding. I'd rather see my clients spend ten minutes sitting quietly and getting curious about what happens in their body when they actually allow their emotions than treating themselves to a manicure or a ni...

We are into the last full week of November, and I've got one more thought to share that I see getting in the way for so many parents. Most parents who carry this thought (or any of its variants) have adopted it with the intention of being more accepting of their child. And that's a good thing. We want to be accepting of our children and how they interact with the world. But when we really unpack t...

A lot of parents of highly sensitive kids are also highly sensitive themselves. For some reason, we tend to be drawn to each other, so it's not uncommon for whole families to be highly sensitive, even though it's a trait that's only found in 15-20% of the population. What this can mean for our families is a lot more overstimulation. If you are highly sensitive and your child's energy ramps up when...

When we start to shift away from punishments there is so much programming to wade through. We worry that kids need consequences. We worry about being too permissive. We worry about spoiling them. The biggest worry of all, though, is that what we are doing isn't working. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/julia-mcgarey/support Get full access to The Blackbird Chronicl...

Last week, I talked about the power of our thoughts, and how they shape our day-to-day experiences and interactions. Today I'm kicking off a series of related podcasts. Throughout the month of November, I'm going to be sharing with you specific thoughts that run like lines of bad code and negatively impact my clients' experiences of parenting. These thoughts are pervasive; I'm not borrowing them f...

So many parents - when seeking help with their kids, trying to break cycles, or working on creating more time for themselves without feeling guilty about it - are looking for actions. They want to know HOW these other people who are doing the thing they wish they could are actually doing it. Step by step. So much parenting advice caters to this. But that's not what we're doing here. Not today, at...

I want to zero in on one specific way that I see highly sensitive children interacting with the world this week. Since being "highly sensitive" is characterized by a collection of temperament traits, and since there are other temperament traits at play in any person's overall temperament, there are many different ways that highly sensitive children can show up in the world. An introverted HSC come...

Have you ever taken issue with the way another adult has interacted with your child? Maybe it was their teacher, their soccer coach, their grandmother... Maybe it was an issue of consent, or maybe the adult was disrespectful or leaning hard on shame as a means of control... There are so many situations, especially when parenting against the grain and parenting a highly sensitive child, that can ge...

Kids need consequences, right? Not necessarily, and definitely not in the way most people imagine that they do. This week we're exploring what you (and your child!) miss out on when you focus on doling out consequences for their actions, and what they actually need from us in those moments when we feel most challenged by their behavior. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/...

One of the biggest challenges of the pandemic for so many people has been the feeling of helplessness and suspended animation. At this point, we're all familiar with it. We've all had moments in which our circumstances were so far out of our control that it felt like there was nothing we could do but wait. This has been a huge learning opportunity for so many of us because the easy answer when our...

I want to take you through a little thought exercise today. We're going to think about teachers and classroom management and how that all ties in to your parenting. And yes, I know that kids behave differently at school than they do at home. This isn't about comparing you to your child's teachers. This is about looking at the teachers you have known and getting curious about the differences betwee...

This week I'm tackling one of the big myths floating around the parenting world: the myth that good parents are patient parents. We'll look at how this belief fuels frustration for so many parents as they try their best to be patient, but keep losing their cool, and we'll look at what's actually necessary to begin cultivating true patience within your relationship with your child. --- Support this...