The Blue Elephant

07/16/2026

Absolutely.

Master the graceful exit...

07/16/2026

07/16/2026

What does respect really mean?

What does it mean to treat someone with respect?

I think it means to treat someone with kindness and compassion because you believe they are worthy of that kindness and compassion.

Aren’t children worthy of respect, if this is what respect means?

But too often we see obedience as a sign of respect, when it comes to children.

With adults, we see kindness as respectful. But with children, it’s obedience.

This is a little excerpt from my book….

Finding Your Calm: Responsive Parents Guide to Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation
�This book combines my knowledge of child development, brain science and trauma to offer parents a unique resource that includes lots of exercises, reflections, insights and also… links to additional research, articles and videos that can help support your healing and learning journey.

Link in bio

07/16/2026

Children can hold space for emotions so effortlessly because they are entirely free from the weight of expectations. Unburdened by the need to fix, judge, or rush feelings away, their natural instinct is to simply allow them to exist.
When we make space for all emotions - big, messy, and raw - we give them the room they need to move through and out of us.
Just like a storm clears the heavy air, allowing feelings to surface and be expressed brings clarity and calm in its wake. Holding those emotions inside doesn't make them disappear; it only buries them deep within us, where they grow heavier and harder to carry with each passing day.
But when we welcome them, without judgment or resistance, we teach our children - and remind ourselves - that emotions are not something to fear...
They are meant to be felt, expressed, and released.
Better out than in — because what we allow ourselves to process, we can finally heal.

Quote and Image: (on Instagram)

07/16/2026

This is one of those reminders that sounds simple but completely changes how you show up in the hardest parenting moments. 💜

We have all been there, our child is melting down, crying, inconsolable, and every instinct we have is to fix it, to explain it away, to offer a solution, to help them see reason.

And so we start talking... "but if you had just listened," "this is not a big deal," "let me explain why this happened," "here is what you should do next time." And the child gets louder, more upset, more unreachable, and we get more frustrated because nothing we are saying is working.

Here is what neuroscience tells us about why that is...

💫 When a child is in the middle of a big emotional experience, the logical part of their brain, the prefrontal cortex, is essentially offline, meaning they are operating from the emotional brain, the amygdala, and no amount of logic, explanation, or reasoning can reach a brain that is not currently capable of processing it.

In “The Whole-Brain Child”, Dr. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson (https://amzn.to/4vf7O2w) describe this as “flipping the lid,” and it is not a choice the child is making, it is a neurological state they are in.

What they need in that moment has nothing to do with information, it has everything to do with felt safety, with the physical and emotional experience of being close to someone who loves them, who is not rattled by their feelings, who does not need them to calm down in order to stay present.

🫶🏼 Connection before correction is not just a philosophy, it is literally how the brain works, and the window for teaching, guiding, and problem-solving opens after the child feels safe, not before.

So the next time everything in you wants to rationalize and explain, try this instead... get close, get quiet, and just let them feel it with you, because that is the thing they actually needed all along. 💜

07/16/2026

How do we teach children to feel remorse? I don’t think we really teach remorse, I think it’s intrinsic. I think we can be taught shame and guilt which looks a lot like remorse but is much harder on us from a psychological perspective. Offering genuine apologies to your children, letting them see you apologize with grace and humility, when you hurt someone else, is how we teach what to DO with our feelings of remorse.

They will experience feelings of remorse, it’s what meaning they make of it, what they do with it. Do they feel so much shame they shut down, struggle to express their remorse? Do they become a puddle of shame, apologizing and apologizing, fearing upsetting others? Or do they feel and then express genuine remorse? Able to move on… rupture and repair.

This is a little excerpt from my book….

Finding Your Calm: Responsive Parents Guide to Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation
�This book combines my knowledge of child development, brain science and trauma to offer parents a unique resource that includes lots of exercises, reflections, insights and also… links to additional research, articles and videos that can help support your healing and learning journey.

Link in bio

07/16/2026

How beautiful is the heart of those who go through the worst storms in life and still choose to stay gentle, silent, patient, kind, and humble.

06/16/2026

💗