5 Therapist-Approved Parenting Tips I Repeat to Almost Every Parent (Especially to My Husband!)…
There’s a running joke in our family that my husband can fix anything. My sweet husband is a engineer by trade and craftsman by heart, he can take apart or build from scratch just about anything you can think of…
If the sink starts flooding?
If the coffee maker doesn’t work?
If our toddler got a toy stuck in the fan?
I’m immediately yelling: “Honey! How do you fix this?!”
But when it comes to parenting? Child development? Emotional regulation? Why our toddler is suddenly screaming because the granola bar broke in half even though he specifically asked me to break it in half?
That’s my lane!
And honestly, that’s the nature of being married to someone whose literal career revolves around child development, attachment, nervous systems, emotional regulation, and supporting overwhelmed families.
I explain kid behavior the same way he explains home repairs to me. Fair trade.
So a lot of our parenting conversations sound like:
“Hey honey… remember he’s not giving you a hard time. He’s having a hard time….wah wah wah”
And to be clear — this blog is not “things dads do wrong.” Dads can be phenomenal parents—my husband certainly is!
And science is increasingly showing us just how much fatherhood can shape the brain, too. While fathers don’t experience the pregnancy-related neurological changes that occur in birthing mothers, research shows that the transition to fatherhood and hands-on caregiving are associated with meaningful neurobiological changes, including changes in brain activity, connectivity, and hormones. In other words, the parental brain isn’t just something mothers develop—the brain adapts to caregiving, and fathers’ brains can be remarkably responsive to the experience of parenting, too. (But alas, that is a tangent for another blog….Read one of my new favorite books: Dad Brain to learn more!)
It’s just genuinely the parenting concepts I find myself repeating most often in our house, and in the therapy office — the ones that tend to reduce power struggles, help kids regulate faster, and make parenting feel a little less like everyone is collectively losing their minds.
Because honestly? Most of these are the exact same things repeated most often by the primere experts in the field of parenting science…and certainly the parenting tips I say most often in therapy sessions with exhausted parents every week.
(If you want to explore more support around parenting stress, burnout, and emotional overwhelm, I talk more about this here: Navigating Parental Stress & Caregiver Burnout: Insights from the Surgeon General’s Notice)
So here are the most helpful parenting shifts I find myself repeating constantly — at home and in the therapy office.
Most Common Parenting Tips Shared by Your Therapist…
1. Your Kids Are Not Giving You a Hard Time — They’re Having a Hard Time
This parenting tip changes everything.
Because when we interpret behavior as manipulation, defiance, or “they’re doing this on purpose,” we naturally move toward punishment, power struggles, and disconnection.
But when we remember:
“They’re overwhelmed.”
“Their nervous system is overloaded.”
“They don’t yet have the skills to handle this moment.”
…we respond differently.
Not permissively.
Not without boundaries.
But with understanding.
A dysregulated child cannot access logic, flexibility, or problem-solving.
And honestly? Neither can adults sometimes.
Behavior is communication — especially when kids don’t yet have the words or regulation skills to express what’s happening internally.
(You can read more about emotional regulation and nervous systems here: Brain-Based Coping Strategies That Actually Work: Your Therapist’s Favorite Emotional Regulation Skills, Somatic Practices, and Mindfulness Tools)
The toddler throwing goldfish crackers across Target is communicating.
The child melting down after school is communicating.
The “bad attitude” before bedtime is communicating.
Usually the message is:
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“I need connection.”
“I don’t know what to do with my feelings.”
2. Tell Kids What TO Do Instead of Just Saying “No”
This parenting tip comes up in our house constantly.
Because little brains process language differently than adult brains.
When we say:
“Don’t run!”
A young child still has to figure out:
- What should I do instead?
- How fast should I move?
- What does my body need to do now?
Instead, we can give clear, concrete directions.
(For more practical parenting tools, check out our list of our favorite parenting books here: The Ultimate List of Parenting Books)
Instead of This… Try This
| Instead of saying… | Try saying… |
|---|---|
| “Don’t run!” | “Use walking feet.” |
| “Stop yelling!” | “Use a calm voice.” |
| “Don’t hit your sister!” | “Be gentle with your hands.” |
| “Quit climbing!” | “Feet stay on the floor.” |
| “Stop grabbing!” | “Ask for a turn.” |
| “Don’t throw that!” | “Balls are for throwing.” |
| “No jumping on the couch!” | “Couches are for sitting.” |
| “Stop whining.” | “Tell me what you need.” |
| “Don’t slam the door!” | “Close it softly.” |
| “Stop splashing!” | “Keep the water in the tub.” |
Small shift. Big impact.
3. Preparing Kids for Transitions Prevents So Many Meltdowns
The other day my husband leaned over to our son on the airplane and said:
“The plane is about to land, buddy. We’re going to feel a big bump and hear some loud noises, but we’re safe.”
And I had this moment of quiet pride because those were my exact words from previous flights.
Not because he “should’ve already known” that.
Not because I’m the expert and he’s not.
But because this is what happens when you try something a new way and see the impact it can have. It becomes so easy to start trying something new once you see it works. ..
Sometimes I remind parents: Kids are basically little aliens. Not in a mean way, in a literal developmental sense. Everything is new to them, which is why predictability matters so much.
Helpful Ways to Prepare Kids for Transitions
| Situation | Helpful Preparation |
|---|---|
| Leaving the playground | “Five more minutes, then we’ll go home for lunch.” |
| Bedtime | “After bath, we’ll read two books and turn lights out.” |
| Doctor appointment | “The doctor will check your ears and listen to your heart.” |
| Car ride | “After we park, we’ll unbuckle and walk inside.” |
| Grocery store | “We’re buying food today, not toys.” |
| Visiting family | “There will be lots of people and noise there.” |
Predictability helps the nervous system feel safe. And safer nervous systems mean fewer meltdowns. (Not zero meltdowns. But fewer!)
4. Consistency Matters
The parenting tip heard around the world….Kids THRIVE on consistency.
And honestly, I think this might be the thing we struggle with most in our house.
…Consistency is exhausting.
If we say:
“No TV today.”
…but after 45 minutes of screaming we give in…
Kids learn:
“If I escalate enough, the boundary changes.”
Consistency is what builds safety.
This connects deeply with what we know about attachment, emotional security, and how children learn predictability in relationships — something we also expand on here: Understanding Your Attachment Patterns
One of my favorite terms for this comes from sleep researcher Sofia Axelrod, who calls it the “gods of consistency.” And honestly? That’s the exact level of drama I want when talking about the role of consistency!
Children are constantly studying patterns.
If bedtime is consistent, they relax into it.
If boundaries are consistent, they stop testing them as intensely over time.
(Not immediately. But eventually!)
5. Sometimes the Problem Isn’t the Behavior — It’s the Expectation
And finally, the parenting tip everyone forgets….
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve reminded my husband: “Our 2-year-old literally cannot calm himself down yet.”
Not because he’s naughty.
Not because he’s manipulative.
Because his brain is still developing.
A huge amount of parenting stress comes from expecting children to do things their brains are not developmentally capable of doing yet. Which is why understanding development is such a game changer.
Honestly, one of my favorite resources for parents is the book Child Development for Therapists. I recommend it constantly because it breaks down what’s developmentally normal emotionally, cognitively, and socially at each age.
It’s one of those resources that helps parents exhale a little and realize:
“Oh… my child isn’t failing.”
“They’re developing.”
What’s Developmentally Normal by Age
| Age | Common Developmentally Normal Behaviors |
|---|---|
| 1 year | Throwing food, separation anxiety, exploring everything |
| 2 years | Huge tantrums, impulsivity, hitting when overwhelmed |
| 3 years | Difficulty sharing, intense emotions, needing repetition |
| 4 years | Bossiness, magical thinking, interrupting constantly |
| 5 years | Emotional swings, testing rules, needing reassurance |
| 6 years | Sensitivity to fairness, big reactions to mistakes |
| 7 years | Anxiety, perfectionism, emotional rigidity |
| 8 years | Social comparison, emotional sensitivity |
| 9 years | Friendship drama, increased self-consciousness |
| 10 years | Strong opinions, emotional intensity |
| 11 years | Mood shifts, independence-seeking |
| 12 years | Pulling away emotionally while still needing connection |
One of the biggest shifts in therapy is helping parents move from:
“They should know better.”
to:
“What skills are still developing here?”
That question changes everything.
What My Husband Thinks Parents Most Need to Know…
I asked my husband what he thinks has been the most helpful of the parenting tips in his own parenting, and I genuinely thought I had already hit the highlights with everything above.
He surprised me.
He said what’s been most helpful for him is having clear, simple calming strategies and soothing for getting through the meltdown moments with the kids, not just managing behavior, but helping everyone actually come down from the intensity together.
He described it as: “calming down so we can stop the meltdown.”
And honestly, that’s fair.
We still have littles in our house, so a lot of what we’re doing right now is co-regulation in real time — learning how to bring big feelings down together instead of trying to reason our way through them. (I can see why this would be pivotal for my sweet engineer husband who loves to joke about not knowing there were more than three feelings before we met.)
That idea of slowing things down before we try to “fix” anything connects so deeply with what I often see in therapy work around emotional regulation and nervous system capacity — especially when parents are already running on empty (I talk more about this idea of burnout and systemic overwhelm in Burnout Is Not Your Fault: A Therapist’s Take on the Systemic Roots of Exhaustion).
That looks like:
- taking deep breaths together
- getting on their level
- slowing our own voice and body down
- presence, attunement
- “talk to me…” instead of escalating
- getting quieter in tone and using fewer words
- validation
- simple distraction when appropriate
- connection before redirection
It’s not complicated, but it is intentional — and it requires a lot of self-regulation.
And this is where so much of parenting intersects with deeper relational patterns too — the way we respond under stress, what gets activated in us, and how we make sense of our child’s emotions is often shaped by our own attachment history (I explore this more in Understanding Your Attachment Patterns: How Therapy Can Help Adults Build Secure Attachment & Fulfilling Relationships and also in Attachment Isn’t a Label—Why Rigid “Attachment Style” Categories Miss the Point).
And over and over again, we come back to this idea:
connect first, then redirect. (Dan Siegel!)
regulate, relate, then reason. (Bruce Perry!)
bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind. (Circle of Security Parenting!)
The same idea said three different (and catchy) ways…from three different megaliths in the field of parenting…
Also, shout out to the book Mad, Mad, Mad, which is basically a household favorite and probably accounts for about 80% of our parenting calm-down strategies with our two-year-old. I hear my husband straight up quoting this book on a regular basis — and I love it.
A Regulated Adult Nervous System Matters More Than “Perfect” Parenting
A regulated adult nervous system is often more important than the “perfect” parenting tips or parenting strategy. Kids borrow regulation from us long before they can consistently create it themselves.
Parenting Is Hard Because Humans Are Hard
Honestly, I think modern parenting can feel incredibly isolating. There’s no real perfect parenting tips here. We’re all just doing the best we can and trying to move the needle a little further from the experiences we had.
There’s so much pressure to:
- never lose patience
- perfectly regulate yourself
- optimize every moment
- avoid all mistakes
- heal all your childhood wounds immediately
- raise emotionally intelligent kids flawlessly
That’s impossible.
You do not need to parent perfectly to raise healthy kids.
You need:
- repair
- connection
- consistency
- boundaries
- safety
- support for your nervous system
Because parenting activates everything in us.
You Don’t Have to Figure Parenting Out Alone
If parenting is feeling overwhelming, dysregulating, or emotionally activating in ways you didn’t expect, therapy can help. If no amount of parenting tips seems to be getting you the change you need to show up as the parent you want to be….
At Thrive Therapy Houston, we work with parents navigating:
- parenting stress
- emotional regulation
- maternal mental health
- nervous system overwhelm
- attachment
- postpartum transitions
- child behavior challenges
- perfectionism in parenting
- family relationship stress
And honestly?
Sometimes the most healing thing is simply having someone remind you:
your child is not giving you a hard time.
They’re just having a hard time.
And maybe… you’re both having a hard time together.
📩 Click here to schedule or send us a message.
➡️ [Learn more about our therapy services for helping parents here.]
With so much care,
Kirsti Reese, MA, LPC-S, RPT-S, PMH-C, SEP, LCDC, CCTP
EMDR Certified & EMDRIA Approved Consultant
Attachment & Trauma Specialist | Supporter of Cycle Breakers | Believer in Boundaries & Breakthroughs | Advocate for Brain-Based Healing | Champion of Emotionally Healthy Families
