Many of us grew up in homes where emotions were dismissed, mistakes were punished, and children learned to manage the feelings of the adults around them. As parents, we often recognize those patterns intellectually, but recognizing them and changing them are two very different things. In this episode, Michelle explores the long-term effects of growing up with emotionally immature parents and why awareness alone isn't enough to break the cycle.

In this episode, we share the practical work of healing childhood wounds while raising children differently. We explain why our biggest parenting reactions are often connected to unresolved experiences from our own childhood, and we show you three powerful practices that help parents interrupt old patterns in real time, repair relationship ruptures, and begin the deeper process of reparenting themselves.

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Somewhere along the way, maybe out loud, maybe just in your own head, you started calling one of your children the difficult one. The intense one. The spirited one. The one with the issues. And you love them, of course you do. But quietly, where no one can see, you have wondered if something is wrong with them. Or with you. Or with both of you. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone, and there is nothing wrong with you. This is one of the most invisible patterns in modern parenting, and it takes real work to see.

In this episode, I'm walking through what the label is actually doing to the child you're trying to help. We'll cover the science of how a parent's expectations physically shape who a child becomes, the five patterns good parents fall into without realizing it, and the five-step roadmap to break the cycle starting this week. I'll also share the story of a mom in our community whose seven-year-old had been the family "problem" for years, the emails from school, the bedtime wars, the dinner refusals, and the single tool that changed everything.

Join us on our Weekly Training every Thursday at 9:30 am PT live on Zoom

Interested in coaching? Let's have a conversation

Check out my book UNPUNISHED

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I had been told the same story since I became a mom: “children are manipulative”, “They do that on purpose”. I believed it. I bargained and threatened, my daughter melted down harder, and the wall between us got higher. I had been told kids push their parents because they want the power, so I tried to take the power back. It didn't work. It actually never works, because that is not what is really happening,

In this episode, I'm walking you through what is actually happening. We'll cover the neuroscience of why your child genuinely cannot manipulate you the way a grown adult can, the translation guide for the behaviors that look most manipulative (from the meltdown over cereal to the "you don't love me" line), and the response protocol you can use today. There is so much we can find out when we ask the right question.

Join us on our Weekly Training every Thursday at 9:30 am PT live on Zoom

Interested in coaching? Book a Discovery Call with me at michelle@peaceandparentingla.com

Check out my book UNPUNISHED

Follow Peace and Parenting:

Instagram: @peaceandparenting

Facebook: @peaceandparentingla

YouTube: @peaceandparentingla

💌 Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review.

Why does my child listen to everyone but me? I remember being there myself. I was a teacher and counselor for thirteen years before I had kids, and I could not get my own oldest daughter to cooperate for five minutes. I thought, I am trained for this. What is wrong with me? Nothing was wrong with me. And nothing is wrong with you.

The truth is, what most of us were taught about cooperation is wrong. Cooperation isn't something you demand, it's something you grow. In this episode, I'm walking through the neuroscience of why your child saves their worst behavior for you, the five most common cooperation drains in our homes, and the five-step road map I teach my clients to flip the dynamic. I'll also share the story of a mom whose seven-year-old went from a nightly bedtime war to brushing his teeth before she even asked, and the one small shift that changed it.

Download our Guide to Cooperation

Join us on our Weekly Training this Thursday at 9:30 am PT live on Facebook & Zoom

Interested in coaching? Book a Discovery Call with me at michelle@peaceandparentingla.com

Check out my book UNPUNISHED

Follow Peace and Parenting:

Instagram: @peaceandparenting

Facebook: @peaceandparentingla

YouTube: @peaceandparentingla

💌 Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review.

The week before my oldest daughter left for college, I caught myself reorganizing her room, repacking her bags, sending her articles she didn't ask for. And I realized standing in her doorway one night, she was ready. She had been ready for a long time. I was the one who wasn't ready to let her go. What hit me hardest wasn't the goodbye. It was the recognition that for years, I had been fighting the same quiet battle inside myself: the pull to manage, the pull to control outcomes, the pull to step in just one more time so things didn't go sideways.

In this episode, I'm walking you through what I now teach parents inside one-on-one coaching about raising a genuinely resilient kid. We'll cover the loving belief almost every parent holds that's quietly making their child more fragile, the brain science of "tolerable stress" and why your child's prefrontal cortex actually needs struggle to grow, the difference between abandoning and over-helping (a sweet spot I call connected courage), and the five shifts that change everything. This isn't about being a harder parent. It's about finally trusting the child you've been raising all along.

Download our Empathy Guide

Join us on our Weekly Training every Thursday at 9:30 am PT live on Facebook & Zoom

Interested in coaching? Book a Discovery Call with me at michelle@peaceandparentingla.com

Check out my book UNPUNISHED

Follow Peace and Parenting:

Instagram: @peaceandparenting

Facebook: @peaceandparentingla

YouTube: @peaceandparentingla

💌 Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review.

For years in my own house, my ex-husband and I were both deep tech people. From the moment we woke up until we went to bed, there was some kind of screen running. Phones at the dinner table while the kids played next to us. And then I would turn around and try to set screen-time rules for my daughters, and wonder why nothing was working. The truth is, the most powerful screen-time intervention you have isn't what you do with your child's phone. It's what you do with yours.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the full framework for raising screen-smart kids without the daily power struggle. You'll hear the moment with my daughters that finally made me change how I parented around tech, why scarcity-based rules ("no phone until you…") create more obsession instead of less, and the exact transition language I use so kids can put a device down without a meltdown. If you've ever felt like you're losing the screen-time battle, I want you to hear this one before you take another phone away.

I was a yeller. Not a "lost it once or twice" yeller, a full-on, scream-in-my-two-year-old's-face yeller. I shamed my oldest daughter. I became her first bully, without meaning to and without wanting to. And I want to share that with you not because I'm proud of it, but because I know how many parents are sitting in that same place right now, exhausted and ashamed, swearing tonight will be different and then losing it again at bedtime.

In this training, I'm walking you through what I had to learn before any of it could change, including the brain science that genuinely scared me into doing the work. You'll hear what yelling actually does to your child's developing brain, why control parenting (bribes, threats, punishment) always backfires, the five daily connection pillars I built into our family rhythm, and a complete in-the-moment toolkit for the seconds before you lose it. And I'll share the one secret tool I gave my own daughters that kept me more accountable than any book or coach ever could.

My daughters fought constantly when they were little, and I tried everything. I separated them. I punished them. I lectured. I bribed. I yelled. Nothing worked, not really. It would stop for twenty minutes and we would be right back at it. What finally changed everything wasn't a new consequence, it was a completely new role.

In this episode, I'm giving you that role. I'm walking you through the full 12-step Sibling Rivalry Protocol I teach inside the Peace and Parenting Community: the exact framework I used to stop being the judge and jury in my house and start being the coach. We'll cover why your instinct to figure out "who started it" is actually extending the fight, why comforting the child who caused the hurt is the move most parents skip, and the makeup story from my own home that took me about two hundred repetitions to get right. Stay with me on this one, the shift is bigger than it sounds.