I’d have told you it was easy. Give a kid choices, validate the feelings, ask kindly instead of demanding, and boom — cooperation. I’d have written a very smug Instagram caption about it.

Lucky for me, my first two boys came out of the womb with opinions, assertiveness, and wild energy, so I never got to be that smug. These are the kids who used to get labeled “difficult.”

Here’s the thing about difficult. It was never a diagnosis. It was a description of how hard the adults in the room found it, not a description of the kid.

So let’s talk about what’s actually going on.

These kids want power.

They want power, they’re louder, and their emotions run hotter than the kids next to them. They have contagious passions and they are, often, very hard to console — popsicle-and-a-hug does not cut it when this kid is mid-meltdown. When they’re dysregulated (which is often), it can look like caged-wild-animal energy. Reactive. Combative. Impossible to reason with in the moment because reasoning isn’t what a nervous system in fight-or-flight is built to do.

They also notice more and feel more than most kids around them. And they learn by doing — which means they make a lot of mistakes from acting before thinking, because that’s the only way their brain knows how to learn anything.

There is never, ever a boring moment. Parents of these kids have to be ON. Always.

I remember taking my four-year-old to a friend’s house. Within about ninety seconds, he had opened their kitchen knife drawer. My friend, who has a four-year-old of her own, was stunned. Her son would never have thought to open that drawer, let alone tried. Mine wasn’t being defiant. He was just doing what spirited kids do — noticing everything, touching everything, moving faster than the thought of “should I do this” could catch up to him.

Researcher and parent educator Mary Sheedy Kurcinka has spent decades studying exactly these kids. Her word for them isn’t difficult — it’s spirited. Thomas and Chess found that temperament is influenced by 9 temperament traits: activity level, regularity, initial reaction, intensity, mood, distractibility, persistence, and sensory threshold. Around 15% to 20% of kids score high in these categories and were labeled as “difficult”.

So if this is your house, you are not imagining it, and you are absolutely not alone.

Your own wiring matters here too

Here’s the part that took me the longest to accept: parenting can amplify a child’s temperament traits, not just manage them.

If you have a high need for control, you and a strong-willed kid are going to butt heads — a lot. If you crave quiet and peace, this child can trigger you from breakfast to bedtime. If you demand obedience and respect just because you’re the grown-up, this kid will repel off your grip like a magnet turned the wrong way. And permissive parenting doesn’t fare much better — kids with parents who don’t follow through on boundaries, or who avoid conflict instead of working through it, tend to struggle just as much, in a different direction.

This is exactly why I teach authoritative parenting. Not because it’s a trendy buzzword — because it’s backed by decades of research, starting with psychologist Diana Baumrind in the 1960s, showing it produces the best outcomes for kids across the board. Especially spirited ones.

Authoritative parenting is firm + kind + high expectations + high support, all at the same time.

So here’s a question worth sitting with: which of those four are you already confident in? Which one could use some growth?

A couple examples of what that imbalance can look like:

A parent who repeats a direction more than twice, gets ignored, and finally rage-lectures has high expectations — she knows what she wants from her kid. What she could grow is staying warm and steady while she holds that line, instead of the wheels coming off at rep number three.

A parent who gives three separate warnings because she can’t stand the guilt of finally following through has plenty of warmth and support. What she could grow is trusting that a kind, calm consequence — delivered the first time she says it — is more loving, not less.

They’re not trying to defy you. They’re trying to stay true to themselves.

Spirited kids are determined to follow their own internal compass rather than comply with an adult simply because that adult is bigger. Developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld, building on a concept first named by psychoanalyst Otto Rank, calls this counterwill — the instinctive push against feeling controlled or coerced. It’s a protective instinct that helps a person hold onto a sense of self. It just happens to be turned all the way up in these kids.

They also tend to have a unique sensory profile, and flexible thinking is something they’re constantly having to build, not something that comes naturally. Playdates can get tricky fast, especially when another kid is on your spirited one’s home turf — home turf plus low flexibility and intensity is a combustible combination.

And here’s a pattern you’ll recognize instantly if you’re raising one of these kids: hearing the word “no” often lands as an invitation to negotiate. It’s amazing how saying “no” to one of my kids makes him cry from guilt, and the other two double down or don’t even flinch.

They live close to shame.

This is the part that broke my heart the most when I finally understood it.

These kids shut down under lectures. They’ll “act” like they don’t care right after they’ve backhanded their sibling — not because they’re cold, but because shame is unbearable to sit in, so pretending not to care is the fastest exit. And in the heat of it, they’ll reach for words as power swords: I hate my life. You suck, I wish you were dead. My four-year-old’s current favorite is “shut up, idiot,” delivered with the confidence of a tiny CEO.

Some days, you are so proud of this kid you could burst. Some days, this kid feels like too much. Both are allowed to be true in the same week. Sometimes the same hour.

Spirited or neurodivergent? Here’s my honest answer.

I advocate for neuro-psych evaluation if parenting seems “harder” or if your child is struggling consistently. Many of these children are neurodivergent. I’ve tried for years to get an ADHD diagnosis for my middle son, but he’s never qualified. I’m still on the fence. But I’ll never forget what my pediatrician said to me after my son was struggling in school:

“I understand school is a challenge, and home is okay — but that’s because you know how to parent this child. All teachers don’t have the skills you have. We can’t give a diagnosis unless we see the signs at home too.”

Right now, I have one neurotypical child who struggles at school and is fine at home. Not easy, exactly, but whatever's hard for him at school doesn't follow him through the front door. And I have a neurodivergent child who thrives, both at school and at home, under authoritative leadership, yet also has different struggles than his brother. Perfectionism, sore-losing, and a low tolerance for correction or frustration all show up in spirited kids — and they overlap heavily with anxiety, ADHD, and autism.

Here’s the distinction, from my own front-row seat: when I change MY behavior and MY parenting with my spirited, neurotypical child, he responds well. Things get easier — not easy, easier. With my neurodivergent child, we can be doing and saying every single “right” thing, and it is still hard. If you are on the fence, and the lines get blurry between what is neurodivergence and what is temperament, it doesn’t hurt anyone or anything to get an assessment from a qualified provider. And more importantly, if it’s ADHD or temperament that is causing intense emotions, the interventions will be similar….build up your child’s capacity AND skill set by seeking the right support from professionals that can best support your child.

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Why I built Thriving Together

I took the Big Little Feelings courses. I was a founding member of the Good Inside app. And I still couldn’t find a place where the other parents had kids like mine.

So I built one.

It’s called Thriving Together, because I don’t think we’re meant to parent kids like ours in isolation. It took me years to get to a place where I can honestly say I’m thriving while raising kids who don’t respond to mainstream parenting advice — and I built this community so you don’t have to take the long way there like I did.

Here’s what I know for sure: you were made to parent your child, even when you don’t understand why in the middle of the hard days. You are doing the best you can with the skills and the capacity you have today. And if you want to widen that capacity — build the skillset, get the scripts, stop feeling so alone in it — our waitlist is open. I’m opening 30 spots at the end of September.

In the meantime, a few things worth doing right now: go read Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka if you haven’t. Poke around my Substack archive. Make an appointment with someone qualified to assess your child. And take an honest look at your daily and weekly routines — what do you need to build in so you’re not running on empty by 4pm, because none of these tools work if you’re too depleted to reach for them.

Sending you all my love in this. What has been your experience raising a spirited child?

Kirsten

Let me show you what I mean.

We were playing our version of the World Cup in the backyard last week. I scored the winning goal, and my son didn’t miss a beat. “No, it didn’t count, I wasn’t in the right position!”

I stopped playing to cool off for a second, walked inside, and found round two already waiting for me. My other son had spilled popcorn all over the floor. “I didn’t do it, Mom! It’s not my fault the bag has crumbs in it!” He said it before I’d even had a chance to look his direction.

I told him gently that I’d help him clean it up, and that next time he could pour the popcorn into a bowl first. He doubled down instantly. “Duh, Mom, I already know that!”

I stayed quiet. A few minutes later, once things had settled, I circled back. “You do know that. You’re right. And my job is to help you remember what you know, and help you fix and solve problems along the way. Next time, you can speak to me respectfully instead, and just say, ‘I know, Mom, my bad.’”

Two kids, two completely different moments, same underlying thing happening underneath both of them. Losing felt unbearable. Being corrected felt unbearable. And the fastest way out of that feeling was to argue their way out of it, rather than sit inside it for even a few seconds.

Here’s what I think we don’t talk about enough….

When we walk on eggshells around our kids, or rush in to solve every problem and protect them from any discomfort at all, we’re doing it because we love them (and honestly because we want things to go smoothly). That instinct comes from a good place. But it has a cost we don’t always see coming. When we over-accommodate, our kids don’t get the practice they need to build actual emotional resiliency. They don’t learn that a hard feeling is survivable, because we’ve spent years making sure they never really have to find out.

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So here are a few tools I actually use, in the moment, to start closing that gap.

1. I validate the resistance while staying the authoritative parent, not the permissive one. Something like, “I know it feels uncomfortable when I give you a direction you don’t like. It’s my job to help you make the right choice. You can pick up the popcorn on your own, or I can help you. You choose.”

2. I help them separate themselves from the feeling, and name it as something temporary, not permanent. “Your furrowed brow tells me frustration is visiting you right now. It’ll pass.”

3. I let them know they’re allowed to feel anything they feel, and still be held accountable for what’s theirs to do. “Your feelings are getting in the way of cleaning your room. You can take back control by focusing on one thing at a time, and I can put music on for you while you get started.”

None of these make the hard feeling disappear faster. That’s not the point. They just teach a kid that the feeling and the responsibility can exist in the same moment, without one needing to cancel out the other.

Here’s a tool we use in the car that’s become one of my favorites, because it works on the flip side of this same skill: what it looks like to be the kind of person who can tolerate a hard moment gracefully, even when nobody’s forcing them to.

We play a game called “I’m the Type of Person.” One of us tells a tiny story, and then we finish it with the kind of person we want to be inside it. Something like: on the playground, a group of kids is playing tag. Someone tags a younger kid who doesn’t totally understand the rules, and that kid just keeps playing instead of going out. “I’m the type of person who lets it go, like Elsa,” one of us might say. Or, “I’m the type of person who changes the game so everyone can understand the rules.”

Or this one: you’re at a friend’s house, and you forget to shut the door behind you. Their dog gets out. “I’m the type of person who owns their mistake and helps find the dog.” “I’m the type of person who learns to shut doors, and people respect me because I own it when I mess up.”

It’s low stakes, it’s a little silly, and it’s quietly rehearsing the exact muscle we’re trying to build everywhere else. Handling something imperfectly, and still choosing who to be inside it.

If there’s one thing I want you to walk away with, it’s this: we’re not protecting our kids from discomfort. We’re protecting them from the practice they actually need.

These skills, tolerating correction, losing without unraveling, sitting with a hard feeling instead of arguing your way out of it, they don’t come intuitively for a lot of our kids. They have to be explicitly taught, practiced out loud, and modeled over and over again, in small unremarkable moments like a backyard soccer game or a bag of spilled popcorn. That’s genuinely good news, if you think about it. A skill gap is something you can close. It just happens little by little, not all at once.

This is exactly the kind of work we’re deep in right now inside Thriving Together, our membership for parents of spirited, strong-willed, and neurodivergent kids. We’re in the middle of a challenge called The Socially Confident Challenge: How to Raise a Kid Who Is Easy to Be Around, working through skills exactly like this one, week by week.

If you want in when we open the doors again this fall, join the waitlist. I’d love to have you.

With you in this,

Kirsten Russell

Temperament-Informed Parent Coach

When my grandma passed away, my family made a decision. We’d use her inheritance to build memories instead of things. She was the kind of grandma who just wanted her family around her, even if that meant sitting at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee. No agenda, no big plans. Just us, together. This place gives us that same feeling, week after week — watching our kids grow up in the same pool, on the same lake. We call it our legacy vacation home. And every summer we spend here is a small way of giving her a lasting honor.

We own 1/8th of a home here through a company called Pacaso — they buy beautiful, fully-furnished vacation homes and sell shares to families who want a real vacation home without the year-round commitment (or year-round costs) of owning one outright. We get about 6 weeks a year here, and it has completely changed how we vacation. It’s not a time share, you outright own a part of the home.

Caldera Springs sits in the high desert of Central Oregon, about 20 minutes from Bend. It’s ridiculously good for families with busy, outdoorsy kids — pools, ponds, bike paths, and a village all inside the community, with mountains, lakes, and rivers minutes away.

We love to travel. Exploring new places as a family is one of our favorite things to do. But with three young kids and a highly sensitive nervous system of my own, there's something about knowing exactly what's coming that feels like relief right now. Knowing which bed I'll sleep in. Knowing where the pots and pans live. Watching my boys ride off on their bikes completely on their own, because they know every trail here like the back of their hand. In this season of life, that kind of familiarity is its own kind of vacation.

Getting there: The closest airport is Redmond, Oregon (RDM), about 45 minutes away. If you’re flying in from out of state, it’s worth the flight. You can easily spend a few hours in Bend on the way, grab lunch downtown, walk along the river, then drive the last 20 minutes into Caldera Springs to start your week.

Here’s what a real week here looked like for us:

Day 1 Stop in Sisters, Oregon on the way in — park time, Sisters Coffee, the old-school candy store, and the bookstore. Movie night at the house with tri-tip and salad on the grill.

Day 2 Pancakes and eggs, strength training workout, then bike to the village for putt-putt golf and the Quarry pool. Chill time at the house, card games, BBQ chicken and salad for dinner.

Day 3 Cereal and breakfast sausage, run 3 miles workout, Forest House pool. Chill afternoon, then bike to a concert at Sunriver Village with taco burritos to-go for a picnic dinner.

Day 4 English muffin egg sandwiches, a run. I get a few hours of work time in while the boys golf on the 3 par, not fancy local course. King Pin bowling at the Forest House, late pool time, teriyaki chicken for dinner, and hot tub to close it out.

Day 5 Smoothies from Brewed Awakenings, more King Pin bowling, a long bike ride to Margaritas on the River, park time, Josie’s Deli for lunch, late pool time, and Century Commons food carts for dinner. S’mores for dessert.

Day 6 Walked to Brewed Awakenings, then come home and make pancakes. Kayaking and paddleboarding on the lake, Forest House pool, happy hour floating the Deschutes, and pizza takeout for dinner.

Day 7 A 30-minute Barre3 workout at home, donuts and sausage to-go, then drove to Elk Lake and rented a pontoon boat for the day. End with the evening farmers market and food carts on the drive back

LINK TO RENTALS

More to do around Caldera Springs:

• Drive to Suttle Lake, Paulina Lake

• Explore downtown Bend, OR

• Hike the Lava Tubes

• Hike Smith Rock

• Local kid camps (options from an hour of care to a half day)

• High Desert Museum

• The newly renovated spa for a massage

• Bring paper or remote-control boats for the small ponds and streams around the community

• Horseback riding or just feeding the horses nearby

If you’ve been eyeing Central Oregon for a family trip, this is genuinely one of the easiest, most kid-friendly bases we’ve found.

Thanks for letting me share our happy place with you!

Kirsten

PS: Not related to travel content, but the waitlist for my Thriving Together membership hub is officially open. Sign up here. When I open registry in the fall, you will be the first to know! If you’re new here….Thriving Together is the membership for parents whose kids laughed in the face of every parenting book on your shelf. The intense ones, the spicy ones. I’m opening it to 30 new families because I actually want to know your kid's name, not just your email address.

These kids are complex, and I would love to be on your team to support you.

I saw her clearly. Little tea set. Little doctor kit. A coloring book open on the floor next to her, self-entertained for a solid hour while I recovered, occasionally wandering over to hand me a pretend cup of tea and ask, very seriously, what color she should use next. I’m a realist, for the record. I’d wanted kids my whole life and I wasn’t naive about the hard parts. I babysat for years, and worked with children my entire life. But somewhere in that head-cold haze, “hard” still looked like tea parties and gentle interruptions.

The last decade of real life parenting has been one long, quiet ache. It was specialist waiting rooms and developmental evaluations. It was a medication rollercoaster that took years to get right — a dose adjusted, a side effect showing up three weeks later, a different medication entirely, starting the calibration over from scratch. It was so many late nights that they blurred into each other, until I couldn't tell you anymore which hard night belonged to which hard year. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I stopped fully feeling most of what was happening to me. I lived in a functional freeze state longer than I'd like to admit — going through the motions, putting out one fire and then the next one, handling everything that needed handling, while feeling almost nothing underneath it. Numb was the only way I knew how to keep functioning.

Somewhere between the tea-set daydream and the daily hypervigilant state I lived in as a new mom, there was a gap. For a long time, I didn’t have a word for what lives in that gap. I just knew it made me feel like a bad mother for noticing it was there at all.

Turns out, it has a name.

Researchers call it chronic sorrow. A psychiatrist named Simon Olshansky coined the term back in 1962, working with parents whose kids had disabilities, and a therapist named Susan Roos built on it decades later. Her definition, more or less: it’s the ongoing gap between what you keep hoping for and what keeps actually happening. Not a one-time loss you grieve and then move past. A living loss, because the thing you’re grieving is very much alive, sitting across the breakfast table from you every single morning probably high-pitch screaming, antagonizing their sibling, or refusing what you made for breakfast.

That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. We’re wired to think grief follows death. Someone is here, and then they’re gone, and the grief is the shape of the missing person. But researchers have known for a long time that loss doesn’t only work that way. Some losses are quieter than that, harder to name, almost embarrassing to bring up, because nobody died. Nothing is technically wrong. Your child is right there, breathing, growing, loud and alive at 5:55am in a Spiderman costume. So what, exactly, are you supposed to be sad about?

Here’s the reframe that changed things for me: the grief isn’t connected to something you had and lost. It’s connected to something you imagined, and it just never happened.

Let me start with the smaller version of that gap, because it’s an easier one to say out loud. I wanted a daughter. Badly. I also wanted my kids to be the same sex as each other, and I wanted three of them, and I thought it was so cool whenever I saw a family that was all boys or all girls — like they’d cracked some secret code. And I got three boys, and I love my three boys with my whole being, AND I also still feel a small, real sadness that I will never get to say the words “I have a daughter.” I will never know what it’s like to raise one.

Both of those are true. Not one canceling out the other. Just both, sitting there together, the way most true things about parenting actually sit, in the middle.

But if I’m honest, the daughter thing isn’t where the real grief lives for me. The real grief showed up somewhere I didn’t expect: in my kids not matching the picture I’d been building since I was seven years old myself.

I have a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 4-year-old. My oldest has autism level 1, moderate anxiety, and ADHD, combined type. If you asked me to bet, I’d bet he eventually gets a Tourette’s diagnosis too. My middle son is spicy — and I don’t mean mild-red-pepper spicy, or even jalapeño. I mean ghost pepper. Some days I wonder if he’d qualify for an ADHD assessment. Other days I wonder if he’d qualify for fraternity president at age eight, or possibly a mini law degree, the way he can argue a point.

Some of what those years actually cost, in plain terms:

• Neither of them slept through the night until they were almost two. One night, our son was 3 years old and after we laid with him for an hour, he kept coming out of his bed over 100 times. He was amped up when we were next to him, and amped up when he tried to fall asleep alone. It was years of brutal bedtimes

• A trip to Target required two adults for years, because someone was always going to need to be carried out to the car mid-meltdown — that lasted until he was five

• Playdates only worked with a high chair for containment or a field big enough to run the energy out

• Having other kids over at our house was genuinely painful and stressful until he was around seven, and even now, at ten, it’s still tricky, even though we can finally see the light

• Vacations got measured in good moments, not good days, because for years, good days just didn’t happen

• Saturday mornings had to be executed almost perfectly or all three kids would be at each other’s throats before 7am

• Our car has bucket seats, non-negotiable, because none of my kids can sit directly next to each other without poking, needling, or — I wish I were kidding — licking one another

• Babysitters were impossible to find. We had a child psychiatrist in training for a few weeks, until she said, “Your kids are just too much work. It’s too hard.”

• We went to a friends house because they had same age kids, and our 4 year old immediately pulled a kitchen drawer open and found a knife. Our friend said, “Our kids have never even tried to open any drawers in here, wow!” Ugh, what is that life like….

That’s not a complaint list. That’s the actual math of what those years cost my nervous system.

Here’s where the grief gets specific, though, and it’s not really about any of that list.

I watch my oldest struggle with things that shouldn’t be that hard. A friend telling him he doesn’t want to play with him nearly wrecked him. Putting a wet towel in the hamper, a task that takes his brothers four seconds, can take him twenty minutes and three reminders. Waiting his turn to tell us something — anything — causes him actual physical discomfort, like the words are pressing against the inside of his ribs, and he flies off the handle. Life is harder for him. There’s no version of that sentence I can soften.

So when he asked, a few weeks ago, if we could sit on the front porch, listen to relaxing country music, and color with a charcuterie board between us — I ran. Genuinely ran to set it up. This was the parenting dream. This is exactly what I pictured when I was seven, and twelve, and twenty-four, and pregnant with him, half-asleep with a head cold, imagining a kid who’d hand me tea and ask what color to use next.

We sat down. We started coloring. About ten minutes in, his vocal tic came back, hard — the one that had been quiet for a few weeks. He asked me why his friends don’t think he’s as cool as they are. Then, quieter, he told me he wishes sometimes he could pull his brain out of his head, because it gets so stuck, and he hates it.

I listened. I tried to offer something — some small piece of advice, the reflex every parent has — and he told me to stop talking. So I did. We sat there for ninety minutes, mostly silent, coloring.

And at some point, a few quiet tears landed on my page.

“Why are you crying, Mom?” he asked.

“Because sometimes I love you so much, it hurts. In so many different ways,” was all I said.

“Being your mom is my dream,” I told him. “And being with you right now makes me feel like the luckiest mom in the world.”

“Ok,” he said back (with an eyeroll). And we kept coloring….

It’s ok to let more than one feeling live in you at the same time. You can have a fierce, bone-deep instinct to protect your child, and also wish, quietly, that circumstances or temperament had landed differently. Neither one erases the other. Neither one says anything about how much you love your kid.

This gets so much harder to sit with because of what we’re all looking at all day. If one kid is on an iPad at a restaurant, staying quiet and easy, and the table next to them doesn’t have one, that second table looks feral by comparison — even though those kids are just being kids. Social media shows us families in matching outfits, everyone smiling on cue. My kids would fight me tooth and nail over what shirt they’re wearing, a battle I have zero interest in starting most mornings.

I’ve done a handful of therapy sessions on this specific grief. Genuinely helpful. But what’s helped the most, by far, has been building a community of parents raising kids like mine — the difficult ones, the neurodivergent ones, the ones who don’t come with an instruction manual that matches the rest of the mild tempered children.

I knew I was actually healing, not just coping, the day my vision for my own life started to shift. That happened once I started working on myself first — once I fully accepted that I can’t change my kids’ behavior before I change my own. That’s the whole reason it’s called parent coaching, and not parenting coaching. The parent comes first.

Our friend group is small on purpose now. I’ve had to get picky about who gets access to us on hard days. A small comment like “I would never let our kids do that,” or the eyebrow raise when your child loses it in public, gets brainwashed into your head and lives there rent-free. Sometimes it wasn’t even what people said. It was what they didn’t say, in the silence right after.

Do you have at least a few people you can call or text and be completely honest about how hard the morning was, the day was — so that when you actually see them in person, you’re not standing there saying “everything’s great!” through gritted teeth while death-glaring your kid to knock it off?

I’m an optimist, so here’s the part I remind my husband of constantly: the grief that used to wash over me fast and full has made the small glimmers, and the big joys, hit that much harder. Yesterday, my oldest helped his brother out of the car and carried his stuff inside, completely unprompted. I don’t think I would have felt that proud, that happy, over something that small, if the low days hadn’t been so genuinely low. The highs are high because the lows were low.

We were never meant to raise kids alone, in a vacuum, with no backup. Who’s in your community? Which friend would take on the pseudo-aunt or pseudo-uncle role for your kid, no question asked? And who would you actually let see the version of your family that doesn’t make it onto Instagram?

There’s a poem a mother wrote years ago, about raising a child with disabilities, that ends up being just as relatable for a lot of us raising strong-willed, complex, neurodivergent kids.

It’s called “Welcome to Holland,” by Emily Perl Kingsley.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this......

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

What has your experience been? This is a safe place, as always. Thanks for letting me share my journey with you.

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With you in this,
Kirsten

If you don’t have someone to talk to about your own version of this, that’s exactly why I built Thriving Together. You walk through the doors, you hear other parents talk honestly about the hard parts of their kid’s phase, their behaviors, their own hard mornings — and you get to let out the big sigh of relief that comes from realizing you were never the only amazing parent raising a challenging, beautiful kid. Join us here.

I needed something different. Not a bribe. Not a screen. Something that gave his brain a place to land. I was an elementary school teacher for years, and one thing I did every morning was have an expected expectation for the kids to do when they walked into my classroom….so I knew I wanted to replicate this at home.

So I started setting out a little activity at the kitchen counter before they came down. Nothing fancy. A piece of paper and a pen. Some mornings, a puzzle. Some mornings, I’d ripped a page out of an old activity book because I couldn’t find the real thing and didn’t have time to look. When they were smaller, it was blocks. Play-Doh. A deck of cards spread out like a mystery waiting to be solved.

I call them brain stretches. And here’s what I didn’t expect — they weren’t just for him. They were for all of us.

Because when there’s something already waiting on the counter, nobody asks me what we’re doing today. Nobody asks for a screen. Everybody stays contained, right there, while I get at least 15 quiet minutes to be a person before I have to be everyone’s everything.

I’ll be honest — they protested at first. There was whining. There was “why do we have to.” I held the line anyway, because I’d learned the hard way that if I gave them an out, I’d be negotiating every single morning for the rest of my life. I made it nonnegotiable. Now, it’s just what we do. Nobody asks anymore. They sit down and they know.

Some Sunday nights, I plan the whole week out — five little activities lined up and ready. Other mornings, I’m setting something out thirty seconds before I hear feet on the stairs, grabbing whatever’s closest and calling it good. Both versions work. That’s the part I want you to hear. This isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about doing it in a way that doesn't take up brain space and gifts you time and sanity back.

A few ideas to get you started:

• A blank page with a scribble and their job is to create a picture from the scribble mark.

• A deck of cards for building a tower or putting the cards in order.

• A page ripped from an activity book, because sometimes the whole book is too much and one page is exactly enough.

• Play-Doh with a stack of cookie cutters.

• A puzzle that’s just hard enough to hold their attention through the first cup of coffee.

• An outline of a shirt on a piece of paper where your child designs their favorite shirt

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As they’ve gotten older, ours has shifted more toward pen and paper — mazes, word searches, little drawing prompts. But the bones of it are the same as they were when my babies were two and four: give their hands something to do, give their brain a place to land, and give yourself some minutes to exist before the day asks anything else of you.

We haven’t stopped since 2020. I don’t plan to. To print out over 50 Brain Stretches I created for kids ages 3-10, join our membership hub for parents raising strong-willed and spirited kids.

You can also shop all the activities I’ve used throughout the years here.

With you every step,
Kirsten

Temperament Informed Parent Coach

Not an audiobook in the car. Not a parenting book to underline and dog-ear and apply by Tuesday, or a business book…but a book for FUN. I didn't know what I was missing in life, until I picked up that first book. Here’s how I started…

For 7 years, sleep and podcasts were my only currency. That’s what survival mode does. You stop reaching for things that take more than ten unbroken minutes, because you don’t have ten unbroken minutes. You have crumbs of time, and crumbs go to the things that recharge you fastest. For me, that was sleep and exercise.

Reading asks for something different. It asks you to slow down. And I am not, by nature, a slow person. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m ambitious. I have never once in my life looked at a quiet 30 minutes in the afternoon and thought, I should do less with this.

So this year, I’ve been trying something uncomfortable. I’m trying to let my body find pockets of rest the same way it finds water — automatically, without negotiation, without earning it first.

The hardest part of getting back into reading wasn’t the actual reading for me, it was the act of opening the book and reading the first few pages.

I sit down with a book and within four sentences, the could-be’s show up. I could be working out right now. I could be prepping dinner. I could be drafting tomorrow’s Instagram post. My brain treats rest like a missed opportunity cost, every single time.

And for a long time, I let it. I only read to learn. How to build a membership platform. How ADHD actually works. How to run a business without running myself into the ground. Useful books. Productive books. Books that were really just work, wearing a softer outfit. One day my therapist asked me, “When will you be ok with what you know? When is enough learning?” I couldn’t answer her with a measurable mark.

If you sit down to read and your brain immediately says but you could be learning something …that’s the scarcity mentality showing up, and it’s a liar. There’s always one more skill. One more level. One more thing standing between you and permission to just exist. "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

Here’s what I know about myself: my brain has been worked hard for a long time. And when you love to learn, love to challenge yourself, love taking ownership of things — sometimes you have to stop and ask, can this be easy for a minute?

The answer is almost always no. Until you give yourself permission to stop trying so hard for it to be something else.

Letting yourself use what you already know, instead of reaching for one more thing to learn, is its own kind of rest. Your mind actually refreshes. Your energy actually comes back. A romance novel, an audio book that you enjoy but won’t remember in a few months, an afternoon with nothing to show for it — none of that is wasted time. It’s practice. Practice being present with something simply because you want to be, not because it’s improving you.

If any of this is landing, here are four questions worth sitting with.

What story am I telling myself about why I can’t have this? We all have the time, it’s a choice on where we spend the time we have. The real question is whether you’ve given yourself permission to spend it this way.

If I read for fun right now, what would that mean about me? Name the story, and you can finally argue with it.

What would the version of me who already trusts herself do right now?

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You don’t have to earn rest by working first.

A few practical things that actually got me back into this, in case it helps:

1. Audiobooks count. Spotify Premium or Audible — I usually have one going alongside a physical book at the same time.

2. Find your realistic pockets of reading, not your imaginary ones. Mine are folding laundry with an audiobook in, sitting outside while the kids play, and prepping dinner. Do they interrupt me a hundred times in ten minutes? Yes. Every time. If I expect this, I’m less annoyed when I need to pause my book.

3. Some nights it’s three pages. Some nights it’s thirty. James Clear’s whole case for habits is that consistency beats intensity — showing up small, on a day you don’t feel like it, is what actually builds the habit. Three pages still counts.

4. Use the car. Ten minutes there, ten minutes back. It adds up faster than you’d think.

5. Make it a family thing. Kids mimic what they watch us do, not what we tell them to do. We started a fifteen-minute quiet time most afternoons — my three-year-old, seven-year-old, and ten-year-old all on the couch near me, some reading, some just resting. My oldest gets a piece of gum to keep his mouth busy. It took months to practice, and now it’s everyone’s favorite fifteen minutes of the day.

6. Keep a book somewhere you already are. On the nightstand, in the diaper bag, on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker. The book you have to go searching for is the book you won’t pick up. The one sitting where you already stand is the one you’ll actually open.

7. Create one cozy spot in your home where you love to be. For me, this is a rocking chair looking out the window with a pile of books and a cozy blanket. The rest of my house can be a dumpster fire mess, but that tiny corner is all mine.

From reading more, I’m happier and more fulfilled. I am more patient with the kids, and creative at work. I hope this inspires you to pick up a book, and do the hardest part which is opening it and getting started. I want rest and joy for you, and hope you find it in picking up a book!

Links here! All The Colors Of The Dark , The Wedding People, The God Of The Woods, Remarkably Bright Creatures, First Lie Wins, Story Of My Life.

The Bright Years, Into The Blue, The Briar Club, This Book Made Me Think Of You, The People We Keep, One Perfect Storm.

AUDIBLE: This Story Might Save Your Life, Everyone Is Lying To You, The House On The Cerulean Sea, My Husband’s Wife, Listen For The Lie.

Talk Soon,

Kirsten Russell

Temperament Informed Parent Coach

Everything was fine. They were laughing. And then my seven-year-old turned around, saw the book in his little brother’s lap, and said, “Give that to me now. It’s mine.”

His brother, four and unbothered, said, “No. I brought it in the car. Mom said I could.”

Which was true. I had. I was one of those gray areas where I know his brother got it for Christmas, and I also know that most books in our home are all of ours to share.

I told them, “This is figure-outable. I’ll help you in one second,” and I closed my toddler’s car door to walk around to the driver’s seat.

Three seconds. Maybe four?

That’s all it took for my seven-year-old to hit his brother out of pure, hot frustration over a book when I wasn’t within arms reach of either of them.

I got in the car to a mad kid and a hurt kid, and…full honesty, I hadn’t finished my coffee yet, so my first internal thought was not generous. It was something closer to why can’t he just share, he’s seven, he needs to learn to use safe hands, why can’t I walk around my own car without a fight breaking out.

But somewhere between turning the key and pulling out of the lot, I reframed the question. Instead of how do I referee this, I asked myself: how do I help them actually communicate with each other right now?

And that one shift changed the whole car ride.

Here’s the thing I want you to sit with: that reframe is the whole ballgame. Not just for this moment, for basically every sibling fight you will referee for the next decade.

Because I know my son. I know he wasn’t hitting his brother over a book. He was hitting his brother because a switch flipped faster than his seven-year-old brain could catch it. And I know his little brother didn’t grab that specific book to be spiteful — he grabbed it because he watches his big brother read it constantly, and he wants to be just like him.

But in the heat of it, neither kid can see that about the other. So I coached my four-year-old through it. I gave him the words: “Owen, you can turn to JP and say — I see you reading this all the time, I want to be just like you. I’m reading it in the car today.”

I wasn’t just diffusing the moment. I was quietly trying to get my older son to understand the why underneath his brother’s behavior because I knew what he was actually thinking was he’s doing this to get back at me. To be mean.

Our first thought about someone else is rarely the truth. This is because our brain has a negativity bias. We have to actively work hard to seek the truth. But our most generous and kindest thought? That one usually leads us straight to it.

Then my seven-year-old tried a new angle: “Fine. I’ll read it when he’s done.”

My four-year-old, without missing a beat: “I will never be done!”

And I turned around and asked my older son one question. Not “can you be nice,” not “can you share.” I asked: “Is that true — that he’ll never be done? Or is that your little brother wanting your attention and some power?”

He thought about it. “...Attention and power.”

“Yes. And you’re a kid who can feel frustrated that your brother is still learning how to get your attention while keeping his hands to himself. That’s your job — to have the uncomfortable feeling and still be safe. Your emotions don’t get to run your responsibilities.”

I wasn’t trying to solve the book problem neatly with a five-minutes-each timer. I was trying to remove myself from the equation entirely by teaching them to see each other first. Because understanding always has to come before resolution — not after it.

By the time we pulled into the parking spot, my little one had new words: “You can have it when I’m done. Thank you for sharing it with me — I really like it.” And my seven-year-old, even while his brother kept taunting him the rest of the ride (”it’s always going to be my turn, it’s always going to be my turn”) — stayed quiet. Stayed regulated. Didn’t take the bait.

And if I’m known for anything in this house, I hope it’s this: I water the flowers, not the weeds.

So I caught it. Out loud. “I know it is so hard to stay quiet when someone is teasing you. I am so proud of you. That was the responsible thing to do.”

That’s it. That’s the whole strategy. Not a chart. Not a punishment. A kid feeling seen for the regulation nobody else in the car even noticed.

A few things that have actually helped this summer, since if your house sounds like mine right now, you are not alone. Everyone being close together, all day, every day, with zero structured breaks from each other is basically a science experiment in friction. Summer doesn’t cause more conflict because your kids got worse. It causes more conflict because proximity plus zero space plus zero novelty is a recipe for friction in any relationship, adult or child.

• Each kid has one shelf and one nightstand to themselves. Everything else in the house belongs to the team. That boundary alone has cut down a shocking amount of “that’s mine” battles.

• When they’re in the same room, we turn on the Sonos. I cannot explain the science behind it, I just know that music in the background quiets bickering almost every time.

• Twenty minutes of couch time, midday. No talking to me. They can nap, read, zone out — everyone gets their own cushion or floor spot. I model reading during it too. This started because I noticed the fighting always spiked around the same time of day, and building in a pressure valve before it blew mattered more than any consequence after.

• We build in separate space proactively…even on good days. You don’t have to wait until things are falling apart to give everyone room to breathe. In fact, that’s the whole point — do it before you need it.

If I go down in history for anything — anything at all — I want it to be this:

The key to conflict is healthy communication.

Not because conflict is avoidable. It’s not. Siblings are going to be frustrating. Life is going to be frustrating. But 99% of the fights in my house, in my marriage, in my friendships, in every relationship I’ve ever had…they weren’t actually about the thing. They were about a miscommunication underneath the thing.

And for spirited kids, especially our boys, those communication skills do not show up on their own. They have to be built. Practiced. Modeled, a hundred times, until one day it clicks.

A few lines I come back to again and again, in the car, at the dinner table, wherever conflict shows up in this house:

“The key to conflict is healthy communication.” “Our first thought is rarely the truth — our most generous thought usually is.” “You can have the uncomfortable feeling and still keep your responsibilities.”“Understanding comes before resolution.”

Use them. Say them out loud so many times your kids start rolling their eyes at you, and then say them again anyway.

We end most of our sibling conflicts now with two questions, and honestly, they’ve become the backbone of how this whole family fights fair:

Let’s look at this from your sibling’s point of view — what do you think they’re actually trying to get, or trying to need, right now?

And the harder truth I try to teach both of them: sometimes there is no win-win. Sometimes it’s just frustrating, and the frustrating thing doesn’t get fixed — it gets felt, and then everybody moves on anyway.

This work is slow. It is repetitive. Some days it will feel like absolutely nothing is sinking in, and you will wonder if you’re the only parent standing in a parking lot narrating attention-and-power dynamics to a seven-year-old while your coffee goes cold in the cupholder.

And then one day — in a moment you’re not even watching for — you’ll see it land. A kid catching himself. A kid choosing the kind sentence instead of the mean one. A sibling fight that resolves itself, quietly, without you.

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Watch for the glimmers and find the good and praise it. They’re worth every single rep.

All my love,

Kirsten Russell

Temperament-Informed Parent Coach, M. Ed. SEL educator.

Need more sibling support? Join Thriving Together. A community of parents raising intensely-wired, reactive, and impulsive kids.

I balanced work and fun, I had patience, I actually felt like I filled my own cup. And here’s the embarrassingly simple reason why — all three of my boys were gone at camp, 9 to 1, for three whole days.

After two straight weeks of togetherness (read: constant togetherness, zero personal space, someone touching me at all times), I did not realize how badly I needed to be alone in my own house. Just... alone. In the quiet. In rooms that stayed clean for longer than four minutes.

By the time they came home tired and hangry, I was excited to see them. Genuinely excited, not the “okay, deep breath, here we go again” kind of excited. That’s the tell. That’s how I know solitude isn’t a luxury for me, it’s maintenance.

This is the only week we have camp this summer, four hours, three days, and I’m already scheming how to build in more of it for the weeks ahead. That’s going to mean hiring a babysitter for a couple of afternoons, and having an honest conversation with my husband about stepping up more in the afternoons so I can get at least two days a week at home, alone, in my own house. Not because I don’t love being with my kids. Because I love being with my kids so much more when I’ve had a minute to remember who I am outside of being needed by them.

If you’re in a season of nonstop togetherness right now, hear me: needing space isn’t a failure of gratitude. It’s often the thing that lets the gratitude actually show up.

🥤 The kitchen gadget that’s lowered my dish count and my blood pressure

I don’t know why it took me this long to buy a personal smoothie maker, but I did, and it might be the single best small purchase I’ve made all summer. You blend straight into the cup, snap a lid on it, and go. One cup dirty. That’s it. No pitcher, no extra blade attachment to wash, no explaining to a four-year-old why he can’t have “the big one.”

😴 Sleep, but make it a podcast

Random question: do you fall asleep to the TV? I did too, for years, until I discovered my Hatch Restore has these podcast-style bedtime stories built in, and now I genuinely think some of them are basically a free mini therapy session.

My routine now: I start with either a meditation or one of the sleep podcasts, then close it out with a nervous system reset meditation. By the time both are finished, I’m asleep. My brain finally stops circling the drain of tomorrow’s to-do list, and honestly, some of the lines in those meditations have stuck with me longer than most self-help books I’ve actually paid for.

🏃‍♀️ The running injury I saw coming and ignored anyway

Since I started running more miles each week, I’ve had some pretty extreme SI joint pain in my lower back. I finally got into a PT, and she told me exactly what I already suspected deep down: running is amazing, but it can’t be the only thing you do. I was working the same muscles over and over while my other core stabilizers just... checked out and got weaker by the week.

She gave me a 15-minutes-a-day list of exercises, and about halfway through I realized — these are just Barre3 moves. All of them. So my new mission, as I creep up on 40, is doing this more consistently, because it’s genuinely the kind of workout that protects your back, knees, core, and hips as you age, not just the kind that burns calories.

There are free classes online if you want to try it before committing to anything — here’s one to start with. I have the online membership myself and I’m trying to actually use it instead of just paying for it out of guilt.

🧠 For when you’re doing “all the nervous system things” and still feel awful

If you’re like me and sometimes feel on edge, foggy, snappy, distracted — even though you’re doing all the regulation things you’re supposed to be doing — this piece stopped me in my tracks: 30 Unconventional Ways I Regulate. It’s not the usual “take a deep breath” advice. Genuinely worth the read.

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🌊 It’s officially FOMO season. Don’t fall for it.

You know the season I mean. The one where your feed fills up with European summers, lake houses, “cottaging,” golden hour everything, and you’re standing in your kitchen wiping ranch off the counter for the fourth time today wondering if you’re doing summer wrong.

You’re not. I promise you, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about comparison: it costs you the actual life you’re living while you’re busy mourning the one you’re not. We get so much more out of these months when we’re fully where our feet are, choosing gratitude over comparison, presence over perfection. That’s how you actually win summer, not by matching anyone else’s highlight reel.

And here’s a secret I keep coming back to: a shocking amount of adult happiness isn’t built from big trips. It’s built from small anticipation. A library hold coming in. A dinner reservation on the calendar. A package you ordered showing up. A weekend plan. A walk after the kids are in bed. Tiny anticipation carries so much more weight than we give it credit for — so if the big European summer isn’t your summer this year, go build yourself some small ones. They count.

👕 What I actually live in this summer

Running in it, walking in it, cleaning the house in it, dodging a swinging toddler hand in it — this has been on repeat. Also very into these butter leggings right now, softest thing I own. And this too, because apparently I only wear three things this time of year and I’m at peace with it.

📚 Book club pick: Theo of Golden

Our next pick is Theo of Golden, and I need your help — audiobook or actual read? I’ve heard this is a real love-it-or-are-bored-by-it split, no in-between. Tell me which camp you’re in.

In the meantime, I’m deep into Mad Mabel on audio and completely obsessed. It’s funny and somehow also a murder mystery, which should not work but absolutely does. And I love that they wrote the young girl in the story as spirited, and the girl-power energy of this book has me fully locked in.

🍔 The dinner hack that saved our evenings

My kids were losing their minds during dinner hour, so we made a new rule: Dad cooks two meals a week on the Blackstone, and every kid has to stay outside with him the entire time he’s cooking. This week alone we’ve done breakfast and smash burgers out there. They grab their plates, eat at the outdoor table or straight on the grass, and everyone, including me, gets a calmer evening. Genuinely win-win.

If you want the exact one we have — it’s currently $150 off — it’s linked here.

That’s the exhale for this month. Go fill your own cup somewhere, even if it’s just three seconds by yourself walking around the car.

With you in this,

Kirsten

My seven-year-old was upstairs throwing things at the wall. My husband had planted himself in front of the bedroom door, repeating the same sentence on a loop — “I’ll let you out when you’re calm” — except his tone had stopped sounding calm about ten repetitions ago. Sharp. Fast. Heightened. The exact tone you use when your own nervous system has quietly joined the chaos without asking permission first.

I didn’t say a word. I walked past him into the room and did a quick scan. A new ding in the wall. A Lego set he loved, broken. Toys everywhere, the kind of everywhere that tells you this has been going on for a while.

He tried to hit me. I got down on the floor and wrapped him up in a bear hug, my whole body around his. Some kids, in a moment like that, just need their room. He needed more containment than a bedroom could give him. The choice in front of me was the bathroom, where there was nothing left to throw, or holding him like this until his body remembered how to stop.

Some kids don’t need a time-out. They need a body that will give them bumpers, even if they don’t want them.

If you have a child who does this — sometimes, often, more than you’ve told anyone — I want to say the thing out loud that the silence around this usually prevents: keeping it a secret is what lets the shame move in and get comfortable. If aggressive meltdowns are happening in your house, please get support while you still have room to be proactive about it, instead of waiting until you’re only reacting.

Nobody talks about how lonely it is to parent a kid no one else seems to have.

Hold the limit, and he might take the house down. Don’t, and you’re just renting peace you’ll pay for tomorrow. It’s a tightrope. You’re bracing for impact, just trying to get to the next step, and it’s lonely in a particular way — because it really does feel like nobody else’s house sounds like yours.

The emotional whiplash of it makes you dizzy. Tense. A little outside your own body by 6pm. Every transition, every request, every “time to clean up the markers” becomes a coin flip between cooperation and a full collision. And somewhere around midnight, lying in bed, the question shows up uninvited: is it me? Or is it him?

The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. I say that to my own kids constantly, mid-conflict — the truth is in the middle, and we don’t have to know exactly where yet to still take a step forward.

So here’s the first step I want to hand you, if you’re raising a reactive, explosive kid: get comfortable with the tears, the screaming, the escalation. Not comfortable like you enjoy it. Comfortable like you’ve stopped being surprised by it.

Spirited kids, even the neurotypical ones, tend to have a big reaction roughly once a day somewhere between ages three and eight — some days none, some days several. For kids with ADHD specifically, research following preadolescents found that more than half showed clinically significant aggression before treatment began, and for a lot of neurodivergent kids, it’s genuinely multiple times a day, not once.

If some part of you believes your job is to stop the meltdown itself, I think we need to do a little work together. You are not in charge of your child’s feelings. You’re in charge of yours. Your job is to grow your own tolerance for the size of their emotions, and hand them tools for moving through the big ones instead of getting stuck inside them.

That said — tolerance doesn’t mean tolerating everything. Your goal is keeping your home, your body, and the people in it safe, including the kid who just left a dent in the wall. It is not okay to let yourself be hit or kicked, even by someone you love this much, even when you understand exactly why it’s happening. Watch the story you’re telling yourself in that moment. There’s a difference between understanding a behavior and absorbing it.

Child psychologist Ross Greene, who has spent decades working with kids like this, puts it simply: an explosive outburst happens when the demands being placed on a person outstrip that person’s capacity to respond adaptively. My son wasn’t choosing chaos. His ability to cope had simply run out before the moment did.

And then, eventually — usually after the part that feels unbearable — something shifts. The tears change. They go from rage to something more like grief, the kind that shows up after a fight is finally over and the body realizes it can stop fighting. I think of those as the tears of futility. That’s the part right before the rain stops and the rainbow shows up. We need those tears, that is a signal that the child has moved through the stress loop.

I held my son on that floor for a while. And eventually, his body did exactly what bodies do once they’re done — it went soft, and he cried the real cry, and it was over.

This is what we spend real time on inside Thriving Together. We have a full workshop on this exact topic — the physical holding, helping them to their bedroom versus the bathroom, what to actually say when it’s happening. We have quick ten-minute audio lessons you can listen to between things. And a community of parents who will read what you write and say “me too” instead of going quiet on you. I’ll personally welcome you in and help you figure out which tools actually fit your specific kid — because do you stay in the room? Leave? Restrain? Take something away? There’s no universal answer, but there is a right answer for your child, and we’ll find it together.

For the next three days, the doors to Thriving Together are open. The link closes Thursday.

Come sit with us. You don’t have to carry this quietly anymore.

A few questions to sit with:

• When your child is escalating, are you trying to calm them, or are you trying to calm yourself?

• Where in your house could you tolerate the storm a little longer before stepping in?

• What does “containment” actually look like for your specific kid — space, a hold, a different room?

• Is there a part of this you’ve been carrying alone that you haven’t said out loud to anyone yet?

• What would change if you stopped measuring the moment by how fast it ended, and started measuring it by how safely it ended?

— Kirsten

Temperament Informed Parent Coach, M.Ed, & Mom To 3 Boys

P.S. If this landed for you, send it to another mom who needs to hear she’s not the only one holding her kid on the floor some days. Thanks for being here.

As always, take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. Every kid is wired differently and what works for my crew might be a total flop for yours.

CPRs Before Screens

Before any screens happen in our house, the kids complete their CPRs — chores, play, and reading. That’s the order. Screens come after.

The chore piece is flexible by design. The list changes every day depending on what the house actually needs. Some days it’s vacuum the living room, clean up the train set, and water the plants. Other days it’s put laundry away, get the mail, and unload the dishwasher. Nothing is fixed, nothing feels like a punishment. It’s just…here’s what the house needs today, let’s take care of it.

We make the list together every morning using the “notice and do” approach coined by Sam Kelly. I ask them: “What do you notice needs to get done in order to run our household today?” They come up with most of their ideas themselves. There’s something about being asked instead of told that makes kids actually want to participate. It’s not magic every single day but it’s pretty close. I will add one or two chores that I need support with which usually includes breaking down cardboard boxes or cleaning up a toy pile. They look around and write what needs to be done on a dry erase board.

One of my kids gets his CPRs done fast because screens are a huge motivator for him. He’s laser focused and done before 9am. My other child is a different story — some days he doesn’t even ask about screens until 4pm, and all I have to say is, “YES! Screens after CPR’S”.

Some days are flexible. If I have a work call and I need them occupied, we’ll put on a low-stimulation educational show, cosmic yoga, Art Hub for Kids, or a documentary. Their responsibilities don’t disappear on those days, they just shift. More screen time is still available once the CPRs are done. The structure stays even when the day doesn’t.

This works for our kids. It might not work for yours. But if you’ve been looking for a way to make screens feel less like a battle and more like a natural next step in the day — this is worth trying.

Two Warnings For Unwanted Behavior, Then RRR

For tricky behaviors, I give two warnings. Clear, calm, while I focus on building the behaviors I want to see. After the second one, it’s a mandatory 3R — a redo, a repair, or a reset. A reset is just break time in their room. Not a punishment, not a shame spiral, just a pause to come back regulated.

Sometimes I choose which one based on what the situation actually needs. If someone got hurt or something got said that was unkind, I guide towards a repair. If the behavior just needs a do-over, I guide towards a redo. If the entire energy needs to come down, I will mandate a reset in a bedroom or space away from the catalyst of their big feelings.

Sometimes I let the child choose. Giving them that one small bit of control in a moment where everything feels out of control does something. They’re more bought in. They come back faster. And over time they start to recognize which one they actually need — which is the whole goal.

For example, my older son was criticizing how his brother made a paper airplane. I gave one warning, “Please give a compliment, advice, or stay quiet.” He pestered his brother again, so I gave him more support, paired with giving him the chance for a redo. I said, “Wooops, REDO. You can show your brother how to make the nose of the airplane more pointy, I won’t allow you to criticize his efforts.” My older son wouldn’t have it, and kept going. I calmly whispered in his ear, “I’m going to help you reset in the workout room. On we go, you can bring a book and set a timer for 5 minutes. Join us when the timer goes off if you are ready to speak kindly.”

If the function of his behavior was attention, or a break from us, I would have chosen a different R to give my attention to.

Ice cream Family Goal

Each week, we have a different family goal we work towards to earn ice cream. This is in the form of a token jar. My job is to look for and listen for the desired behavior, and also let my kids know when it’s a good time to earn a token. So this week, we are working towards stopping the first time someone says stop. So if a child is using potty humor, and my husband asks them to stop, I will pipe in and say, “OHHH this is an opportunity to earn a token!” This is helping my kids who take things too far, and just have to push / test / say the inappropriate thing ONE MORE TIME.

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Pen and Paper Activity At Breakfast

This one came out of pure survival.

Our morning vocal stims were getting loud. Really loud. My kids were bouncing off the walls before 8am and I hadn’t had a single sip of coffee and it was a lot.

So we started doing a short pen and paper activity at the breakfast table. Nothing complicated — a worksheet, a drawing prompt, a simple puzzle. Just something that requires them to sit, focus, and use their hands while I get myself together for the day.

It has genuinely changed our mornings. They’re calmer. I’m calmer. The coffee gets drunk while it’s still warm.

If your kids thrive with unstructured mornings — that is amazing and I’m a little jealous. Mine cannot handle that yet. The structure is what gives them permission to settle.

I have over 75 pen and paper activities inside the membership hub that are perfect for this — easy to print, no prep required, and my kids actually ask for them now which still surprises me. [Check it out here.]

Most parents don't struggle because they don't love their kids enough. They struggle because nobody taught them what to do when their kid loses it, pushes back, or just won't listen. That's the gap Thriving Together fills. Real tools, real support, for the real moments that catch you off guard. I would love to have you join us for the summer!

Kirsten Russell

I am watching him do this in real time as I type these words. He is mixing every color with great satisfaction and zero regret. Meanwhile my eight-year-old just asked if he could look up how to be an army man, because he wants to see real weapons and fire a cannon, and my ten-year-old is firing back at him and letting him know how wrong he is in his thinking.

This was supposed to be a quiet morning of arts and crafts!

I used to have that vision often — before I had children, when I still had the luxury of visions — of a warm afternoon at a winery with a complaint child who still had dimples in their fingers. A blanket spread out on the grass. My daughter and I watercoloring side by side, unhurried, peaceful, the kind of moment that could have been a slow-motion Instagram reel with the right filter.

I did not get a daughter who watercolors at wineries. I got three boys who turn every calm activity into a loud science experiment or a weapon tutorial. Everyone except myself is constantly shirtless.

And for a long time — longer than I want to admit to you— my need for peace, order, and control quietly ran my entire parenting life.

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I think it started before motherhood….

I was a teacher before I was a parent. My classroom had 25 kids in it, and they quieted down the moment I used a call and response. There was order. There was a rhythm to their behavior that neat and tidy. When something needed to happen, I said the word and it happened.

Then I had children…lol.

Last week I went outside to water the plants, came back inside, and walked into all three kids screaming at each other — at a volume that rattles the entire home. Something in me just short-circuited, because screaming back never once made anyone quieter, and I kept trying it anyway for awhile.

I had a vision of my toddler curled up in bed with me, soft and sleepy, reading together. What I got was a giggle-fest that turned into a kicking-fest every single time we were all in the same bed. Rainy day snuggles were not even a thing if they were sick. My kids go feral with fevers, and not even vomiting keeps them laying on the couch.

I used to arrive ten minutes early to everything. I thought being late was rude, and I wanted to be known for being perfectly on time. Then the universe handed me children who acted as though being told it was time to leave was a personal affront. And I stood at the front door one morning a few years ago — my kids were eight, five, and one — feeling like they were actively conspiring against me, and I lost it. I yelled, “This is so disrespectful, do you not understand! Why do you have to make things harder?!” And then I sat in the car in silence afterward feeling awful, wondering when getting out of the house had become a hostage negotiation.

That was the morning I started to ask myself an uncomfortable question.

What was I actually trying to control here?

Everything, it turned out. I was trying to control everything.

How long they brushed their teeth. Whether we were always on time. What they said to each other. What books they read. When they fell asleep. Whether their outfits matched. And — I am not proud of this — their Croc color. Last year I allowed white only. I told myself white was just less ugly than the neon, tie-dye, Gusher-rainbow pair my ten-year-old desperately wanted.

What I was actually doing was holding onto the last inch of control I had and calling it a preference.

Here is what control felt like underneath: if I could manage enough variables for my spirited and neurodivergent child, maybe I wouldn’t have to hold my breath and clench my jaw quite so much. If I fed him a well-rounded lunch, maybe he wouldn’t melt down at his cousin’s birthday party that afternoon. If I took him on a walk before preschool, maybe I wouldn’t get pulled aside at pickup again by the teacher letting me know he was in other kids personal space all morning. I was building these fragile, invisible systems of cause and effect, and then falling apart when they didn’t hold.

Which they never did. Not consistently. Not with these kids.

It has taken years to replace the thought: if I can control these variables, maybe I won’t have to brace so hard — with something that actually holds: here is what I’m choosing to do, and the rest of it I can let go of and we will be okay.

I replaced my “what if he...that will be so inconvenient or embarrassing” with “even if he... I’ll be okay.”

That shift was transformational for me.

If I could reach my hand back to a parent who is behind me on this journey, I would tell you that your child’s grumpy, outraged, inconsolable emotions cannot make you feel not okay — unless you let them. Those feelings don’t belong to you. They were never yours to fix.

Attempting to smooth your child’s emotions so you can feel more at peace is like trying to dam up a flowing river. You can try and try, and the water will still find its way around, because the emotions were never the problem you were trying to solve. They were just feelings — big, inconvenient, fully appropriate feelings — looking for somewhere to go.

As Timber Hawkeye wrote: “You can’t calm the storm. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” And the thing with spirited kids is that they have A LOT of storms. Between the ages of 2-8, it felt like hurricane season each day.

I used to get genuinely triggered by sibling squabbles. My shoulders would go up. I would hold my breath waiting for what was going to come next. And the moment I inserted myself — the moment I stepped in to fix it, manage it, redirect it — the bickering would escalate to aggression. Every single time.

The irony is almost funny now. My interjection was gasoline. My silence was the thing that let the fire die on its own.

I am still learning this. On a Saturday a few months ago, I watched my kids work through a conflict without me. One child wanted to sit on a play couch cushion, and the other child wanted to use it to build a fort. It was loud. It was not graceful, and there was some pushing from both kids. Nobody used the exact language I would have coached them toward. And yet…they resolved it on their own when I stayed quiet.

I stood in the kitchen and felt something I can only describe as grief and relief at the same time. Grief that I had spent so many years believing the resolution required me. Relief that it didn’t.

“Peace does not mean being in a place where there is no noise, no trouble, no hard thing. Peace means being in the middle of all of it and still being calm in your heart.”

I have been chasing the first one my entire motherhood. I am slowly, imperfectly learning my way toward the second.

Hillary Swindle writes that “we do not think ourselves into new ways of living — we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” That is what this has looked like for me. Not a moment of clarity. A thousand ordinary moments of choosing differently, one at a time, until the choosing started to feel like something more natural than control ever did.

I'm also learning that there's a difference between peace and avoidance — and I spent a lot of years confusing them. Peace is when I can sit in the middle of a loud, chaotic, nothing-went-as-planned afternoon and still feel okay in my body. Avoidance is when I go quiet, numb, checked-out, and call it patience. One is something I've built. The other is something I'm hiding behind.

Emily P. Freeman says it this way: “My agenda isn’t the most important one and, many times, may not be important at all. Knowing this is a great first step toward cultivating a lightness of heart.”

That sentence has lived on a sticky note in my kitchen. Because my agenda — for how the morning goes, for how the painting turns out, for how they act when their brains are flooded with rage, for what color the Crocs are — is almost never the most important one. And the lightness that comes from knowing that is worth more than any amount of order I’ve ever managed to maintain.

Our spirited kids are not in our lives to inconvenience us. They are in our lives to grow us in places we didn’t even know needed growing. They ask more of us than we planned to give — more patience, more radical acceptance of where they are at, more flexibility, more presence, more willingness to be surprised by who they are becoming.

They will not be who we pictured. They will be something better and bigger and more specific than that. And the greatest gift we can give them is a parent who has learned — slowly, imperfectly, one rainbow-turned-muddy-black at a time — to put down the need to control what was never ours to control anyway.

My ten-year-old is wearing neon Gushers Crocs this summer. He is delighted.

If you are raising a spirited, strong-willed, or neurodivergent child and you are tired of doing this alone — Thriving Together is a membership community built specifically for parents like you. Not for parents of easy kids who occasionally have hard days. For parents of the kids who are wired differently, who need more, who ask more, and who are growing you in ways you didn’t sign up for but wouldn’t trade. If you want to learn more about how I coach parents, I have a free workshop for you that you can find here.

A few questions to sit with:

• Where are you clinging to peace and control in your parenting — and what is it costing you in the moments that matter?

• Where could you lower the bar, release the standard, and actually enjoy your child today?

• When your child is dysregulated, are you trying to calm them, or are you trying to calm yourself? There is a right and wrong answer here :)

• What is one thing you’ve been trying to control that you could quietly let go of this week?

• What would today look like if you measured it by connection instead of compliance?

— Kirsten

P.S. If this landed for you, share it with another mom who is gripping too hard. Thanks for being here. Substack has the best community IMO, and I’m honored that you choose my writing to read and connect with.

That is what parenting from fear looks like. Fear of what your child’s behavior might say about you in front of someone whose kids have never once made her feel this way.

Within ten minutes my son had walked away from us twice, climbed up the slide while kids were trying to come down it, high-pitched screamed directly into another child’s face, and bulldozed his way between two kids who were very clearly not interested in his company.

I had already pulled him over twice for a reset. I had already crouched down, looked him in the eyes, said the right words in the calm voice. I had already done the “discipline”thing.

And I could feel my friend watching….

Not unkindly. She’s a good person. But I could feel the surprise in her silence. Her kids were playing beautifully. Their mannerisms were controlled and respectful and they were checking in with her from across the playground with little waves.

After I had pulled my child for a time-out from play twice, I asked her: “What would you do if you were me?”

She thought about it for a moment and offered: “Have you tried asking him to play nicely?”

I looked at my son, who was currently spinning in circles making foghorn sounds, and I tried not to cry.

She genuinely didn’t know. Her children understand what nicely means the way only mild, compliant, people-pleasing kid understands it. It’s in their bones. It comes naturally.

My child does not have that version of nicely yet. He has a version we are building, piece by piece, day by day, with an enormous amount of intention and almost no margin for error.

She followed it up with: “Have you tried just telling him to stop?”

I told her I would give it a try, right as my son impulsively and accidentally knocked sand from the sand box into another child’s eyeballs. I picked up my bag, called his name, and we left the playdate.

Not because I was embarrassed…not entirely, anyway. But because I knew — the way you know when you’ve been parenting this child long enough — that we had both hit our limit. The dysregulation wasn’t going to get better. The stares and the silence and the gentle suggestions from someone who had never had to fight for a calm park morning weren’t worth staying for.

We drove home quiet. He fell asleep in the car. And I sat in the driveway for a few extra minutes wondering the thing I had promised myself I would stop wondering.

Is it him? Or is it me? Why does it feel so hard?

Here’s What the Research Actually Says

There is a framework called temperament theory, developed by researchers Thomas and Chess, that changed the way I understand my child — and changed the way I parent him.

Temperament is not a parenting outcome. It is not a report card. It is the neurological wiring your child came into the world with — the way their nervous system processes intensity, adapts to change, responds to frustration, and engages with the world around them.

Here’s what a ‘difficult’ temperament actually looks like according to the researchers.

These kids care more about self-protection than what others think of them. Social approval is not their primary motivator. Doing things on their own terms is. This makes them look defiant. They are actually just deeply internally driven.

They are impulsive. Their impulsivity is fueled by persistence and a strong, burning sense of justice. When something feels wrong, they act. Immediately. The filter between feeling an urge and acting on the urge is thin.

They test boundaries constantly — not to be difficult, but because they need to understand exactly where the edges are before they can feel safe inside them.

They feel everything at full volume. Excitement is not mild enthusiasm — it is full body, full voice, full room. Jealousy is not a quiet sting — it is consuming. Injustice is not a passing frustration — it is a five-alarm emergency that requires immediate resolution.

They seem deeply tuned in to others’ emotions — and yet somehow miss the moment when a peer is done, frustrated, or checked out. They can feel the big feelings in a room and completely miss the subtle social signal that says I need space right now.

They love to poke others. Bothering other kids, pushing into spaces, getting a reaction — this is often about sensory input as much as it is about mischief. The drama and the reaction is stimulating in a way that feels good to their nervous system, even if it looks terrible from the outside.

They are not followers. Change-makers. Free spirits. Innovators. The kid who does it differently, questions the rules, and refuses to be told something is true just because an adult said so. This is exhausting to parent and will be extraordinary to witness in adulthood. These kids also might follow other fellow spicy kids in elementary school years, which can lead to more questionable choices.

They want to do things their way — and they are rigid about it. Flexibility is a skill, and it is a lagging one. Their thinking is concrete. Their expectations are fixed. When reality doesn’t match the plan in their head, the result is not a shrug. It is a meltdown.

Transitions are hard. Vacations, new routines, the first day back after a long weekend — any shift in the expected pattern costs them something.

The Thing Nobody Tells You

If you read that list and felt something between recognition and grief, welcome to our little corner of the internet.

We have been told — in a thousand quiet ways, by a thousand well-meaning people — that good parents produce easy kids. That a child who sleeps through the night, shakes hands with strangers, sits still at restaurants, respects adults, problem-solves with siblings, makes friends easily, and completes chores without complaint is proof that their parents are good parents.

And a child who doesn’t do those things is proof that someone isn’t.

So we take it on. We internalize it. We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to produce a child who meets an expectation that was never ours to own — that belongs to someone else’s family, someone else’s kid, someone else’s nervous system.

And while we’re doing that, we lose sight of what actually matters with this particular child. The one in front of us. The one who is hard and full and complicated and also — I promise you this — is radically changing you. Forcing you to grow in places you didn’t even know needed growing. Showing you who you are when you are at your limit, and who you want to become.

Yes, parenting can exacerbate temperament. That’s real. That’s why what I do is called parent coaching — because we’re coaching the parent, not fixing the child.

But exacerbated is not caused. Your child’s temperament existed before your first parenting decision. Before the sleep training debate. Before the screen time questions. Before any of the tricky behaviors.

Your child’s behavior is not a litmus test for whether you are a good enough mother.

What Happens When You Try Everything

You try gentle parenting. You get on the floor, you validate the feelings, you give them language, you co-regulate. And sometimes it works — and sometimes your gentle approach gets laughed at or escalated into something bigger because this child needs more than softness and boundaries.

So you try the firmer approach. The knock-it-off parenting. The clear consequence with a raised voice, and the no-nonsense follow-through. And sometimes that works — and sometimes it lights them up like a match because now you’ve activated the justice instinct and you are in for a very long afternoon.

Neither approach is wrong. Neither approach is the whole answer.

These kids need something specific. They need parents who understand the wiring underneath the behavior, who can respond to what is actually happening instead of just what it looks like on the surface.

That is a skill. And it can be learned.

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What I Want You to Know

I built a workshop specifically for parents of kids like mine.

It walks you through three things these kids need from us — and it is not a list of tricks or scripts. It is a framework that helps you understand your child in a way that makes the behavior make sense. When the behavior makes sense, you stop guessing. You stop spiraling. You stop asking yourself the driveway question.

You start parenting from a place of knowing instead of wondering.

Because you are not doing it wrong. You are parenting a child who requires more — more support, more structure, more nuance, more grace — than most parenting advice was ever written to address.

And you deserve support that was actually built for this.

→ [Workshop link here]

This is the hardest and most important work there is.

— Kirsten

P.S. If someone in your life needs to read this — the friend on the park bench, the grandmother who keeps offering suggestions, the mom in your group chat who has a mild kid and a lot of opinions — share it. This is the piece I wish someone had handed me years ago.

My number one babysitters (my parents, who live around the corner from us and are therefore the entire reason our daily logistics function), decided that May was a wonderful time to go to Europe for three weeks. Three weeks. During May. I love them with my whole heart and I told them with complete sincerity that they can go anywhere, anytime, any year just please…not May. If you live away from family or don’t have family who helps with childcare, I want to wrap you in the biggest hug. Your hard is really, really hard.

And then, because the universe has a sense of humor, Connor and I got the stomach bug. A few days completely down, which would have been survivable if I didn’t require approximately three business days of recovery time for every single illness I get now that I am close to turning 40 years old. I didn’t exercise for 5 days and my body forgot how to run and lift weights. Oregon decided to show off this month with some beautiful weather, so at least we got to watch a lot of baseball in sunshine.

So that was May!

A friend asked me recently if I had a word for the kind of summer I want to have.

Abundant.

I want an abundance mentality about all of it this summer. I want to fully believe that I have more than enough time to work. I am capable of making time to read books, and are given an abundance of opportunities to run more. The conversations I have with my kids in the car and at the dinner table and in those quiet in-between moments before bed will be there for me over and over. I want to stop approaching my own life from a place of scarcity — like there isn’t enough time, enough money, enough energy, enough good left in the day — and start moving through it like there is more than enough.

Because I think scarcity is one of the quietest and most damaging lies we tell ourselves in parenthood.

We believe we are not enough. That we don’t have enough patience, enough presence, enough of whatever it is the moment is asking for. And so we move through our days contracted….gripping instead of opening, and surviving instead of receiving.

Ann Voskamp writes: "The only way to know you have enough is to know you are enough."

That is the energy I am bringing into this summer. And I wanted to share it with you first, before we get into everything else because if you had a May like mine, you might need this word too.

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1. For those of you whose kids need a good “in-between” bike, we found this brand at Dick’s Sporting Goods and it is amazing. The price point is great for a child who is still learning how to take care of expensive things. It’s currently over 50% off!

2. This GIANT waterproof bag is amazing for the beach, sports, daily outing, or pool. Matthew pressure washed it this year and it looks good as new.

3. This is a rechargeable hand held old school Nintendo game boy that my kids are obsessed with. The games are lower stimulating and less vibrant of colors, so the video game come-down isn’t as rough as it is if they were playing newer video games.

4. One hill I will die on is that most power-struggles between child and parent are from miscommunication. We’ve been focusing on becoming better communicators in Thriving Together for exactly this reason. So when I feel like I need to double down with my kids I ask them instead: “What is your plan?” OR “Help me understand….” OR “Ask me a better question so we can solve this together.” Asking good quality questions is one of the highest forms of social and emotional growth and intelligence, and I’m determined to become a more effective communicator with my children.

5. My favorite pizza of the summer is this Caesar Buratta Salad pizza recipe. It is SO good, I crave it each year.

6. The foundation and SPF I wear daily in the summer is back in stock. I have sensitive skin, and this It cream lasts for hours and doesn’t clog my pores. I wear light-medium and also have the illuminating CC cream, that gives your skin shine.

7. I was solo parenting at bedtime with 3 tired kids this week and noticed my thoughts were not kind or generous, and these thoughts were putting me in a bad mood. I told myself, “This is my chance to hold two things at once. The frustration AND the love. The exhaustion and the gratitude. The hard moment AND the evidence that I can handle it.” I was more chipper and kind after this pep-talk. If your thoughts are only showing you one side today, your only job is to find the other one — not to dismiss what's hard, but to refuse to let it be the only thing that's true.

8. This is a book that is my cart. Have you read it?

9. I read a quote recently that said, “Humans are designed to create. That is why we become depressed when all we do is consume.” Gut punch to the core. It also inspired me to get a scrapbook going for the summer, and have my kids scrapbook our adventures. We will print our pictures from our Camp Camera, and they can design a summer scrapbook. We bought this book, and will head to Michaels to pick up some scrap book supplies.

June 4th is the new release of the Oura ring. It’s more slender which is so nice. The one I have is wide on my petite finger. I love this ring so much. It has shown me areas where I can improve, which is one of the reasons why I started to run last December. I’ve gained back 1 year of my life so far cardiovascular wise, and my ring caught my stomach big before I did.

Coming In The Next Weeks:

I’m going to share my personal experience with ADHD, a close call with my first panic attack, and hope for moms who feel scattered, overwhelmed, and not like themselves.

Then, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite topics with spirited kids: How do you know if it’s something more than temperament, and possibly ADHD? Anxiety? OCD? Autism? Is it my parenting? We will cover all the topics.

Thanks for being here. I enjoy Substack a lot more than Instagram. People are kind here, and think through their replies with a level of maturity you don’t see on other social platforms. It also isn’t a place where the comparison trap is heavy, or AI has taken over with bogus claims. If you have a favorite Substack writer, drop their name in the comments below so we can expand our village.

Kirsten

Temperament-Informed Parent Coach

So a few summers ago, I decided to stop winging it.

I know my kids. They are spirited, full-throttle, need-to-know-what’s-happening kids. And when the container is clear, they actually thrive inside it.

What I’m sharing today is exactly what we put in place in our house — the rules, the rituals, the visual systems, the morning non-negotiables. I’m sharing it because I want this summer to feel different for you. More breathing room. More joy. More of what summer is actually supposed to feel like.

Let’s get into it! And before my ADHD brain forgets, I support members inside Thriving Together build the summer routines of their dreams, as well as support tricky behaviors that pop up during the long days. You can access our membership hub for parents raising strong-willed kids here.

First: We Talk About What Summer Expectations

Before the last bell rings, we sit down as a family and go over expectations. This means we have a fun drink and snacks, and sit down together at the table. Everyone knows what the season is going to look like, and this needs to be explicated taught and said out loud so I'm not the only one carrying the mental load.

We print out rule sheets for big items such as snack rules, screen rules, quiet time rules, and sibling play rules and have each child sign their name on the bottom of the list we create together.

We also cover friends coming in and out of the house. In our neighborhood, kids flow freely. And I love that. But my boys know: you ask first. You don’t just appear at the door with four friends expecting to raid the kitchen. We talk about what asking looks like, what a yes sounds like, and what happens if they skip that step.

We go over screen rules. Afternoons are for screens — after 20 minutes of reading and family jobs are finished.

45 minutes of a show, then done.

Video games are weekends only, and movies will be an option on weekends and when mom occasionally approves. This one was the most impactful change we ever made. Weekday video games were creating a level of transition difficulty that was just not worth it. When we moved games to weekends, the whole week got easier.

I will not pretend this was immediately accepted with grace and gratitude. There were feelings. But we held it, and now it’s just the rhythm.

When They Say “I’m Bored” (And They Will)

When my kids come to me bored, I love asking them:

What is something you’ve always wanted to learn more about?

Not what do you want to do — what do you want to learn? There’s a difference, and it opens up a completely different conversation. They usually don’t have an answer, but will sulk away and find something to do. My 7 year old recently said he wanted to learn how to be a zoo keeper, so I told him to find all the books they have about animals and set up a zoo in the playroom with stuffed animals. He made me a zoo ticket, and talked about the animals in his zoo.

We also keep a Boredom Buster Bingo on the fridge. It’s a simple grid of activities — things to make, places to go, ways to move, things to create — and they can pick anything on it. They love crossing things off. It turns “I’m bored” into a treasure hunt instead of a standoff.

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The Visuals That Run Our Summer

I am a big believer that kids need to see the plan, not just hear it.

We have a few visuals up all summer:

A daily rhythm visual that shows what the day looks like from morning through evening — not a minute-by-minute schedule, just anchors. Morning time, reading, lunch, reset, afternoon time, dinner, wind-down. We go over this each morning.

A “What Can I Do?” visual that lives at their level, so when boredom hits, they have somewhere to look before they come to me.

And the How to Be a Human Checklist — which I’ll get to in a minute, because it’s one of my favorite things we do all summer.

These visuals do something really important: they shift the authority from me to the system. I’m not the rule. The visual is. And that small shift changes so much of the dynamic.

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Morning Brain Stretches: The Non-Negotiable

Every morning, before the day opens up, my kids sit at the table and do a brain stretch.

This is non-negotiable. It is not optional. It is just what we do as we eat breakfast so my 3 boys are not throwing daggers at each other before my coffee cup is empty.

Sometimes it’s something from our art pantry — paper, markers, whatever looks interesting that day. Sometimes it’s more intentional. But it’s always pen to paper, always at the table, always before anything else starts.

Some of our favorites:

• A coloring page I rip out of a coloring book

• A word search I print off

• Decorate a t-shirt with a drawing contest (them vs. each other — the competition alone buys 40 minutes)

• Paper airplane making — who can fly it the farthest?

• Draw a picture for dad and slip it under his pillow before he wakes up

These aren’t Pinterest-perfect. They’re just enough to wake up their brains and give the morning some shape before everything else begins.

I have over 50 brain stretch ideas in my Summer Bundle — a printable you can have today. It takes the planning off your plate entirely. Print it, put it in a folder, and pull from it all summer long.

The How to Be a Human Checklist

This is the one I get asked about the most.

Throughout the summer, we work through what we call the How to Be a Human Checklist — practical life skills and character moments that I want my kids to actually practice before fall comes around again.

Things like: write a thank you note by hand. Learn to do their own laundry. Make a meal for the family. How to vacuum the house. Show kindness to someone who wasn’t kind first.

We go over them throughout the summer, and the boys need to practice once with me, and once on their own to get a check mark next to the task. And when a child completes the entire list they get a one-on-one trip to Barnes & Noble with mom or dad.

No siblings. Just them. They get to pick a book, we get a drink, and we talk. It has become one of the most anticipated moments of their summer, and mine.

The complete How to Be a Human Checklist is included in my Summer Bundle, along with all the printables, the bingo boredom board, and the brain stretch ideas.

One More Thing: You Need a Break Too

I would be doing you a disservice if I laid out all of this structure for your kids and didn’t mention the part where you get some breathing room.

If your children are between 3 and 12, quiet time is one of the most sustainable rhythms you can build into your summer. And I mean sustainable….not perfect, not Pinterest, not requiring buy-in from everyone on day one. Just a real, workable rhythm that gives you a daily window to exhale.

I have a full workshop on how to set up quiet time in your home, specifically designed for the spirited, resistant, “I don’t want to be alone” kid. We go through ages 3 through 12, what to expect at each stage, and how to actually make it stick so you can have an hour of quiet to reset the day and yourself.

Because you matter too. Your summer matters too. And you cannot pour from an empty cup — you know this, and yet we both know how easy it is to forget it by week two of summer.

Your Summer Doesn’t Have to Feel Like Survival

It can feel like something you actually designed.

Just intentional enough that you’re not just reacting all day to whoever is loudest.

The Summer Bundle has everything you need to get started: the printable checklist, the brain stretch ideas, the bingo board, and the visual tools we use in our house. And the quiet time workshop is there when you’re ready to carve out something just for you.

Grab the bundle and the workshop here →INSIDE THRIVING TOGETHER HUB

This summer can be the one that actually felt good. I’m rooting for you.

— Kirsten

P.S. If you have a spirited kid at home and you’re reading this thinking “but my child doesn’t DO rules” — I see you. That’s exactly who I built this for. The structure isn’t about compliance. It’s about giving your big, bright, full-volume kid a container they can actually breathe inside. Come find me in Thriving Together if you want to go deeper and need specific parenting support.

He knows where everything is. He remembers what everyone needs. If he was in a Home Alone situation, he would absolutely thrive….and he is not my oldest.

That’s the thing no one tells you about raising multiple kids who are different from each other. Age doesn’t always equal readiness, skillset does.

My boys are almost 8 and 10.5. We’ve lived in the same neighborhood their entire lives — a small, tight corner of a larger high-density neighborhood with somewhere around 40 to 50 kids within a few blocks of our front door. The park is less than a block away. Their friends are three blocks in any direction. My parents live four houses down.

It’s the kind of neighborhood that makes you want to fling open the back door and let them disappear until a dinner bell rings, the way so many of us grew up. And honestly? We’re getting there.

But getting there is a process. And for spirited kids especially, that process isn’t about age. It’s about skill.

What Readiness Actually Looks Like

One of the things I say to my kids often is this: how you treat your brother is how I’m guessing you treat your friends. Show me you can be kind and flexible with him, and I can trust you to be kind and flexible when I’m not watching. Because if I’ve seen it at home, I know it’s in you.

The same logic applies to independence. How a child acts with you is how they’ll act without you.

We’ve been practicing riding bikes to the small convenience store next to our neighborhood daycare — a handful of times now, always together, always with me nearby. They have the safety piece down when it comes to strangers, traffic, crossing streets, and parking bikes. What we’re still working on is the money and purchase piece.

Last time, I sent my oldest in with a $20 to grab some mints, while I waited a block away.

He came back without change.

When I asked about it, he told me he’d told the cashier to keep it — because that’s what he sees us do when we tip at restaurants, or a coffee shop. It was the sweetest thing. It was also a $17 lesson in the difference between a tip and a convenience store transaction.

There was another time I told them each to pick one treat. He came out with two.

These mistakes are exactly the moments kids need to have while someone is still close enough to catch them, and help them learn. They are showing me, in real time, that he’s still building the skills — around money, around decisions, around what the rules mean when mom isn’t standing right there. Buying two things, when he was instructed to buy one, was a good lesson in impulse control as well.

And that’s okay. That’s the whole point of practicing.

Why Spirited Kids Sometimes Need More Time

For kids who are intense, perceptive, persistent, and deeply feeling — which describes both of my boys in different ways — independence doesn’t always come on the typical timeline.

It’s not that they aren’t capable. It’s that the skills required for safe independence — reading social situations, regulating when things don’t go as planned, making good decisions under peer pressure, knowing when to call it and come home — take longer to build when your nervous system runs hot.

My youngest? He could probably negotiate a peace treaty. My oldest is getting there, and he’s doing the work. There is no wrong child here. There is only: what does this kid need, and what is he ready for right now?

That question is what drives every freedom decision we make.

Why We Got the Cosmo Watch

When your kids are roaming in and out of neighbors’ homes, riding bikes a few blocks over, and walking down to grandma and grandpa four houses away — you need a way to reach them that doesn’t require chasing them down or yelling their names from the front porch.

We got the Cosmo JrTrack because of how much control stays in our hands. It’s our family watch, not assigned to one child. When both boys are out together, my oldest usually wears it — he tends to have better tabs on everyone’s whereabouts. And I promise this isn’t a paid or sponsored post, we pay with our own money for this watch.

Here’s what it does that made it the right fit for us:

Real GPS tracking with SafeZone alerts. We set a boundary, and when they cross it, we get a notification. I want to be reading in the backyard without wondering if they are pushing the boundaries.

Parent-approved contacts only. Mom and dad. That’s the list. Friends cannot text on this watch (they can if you add them, that’s just our rule). The only people reaching my kids through this watch are the people I’ve approved.

Calling and texting. I can send a quick text when I need them home. I can remind them of the behavior expectations before they walk into a friend’s house like, “It’s time to come home, please thank Leo’s mom for having you over”. I can check in without calling the neighbor’s mom.

A camera. This one came with a conversation. We talked about appropriate and inappropriate photos — what those words mean, what the line is, and why it matters. My oldest now sends me a selfie every single time he leaves. Every time he’s playing waffle ball with a friend or basketball with a group. I don’t have the words for how much I love that.

No internet. No social media. Fully firewalled. This isn’t a gateway device — it’s a communication tool, and that’s all.

School Mode and Focus Mode. This watch will never go to school. It will never go to a sports practice. It lives at home and goes out when the kids go out into the neighborhood. Those boundaries are ours, not the watch’s — but it’s nice to know the tech supports them.

SOS mode. A double-tap on the power button quietly alerts their primary contact. I hope we never need it. I’m glad it’s there.

How We Actually Use It

Most of the time, if they’re playing close by, at our house, or I’m walking laps in the neighborhood — the watch stays home. It goes on when they’re heading somewhere with more distance, more variables, or less visibility for me.

It is not a tracker I check compulsively. I see it as a bridge — between the freedom they’re ready for and the oversight I still need to feel okay extending it.

My oldest is probably a year away from being left home alone for short stretches of time, like if I want to go on a solo walk. That felt impossible to imagine two years ago. The watch has been part of the practice — a way to extend a little more rope at a time, with a system in place that makes the extension feel safe for both of us.

There Is No Right Age. There Is Only Readiness.

I get asked constantly: when should I let my kid have more independence? When is the right time for a watch?

Here’s my honest answer: get one when it would help your family systems, not when your child wants one, and not because they feel left out for not having it.

The watch doesn’t create readiness. Readiness is built through practice — through small moments of independence, the cashier-keep-the-change kind of moments, the came-home-with-two-treats kind of moments — where kids learn what the rules mean when no one is watching, and where we learn what our kids are actually ready for.

Some kids will be ready earlier. Some kids need more time and more scaffolding, and that is not a reflection of how capable they are. It is a reflection of how their brain is wired, and how much support they need to build the skills that will eventually carry them beautifully on their own.

My youngest could probably already handle more than we’ve given him. My oldest is getting there, and I am so proud of the work he’s doing.

Imagine somewhere in our neighborhood this summer, there is a 10.5-year-old sending his mom a selfie from a friend’s driveway before he goes inside to play.

That’s enough for me.

Here’s a link to the watch

(It’s $20/month, and we pause our subscription during the cold, winter months)

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If you’re navigating big questions about independence, behavior, and what your spirited kid is actually ready for — that’s exactly the work we do inside Thriving Together. Come find us.

What I was thinking: We are living two completely different lives. Her children are waking up and setting up watercolors outside together, peacefully, maybe with a little nature soundtrack playing in the background. Mine are in the kitchen with underwear on their heads, using drumsticks as swords, and someone is already crying and it isn’t even 7:30am.

I am impartial to summer. I love the sun, the vacations, plans with friends, and the slower pace of the school year evaporating. And also, if I’m being honest, which I always am here, it is a lot of work. A lot. Especially when you’re working from home. Especially when your kids are spirited, strong-willed, and wired differently from each other…or the same as each other.

What I’ve learned, after years of white-knuckling summers and a few that went genuinely sideways, is that structure and clear communication is what makes a good summer possible. Just a handful of non-negotiables that hold the shape of our days, so the days don’t hold us hostage.

Here are ours…

1. Quiet Time (And It Looks Different Every Single Day)

This one is the most important for my own mental health, and can be the hardest to implement.

Quiet time in our house is 45 minutes, building toward an hour, with all three boys — my 4, 7, and 10-year-old — in separate spaces. No negotiating location with each other. No “but I want to be in the playroom.” These rules are firm and clear. Play or be bored in your space.

The timing shifts with the day. Some days it happens at 11am because I can see where things are heading after all the bickering and fighting. Some days we push to 3pm because the morning was actually good and I don’t want to interrupt our momentum. I read the room. I read the kids. I watch the moods and behaviors like a weather system moving in, and I call it when I need to call it.

My boys test this boundary the way my bowling ball tests the bumpers — every single time, without exception. The 45 minutes didn’t just click into place because I announced it. We will build towards it and will practice it for a solid week.

2. Morning Brain Stretches

Before the day gets moving, while I’m getting my life together in the kitchen, the boys do pen-to-paper work at the counter while eating breakfast. I started calling these brain stretches because if I didn’t give the boys something structured to do first thing in the morning, they would seek out conflict with each other.

I prep these on Sunday nights, which takes maybe 15 minutes and saves me every single morning of the week.

For my 4-year-old, this might be a coloring page ripped out of a book he loves. For my 7-year-old, a simple writing activity — fill in the story, write a sentence, whatever is developmentally right for where he is. For my 10-year-old, a Sudoku or color by number. Something that requires him to think without being entertained.

Their brains have a job before dogpiles and rough housing are even a conversation. We are stretching before we sprint. It sets a tone for the morning that I can’t manufacture any other way.

3. Screen Time is Earned Currency

Before anyone touches a device or turns on a TV, a set of cleanup jobs gets done first. Toys picked up. Laundry put away. Plants watered. Whatever the house needs that day.

We are a family unit. We all live here. We all make the mess, and we all help reset it. The screen time is the incentive that sits on the other side of that contribution, and it works because they actually want it.

What I’ve noticed is that the midday and evening chaos — the overwhelm of toys everywhere, the entropy that sets in when everyone’s been home all day — drops significantly when there’s a natural reset point tied to something they care about. They clean up. The house breathes again. We all feel better.

4. DADURDAY

Saturday mornings, my husband takes the boys out of the house for a couple hours.

I use that time to run errands, go on a long run, or get work done. Sometimes all three. What I’m really doing is filling back up so I can show up the other six mornings of the week without running on empty.

We named it DADURDAY, which the boys love because they love anything that sounds like a declaration. And it works because it’s predictable. They know it’s coming. I know it’s coming. Saturday doesn’t become the Wild West before 8am, and I don’t start the weekend already depleted.

Sustainable summers require sustainable rhythms. This one is ours.

5. The Sibling Social Skill of the Week

We have a lot of sibling conflict in our house. A lot. Two strong-willed boys and one who is neurodivergent means the friction is real and specific, and it cannot be solved with generic “be nice to your brother” reminders. I always remind myself that everything that comes in contact with another thing often will have friction.

So we practice a social skill each week.

This week might be flexibility — what to do when things don’t go our way. Next week might be perspective-taking — trying to understand what our sibling is feeling even when we’re frustrated. We’ve worked on how to give a compliment instead of a correction. How to stop our bodies before things go too far.

When the boys practice the skill throughout the week, they earn tokens toward a family reward — something fun we do together. A treat, a movie night, an experience we’ve been looking forward to. The reward jar fills up one good moment at a time.

The summer gives us time and repetition we don’t have during the school year. The closeness — sometimes uncomfortable closeness — makes the practice necessary. We are building skills that will serve them long after they’ve left my house.

For Thriving Together members (our hub for parents raising spirited kids), we get to work together on building better social skills this summer during a 6 week challenge, so stay tuned!

I did not design these non-negotiables from a place of having it together. I designed them from a place of having fallen apart enough times to know what we needed.

Some of these will take weeks to feel natural. Some will fail spectacularly before they work. My boys will test every single one of them — repeatedly, creatively, with great enthusiasm.

We are aiming for a summer where we make it to August with our relationship intact, where my kids grow in real and specific ways, and where I don’t lose myself completely in the process.

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PS: Inside Thriving Together, I’m supporting members who need help setting summer boundaries, setting up their daily routine, and plans for better behavior. There are also so many printables such as brain stretch worksheets, routine charts, and reward charts inside the hub. Get support today so you can thrive this summer. JOIN HERE.

Kirsten Russell is a temperament-informed parent coach and the host of Thriving Together. She works with parents of spirited, strong-willed, and neurodivergent children inside her membership community, Thriving Together. Find her on Instagram at @kirstrussell.

My youngest is easygoing. Mild-tempered. Flexible. He goes with the flow, transitions without a meltdown, and actually responds with deep breaths when I get down on his level and say “I see you’re frustrated, buddy.”

If he had been my first, I would have thought I cracked the code.

I would have been the parent posting confidently about gentle parenting tips, convinced that I had figured something out. I would have looked at struggling parents and thought — kindly, but still — maybe they just need to try a little harder to connect.

But he wasn’t my first.

Before him, I had two spirited kids, and one is a neurodivergent child who humbled me in ways I didn’t know were possible. Who taught me that the most loving, attuned, researched-backed gentle parenting approach could completely fall apart — not because I was doing it wrong, but because it was never designed for kids like mine.

And maybe like yours.

What Instagram Gets Wrong About Gentle Parenting

The gentle parenting content that fills your feed isn’t wrong, exactly. For easygoing, mild-tempered kids, most of those tools work beautifully. Validate the feeling, offer a choice, get on their level, wait for connection before correction — and a regulated, flexible kid will often meet you there.

The problem is the one-size-fits-all packaging.

Gentle parenting according to Instagram doesn’t come with an asterisk that says results may vary significantly depending on your child’s temperament, neurological wiring, and sensory processing. It just presents itself as The Way — and parents of spirited and neurodivergent kids are left wondering why they’re doing everything “right” and still drowning.

I’ve done the research so you don’t have to. Here’s what the evidence — and my own lived experience as a parent coach to kids like this — actually shows.

What Doesn’t Work With Spirited and/or Neurodivergent Kids

Always staying attuned and connected, even when they’re being aggressive or mean toward you. With a regulated, easygoing kid, your steady presence communicates safety and the meltdown quickly disappears. With a dysregulated spirited kid in the middle of a rage spiral, your hovering presence can actually escalate things sometimes. These kids often need you to leave if you are a catalyst for their intensity, and you might need to leave to protect your peace.

Validating feelings in hopes of getting cooperation. “I hear that you’re really frustrated that it’s time to leave the park.” For a mild-tempered kid, feeling heard often opens the door to moving forward. For a spirited kid? It can read as an invitation to keep negotiating. Validation without structure teaches them that big emotions = extended attention and delayed expectations.

Taking deep breaths during intense moments. I have yet to meet a spirited child mid-meltdown who has ever thought oh yes, breathing, that’s exactly what I needed. Suggesting regulation strategies to a fully dysregulated nervous system is like handing someone a brochure about swimming while they’re actively drowning. The window for those tools is before the storm, not inside it. And often when you try and practice these tools, our kids shut us down.

Responding to connection-seeking behavior with more connection. When spirited kids act out to get your attention, the gentle parenting instinct is to lean in — more quality time, more presence, more attunement, or the “10-minute miracle.” But for kids who are already struggling with regulation, this can accidentally reward the dysregulation and train them that falling apart is the most reliable way to get your focus.

Getting down on their level and connecting before correcting. Again — beautiful with a flexible kid. With a spirited child who is already escalated, this physical closeness and emotional intensity can feel overwhelming and can make the moment worse, not better.

Time-ins instead of time-outs. The idea behind time-ins is that kids need connection, not isolation, when they struggle. In theory, I agree. In practice, sitting with a spirited child who just hit their sibling and asking them to talk about their feelings is sometimes the fastest route to a second incident.

Offering choices to ensure something gets done. “Do you want to put your shoes on now or in two minutes?” Autonomy and choice are genuinely important for all kids. But when a spirited child is already overwhelmed or oppositional, introducing more decisions can tip a teetering nervous system right over the edge.

What the Research Actually Shows

For kids with ADHD and intense temperaments, overly permissive parenting — even the warm, loving, well-intentioned kind — has measurable negative effects on mental health and impulse control. It creates bad behavior spirals. It puts the child in charge of the emotional thermostat of the entire home. And it makes it harder, not easier, for them to build the regulation skills they so desperately need.

Here’s the part that stopped me cold when I first read it: parent coaching is the number one recommended treatment for ADHD. Not medication alone. Not therapy alone. Parent coaching — because how we respond to these kids is genuinely that consequential.

That’s not to create more shame. It’s to say: this work matters, and you deserve actual support doing it.

What Actually Works: Authoritative Parenting

Not authoritarian. Authoritative.

The difference matters enormously, and it’s annoying they sound similar.

Authoritative parenting is warm and firm. It holds limits with consistency and stays connected through the hard moments. It doesn’t negotiate with a dysregulated nervous system. It doesn’t shame a kid for having big feelings. And it doesn’t collapse under the weight of a child’s displeasure.

Gentle parenting as Instagram presents it often slides into permissive — because compassion and empathy, without consistent limits and appropriate consequences, is just permissiveness with better language.

Spirited and neurodivergent kids need consistency more than they need our empathetic responses in the moment. They need to know the limits are real, the expectations are steady, and the parent is in charge of the emotional temperature of the home — not them.

That is actually the most loving thing we can do for a kid whose nervous system is already working overtime.

Signs You Might Need Support With This

You’re not failing if any of these land:

• Your child runs the house, and on some level, everyone in the family knows it

• You feel on edge or hypervigilant around your own kid — braced for the next explosion

• You find yourself begging, bribing, avoiding, or just feeling quietly defeated most days

• You’ve become reactive — you yell more than you want to, threaten consequences you don’t follow through on, or find yourself demanding instant compliance and then spiraling when you don’t get it

This can be what happens when you’re using tools that weren’t built for your kid, over and over, waiting for them to work.

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This Is What I Teach Inside Thriving Together

We work together to learn what authoritative parenting sounds like when your kid is screaming that they hate you at 7am. What it looks like when you’ve already lost your patience three times before lunch. How to hold the line without losing the relationship.

Built specifically for parents of spirited, intense, and neurodivergent kids — because we have always deserved more than advice designed for someone else’s child.

Today is the last day to join us. Doors close tonight.

👉 [JOIN THRIVING TOGETHER]

If this piece made you feel seen — that feeling lives inside the membership every single day. Come find your people.

Kirsten

P.S. — If you have a friend in the thick of it with a spirited kid, send this to them. They need to know it’s not their fault, and they’re not alone.

They lie because lying works.

I know that’s not a comfortable sentence to sit with, but it’s the one that changed everything about how I handle dishonesty in our house, and it started with a pack of gum.

For weeks, I kept finding wrappers. Behind the toilet when a garbage can was literally six inches away. Tucked into the couch cushions. Stuffed into my work bag (but like, why there?). My son was sneaking gum, hiding the evidence, and when I’d ask about it, he’d look me right in the eye and tell me he hadn’t had any. Classic. I wanted to sit him down and have the lying talk. I wanted to explain honesty and trust and what happens to relationships when people aren’t truthful with each other. I was ready to deliver the speech.

And then I stopped myself because I’ve learned — both as a parent coach and as a mom who has made every mistake in this book — that the lecture rarely gets to the root of anything.

Before we can address the lying, we have to understand what the lying is doing for our kid.

I was on a walk with a close friend who works in schools, and we talked it through. What we landed on was simple: he wasn’t lying because he was a dishonest kid. He was lying to gain access to something he wanted. The gum. And here’s the part that stung a little — the lying was working. One hundred percent of the time, the gum was his. So of course he kept doing it. The behavior was being reinforced every single time.

So I parent-coached myself. I asked the question I ask the families I work with: what could you change to make this behavior unnecessary?

The answer was almost embarrassingly simple. Give him more gum (I’ll explain why below).

I told him all he needed to do from now on was ask me for a piece of gum, and I would say A BIG YES!!!

For a couple of days, I watched him closely like he was a toddler again. When he moved toward the drawer where we keep gum, I’d stop him — not with a lecture, not with a consequence — but with a redirect. I’d look at him and wait. And sheepishly, the first time, he asked. You could tell by his face that he fully expected me to say no. That’s why he’d been sneaking it in the first place. Parenting is humbling.

I said yes. And I made sure he felt it. “Thank you so much for being honest and telling me you wanted a piece. Yes, you can have one.”

We did this for a few days. He had about eight pieces of gum over three days just by asking. And something interesting happened — the gum stopped being interesting. When you’re sneaking something, it’s electric. When you can just have it, it’s just gum. Over the following days I started naturally stretching it out. “Yes, after dinner.” “Yes, tomorrow morning on the way to school.” And each time I made sure to name what he was doing right: “Thank you for asking. I know that’s not always easy. I bet that feels good.”

It does feel good. That’s the whole point. We want honesty to feel better than sneaking, not just because of consequences, but because of how it lands in their body when we receive it well.

The goal was never fewer gum wrappers behind the toilet. The goal was a kid who asks for what he wants.

Now, consequences still have a place here. If he had kept taking gum after I started this process, I would have moved it somewhere inaccessible and had him replace what he took. But the north star wasn’t punishment — it was building the behavior I actually wanted to see. And I wasn’t going to get there by lecturing him into honesty. I was going to get there by making honesty feel safe enough to try.

The toothbrush thing is a different story — standing there holding a bone-dry toothbrush while he told me he’d already brushed, water somehow covering every surface of the bathroom floor was my son trying escape a parent imposed consequence. That one got a reply of, “I believe you, and I still expect you to brush your teeth again and clean up the water for us.” Some days you just laugh. Some days the lying is so bold it almost wraps back around to impressive. That one I’m still working on.

But the gum saga reminded me of something I need to remember more often as a parent: when a behavior keeps happening, there’s a reason it keeps happening. Find that reason before you find the consequence. Sometimes the most effective response to lying isn’t a bigger reaction. It’s removing the need for it.

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TL;DR

Kids lie because lying works. Before jumping to consequences, ask what the lying is doing for your child — what need it’s meeting. When you make honesty feel safe and accessible, you remove the reason to sneak. Build the behavior you want to see by receiving honesty well, every single time it shows up. The goal isn’t a perfectly honest kid overnight. It’s a kid who believes that telling you the truth is worth it.

In this with you,

Kirsten Russell
Temperament Informed Parent Coach

If this resonated, the work we do inside Thriving Together goes deeper — into the patterns behind behavior, and how to respond in a way that actually builds something lasting. I’d love to have you there.

They over-explain because they love their child and they want it to make sense.

We live in a time when parenting is saturated with advice about connection, emotional attunement, using yes language, and explaining the “why” behind every boundary. And that’s not wrong — context matters, connection matters, the relationship matters. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up a quiet belief that if we could just find the right words, the tricky behavior moment would resolve. That if we explained clearly enough, patiently enough, thoroughly enough — they’d finally get it.

So we talk. A lot. We explain. We justify. We reason. We come back to the same point from three different angles. We crouch down, make eye contact, use our warmest voice, and deliver a very thoughtful four-paragraph monologue to a child who stopped listening at sentence two.

The irony of over-explaining is that the more we say, the less they hear.

If you take anything away from this article, I want you to hear this: your child’s nervous system is already activated. They’re in the feeling, not the thinking. And a brain that is flooded, frustrated, or in defense mode cannot process language the way a calm brain can. The words land, but they don’t stick. The logic makes sense to you, but it rolls right off them — not because they’re defiant, but because they’re not neurologically available for a lesson right now.

There is a version of this that plays out at bedtime constantly. Your child keeps getting out of bed — water, one more hug, something they forgot to tell you. You’ve already done the routine. You’ve already said goodnight twice. And now you’re standing in the hallway explaining why sleep is important, why their body needs rest, why you need time too, why this is the third time tonight, why the rule exists, why..why..why…

And none of it is working. Because none of it needs to be said.

What needs to happen is simpler: a warm but firm redirect, your physical presence walking them back, and quiet. You don’t have to justify the bedtime boundary to make it real. The boundary exists whether you explain it or not.

When you stop over-explaining, something shifts. Your child can’t argue with silence the way they can argue with words. They can’t negotiate with a parent who has simply said, “I love you. It’s time to sleep,” and then stopped talking. The conversation has nowhere to go. The loop closes.

Kids don’t need a reason to follow a boundary. They need to feel that you believe in it.

And here’s the part that’s hard to sit with: our over-explaining is often a signal that we don’t quite believe in what we’re saying. We keep adding words because we’re hoping the next sentence will be the one that finally convinces them — and convinces us — that this is okay, that we’re not being mean, that we’re still the good parent we want to be.

If that’s you, it could be that you are working on finding the balance between firm boundaries and being a permissive parent. If this is sounds like you, you are a loving person who has absorbed a lot of messaging about gentle communication. But gentle doesn’t mean endless. Clear is its own form of kind.

The pivot isn’t about becoming colder or more authoritarian. It’s about trusting that fewer words, delivered steadily, carry more weight than a long explanation delivered from anxiety.

Say what you mean once, calmly. Then let your presence — not your words — hold the limit. Sit beside them. Walk them back. Use your body more than your voice. And when they push (and they will push), stay quiet. Not cold. Quiet.

The protest that follows isn’t a sign the approach isn’t working. It’s your child testing whether you really mean it this time. Staying quiet is the answer to that test.

You don’t have to earn the right to your own boundaries. You just have to hold them.

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Here’s what it might sound like in RL:

• “That answer I gave you is the best one I have.”

• “I’m done talking about that for today.”

• “Shoes on, I’ll meet you in the car."

• “You’re not in trouble, and I need quiet so separate rooms. On you go.”

• “I want to be early to our appointment, so I’m going to take the toy so it isn’t a distraction anymore.”

• “hmmm” or “I believe you”

TL;DR

Over-explaining often comes from love — but it backfires. A flooded nervous system can’t absorb logic, and too many words give kids more material to argue with. Say it once, say it clearly, then let your presence do the rest. Quiet isn’t cold. It’s confident. And confident is what kids actually follow.

If this resonates, I created a FREE workshop for you, Why Is My Child So Hard? I'll teach you the exact 3 steps hundreds of parents have used to react less, gain cooperation, and be the parent their child needs — without the guilt and without the blowups. WATCH THE. REPLAY HERE.

In this with you,

Kirsten Russell
Temperament Informed Parent Coach

It is a completely ordinary Tuesday morning in my house. Nobody is bleeding. Nobody has lost a privilege. In fact, nothing has technically even happened yet. And somehow my oldest and my middle child are already AT each other. One looked at the other the wrong way…or breathed too loud.. then existed in a way that was apparently offensive so one got fake punched. I have studied sibling dynamics for eight years now. I have read the research, attended the trainings, and built an entire framework around this stuff. And I am standing in my kitchen at 7am thinking: We can’t even trust them to get their shoes on together without a conflict?!

Here is the first thing I want you to know, and I need you to actually stop multi-tasking because this stat will blow your mind. Research tells us that neurotypical siblings fight up to four times an hour on average between the ages of three and twelve. Four times you guys. PER HOUR. Can we just sit with that for a second? That means the conflict you are witnessing in your home… the bickering, the poking, the tattling, the “MOM HE’S LOOKING AT ME” is most likely in the “normal” range. It is a sign that your family is spectacularly, exhaustingly normal.

And if your hand of cards happens to include same-gender kids, strong-willed temperaments, a neurodivergent child in the mix, a close age gap, or wildly different energy levels — your cards are harder to play. Not unplayable. Just harder. I fall into basically every single one of those categories, and I promise you: you can still win this hand. It just takes practice and the right skills.

“The question is never just what is happening between them. The question is always why.”

So why are they doing it? Because before we can change the dynamic, we have to understand what is driving it. When one sibling is consistently poking, provoking, or antagonizing the other — there is almost always a reason for their actions. Are they trying to get their sibling’s attention? Because siblings, I have to tell you, want each other’s attention more than almost anything. They are like that golden retriever puppy I met on the baseball sidelines last spring — the one who kept chewing my shoe, then jumping on my toddler, then barking at me, just absolutely delighted with all of it until the rest of us were completely over it and the puppy had absolutely no idea. That is your child poking their sibling at minute forty-seven of a car ride. Full golden retriever energy. No social cue awareness whatsoever. Other times the poking is about accessing you — a parent — because negative attention is still attention, and these kids are smart. Sometimes it is about status, or importance, or wanting what the other one has, or something purely sensory that they cannot even articulate. And sometimes — truly — it is a cocktail of all of the above and you are just the bartender who has to figure out what is in it.

“You are not refereeing their childhood. You are shaping how their relationship will evolve for life.”

One approach that has genuinely changed the temperature in our home — and I want to be clear, I could write twenty approaches to sibling conflict, this is one — is something I call The Leader Award. The idea is simple, and the execution is where the magic lives. Instead of constantly calling out what your kids are doing wrong to each other, we start asking one question: what does it look like to be a leader of your sibling pact?

And the answer looks different every single time. Sometimes being a leader means being the hype-man — the one who notices their sibling did something hard and says so out loud. Sometimes it means being the helper — jumping in when someone is struggling instead of laughing or walking away. And sometimes — and this one is the most underrated leadership skill of all — it means walking away before you do something unkind. That is the most emotionally intelligent move in the room and I will die on that hill. Have you and your child had a conversation of what leadership looks like and how they can lead their siblings?

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Here is how it works in real life, not the IG carousel version :) My kids are earning tokens in a token jar. I’ll link it here for you. When the jar is full, the 3 siblings are getting ice cream in their pajamas after bedtime. But here is the part that matters: before we started, I explained exactly what counted. I gave them the actual words. I did not say “be kind to each other” — because that means nothing to a child and honestly sometimes means nothing to adults either. I said: here is what a leader of this pact looks like. Here is what a hype-man sounds like. Here is what a helper does. Say this. Try this. And then the first day we started, I intervened at least six times to build the momentum myself.

My middle child was about to say something cutting about his brother’s self-done hair — bless that child’s confident little heart — and I held up a chip before the words left his mouth. “What would a leader of this pact do right now?” He was motivated. He dug deep. He found something kind and he said it, and we celebrated him like he had just won something, because he had.

Later, my toddler threw brussels sprouts on the floor at dinner and my middle child was winding up to laugh, and I held up the chip again. “What does a leader do here?” And then — I am not making this up — all three of my boys were suddenly a team, trying the brussels sprouts together, focused entirely on the behavior I wanted to see.

Not because I lectured them. Not because I threatened them. Because I interrupted the old pattern and handed them a new identity to step into. That is neuroscience 101. Every time we name the behavior we want and give a child a role worth playing, we are literally building new neural pathways. The heckler becomes the hype-man. The critic becomes the helper. It does not happen overnight, but it happens — and you get to be the one who builds it.

The other thing I want you to notice in all of those examples — and this is the piece parents almost always miss — is that my attention was intentional. I was not just reacting to the conflict. I was choosing where to point my eyes, and what to name out loud. “I know you are going to earn a token for respecting your brother’s space and backing up — that is a leader move.” “You are a kid who will use his assertive and kind voice and say: please move back, I want to play alone — that is what the role model in this pact does.” When we do this, we stop accidentally casting our kids as the villain and the victim in a story that runs on repeat. We start writing a new one. We are not looking for perfection. We are looking for the moments worth naming, and we are calling them out loud, on purpose, until the good starts to crowd out the noise. That is the whole motto inside Thriving Together. See the good. Name the leader. Watch them grow into it.

“Give a child a role worth playing and watch who they become.”

If this resonated with you and you want to go deeper, I am hosting a free live workshop this Friday all about siblings, power struggles, and kids who struggle with cooperation. We are going to get into the tools, the scripts, the real-life moments, and you will leave with things you can actually use this weekend. Join me live or catch the replay.

👉 [REGISTER FOR THE FREE WORKSHOP HERE]

And if you want the token chart we use in our home, grab it right here:

👉 [TOKEN CHART]

Drop a comment below and tell me: what is the dynamic in your house right now? I read every single one. 🌿

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Kirsten Russell

Temperament Informed Parent Coach