Raised Resilient: Help Your Highly Sensitive Child

Have you ever read every book and saved every script, only to freeze the second your child starts kicking and throwing things? In this episode, I share my conversation with Jen, a scientist and mom of a seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a five-and-a-half-year-old son, who completed Chaos to Connection, my eight-week parenting program. Jen found me in a hard season, right after the holidays, w...

Does your child go from angry at breakfast to yelling "I hate you" by dinner?   In today's episode, I unpack why your child seems angry all the time and what's REALLY going on underneath. We get into where does people pleasing come from, which is an important starting point since so many of us grew up conflict avoidant, sitting on suppressed anger.  You'll learn: What causes people plea...

Have you ever caught yourself Googling "am I raising a narcissist" at 2am after another rough day? Does your child hit their sister, call you names, and show zero remorse? Do they melt down every time you say no, or shut down the second you ask them to own what happened?  In this episode, I share why sensitive, emotionally intense kids can look narcissistic. You'll learn: Why your sensitive kid...

Is gentle parenting not working even after every script you've tried?  Gentle parenting was never meant to be a list of scripts you follow perfectly. Your child is unique, and what helps one child calm down can make another child feel even more overwhelmed. So, in today's episode, I share five popular gentle parenting techniques that can make meltdowns worse with your sensitive kid, and WHY e...

Does your day feel like one meltdown right after another? Do you dread the sound of your two kids playing in the other room, because you already know how it's going to end? In today's episode, I unpack what changed for Angela and Andrew, parents of Hudson, who turned three in January, and Nala, who's almost two. Hudson is their sensitive kid, and before they found me, their house ran on power stru...

Why does clearing your whole afternoon for a special outing with your sensitive child so often end in a meltdown over dinner?  In this episode, I walk you through why special outings and one-on-one time backfire, and what your child needs from you instead of another gentle parenting script.  I explain why secure attachment takes more than one outing, and why your parenting approach needs to...

Have you ever noticed that your easy child never seems to have a hard day, no matter what's happening with their sibling's meltdowns? In this episode, I walk you through why the child who never falls apart is often the one working the hardest to keep their feelings from showing. I also talk about why an easy child having big feelings means the whole family system is finally getting support. I brea...

Does your sensitive child seem totally fine at school, calm at drop off and easygoing with their teacher, only to completely fall apart when bedtime comes, leaving you wondering what a meltdown showing up somewhere you weren't looking actually means? In this episode, I walk you through how I'm watching for signs of stress in my own sensitive child during her kindergarten transition, even though sh...

Does every day bring another emotional meltdown that lasts an hour or longer, leaving you walking on eggshells at home, afraid that one wrong word will set off your highly sensitive child? In this episode, I'm joined by Nick and Kelsey, parents of a four-year-old son and an almost two-year-old daughter, who completed my eight-week Chaos to Connection parent coaching program. We talk about the chao...

Can you tell the difference between tantrums and meltdowns?  In this episode, I walk you through what causes each one and what to do differently for each.  In this episode, you'll learn: Why a tantrum and a meltdown look identical from the outside Why your child holds it together at school and falls apart at home How sensory input builds up and triggers a sensory meltdown with no visible c...

Have you validated every emotion, stayed calm through the hitting, and still watched the meltdowns stretch on for hours over nothing?  In this episode, I walk you through how gentle parenting got confused with permissive parenting and what to do when nothing you've tried has working results. I talk about the four parenting styles, including authoritarian parenting and uninvolved parenting, an...

Is your child asking for a first phone? How do you know if they've actually reached digital readiness? And what happens once you hand over that device and can't take it back? In this episode, I share parent guidance on making the smartphone decision that fits your child's maturity and your family's values. I walk you through how to evaluate digital readiness and the parenting boundaries that can p...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less For eight years, their son had never once said "I love you", and waking him up for school usually meant getting kicked or hit.  Jeannie and Josh are the parents of an eight-year-old adopted, neurodivergent, highly sensitive boy. Their days had turned into a cycle of hitting, yelling, and dysregulation that started the moment t...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less Sensitive kids don't lack empathy. They're buried under so much shame they can't reach it. Sensitive kids feel more, not less. When they hurt someone, that "I'm a bad kid" feeling floods them so hard they wall off any softer emotion underneath, including remorse. From the outside, that wall reads as coldness. On the inside, it's...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less If your sensitive child melts down the second something feels too hard, their brain is sending you a message: they don't know how to handle frustration yet.  As a Harvard-educated clinical psychologist, parenting coach, and mom of three sensitive kids, I've spent the last 15 years helping families end the meltdowns that come fr...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less If you hand a sensitive child a phone too early, their brain gets wired to chase a dopamine hit that normal life can't match. Screen-time meltdowns with sensitive kids aren't a behavior problem; they're a nervous system reaction. Screens act like an off switch for the vestibular system, which plays a huge role in emotional proce...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less Have you ever felt like you have tried everything to end your child's meltdowns, but nothing worked? They're parents of four, and their highly sensitive eight-year-old son's big feelings had started running the whole household. They'd tried behavior charts, positive reinforcement, consequences, and yelling back louder. Nothing h...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less If validating your child's feelings sends them deeper into a meltdown, you're not doing it wrong… you're missing the part nobody talks about. I'm a clinical psychologist, parenting coach, and mom of three emotionally intense kids, and this is one of the most common patterns I see with sensitive kids and well-meaning parents. Mos...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less When your child acts out, the instinct is to shut the behavior down. That instinct needs to be ignored. I'm a clinical psychologist, parenting coach, and mom of three sensitive, emotionally intense kids. After a decade in this work, I still get humbled by the same reframe I teach every parent I coach. Dr. Ross Greene said it bes...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less When your kid's meltdowns start straining your marriage, the fight with your partner usually isn't really about the kid. This episode is for the parent who's stuck in the meltdown cycle with a sensitive, emotionally intense child and feels like they and their partner aren't on the same team anymore. Here's the pattern I see cons...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less How do you stay calm with your child when you can feel your own anger rising?   My guest, Nathalie, is a working mom raising a young child within a long-distance blended family, often parenting on her own while managing a demanding career. She shares how things shifted from occasional tantrums into longer, more intense melt...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less Have you ever wondered: “Will my kid outgrow these meltdowns?” It is the question almost every parent of a sensitive, emotionally intense child asks, and the honest answer might be hard to hear. Kids do sometimes outgrow the outward meltdowns. The hitting, kicking, and screaming can quiet down with age. What does not go away is...

Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less I didn’t expect my own child to be the one who challenged me the most. I could stay calm with teenagers screaming at me in residential treatment, but I found myself completely thrown off by my own toddler in a lunch line at a Great Harvest Bread Company. That moment forced me to see something I had been missing, even after years...

Holiday gatherings can be joyful — and for highly sensitive kids, they can also be a lot. The noise, the people, the excitement, the expectations. This re-released episode revisits a topic so many families struggle with: holiday meltdowns that seem to pop up right before (or during) events. In this episode, we talk through how to support your sensitive child around holiday outings — from gentle pr...

The holiday season is here again — and while it’s full of magic and meaning, it can also feel like a lot, especially when you're the one quietly coordinating all the joy. Gifts, gatherings, school events, traditions… the mental load piles up fast. So this week, we’re re-releasing one of our most-loved holiday episodes — all about three simple, doable ways to lighten that invisible load. These stra...