The Three Things I Do When My Own Kids Are Struggling
The Three Things I Do When My Own Kids Are Struggling
As a child psychologist, people sometimes assume I always know exactly what to do with my own children.
The truth?
I'm still a parent first.
I have kids who have bad days, struggle with big emotions, push boundaries, and go through difficult seasons just like every other child.
The difference isn't that my children never struggle.
It's that I've developed a simple framework that helps me respond when I notice something feels off.
If you've ever wondered whether your child is going through a difficult time, these three steps can help you recognize the signs of emotional distress in a child while strengthening your parent-child connection through calm, confident parenting.
Step 1: Get Curious
The first thing I do isn't discipline.
It isn't lecture.
It isn't even ask my child what's wrong.
I get curious.
When children's behavior suddenly changes, there's usually a reason.
Maybe they're:
Having more meltdowns than usual
Fighting more with siblings
Becoming unusually clingy
Seeking more attention
Crying more often
Pulling away from activities they usually enjoy
These can all be signs of emotional distress in a child, even if your child can't explain exactly what's bothering them.
Instead of asking, "What's wrong with my child?"
I ask:
"What has changed?"
Small Changes Can Feel Huge to Kids
Adults often underestimate how difficult change can be for children.
Things that seem minor to us can feel enormous to them.
For example:
The school year ending
Starting a new activity
Returning from vacation
Changes in routine
Friendship challenges
A parent traveling for work
Children don't always have the perspective to understand why they suddenly feel unsettled.
That's why curiosity is such an important part of confident parenting.
Sometimes you discover the answer immediately.
Other times you never fully know.
But taking time to consider what may have changed helps you respond with empathy instead of frustration.
Step 2: Prioritize Special Time
Whenever I notice my own children are struggling, one strategy moves to the very top of my priority list.
Special time.
If you're unfamiliar with it, special time comes from Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT).
It's incredibly simple.
Spend just five uninterrupted minutes with your child each day.
During those five minutes:
Your child chooses the activity.
You follow their lead.
You stay fully engaged.
You avoid giving commands or asking unnecessary questions.
You offer genuine praise and attention.
That's it.
It sounds almost too simple.
But it's one of the most powerful parenting resources available.
Why Special Time Works
Children crave connection.
Especially during difficult seasons.
When kids are struggling emotionally, they often seek attention in ways that parents find challenging.
They may argue more.
Interrupt more.
Become more demanding.
Act younger than usual.
Rather than viewing these behaviors as problems to eliminate, special time gives children a predictable way to fill their emotional cup.
That stronger parent-child connection often reduces challenging behavior naturally.
One of the reasons I love recommending this intervention is because it's backed by decades of research and consistently produces meaningful results for families.
Step 3: Check In With Yourself
This is the hardest step.
It's also the one parents skip most often.
When my children are struggling, I ask myself:
"How am I doing?"
Because parents have tremendous influence over the emotional climate of a home.
If I'm exhausted...
Stressed...
Short-tempered...
Overwhelmed...
That affects everyone.
This isn't about blaming yourself.
It's about recognizing your own needs.
Strong confident parenting begins with making sure you have the emotional bandwidth to support your child.
Self-Care Doesn't Have to Be Fancy
The phrase "self-care" often makes parents think of spa days or tropical vacations.
Most of us don't have time for that.
Instead, ask yourself:
Am I sleeping enough?
Have I been moving my body?
Am I eating regularly?
Have I connected with friends recently?
Am I doing anything that helps me recharge?
Sometimes the smallest changes create the biggest improvements.
Listening to music during your morning routine.
Taking a short walk.
Going to bed earlier.
Asking your partner for help.
These are all valuable parenting resources because they improve your ability to show up for your child.
Why This Framework Works
None of these steps involve immediately fixing your child's behavior.
Instead, they focus on understanding what's underneath it.
Children often communicate distress through behavior long before they have the words to explain it.
By recognizing the signs of emotional distress in a child, strengthening your parent-child connection, and approaching challenges through confident parenting, you're addressing the root cause instead of simply reacting to the symptoms.
Final Thoughts
Every child struggles sometimes.
That's part of growing up.
The goal isn't preventing every difficult emotion.
The goal is noticing when your child needs you most.
When that happens, remember these three steps:
Get curious about what may have changed.
Prioritize daily special time.
Check in with yourself before trying to change your child.
These simple habits have become my own parenting reset whenever things feel off at home.
And if you're looking for practical parenting resources, stronger parent-child connection, greater confident parenting, and a better understanding of the signs of emotional distress in a child, this framework is a powerful place to start.
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: On this podcast, I am very honest about the fact that even though I'm a very seasoned child psychologist, I'm still a human and an imperfect parent. And my kids are real human children who are also imperfect and also sometimes really have a hard time. And I thought it would be helpful to share with you something personal today, the three steps that I take when I notice that my own kids are struggling at home.
[00:00:33] Leah Clionsky: And I'm hopeful that this framework can be useful to you when you run into these issues with your own kids. So I hope you enjoy All kids are gonna struggle at times, and the goal is for us to be able to figure out when that's happening and then to intervene in a way that's helpful. So how do we know when our kids are struggling?
[00:01:02] Leah Clionsky: You already have a gut instinct about this. Usually, it shows up in behavior. So I have a four and a seven-year-old, and the kinds of things that could happen if they're having a harder time is suddenly they seem like they get upset by things that normally don't upset them. Maybe I see more tantrums, more meltdowns.
[00:01:23] Leah Clionsky: Maybe I see more pushback defiance that doesn't typically come up. Um, maybe I see more aggressive behavior. Maybe I see more fighting between the two of them. Maybe I see more demanding for strong attention, so I can tell that they are really, really, really wanting a strong reaction from me, that they're doing things that they know are gonna trigger a stronger, maybe negative reaction than they typically would.
[00:01:53] Leah Clionsky: Maybe I see it in that they wanna be around me all the time in a way that, again, is not typical for them. They're snuggly kids, but maybe it's like I can't even leave their sight. So those are some typical behaviors that you can see in younger kids when something's going on, when they're having some kind of a hard time, even if we can't identify what it is.
[00:02:15] Leah Clionsky: Sometimes we'll hear about it from other people. So we might get a call home from school, or maybe, um, a friend that we trust will observe our child and make a comment. Risky move for a friend to do, but sometimes they can. Or maybe we'll see how they're treating a friend and think, "That's not how they usually treat a friend," or, "Why are they having more conflict with other people than they normally do?
[00:02:41] Leah Clionsky: Why are they reacting that way to their cousin or their grandma or somebody else like that in their family?" Other times, kids will just tell us, like, "I'm having a hard time," like, "I'm upset about something." Even little kids can be really direct about things that are going on. My kids are pretty o- open to coming home and telling me if they feel like someone was mean to them, or they weren't treated fairly by somebody, like at school or at summer camp, or they had an argument with a friend.
[00:03:11] Leah Clionsky: So sometimes we don't have to do very much guesswork. Kids just come out and tell us directly that they're having a hard time. Other behaviors and, and things we can see when kids are struggling is maybe, um, they're crying more than usual. Maybe they're afraid of things that they didn't used to be afraid of.
[00:03:30] Leah Clionsky: Maybe they are wanting a lot more screen time, and usually you can set a limit around that, but they're really pushing back in ways that you wouldn't expect. You know, for some kids, you might just see that they're not interested in doing things. Like maybe they always like to go play with their friends, but they're refusing to go play with their friends, or they're refusing to do their favorite activities or go places they usually like to go.
[00:03:56] Leah Clionsky: Or maybe they just seem scared of things and they tell you, "I don't wanna do," lots of things that they seem to have liked before
[00:04:05] Leah Clionsky: Excuse me. So there are lots of ways for us to notice, like, "Hey, there's something going on with my kid." So if any of these things happen with either of my kids, my first step is to get curious, and the thing I usually get curious about is whether anything has changed, because changes in situations are often really hard for kids, and it might not be something that I notice as quickly as something else.
[00:04:37] Leah Clionsky: So if your child comes over and says, "So-and-so was mean to me today," well, you know what the problem is. But I start asking myself questions like, "Did we stop hanging out with a friend that we used to hang out with? Did the school year just end? Is there anything that could have happened with someone else where I don't have any control there?
[00:05:03] Leah Clionsky: Did we just go on a trip? Was it the weekend and now it's Monday?" Or conversely, "Is it Friday and we're about to head into the weekend? Did we just start swimming class?" Right? I start just asking myself what could be different, what could be going on that could possibly be dysregulating to my child. And sometimes I can come up with some really, really good guesses based upon circumstances.
[00:05:32] Leah Clionsky: Sometimes, to be honest with you, I, at the end of it still am not sure. But it's worth it to just sit there and think about it, because I think often it's easy for us as parents to dismiss what a big deal change is, and that's because we have a lot of control over our lives, like we know what's going on, we know what's gonna happen next, we control our own schedules to a large degree.
[00:05:56] Leah Clionsky: Kids don't have that kind of insight. Most of the time they don't even know what day of the week it is. For example, every morning my four-year-old asks, "Is it a school day or is it the weekend?" He ha- like has no conception. So even if I tell him, "It's Monday, and so tomorrow is a school day, and Wednesday is a school day, and Thursday is a school day, and Friday is a school day," he still will ask me Tuesday morning, "Is it a school day or a weekend?"
[00:06:25] Leah Clionsky: So just, just understanding time and what's going on is really confusing. So when we change other parts of their routine, even if we change them to good, positive things, like going on vacation or like having a-- going to a birthday party, even fun stuff like that can cause our kids to become dysregulated.
[00:06:49] Leah Clionsky: So I get curious. That's the first thing I always do, is I sit there and I really try to think what has been different lately. The second thing I do is I get really, really rigid about doing special time with each of my kids every day. So special time is part of parent-child interaction therapy, and what it really is is five minutes of dedicated one-on-one time with your child where they get to choose the activity, you're completely engaged, and you're offering them lots of praise, you're repeating back the things they say, you're following their lead in what you're doing, and you're not asking questions or giving commands.
[00:07:37] Leah Clionsky: You're just really in there with them. Special time is the kind of intervention that changes lives for families, and I see this every day as a PCIT clinician in my practice. The reason why special time, why those five minutes of one-on-one time is so incredibly powerful is that it is a multivitamin of highly specialized attention, and it is also a place where your child gets to be in charge of something.
[00:08:08] Leah Clionsky: So if I know that there's something off with my kids, I know that the most powerful, comforting thing I can give them is consistent five minutes of this intervention on a daily basis. Now I know that I should be doing five minutes of special time with each of my kids every single day, right? Like from a child psychologist viewpoint and framework, that is ideal, is I know that this is powerful, and I know that I should always be doing it every single day.
[00:08:40] Leah Clionsky: However, I am also a human person, and just like every human person, I don't always consistently do what I would recommend that everyone else do. Just like I believe that it's important to exercise on a regular basis, sometimes I fall off the wagon with that. So, you know, activities will pick up or I'll just get busy or things will just be going well and I'll realize, "Hey, I have not done this one-on-one special time with either of my kids in two weeks."
[00:09:08] Leah Clionsky: But what I would tell any client that I work with when I can put on my child psychologist hat, if they tell me that their child is struggling, that they notice there's something going on with them, that they're pushing back, that they're having any issues, the very first thing I do is tell them to do the five minutes of special time, and this is where I truly practice what I preach.
[00:09:31] Leah Clionsky: So when I can see things are, things are getting kind of off the rails, I'll have this conversation with my husband where I say to him, "We gotta get back to daily special time." He knows, he agrees, and we're like, "Yep, this is gonna happen starting tonight." And it almost always really helps. Even if I can never figure out what the original problem was, just that stability, that comfort, that opportunity to have that l- level of intensity of one-on-one attention is such a powerful intervention with my kids.
[00:10:06] Leah Clionsky: So that is a go-to thing. If they were older, if they were too old for this to be really engaging for them, I would do five minutes of one-on-one activity that looked different. Maybe we would walk the dog, maybe we would have tea together, maybe we would have a special chat. But this five minutes of time, I cannot tell you how much the research supports it, and I cannot tell you the amount of power I've seen it have clinically when it's done right, and my kids love it.
[00:10:39] Leah Clionsky: So that is the second thing I'm really gonna make sure that I do. So the first one is I'm gonna get curious. What has changed? What could be going on? Is there... You know, have they been sick? Like, what, what could be an explanation for this? Sometimes you find out, sometimes you never know. Two, special time.
[00:11:00] Leah Clionsky: We're gonna do it every day. We're gonna get back in the routine because it really works, it's important, and it can never hurt The third thing I do is I take some time and start kind of checking in with myself. How am I doing? What's my energy level like? Am I in a good mental space? Have I been doing the things that I need to for my physical and mental health?
[00:11:27] Leah Clionsky: Because here's the reality, and it's almost hard to really think about this But I have so much power in my family, and I can ruin anything. It's too much power. I can ruin any morning. I can ruin any evening. I can take-- I can ruin the vibe of literally any occasion by being the mom in my family, by being a powerful parent in my family.
[00:12:00] Leah Clionsky: I can't always fix what's going wrong, but I can sure ruin anything. And sometimes the variable, the thing that's off, is me. So, like really sitting back and thinking, "Am I doing well? Am I okay?" Because if I'm exhausted, short, difficult to be around, I could be the instigator for all of these problems. And also, me being more stable, taking better care of myself, approaching things differently, has a lot of power in changing things.
[00:12:38] Leah Clionsky: And again, I think it's scary for us to admit how much power we have, but we can get so wrapped up in taking care of our kids and taking care of our families and doing our jobs and being there for so many clients, it can be easy to start backburnering the things that you need until all of a sudden you look around and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I have been not sleeping very well, and it's made me really irritable every morning."
[00:13:06] Leah Clionsky: "Oh, I have not been exercising," or, "I have not done one social event in three weeks." Like the things that you know that you need. So, that's my third step, because sometimes I need an a- I need an attitude readjustment. I need to go in there and think, "Okay, how am I gonna be different in these situations?" And if it's not something I can easily do, what do I need to put into place so that my bandwidth is better and I'm able to be there?
[00:13:37] Leah Clionsky: And that-- think I would ask you that question too. If things are starting to go wrong, are you okay? Were you okay, and then because they went wrong, now you're not okay? Or were you struggling to begin with and you really do need to at least make sure that you are eating and sleeping and moving? Just those very basic things.
[00:13:59] Leah Clionsky: I'm not saying we all need to go on a trip to Hawaii, although that would be amazing. But I do really think that this idea of self-care ends up being so glamorized that it doesn't ever feel accessible. And just being able to think, "Do I just need to listen to like my music every single morning when I get up and that would put me in a better head space?"
[00:14:21] Leah Clionsky: Sometimes those small tweaks can make a really big difference So to reiterate, I get curious, I get really, really rigid about doing special time with my kids, and I check in with myself and see if my needs are getting met, and if they're not, then I do something about it. So if you notice that you are getting stuck in these situations, or you also just really want some help because your child is struggling and you don't know what to do, we can absolutely help you at Thriving Child Center and PCIT Experts.
[00:14:54] Leah Clionsky: If you wanna learn how to do this really powerful special time intervention, that is what the first phase of parent-child interaction therapy is all about, and we can teach it to you, and we can coach you while you actually use it so that you get really, really good at it, and then you have a tool that you can use with your child whenever you need to, but it really does make a valid difference.
[00:15:19] Leah Clionsky: So I hope that you can get the support you need. We're here for you. If you have questions or thoughts, you can follow me at Educated Parent Podcast on Instagram. Go ahead and DM me and tell me what more episodes you'd like to hear or how else I can be helpful to you. I hope you have an absolutely wonderful week, and I will talk to you next time.