Open Book Parenting

Bedtime is a great place to start with anxiety exposures in part because when families are getting enough sleep, everything -- including anxiety -- improves. But it's also a tricky area with lots of complexity because there are lots of feelings. Ignoring the feelings and just telling parents what to do misses the opportunity to help that parent grow and learn about themselves, their values, and their child. That's part of what I'm discussing here, in this excerpt of my parenting podcast, TELL ME IT WILL BE OK.

I don't think it's intention but a lot of parenting advice errs on the side of codependency -- that is, try to control someone else's behavior with our own. And yes, parents can and do (and need to) shift things since we are ultimately the most powerful people in the relationship but there's a difference in changing the system because the system needs to change and changing the system in an attempt to force someone else to change. That's what I'm talking about here in this excerpt from TELL ME IT WILL BE OK, my podcast for parents raising kids in an anxious world.