If your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, stimulant medication is probably the first thing their doctor mentioned. And if you're trying to figure out whether it's the right choice for your family, you deserve more than a pamphlet published by a drug company. You deserve the full picture - including what the research really shows, who funded it, and the questions the medical model of ADHD hasn't answered. The story most parents get is a tidy one: ADHD is a chronic brain disorder, it's highly he...
Apr 27, 2026•45 min•Ep. 264
If your child holds it together all day at preschool or daycare and then completely unravels the moment they get home - melting down over dinner, refusing to use the potty, making every transition a battle - you're watching afterschool restraint collapse in action. It's exhausting. And it can bring up some painful feelings for parents too, including wondering whether your presence is making things harder, not easier. In this coaching call I worked with Kathleen, parent of a three-year-old who ju...
Apr 20, 2026•20 min•Ep. 263
If your morning routine for preschool looks less like a smooth routine and more like 21 rounds of "no", "stop", and "not like that" before 8 am, then things aren’t working well for either of you. In this episode, we walk through one ordinary preschool morning minute by minute, from the cereal bowl to the car seat buckle. We also learn how to move from: "how do I get my child to cooperate" to: what is going on inside my child's body right now, and what are they trying to communicate through the f...
Apr 13, 2026•37 min•Ep. 262
If your kids are fighting constantly, you're probably exhausted from playing referee. Maybe they're arguing over whose toy is whose, poking and teasing each other until someone cries, or telling you two completely different stories about what happened. And when you step in to help, nothing seems to work. In this free Beyond the Behavior group coaching call, parent Stacey’s 12-year-old and 7-year-old are caught in a cycle of constant sibling conflict - poking, teasing, hitting, and yes, even lyin...
Mar 30, 2026•22 min•Ep. 261
If you've been watching the news and feeling despair because you can’t do anything about it, this episode is for you. The Epstein files, revealing how powerful men think about, talk about, and treat women. ICE raids tearing families apart. Strikes on Iranian cities - and schools full of children! In this episode, I make a direct connection between these social issues and what happens inside our homes every day. The patterns playing out on a global scale - where the person with more power decides...
Mar 09, 2026•44 min•Ep. 260
When a doctor hands your child a diagnosis, it can be a relief - finally, an explanation for their behavior! But sociologist Dr. Allan Horwitz has spent decades studying how psychiatric diagnoses are made, and what he's found raises serious questions about how much weight that label should carry. In this episode, Dr. Horwitz walks through how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) - the manual that defines every mental health diagnosis - was built less on scientific research than on profess...
Mar 02, 2026•22 min
When your three-year-old hits you, their sibling, or another child, it's easy to feel frustrated, embarrassed, or even angry. You might wonder if this challenging behavior means something is wrong with your child or your parenting. In this episode, I help you see hitting in a completely different way. Instead of viewing it as a problem to eliminate, we'll explore what your child is trying to communicate through their actions. You'll discover how hitting is often your child's attempt to meet impo...
Feb 16, 2026•28 min•Ep. 259
Are you exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix? Do you find yourself more irritable with your children than you ever imagined possible? You might be experiencing parental burnout and you're far from alone. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Moïra Mikolajczak, one of the world's leading researchers on parental burnout, along with listener Kelly, who shares her raw, honest experience of burning out while raising her young daughter. Dr. Mikolajczak reveals groundbreaking research showing that ...
Feb 09, 2026•1 hr
When you started parenting, you probably had ideas about the kind of parent you wanted to be. Maybe you imagined patient bedtimes and peaceful mornings. Then reality hit, and you found yourself doing things you swore you'd never do. Parent Maile Grace knows this feeling well. In this conversation, she shares how her parenting values have shifted since her daughter was born. She talks about moving away from strategies like timeouts that seemed to work in the moment but didn't align with what she ...
Feb 02, 2026•28 min
When your child struggles with behavior or attention, doctors might suggest ADHD medication. Before you move forward, you should know what a psychiatric diagnosis actually is - and what it isn't. This episode examines how psychiatric diagnoses actually work - and what they don't tell you. Dr. Sami Timimi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in the UK, explains how the mental health system has become an industrial complex that profits from turning distress into diagnoses. You'll learn why a diagn...
Jan 19, 2026•22 min
Welcome to 2026! In this episode, we're looking back at what we covered in 2025 and sharing what's coming in the year ahead. A Year of Growth 2025 was a year of evolution for the podcast. We covered topics you've been asking about - parenting triggers, rage, overwhelm, boundaries, and breaking family trauma cycles. We also did a deep dive across four episodes into Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation (which likely overstates the harm of social media on kids). There’s also a summary e...
Jan 12, 2026•23 min•Ep. 258
Have you ever opened a gift from your parent and felt your stomach drop? You've tried everything - wishlists, clear conversations, explicit boundaries about gift giving. But the packages keep arriving, filled with things that feel totally opposite from your values. And then you're stuck in this awful place where you're simultaneously angry at them for not respecting your boundaries AND judging yourself for not just being grateful. In this episode, I'm sharing part of a powerful coaching conversa...
Nov 24, 2025•18 min
You've told your parents you're not available during work hours. They keep calling anyway. You've asked them not to comment on your weight. They bring it up again on the next visit. You've said no to those random Amazon gifts. Another package arrives at your door. Many parents know how to set boundaries, but get stuck when someone won't respect them. In this summary episode, therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab shares practical strategies for enforcing boundaries when people repeatedly ignore or dismis...
Nov 10, 2025•27 min
Do you ever wake up with tension in your body because you know your child will want to play the moment you walk out of your bedroom? Do you spend time with your child but think about all the chores you should be doing instead? Parent Aija came to a (FREE!) Beyond The Behavior coaching call with exactly this challenge. She plays with her four-and-a-half-year-old son a lot. But she doesn't enjoy it. And she has big feelings of guilt and shame about that. What starts as a question about setting bou...
Oct 20, 2025•43 min•Ep. 257
Are you tired of feeling guilty every time you get angry as a parent? What if your anger actually contains valuable information about what needs to change in your family systems? Most parental anger management approaches treat all anger the same way - as a problem that requires control. But research shows there are actually two distinct types of parental anger, and understanding this difference changes everything about how you respond. Instead of suppressing your emotions or exploding at your ki...
Sep 29, 2025•26 min•Ep. 256
Do you find yourself going from zero to a hundred in seconds when your child spills something, refuses to cooperate, or has a meltdown? If you're constantly asking yourself, "Why do I keep snapping at my child?" or "Why am I so angry as a parent?" - you're definitely not alone. Many parents struggle with parenting triggers that seem to come out of nowhere, leaving them wondering how such small incidents can create such big reactions. What if your childhood "wasn't that bad" but you're still deal...
Sep 22, 2025•35 min•Ep. 255
Every parent knows that harsh inner voice that whispers "You're a terrible parent" when you lose your patience, or "You've ruined your kids forever" after a difficult moment. This episode reveals a simple "magic trick" that can instantly create space between you and those critical thoughts - and it's something anyone can learn. Discover how one powerful phrase can transform your reactions from triggered explosions to curious responses. You'll learn where your inner critic actually comes from (hi...
Sep 15, 2025•22 min
Does your child's behavior sometimes trigger such an instant, overwhelming reaction that you find yourself yelling before you even realize what happened? That moment when your jaw clenches, your shoulders tense, and suddenly you're saying things you wish you could take back? You're experiencing what millions of parents face daily - a nervous system response that happens faster than conscious thought. This episode reveals the science behind why willpower alone isn't enough to stop yelling, and in...
Sep 08, 2025•20 min
If you've been scrolling TikTok or parenting forums lately, you've probably encountered FAFO parenting - the trending approach that's being positioned as the antidote to ‘overly permissive’ gentle parenting. Standing for ‘F*** Around and Find Out,’ this parenting style centers on letting children experience harsh consequences without parental intervention, even when parents could easily prevent those consequences. But is FAFO parenting actually effective, or does it create more problems than it ...
Sep 03, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 254
Ever wondered about alternative paths to educate your child outside the traditional school system? My guest today is Laura Moore, who spent 15 years in early childhood education - and who is now exploring homeschooling alternatives, including unschooling, for her own child. As a teacher and mother of a 3.5-year-old, Laura brings a unique insider perspective to the education debate. She opens up about witnessing the limitations of the current school system, the pressure children face to conform t...
Aug 18, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 253
When Sara's four-year-old son started asking permission to use art supplies he'd always freely accessed before, she knew something had shifted. After a year in a (loving, high-quality!) preschool, her previously autonomous child was suddenly seeking approval for things that had never required it. Sara had never required this at home, and in fact it worried her because it didn't fit with her values to treat her son as a whole person. If this shift was happening so obviously at home, what other ch...
Aug 11, 2025•51 min•Ep. 252
What if the most powerful gift you could give your child isn't a college fund, but the skills to create their own income at age 10? When my daughter Carys started pet sitting, she didn't just earn money (although she does now have $759 in a retirement savings account that could become over $100,000 by the time she needs it). She’s also developing initiative, follow-through, boundary setting, and client communication skills that many adults find difficult. This episode reveals why ages 8-12 repre...
Aug 04, 2025•58 min•Ep. 251
Are you worried that social media is destroying your teen's mental health? You're not alone. Jonathan Haidt's bestselling book The Anxious Generation has parents everywhere wondering if smartphones are rewiring their kids' brains and creating a mental health crisis. But before you rush to ban your teen's phone, you need to hear what the research actually shows. This summary episode brings together all the key insights from our 4-part series examining The Anxious Generation . We take a deep dive ...
Jul 28, 2025•18 min
In Part 1 , we looked at the evidence for the teen 'mental health crisis.' In Part 2 , we reviewed the evidence for whether social media is causing the so-called 'teen mental health crisis. In Part 3 , we began looking at what to do about the effects of phones on kids - starting with school cell phone bans. If you've read The Anxious Generation or heard about Dr. Jean Twenge's forthcoming book 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World , you might be wondering whether it's time to implement ...
Jul 21, 2025•36 min•Ep. 250
This is the third in our series of episodes on Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation. In Part 1 , we looked at the evidence for the teen 'mental health crisis.' In Part 2 , we reviewed the evidence for whether social media is causing the so-called 'teen mental health crisis. In this episode, we begin looking at what to do about the effects of phones on kids - starting with school cell phone bans. Phone bans are spreading like wildfire across America, with 21 states either studying or alre...
Jul 14, 2025•48 min•Ep. 249
In Part 1 of this mini-series looking at Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation , we discovered that the teen mental health crisis might not be as dramatic as The Anxious Generation claims - and that changes in diagnosis and coding could be inflating the numbers. But even if we accept that teens' struggles have increased somewhat, the next crucial question is: what's actually causing the change? Jonathan Haidt is adamant that social media causes depression and anxiety in teenagers. He clai...
Jul 07, 2025•58 min•Ep. 248
Are we really facing an unprecedented mental health crisis in America, or have we been misreading the data? As parents everywhere grapple with The Anxious Generation's claims that smartphones are rewiring our children's brains, this episode takes a closer look at what the research actually shows about youth mental health trends. If you've read the book, you've seen those alarming hockey-stick graphs showing dramatic increases in teen depression and anxiety in teenagers. But what if those "surges...
Jun 30, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 247
Do you ever feel like your parenting is completely off track from where you want it to be? You promise yourself you won't yell, then find yourself yelling at your kids before breakfast. You intend to be patient and present, but end up getting distracted by your phone, or snapping at your child. This disconnect between your parenting intentions and reality can leave you feeling guilty, ashamed, and afraid that you're passing on intergenerational trauma despite your best efforts. In this episode, ...
May 26, 2025•47 min•Ep. 246
Are you tired of facing family challenges alone? In this powerful episode, we witness the transformative journey of two parents who discovered that joining a parenting support group can change everything at home. Parenting wasn't meant to be a solo journey. When sleep deprivation, communication struggles with partners, and children's big emotions become overwhelming family challenges, the right parenting support group makes all the difference. This episode shows how connecting with a supportive ...
May 19, 2025•51 min
Most parents believe praise is an essential tool for raising confident, well-behaved children. We've been told to "catch them being good" and "focus on the positive." But what if our well-intentioned praise is actually functioning as a subtle form of control? What if praise isn't just celebrating who our children are, but secretly shaping them into who we—or society—want them to become? In this episode, we'll examine how praise affects children's self-concept, motivation, and behavior. We'll exp...
May 12, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 245
