Episodes

  • Why Parents Need Coaching Skills with Elaine Taylor Klaus

    Why Parents Need Coaching Skills with Elaine Taylor Klaus
    Oct 20 2026
    The goal of parenting is not to control the path. It is to help our kids learn how to navigate their own. My guest this week is Elaine Taylor-Klaus, and we are talking about something I wish every parent had access to: basic coaching skills. Elaine describes coaching as an empowerment-based, strength-based, collaborative way of communicating. Instead of always telling a child what we think they should do, coaching helps them become more aware of who they are, how they operate, what matters to them, and what they want to do next. That does not mean parents stop teaching. Elaine made a distinction during our conversation that gave me actual goosebumps: there is a difference between teaching someone and creating an environment that helps them learn. Sometimes our kids need information from us. And sometimes we can ask a question that helps them discover something for themselves. "What happens when you try it that way?" "What do you notice?" "What do you think might work?" When the insight comes from the child, they have more ownership of it. We use the classic school planner as an example. If the goal becomes "use the planner," we can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to get a kid to use a tool that may not work particularly well for their brain. But the planner is not really the goal. The goal is for the child to know what they need to do and when they need to do it. Once we get clear on that, we can problem-solve together. Maybe the answer is a planner. Maybe it is something else entirely. The useful question becomes, "How will you know what you need to do?" That shift from directing to collaborating requires something else from parents: a willingness to live with some uncertainty. We start parenting with all kinds of ideas about who our child will be, what they will do, how they will develop, and what their future will look like. And then we actually get to know our child. They have their own brain, their own timeline, their own strengths, and their own ideas about what they want. Elaine talks about parenting as a gradual process of letting go of some of our vision so that we can make room for theirs. That can be especially complicated when your child's path does not look like the paths of their same-age peers. You may feel completely settled about your child doing things differently, and then another milestone or comparison comes along and brings some of those feelings right back. I describe it as spiraling forward. We are not starting over. We are meeting the same work from a different place. We also talk about the stories parents tell ourselves. My child should be doing this by now. Other kids their age can do it. I could do it when I was that age. If they cannot do this now, what happens when they are 24? Elaine shared the example of a parent who was upset that her 12-year-old kept leaving crumbs on the floor while watching television. Underneath that frustration was a fear that someday her daughter would not be able to keep an apartment clean. I called it "fearing forward." We take something happening today and turn it into a story about our child's entire future. Coaching gives us another option. We can notice the story, ask whether it is helping us understand the child in front of us, and reframe it in a way that gives us somewhere useful to go next. And finally, Elaine gives us one very practical assignment: Put the stick down. A lot of us learned to motivate ourselves with criticism. We beat ourselves up for what we should have done, what we forgot, where we fell short, and all the ways we believe we should be doing better. Elaine invites parents to literally imagine putting that stick down. Being kinder to ourselves does not mean ignoring the things that need our attention. It gives us more room to be calm, curious, and available to the child in front of us. And honestly, that may be some of the most important parenting work we do. Key Takeaways Coaching gives parents a collaborative, strength-based way to help children build self-awareness, ownership, and agency.Parenting naturally begins with a lot of directing, but children increasingly need opportunities to discover solutions rather than simply receive instructions.Asking curious questions can help children develop their own insights, which often creates more ownership than being told what to do.A tool should serve the actual goal. If a planner does not help a child know what they need to do, another system may work better.Parenting involves gradually letting go and making room for children to develop their own vision of who they are and what they want.Children do not need to follow the same timeline as their peers for their development to be meaningful or successful.Expectations about what children "should" be doing can come from our own history, other families, or cultural ideas rather than the child in front of us.Recognizing the story we are telling ourselves gives us the opportunity to choose a perspective that is more useful...
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    32 mins
  • Executive Function for Teachers with Carrie Bonnet

    Executive Function for Teachers with Carrie Bonnet
    Oct 13 2026
    A student can understand the assignment and still have no idea how to get themselves started. Carrie Bonnett is back on Complicated Kids, and this time we are talking about executive function in the classroom. Carrie is an executive function coach and veteran teacher, and she has a wonderfully simple definition of executive function: the brain skills that help us get important things done. That includes organization and time management, of course, but also planning, getting started, staying focused, regulating emotions, getting back on track after a distraction, finishing, and remembering where the finished thing is supposed to go. In other words, "Go do your work" is asking a brain to do A LOT. Carrie shares the story of a teacher who suddenly realized that a student sitting through independent work without starting might not be choosing not to work. Getting started is a skill. The student may understand the assignment and still be stuck on the first step, how to organize the page, how long the task will take, or any number of things we cannot see from across the classroom. Carrie offers one of my favorite questions from this conversation: What if this is a skill thing and not a will thing? That little shift creates room for curiosity. Maybe the student needs the task broken into a smaller chunk. Maybe they need help identifying the first step. Maybe there is a routine we assumed they knew but never actually taught. And routines are a big part of this conversation. Carrie points out that brains like structure, consistency, and predictability. Teaching students how to begin independent work or what to do when they get stuck is not wasted classroom time. It is teaching the skills that make the rest of the work possible. We also get into the language adults use around executive function. Instead of turning a struggle into an identity, Carrie encourages talking about brains: "My brain needs support with working memory," rather than "I'm terrible at this." I LOVE this. Kids need to understand how their brains work if we want them to choose useful strategies, advocate for themselves, and develop a healthy sense of who they are. And yes, somehow laundry makes an appearance, because I currently have clean, folded laundry sitting in a basket on my bedroom floor and apparently that makes an excellent executive function teaching tool. Adults have unfinished tasks too. Maybe giving ourselves a little grace for that can help us bring more curiosity to the kids in front of us. Key Takeaways Executive function includes the brain skills that help us start, organize, plan, focus on, regulate ourselves through, and finish important tasks.A student who is not starting an assignment may understand the work but still need support with task initiation.Independent work requires many executive function skills at once, including understanding directions, starting, sustaining attention, recovering from distractions, finishing, and turning work in.Asking "What if this is a skill thing and not a will thing?" can help adults move from assumptions to curiosity.Breaking a task into a smaller first step can make getting started more accessible for a student who feels stuck.Classroom routines support executive function because structure, consistency, and predictability reduce how much students have to figure out in the moment.Skills such as task initiation should not automatically be treated as things students already know simply because of their age or grade.Brain-based language can separate a skill difficulty from a student's identity and create a more useful starting point for support.Helping students understand their own executive function profiles can make it easier for them to choose strategies and advocate for what they need.Adults struggle with executive function too, and acknowledging our own imperfect brains can normalize those differences for students. About Carrie Bonnett Carrie Bonnett is a veteran teacher, lifelong list-maker, and executive function coach based in Bend, Oregon. She works with students and families around the country using a practical, no-shame, brain-first approach that empowers students to thrive, helps parents and teachers better support them, and gives adults tools to stay on top of all that life requires. In addition to coaching, Carrie creates digital resources, including her signature course Get the Brain on Board and a series of No-Shame Guides for Parents, and provides brain-based workshops and trainings for parents, teachers, and other professionals. She is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Portland, where she supports early-career teachers. About Your Host, Gabriele Nicolet I'm Gabriele Nicolet, toddler whisperer, speech therapist, parenting life coach, and host of Complicated Kids. Each week, I share practical, relationship-based strategies for raising kids with big feelings, big needs, and beautifully different brains. My goal is to help families move from surviving to thriving...
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    29 mins
  • What is SPACE Treatment with Lauren Siegel

    What is SPACE Treatment with Lauren Siegel
    Oct 6 2026
    When anxiety starts shaping the whole family's routines, helping the child may need to begin with supporting the parents. Dr. Lauren Siegel joins me to talk about SPACE, which stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. It is a little different from many treatments for childhood anxiety because although the child is still the focus, the parents are the ones going to therapy and making changes. Rather than beginning with "What skills does my child need?" SPACE asks parents to look at how anxiety is functioning within the family and what they may be able to approach differently. One of the big ideas in SPACE is accommodation, and we need to be very clear about what that means because this is not the same thing as the accommodations a child may appropriately receive at school. In this context, we are talking about the ways family members can unintentionally organize themselves around a child's anxiety. Maybe the family stops going to certain places. Maybe a parent spends hours helping a child fall asleep or accompanies them every time they go to another room. And there is zero shame in how we got there. If your child is distressed, of course you want to help. Lauren points out that parents are biologically wired to respond to their children's distress. That is how we keep babies alive. The question as kids grow becomes whether a particular kind of help is still supporting them or whether it may be reinforcing the idea that they cannot handle the situation without us. That is where SPACE gets interesting. Reducing an accommodation does not mean withdrawing support or throwing a child into the deep end. Lauren takes a gradual, individualized approach that starts with what the parent and child can realistically handle. Maybe bedtime is not the place to start because that time still feels connected and lovely for the family. Maybe there is another part of the day that is creating much more frustration and feels more workable. There is no universal rule about what a six-year-old "should" be able to do. We also talk about something that is hard for pretty much every parent: seeing your child upset and not immediately making the upset disappear. Some distress is part of learning that we can do hard things and come out the other side okay. But that does not mean all distress is automatically productive. A child who is overwhelmed by a sensory or nervous system issue may need something very different. The work is figuring out the difference and finding the just right challenge for that child. Parent regulation matters here too. If one parent is particularly activated by a situation and another has more bandwidth, maybe they tap in. SPACE creates room for parents to look at their own fears, reactions, and pressure points before changing anything with the child. Because the goal is not to white-knuckle your way through a plan while everybody's nervous system is on fire. What I like about this approach is the message underneath it. Sometimes changing how we respond to anxiety tells a child, "I see that this is hard, and I also believe you can get through it." That is very different from pretending the anxiety is not real. It is support with confidence built into it. Key Takeaways SPACE is a parent-based treatment for childhood anxiety, so parents attend the sessions even though the child's anxiety remains the focus.SPACE can be especially useful when anxiety is significantly affecting a child's daily life and the routines of the whole family.In SPACE, accommodation refers to ways family members may unintentionally organize themselves around a child's anxiety.Accommodating an anxious child is a natural response to distress, so the goal is understanding the pattern rather than blaming parents.Gradually changing an accommodation can send the message, "I know this is hard, and I believe you can handle it."There is no one-size-fits-all expectation for what a child should be able to do. The approach needs to fit the individual child and family.Parent readiness matters. Starting with a situation the parent feels able and motivated to change can make the process more manageable.Some distress can be tolerable and part of growth, while sensory overload or significant dysregulation may require a different response.Parent regulation matters too, and co-parents can sometimes tap in for one another depending on their bandwidth.Success is not making a child stop feeling anxious. It can mean changing the adult response while continuing to offer support. About Lauren Siegel Dr. Lauren Siegel is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Kingsbury Wellness & Learning Group. She has more than 15 years of experience providing psychotherapy and comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations to children and adults and is passionate about helping families navigate learning and emotional challenges while expanding access to high-quality psychological care. Dr. Siegel has worked in school...
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    28 mins
  • Kids Need People Who Don't Give Up On Them with Jorie Das

    Kids Need People Who Don't Give Up On Them with Jorie Das
    Sep 29 2026
    For some kids, the most powerful support is not one more program. It is an adult who keeps showing up. Jorie Das is the Executive Director of Friends of the Children Los Angeles, an organization doing something that immediately got my attention: pairing children who have experienced significant adversity with paid, professional mentors who make a 12-plus-year commitment to them. These are not volunteers dropping in for a semester or a program that disappears when the funding cycle ends. Friends spend intentional time with kids at school, at home, and in the community while helping them navigate goals, transitions, new experiences, and the very ordinary business of growing up. As Jorie says, childhood is not a program cycle. A kid can be doing beautifully at eight and struggling enormously at thirteen. Schools change. Families change. Adolescence happens. The commitment is designed to stay in place through those changes because the child does not have to reach a milestone or behave a particular way to earn the relationship. That becomes especially important when we talk about trauma. Jorie explains that we cannot expect a child who has experienced instability in relationships to immediately trust a new adult just because that adult has excellent intentions. Kids may pull away, shut down, or test whether this person is really staying. The mentor gets to respond through their actions: "You don't have to earn my consistency. I'm still here." Over time, that relationship can create new experiences of safety, predictability, and repair. Mentorship is not a replacement for therapy when a child needs clinical care, but a safe and consistent adult can absolutely be part of the healing environment. What I also love about the Friends model is that the child is not treated as though they exist in a vacuum. The organization supports caregivers, works with schools, connects families with community resources, and supports the mentors themselves. Because if we are asking adults to show up consistently for kids carrying a lot, those adults need people showing up for them too. We also talk about neurodivergence and educational advocacy. Jorie shares that a large percentage of the young people served by Friends LA have IEPs, which has pushed the organization to build more training around ADHD, autism, IEPs, and helping caregivers communicate with schools. Sometimes the parent knows something is not working but does not know the language, the process, or even who they are supposed to talk to. Having someone who knows the child and can help bridge that gap can change the entire conversation. And underneath all of this is something very simple and very human: kids need people who do not give up on them. Not because the relationship will always be easy. In fact, sometimes the most important moment may be after the really hard day, when the adult can say, "I'll see you Tuesday." For a child who has learned that people or support can disappear, knowing somebody is coming back can be a very big deal. Key Takeaways Consistency can be an intervention, especially for children who have experienced trauma or instability in relationships.Children should not have to behave a certain way or reach a milestone to earn a trusted adult's continued presence.Long-term relationships give adults the chance to know the whole child as they grow and change over time.Trauma can make it difficult for children to trust adults, even when those adults have good intentions.Safe, predictable relationships can create new experiences of trust, repair, and connection.Mentorship can support healing, but it does not replace therapy or other clinical care when those services are needed.Supporting children also means supporting caregivers, schools, mentors, and the larger community around them.Neurodivergent children and their caregivers may need additional support navigating IEPs and advocating within school systems.When a child pushes an adult away, curiosity about what they have learned about relationships can be more useful than taking the behavior personally.Sometimes the most powerful message an adult can give a child is simply, "I'm still here." About Jorie Das Jorie Das is the Executive Director of Friends of the Children Los Angeles, where she leads an evidence-based professional mentoring program serving children and families impacted by the child welfare system. With more than a decade of experience in nonprofit management, youth programming, and advocacy in Greater Los Angeles, Jorie is deeply committed to positive youth development, trauma-informed care, and the transformative power of long-term relationships. Her own experience in foster care also brings an important lived perspective to her work. Under Jorie's leadership, Friends LA has expanded its reach across Los Angeles County, growing the number of youth and families served and developing additional programming to support young people as they move toward adulthood. She previously served as ...
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    27 mins
  • Radical Acceptance of Children's Own Wisdom with Jenn Glacel

    Radical Acceptance of Children's Own Wisdom with Jenn Glacel
    Sep 22 2026
    If we spend childhood teaching a kid that adults know their body, needs, and limits better than they do, it is a pretty big leap to expect self-trust to magically appear in adulthood. Jenn Glacel is back on the podcast, and this time we are talking about what she calls radical acceptance of children's inner knowing or wisdom. Before anybody starts rolling their eyes, this is not an argument that a four-year-old has all the information necessary to run the household. Jenn makes an important distinction between knowing something about your own experience and having the language, context, or skills to explain it. Kids may know what they are feeling or what they need without being able to communicate it in a particularly useful way. We also talk about the difference between autonomy and independence. We tend to treat autonomy as something children earn once they can be independent in the ways adults expect. But needing help does not mean a person should lose their say over their own body, preferences, or experiences. The humble winter coat becomes our case study. If your child says, "I'm not cold," and you repeatedly respond, "Yes, you are," what are they learning? Maybe they are learning about coats. But they may also be learning that their own bodily experience is less trustworthy than an adult's interpretation of it. This does not mean we let a kid wander into ten-below weather in shorts because autonomy. Context matters. Sometimes the adult has information the child simply does not have yet, and safety requires us to step in. But at 45 degrees, maybe we bring the coat and let the kid gather some data. A lot of learning can happen without a lecture. That trust becomes especially important when we ask children to try something new. Jenn makes a point I love: when a child knows that their "no" will actually be honored, a push can feel safe. They can try the roller coaster, the new activity, or the unfamiliar experience because they know that if they change their mind, the adult will listen. If we say, "You can stop anytime," and then immediately argue when they want to stop, we have changed the deal. We also talk about shifting from judgment to curiosity. Jenn's starting assumption is that if a child can do something, they will. If it is not happening, instead of jumping immediately to lazy, defiant, disrespectful, or "they just don't want to," we can ask what is getting in the way. As I say in the episode, you can be right and indignant, or you can be curious and in relationship. And yes, sometimes what we discover is that the dishes are not going to get done on our preferred timeline and, tragically, we may have to wash them ourselves. That same idea of mutual respect comes up in the tiny daily interactions too. If we want children who say please and thank you, are we saying please and thank you to them? If we want respect, are we treating them as people worthy of respect? Kids are watching what we do much more closely than they are memorizing the lecture. None of this requires children to communicate their needs beautifully. Dysregulated kids can express themselves in some truly spectacularly unappealing ways. Our job is not to assume that a badly delivered need is not a real need. Our job is to become detectives, slow things down, and figure out what the child may not yet be able to tell us clearly. Because helping kids trust themselves starts with showing them that we are willing to listen. Key Takeaways Children can know something about what they need or feel even when they cannot explain it clearly.Autonomy and independence are different. Needing support does not mean a child should lose their voice or choices.Children build self-trust when adults take their bodily experiences and signals seriously.Supporting autonomy does not mean ignoring safety. Adults still provide protection, context, and support when the stakes require it.Kids may be more willing to try something new when they trust that their "no" will actually be honored.If a child is not doing something we expect, curiosity is more useful than immediately assuming laziness, defiance, or disrespect.Sometimes the question is not "How do I make my child do this?" but "What is preventing this from happening?"Respect works both ways. Children learn respect by experiencing it, not just by being told to show it.Dysregulation can make it difficult for kids to express what they need in ways adults can easily hear.Parents can become detectives, slowing down enough to look beneath the behavior and figure out what their child may be communicating. About Jenn Glacel Jenn Glacel is an autistic licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist with a private practice in Falls Church, Virginia. Through Seven Corners Psychotherapy, she works with children, adults, parents, and families through a radically neurodiversity-affirming lens. Her work includes child-centered play therapy, family support, and education for parents and practitioners about what ...
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    33 mins
  • Partner Relationships and Complicated Kids with Caron Starobin

    Partner Relationships and Complicated Kids with Caron Starobin
    Sep 15 2026
    When your child needs so much from you, your relationship with your partner can quietly become one more thing that gets put on the back burner. There is always something more urgent. A school issue. An appointment. A meltdown. A sibling who also needs something. A decision that has to be made. Caron Starobin's argument in this episode is that the relationship between the adults is not separate from all of that. It is part of how the family gets through it. Caron is a clinical social worker and couples therapist who works extensively with neurodivergent people and their families. She explains that raising complicated kids can take enormous amounts of time, energy, money, and emotional resources. When the relationship between the adults is also full of tension and conflict, that becomes another source of depletion. When there is enough security and connection between the adults, the family has one less complicated thing to navigate. And no, we are not talking about a perfectly harmonious partnership where nobody ever gets annoyed. We are talking about being connected well enough to navigate the storms together. One of the biggest traps Caron sees is the very familiar idea that, "If my partner would just do this differently, then I could feel better." The problem is that our regulation cannot depend on somebody else regulating first. Your partner may absolutely be doing something that activates you, but you still have to figure out how to come back to yourself. That also changes how we define whether regulation "worked." If you got calmer and your partner did not, that does not mean you failed. You regulated yourself. You stayed in your seat. You kept two dysregulated people from escalating together. That counts. Caron also talks about what happens when old relationship patterns get activated. The ways we learned to protect ourselves in our original families can show up again with our partners. Maybe you shut down. Maybe you get loud. Maybe you leave. Maybe you start trying desperately to make everybody happy. Those responses may have been useful once, but they may not work particularly well in the relationship you are in now. Sometimes, as Caron puts it, it is basically two adaptive teenagers trying to run the adult relationship. We also bring this back to the kids, particularly teens and young adults. Parents often arrive saying their child is disrespectful, unmotivated, angry, or refusing to listen. Underneath the frustration and worry, what they usually want is connection. They want trust. They want communication. They want to know that they can still reach their kid as the stakes get higher and their direct control gets smaller. Caron makes an important distinction here too: taking your child seriously and building connection does not mean abandoning boundaries. In fact, the trust you build when children are younger gives you a much stronger foundation for navigating the harder conversations that come later. Raising complicated kids is a long game. And the relationship between the adults does not have to be perfect. But it does deserve to be part of the plan. Key Takeaways The relationship between parents or co-parents is part of the family system and deserves attention too.Ongoing conflict between adults can drain energy that is already stretched by the demands of raising complicated kids.A healthy partnership does not mean never struggling. It means being connected enough to navigate hard things together.Your own regulation cannot depend on your partner calming down first.Co-regulation starts with someone choosing to work on their own nervous system rather than trying to control someone else's.Success can simply mean that you stayed grounded, even if your partner was still having a difficult day.Stress can bring old relationship patterns back to the surface, including shutting down, getting loud, withdrawing, or people-pleasing.Recognizing those old patterns can help you respond from a more grounded adult place.When parents say they want their teen or young adult to listen, what they often want underneath that is more connection and trust.Building connection with your child does not mean giving up boundaries. Trust can make those boundaries easier to navigate. About Caron Starobin Caron Starobin, LCSW-C, is a clinical social worker, couples therapist, and owner and clinical director of Starobin Counseling, a private practice based in Olney, Maryland. For more than 25 years, she has worked with individuals, couples, and families, with a particular focus on relationships, neurodivergent people, and families navigating autism and other complex needs. Caron's work is relational and neurodiversity-minded, with extensive experience in couples and family therapy and Relational Life Therapy. Through Starobin Counseling, she and her team also offer groups including Parents Together, which provides support and connection for parents raising autistic children, teens, and young adults. Her approach helps ...
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    26 mins
  • Trust Yourself with Allyn Miller

    Trust Yourself with Allyn Miller
    Sep 8 2026
    You cannot teach your child to trust you while constantly second-guessing yourself. There is no shortage of parenting information out there. Books, podcasts, influencers, experts, schools, research, and your neighbor's cousin all have thoughts about what you should be doing with your child. And sometimes all that information makes parenting harder. In this episode, I talk with fellow parent coach Allyn Miller about something underneath all those strategies: self-trust. Allyn's premise is simple and also slightly inconvenient. We cannot ask our children to trust us if we do not trust ourselves. That does not mean ignoring good information, deciding experts know nothing, or confidently making every parenting decision while birds sing around you. It means getting clearer about what actually matters to you, your child, and your family. Allyn suggests paying particular attention to the word "should." When you hear yourself thinking, "My child should be doing this," or, "I should be parenting this way," ask: Who says? Sometimes there is a perfectly good answer. School has requirements. Families live inside communities and systems. There may be real consequences to stepping outside a particular norm. But sometimes we discover that the mysterious "they" telling us what we should do does not actually exist. We also talk about what this looks like when you have to advocate for your child. It is one thing to know what your kid needs at home. It is another thing entirely to walk into a school meeting, talk to someone you perceive as an authority, and say, "This is not working." Allyn encourages parents to get curious about what they are bringing into those conversations. Your own experiences with school, authority, failure, approval, and conflict are coming into the room with you, whether you invited them or not. Which brings us to the voices in our heads. Allyn makes a distinction I love: there is a difference between an internal voice and an external action. You can see five granola bar wrappers sitting next to your kid and have a very judgmental thought. The thought happened. Fine. Your brain is allowed to be dramatic. But there is still a space between that thought and what comes out of your mouth. That tiny bit of space is where we get to choose. And if "just pause" feels completely impossible when your brain is moving like a freight train, Allyn has a wonderfully concrete suggestion: move your body. Literally walk in a circle. Change your physical position, come back to your adult self, and see whether you can return to the interaction differently. We also talk about how our own younger parts show up in parenting. Sometimes there are not just two people in the interaction. There is you, your child, and the seven-year-old version of you who just got activated and would also like someone to meet her needs immediately, thank you very much. None of this is about becoming a perfectly regulated parent who never has an ugly thought. It is about noticing what is happening, reconnecting with what matters, and giving yourself a little more choice about what happens next. Because trusting yourself does not mean always knowing the answer. It means knowing you can come back to yourself and figure out your next move. Key Takeaways Parenting advice can be useful, but too much outside information can make it harder to hear your own judgment about what your particular child and family need.Self-trust starts with getting clear about what actually matters to you rather than automatically following every parenting rule, trend, or expectation you encounter.When you notice yourself thinking that you or your child "should" be doing something, ask who is setting that expectation and whether it actually fits your family.Not every conventional expectation should be thrown out. Parents can consider the real risks, resources, and consequences involved before deciding whether to follow a norm or choose a different path.Advocating for your child is easier when you understand what you are bringing into the conversation, including your own past experiences with school, authority, conflict, or being judged.Vulnerability can create room for collaboration. A parent does not need to walk into a school conversation with every answer in order to clearly say what they are seeing and ask what might be possible.The thoughts running through your head are not the same as the actions you take. An angry, judgmental, or fearful internal voice does not have to determine what comes out of your mouth.Old family patterns and younger parts of ourselves can get activated during difficult parenting moments, which is why the reaction can sometimes feel much bigger than what is happening right now.When mentally "pausing" feels impossible, changing your physical position or moving your body can create enough interruption to help you step out of an automatic reaction.Building self-trust is not about becoming a parent who always knows exactly what to do. It is ...
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    28 mins
  • When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough with Dr. Julie Lopez

    When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough with Dr. Julie Lopez
    Sep 1 2026
    Understanding the problem is not always the same as changing the pattern. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Julie Lopez, founder of Viva, for a conversation about trauma, implicit memory, brain-based therapies, and why talk is not always the language the nervous system understands. Julie starts with a story from early memory research that shows something fascinating and, honestly, a little unsettling. A person may not consciously remember an event, but their system can still remember enough to respond. The body may hold information that never becomes a neat story with a beginning, middle, and end. Which matters a lot when we are talking about complicated kids. So many of the kids we talk about on this podcast have sensory systems, nervous systems, stress responses, and bodies that are taking in the world in ways they may not be able to explain. They may not have language for what feels unsafe, overwhelming, painful, intense, or confusing. And when they do not have words, their bodies may speak instead. Crying. Kicking. Screaming. Biting. Shutting down. Melting down. Refusing. Running away. Looking like they are "being difficult" when something much deeper may be happening. That does not mean those behaviors are fine. It does mean we need to be curious about where they come from. Julie and I talk about the limits of relying only on talk, especially when the struggle is not stored only in the thinking, explaining, logical part of the brain. Talk can be connecting. It can help people feel seen. It can help us organize a story and make sense of what happened. But if the body is still reacting as if the danger is happening now, understanding may not be enough. And that is where this conversation gets really interesting. Julie explains implicit memory, the role of the nervous system, and why experiences from very early life, high-stress moments, trauma, or overwhelming sensory experiences may be stored outside of conscious language. We talk about babies, NICU experiences, sensory triggers, and the way a child may respond to an environment that their body recognizes as dangerous, even if their conscious mind cannot explain why. We also talk about therapies that work beyond talk, including EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, sensory motor psychotherapy, and other approaches that help the system process what got stuck. One of my favorite moments in this episode is when Julie describes the goal of this work, and I realize that what we are talking about is not erasing memory. It is uncoupling the event from the full-body alarm that still comes with it. You may still remember what happened, but you are not still living inside it. That feels important. This episode is not anti-therapy. It is not anti-talking. We are relational creatures, and being with another human who can listen and help us make sense of ourselves absolutely matters. But some things cannot be talked into changing. Sometimes the body needs a different language. And when we understand that, we may have a better chance of helping complicated kids, complicated adults, and, frankly, all of our complicated human systems. Key Takeaways Talk can be helpful, but it is not always enough to create deep nervous system change.Some patterns are stored in implicit memory, outside of conscious language.The body can remember and respond to experiences the mind does not consciously recall.Complicated kids may not have words for what their nervous systems are experiencing.Behaviors like crying, kicking, screaming, shutting down, or running may be communication from a system that feels overwhelmed or unsafe.Understanding why something happens does not always make the body stop reacting.Trauma-informed care asks what the nervous system is trying to tell us, not just what behavior needs to stop.Brain-based therapies like EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, and sensory motor psychotherapy work beyond storytelling alone.Effective therapy can help uncouple a memory from the physiological alarm that still comes with it.There is nothing wrong with you. Sometimes there is a knot in the system that needs a different kind of support. About Dr. Julie Lopez Dr. Julie Lopez is the founder of Viva, a mental health organization serving clients in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as through telehealth. Julie is passionate about helping people understand how their complicated human systems work so they can move beyond outdated models of change and access therapies that work with the brain, body, nervous system, and implicit memory. Her work focuses on trauma-informed, brain-based, and body-based approaches that help people create lasting change without relying only on talk or storytelling. Through Viva and her educational work, Julie helps adults, parents, clinicians, and families better understand why some patterns do not shift through insight alone and what becomes possible when we use tools that speak the nervous system's language. About Your Host, Gabriele ...
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    37 mins