Dysregulated Emotions in Parenting: Breaking the Cycle with guest Dr. Amber Thornton

About this Episode

About Dr. Amber Thornton

Amber is a licensed clinical psychologist and strong advocate for the mental health and well-being of parents. She loves writing and creating content online that will speak to the everyday struggles of motherhood and parenthood. She holds a BS is psychology from Ohio State University and a PsyD in clinical psychology from Wright State University School of Professional Psychology. She’s an Ohio native who has made Washington, DC her home since 2018. She loves spending time with her husband and two children. Today she’s here to talk to us about concept from her new book, “A Parent’s Guide to Self-Regulation: A Practical Framework for Breaking the Cycle of Dysregulation and Mastering Emotions for Parents and Children,” which came out in June 2024.

Connect with Dr. Amber

Website: www.DrAmberThornton.com

Instagram: @DrAmberThornton

TikTok: @DrAmberThornton

Facebook: @DrAmberThornton

YouTube: @DrAmberThornton

Podcast: Dr. Amber’s “Know + Grow” Podcast

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Read the transcript for this episode:

DR. AMY: Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I’m your host, Dr. Amy Moore. I am here with my co-host, Sandy Zamalis, and we are super excited to have a conversation with our guest today, Dr. Amber Thornton. Dr. Amber is a licensed clinical psychologist and a strong advocate for mental health and well-being of parents. She loves writing and creating content online that will speak to the everyday struggles of motherhood and parenthood. She holds a B.S. in psychology from Ohio State University and a Psy.D. in clinical psychology from Wright State University School of Professional Psychology. She’s an Ohio native who has made Washington, DC, her home since 2018. She loves spending time with her husband and two children and today she’s here to talk to us about concepts from her new book, “A Parent’s Guide to Self-Regulation; A Practical Framework for Breaking the Cycle of Dysregulation and Mastering Emotions for Parents and Children.” Welcome, Dr. Amber.

DR. AMBER: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. So, this is gonna be great.

SANDY: Oh, yeah. We’re super excited. We love parenting topics, obviously, because we’re a parenting podcast. But, this one in particular is going to be fabulous because dysregulation is such a huge topic everywhere all the time. And so let’s start there. Why don’t you talk to us a little bit about how you became engaged in dysregulation as a topic and helping parents [who have] become dysregulated. What’s the story behind the story as they say?

DR. AMBER: Mm hmm. So this is, I get asked this question often and I think sometimes the answer is not what people are expecting. And really, I knew I wanted to become an author. I was seeking out the process and I actually submitted a proposal completely different. Something not related to this. Luckily the publisher got back to me and they were like, “Hey, we actually want someone to write a book about this: parents and dysregulation.” And I immediately panicked because I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know anything about that. I actually am struggling with that. There’s no way I can write this book.” I didn’t say that, but in my mind and what I said to my friends and family was they want me to write this book about parents and dysregulation and I’m the most dysregulated parent there is. So there’s no way I can do this.

DR. AMY: So what did you say to them? Did you say anything to them? Or did you say, “Yeah, I got this.”

DR. AMBER: I said, “Yeah, I got this.” But secretly, I was really worried, to be completely honest with you. I was very skeptical, but I saw this as an opportunity, not only for me to help other parents, but also for me to grow on a really big way as well professionally, but then also personally. And so once the topic came onto my radar that way, I quickly started to realize all the ways that parents around me, especially mothers, actually were struggling with this. It was like the introduction of the topic essentially opened my eyes to realize, Oh my gosh, even the families that I’ve worked with clinically, of course, dysregulation, of course, is showing up in their children. It’s because the parents also are really needing some help. So it really, I know I’m sure we’ll get to this, but writing this book changed my life because it really helped me to have a different perspective for the work that I’m doing with families. It allowed me to connect with parents and especially mothers around this topic to just talk more about it and what they’re really struggling with. But then also it changed me as a mother. And so that’s the story of how it became the story. It was really an accident, but it became a really huge blessing for me and a lot of other people too.

DR. AMY: How old are your kids?

DR. AMBER: Three and five.

DR. AMY: So you’re in the thick of it.

DR. AMBER: Yes. That’s exactly what I say. I’m in the thick of it. And it feels like it’s, you know, thinning out because I think one in three was very tough. Two and four was super hard. Three and five is like, Okay, this is tough, but I’m, I think we’re doing okay. We’re doing okay.

DR. AMY: Well, as parents of adult children, Sandy, I can promise you, you will get through it.

DR. AMBER: Oh, yes, thank you.

DR. AMY: So, let’s just do some basic defining for our listeners before we get into some other things. Talk to us about what dysregulation means, like define that and then tell us what it looks like.

DR. AMBER: Absolutely. So when we hear the word dysregulation, I think the first image that comes to mind is a child who’s having a tantrum. That’s often what comes up when I ask people, “Well, what does that mean to you?” And so, if we take that perspective, dysregulation really just means someone who has lost control of their emotions or their thoughts or their body, for whatever reason. For instance, a child who’s having a tantrum, they are emotionally dysregulated. It might be because they’re tired. It might be because they’re hungry. Maybe there were a lot of things that upset them, but for whatever reason, they’re having a difficult time regaining composure, a sense of balance. They’re having a hard time coping with whatever experience they are having. So that is how I define dysregulation. And from that, I hope people understand that children can be dysregulated, but then also people too can be dysregulated. I’m sorry, human adults. I lost the word for adults.

DR. AMY: So when my cat is attacking my feet, I might argue that she is also dysregulated.

DR. AMBER: Probably. Probably. Yes.

DR. AMY: In fact, I’ve threatened to take her to a cat psychologist because her behavior is beyond the scope of my expertise as a human psychologist.

DR. AMBER: Exactly. Exactly. I wish there were more animal psychologists. But this dysregulation can look a number of ways. And in the book, I talk about how someone could be emotionally dysregulated. So that might look like, you know, a tantrum. Or the adult form of that might be yelling or screaming, or maybe very emotional. But also we could be cognitively, we could be dysregulated. And so visibly, that might not look like anything, but internally for that person, it could be a lot of rumination, a lot of racing thoughts, or a lot of negative thoughts that they’re having a really hard time controlling. But then also just physiologically, we might feel dysregulated too. So that might look like great difficulty with sleeping or regulating your sleep patterns, difficulty regulating your physical sensations. You might feel really restless or really antsy or just uncomfortable in your body. All of that could be dysregulation in various forms.

DR. AMY: So is regulating our emotions, a conscious effort or is this happening kind of under the water?

DR. AMBER: That’s a really great question. No one has ever asked me in that way. And I would say ideally in the perfect world, it could be happening under the water. But I think just realistically for many of us, we need to be a lot more intentional about it. And maybe it’s because we need some more skills, or maybe we have some skills, but they just need some more practice so that they become a little bit more intuitive. But I think it’s something that we have to be more intentional about. And especially even with our kids, if they’re dysregulated, we have to intentionally give them the tools and the skills. But what I have found is that many adults who are parents now, they maybe weren’t provided the skills and the tools to be intentional about it, which would then lead them to be more fluid or intuitive with the process.

SANDY: This has to be really common, right, with parents. I mean, like percentage wise, it’s really high. I’m assuming, you know, being a parent, becoming a parent and is such a new experience. Even if you had great skills, just being a parent would probably throw those off a little bit.

DR. AMBER: Oh, absolutely. And that’s a really great point to, you know, I often talk to parents who feel like they didn’t get the tools, but then to your point, there are parents who maybe they had the tools, but then just becoming a parent or adding a new child to the family completely reduces their capacity to even grab the tools when they need it. Or the tools don’t work anymore. Maybe they need new tools. This is super common. It’s so common. So in the book to help me with writing this book, I wanted to talk to a lot of parents about this. I was able to have contact with 175 parents, which was amazing. Amazing. Grateful for that. And one of the questions I asked was, “If you would identify yourself as having troubles with regulating yourself or dysregulation” and like 70 percent of them said, “Absolutely. For sure.” Which really surprised me because I thought, Oh, I, this has to be just me, but it absolutely was not just me. And it was 70 percent of all the participants said, “Yes, we have struggled with this” and or “We’re currently struggling with this.” So it’s very common.

DR. AMY: So that had to be super validating right to hear. “Oh, my gosh. I’m not alone.” But also super motivating, right? “Oh, no wonder the publishers want this book,” right?

DR. AMBER: Absolutely. It made sense. It was like, “Oh, my gosh!” Like you said, no wonder they need this book. But also, then I started to ask myself, “Why are we not talking about this? I can’t believe this is not more of a conversation.” And what I realized is that instead, I think the conversation is around a lot of talk that feels more like self-blame, you know, like, “Oh, I’m not being a good parent. I’m not a good mom.” Or “I couldn’t get this right.” Or “I yelled again.” Or a lot of self-criticism, a lot of judgment and also just judgment from other people, instead of framing it in this way of thinking about your capacity for regulation is really compromised when you become a parent, and it’s something you have to become really intentional about, and it’s hard.

DR. AMY: So I want to talk about what is the impact of a parent’s dysregulation on the child and on the parent-child relationship.

DR. AMBER: That’s a big one. That’s huge. Okay. So, as you might suspect, there is, there’s definitely an impact, even if it’s not purposeful. And I think it’s just because our children soak up everything around them, and we are their primary providers, their primary supports. You know, your children really look to you as, you know, their everything. So they learn so much from you, even when you’re not intentionally teaching a skill or teaching something. And so a lot of times I explain to people that we often model the behaviors that are appropriate or approving to our children. Again, intentionally and unintentionally, we model to them how we should handle negative experiences or big emotions. And so if our children are watching us not handle frustration well, or not handle fatigue well, not handle any big emotion well, they will pick up on some of those habits. And so partly just through simple modeling and social learning, they just learn so much from us. But then there’s this other conversation around what happens when you, as a parent, and you’re dysregulated and it interferes with your ability to be present with your child. Or maybe it interferes with your ability to be patient. It interferes with your ability to speak calmly. Then you accidentally turn into this parent who is maybe yelling, or maybe more snappy, more irritable, or you’re just not focused, not present at all. And that could interfere with your ability to connect with your child to feel close to them. And then, of course, sometimes our kids, because they’re young, they misinterpret some of these cues and think, “Oh, I did something wrong” or “There’s something wrong with me.” And of course, there’s not. So these are just all the ways that some of this, if it’s not, you know, addressed could just spiral into something completely different. Which none of us want.

DR. AMY: So from a physiological and neurological standpoint, it could actually impact brain development as well, right? Talk a little bit about that.

DR. AMBER: Ooh, I feel like I need a neural psych to talk more about that.

DR. AMY: I just know that cognitive psych. So how about like … Okay. As you were talking, That’s what immediately jumped in my mind was when, you know, mirror neurons kick in right and emotions are contagious. And so if the parent is stressed, if the parent is dysregulated, then that’s going to create a stress response in the child. And that stress response includes that release of those stress hormones. So, you know, cortisol and norepinephrine and adrenaline are coursing through our veins, right? So not only does that have a physiological impact, children should not stay in a stress response. But that impedes brain development.

DR. AMBER: Thank you for illuminating that. That was brilliant to hear. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, the one thing I’ve noticed too, in just the conversations that I’ve had with parents is that realistically, a lot of these families were under a lot of stress and/or are under a lot of stress. There’s a lot going on. Many of the parents I talked to had children during the pandemic, you know, work responsibilities. You know, some of them are caring for their own parents. I just think right now there’s a so much going on for parents. And what ends up happening is that stress becomes normalized, especially these very high levels of stress. And so we don’t even realize how negatively it could be impacting us, but then also our kids too.

SANDY: Let’s talk about this kind of framework of dysregulation and put it in the context of parenting styles. That was probably the most interesting part of your book that I wanted to pull out because we talk about parenting styles all the time.

DR. AMY: All the time.

SANDY: But you look at it through that lens of dysregulation. So explain to our listeners more about your perspective on that.

DR. AMBER: Mm hmm. So in the book I looked at parenting styles that maybe were a little bit more prevalent maybe in the ‘80s, ‘90s and then thought about some of the parenting styles that we are, many of us are attempting to practice today. And so granted, I think most people that may have been, maybe reading the book or have bought the book, they’re probably millennials, maybe like younger Gen X. And so they probably were children in the ‘80s, the ‘90s. And so what I talked about was that many of the parenting styles that we may have seen at that point, maybe again, unintentionally, may have elicited or been influenced by a parent’s level of dysregulation. So, for instance, and this is, this is a hot topic, I know. But I talked about the use of, like, corporal punishment or really harsh punishments, more authoritarian. Yes, I always get that authoritative and authoritarian mixed up. But you know, that, that style of being very strict and very firm, just kind of thought about what, what if some of those principles or that style was influenced by a parent’s level of dysregulation and how dysregulation could even lead to making that a lot worse. But then also I talked about how parenting styles today, gentle parenting, positive parenting, conscious parenting, a lot of the time, the priority really is getting us to look inward a little bit more and pay more attention to ourselves as parents. And so that can feel more challenging or more difficult, but how it inherently allows us to really go deeper and really have a better insight around how is this impacting me? And then how does it then impact my child? It was an interesting chapter for sure, because there’s definitely pros and cons to every parenting style. And I like for parents to pick the style that feels most appropriate to them. But I just thought it was interesting how that played out.

DR. AMY: Yeah. So that, because “I said so” authoritarian style, I would guess, either it comes from a place of dysregulation, or it probably feeds dysregulation.

DR. AMBER: Exactly. And that was, thank you for saying that. I think that was what I also wanted to really bring out with that, you know, because I said so don’t talk back, we don’t really get to, as the child, the child never really learns. Well, how do I communicate my needs? Or, How do I express when I’m upset? Or Am I even allowed to be upset? Right? So some of that was missed in some of the previous parenting styles. Whereas today, I think what we’re finding is that mental health, well-being, emotional health, parent-child connection is very much prioritized in some of the parenting styles today or the popular parenting styles today, and I think also that’s why they feel hard or they feel really hard to do. Practicing gentle parenting, positive parenting, conscious parenting, it just feels very hard because many parents are essentially being asked to do something or practice something that they didn’t feel they received. And so it’s like this whole new learning experience for the betterment of their family and their children. But it feels hard, very challenging.

DR. AMY: Do you find that all of that time and effort that goes into these newer gentle, conscious, positive parenting styles, do you see that it might risk tipping over a little bit into helicopter parenting because you are being so intentional and involved?

DR. AMBER: That’s great, great, great, great, great question. You know, so in my mind, I’m pausing because I’m part of me is like, yes, absolutely. Because I think we are so .. I’m saying yes, but the way that I’ve been thinking about it to myself is, I feel like, especially millennials right now, with kind of like this anxious parenting style, there’s a lot of anxiety around parenting. Am I going to get this right? What happens if I get it wrong? What if I make a mistake? How will that impact my kids? Will they talk to me in 10 years? What are they going to talk about in therapy when they go? There’s this anxiety that I think probably overlaps with the helicopter parenting because one who was a helicopter parent is probably because they’re very worried. They’re wanting to protect. There’s a lot of fears that’s driving that. And so, I see the similarities for sure. And I think at the base or at the core, it’s this anxiety and this fear that we have about wanting to protect our children, but for millennials specifically wanting to right some of the wrongs that maybe were present in our childhood, but then also more so protecting our children’s future, their emotional health, their mental health, the future of that. And so I think it’s all driven by anxiety, which is really the key factor or the characteristic that’s similar.

SANDY: There’s so much more parenting guilt in general, I think, in this day and age. I could be way off on that. It just feels like there’s just so much more information available. There are so many more opinions.

DR. AMY: Social media.

SANDY: Social media. What’s the right way? What’s the wrong way?. Lots of people, you know, butting in, but not helping.

DR. AMY: “In my day …”

SANDY: Yeah, I love that you shared that it’s just really hard, especially, you know, like gentle parenting was on the rise as a parenting style in the last, you know, what, five years or so, probably longer, but at least on my radar. And the amount of patience it requires and presence for the parent. And I love that your book really focuses on parent first, right? Because the parent has to be the one that is grounded and calm and can handle the moment to help their child learn this process of, you know, dysregulation and getting back into, you know, regulation. So let’s talk about that a little more. What are some, what are some best ways to teach your kids self-regulation and how to cope with emotions?

DR. AMBER: The best ways to teach your kids self-regulation and how to cope with emotions? My number one answer to this has been modeling. So it’s really, we have to do it ourselves. And that’s so, parents hate that when they don’t expect that I’m going to be talking about it, you know, it’s like, Well, how do I teach my kid this? How do I help them? And I’m like, well, how are you doing with it? And it’s like, “I’m not here to talk about me,” but we really are. So modeling, we, I think that’s the first and the easiest way to do it is making sure that we’re doing it ourselves, but also doing it in a way, that our children can see it. And so I know I do this and I talked to a lot of parents who do this. If you’re, you’re having an experience like a frustration or, you know, disappointment, or you’re upset about something, talking that through doing that, doing it out loud, naming the thing. You know, I think a lot of us are used to our parents concealing a lot of what was going on for them and their experiences. But I, what I have helped parents understand is it’s okay to let your child in on your emotional experience. Of course, with limits and boundaries, and we want to be developmentally appropriate. Appropriate, but it’s okay to say, “Mommy’s a little disappointed right now, and this is what I’m going to do to help myself through it or to feel better.” So this might look like, you know, with regard to modeling, you know, self-talk. How am I talking to myself when I’m having a bad day?Or, you know, What are the things I’m saying to myself? Or, you know, Utilizing coping skills. And so doing deep breathing in front of my children or with my children, asking them to join me. Or just engaging in the things that bring me joy in front of them and naming it. “Mommy’s going to do this because it makes me feel good today.” Or, you know, “I’ve had a hard day. So this is the thing that I’m going to do to make it right.” You know, so really modeling. And with modeling, it enhances your ability to then actually teach a skill or, and/or your children will become interested, but also they’re soaking up everything around you. So they’re going to start to mimic and do some of the things that you’re doing too. So absolutely modeling is the best approach to take.

DR. AMY: Yeah. So, I have taught my youngest some breathing and grounding exercises, some exercises that, you know, will vibrate his vagus nerve so that it presses the brakes on that, you know, sympathetic stress response. And just last week, I don’t remember what happened, but I was having a meltdown over something, right? And so I was probably, you know, upset about it and, you know, dysregulated and going off. And he looks at me and he goes, “Mom. Voooooo.” And he starts. vibrating his vagus nerve to remind me to vibrate my vagus nerve to calm down. And the dysregulation had nothing to do with him. He was just walking by. Nineteen, right? Just walking by as I was going off on something. And so I love that he has turned that skill around in an effort to help someone else. I think you tell a story in your book, right? Where your toddler told you to breathe.

DR. AMBER: Yep. All they do it all the time. Both of them. They’re like, “Mommy, are you frustrated?” I’m like, “Yes, I am.” Like, “Did you take a deep breath? We can take a deep breath.” Or “Do you wanna go exercise?” “Like I do. Thank you.” So my children all the time remind me to take a deep breath or to calm down, or they’ll just generally remind me of the things that are going well or that I should be grateful for. And I’m happy that they have picked some of that up and that they can then kind of mirror that. It’s like this co-regulation that gets to happen, right? Like, you know, of course, I get to help them as their parents to regulate, but also sometimes our kids help us too and it’s this mutual process that can be really, really, really pleasant.

SANDY: I love that it’s the goal of having tools because the goal is not to never ever be dysregulated because you can’t control that, right? Just to have tools available to you. One of your chapters in your book talks about daily dysregulation, something that you say occurs multiple times per day for most parents. Can you talk about some of the specific examples you give, such as that morning hustle, the second shift, the midnight hour, wild weekends, summer break and back to school. All those big pinnacle times where things can get turned upside down?

DR. AMBER: Absolutely. All, all of them. I don’t even know which one to start with. Let’s just start with the morning routine. You know, cause I think the morning routine, I think the morning hustle. And then also like that second shift, which is the evening routine, especially for parents who have younger kids that can be so hard. And that often is the moments where I hear people saying, you know, “I’m a monster at bedtime or like in the morning. I’m constantly yelling and snapping and telling people to hurry up”. And because there’s so many, well, specifically, let’s talk about the morning routine. Right? Oftentimes, many parents might have a specific time that they need to leave the house, maybe to get the kids to school, or maybe to get themselves to work. There are a lot of people to prep, to help get ready. If your child can’t get themselves ready, you have, there’s a lot of executive functioning that you have to utilize to just be ready at a certain time in the morning. And in these, it’s early, sometimes it’s like, before 8 o’clock where everyone has to be dressed and ready and out of the door. So there’s a lot of time pressure. There’s a lot of responsibility in a short amount of time. Again, there’s a lot of executive functioning. And so what if you’re a parent who is having big emotions, and that’s maybe taking away some of your capacity to attend to those tasks. Or what if you’re a parent who is struggling with depression or anxiety? That can make these tasks feel really, really hard. And so that’s why, in those moments, it might feel like they’re more likely to experience these moments of dysregulation. Because your capacity is low. There’s a high demand that there’s a lot of time pressure. And so you feel, you know, that that pressure so much more. Same with the evening routine, but the thing with the evening routine is that by the end of the day, many parents are fatigued, you know, their capacity has just kind of decreased over the course of the day. So there may not be a hard deadline, but there’s this drain, this exhaustion that they feel, which just takes away their capacity to be more present and more focused or cheerful or pleasant at bedtime. Weekends. Oh my gosh, I remember when I was, my kids were very young. It took me by surprise by how hard the weekends were. You know, I really went through this period where I felt so, I felt this dread about the weekends coming because they felt very chaotic for me. It felt like if there was no rest or no break and it took me time to really adjust to what a weekend was pre-parent and then as a parent. They’re very, very different. And so, you know, I like to talk about that with parents because I think again, for very new parents, the weekend can feel drastically different than what it used to be. And that can feel very dysregulating. But then also I think the one that catches people by surprise is summertime. Not for every parent, because I think there’s a lot of parents who enjoy the flexibility that comes with summer, but for parents who maybe struggle with anxiety or maybe who have just challenges that come up in the summer, just realistically, like child care or, you know, schedules being just really changed. Summertime can feel really dysregulating. It’s like it feels chaotic. Maybe there’s not enough support or if children are home, you have to adjust to what that means and then the demands are higher. So these moments can feel very hard. And if you don’t have the capacity or the support, you might notice that these are the moments you’re more dysregulated than others.

DR. AMY: Yeah, it made me think of the Sunday morning routine when I have three boys, it’s like herding, you know, wild monkeys, trying to get them in the car to church. Everybody’s screaming, you know, you’re dragging one, you’re carrying one, you’re pushing one, get them in the car. Dad’s yelling, everybody’s yelling. And I’m like, “You need a little Jesus. Mommy needs a little Jesus! We all need a little Jesus right now!” Like, and you get to church and you’re so dysregulated and then you feel bad dropping your kids off. The poor children’s ministry volunteers then have to deal with them, right? While mommy goes and gets a little Jesus to calm down.

DR. AMBER: Perfect example. Yes. Literally. Yes. All of it. And then I think what you said, the guilt that you feel, I think that happens in that example. But then also I hear this all the time with parents of like the morning, you know, they’ve been yelling, you know, the drop off goes terrible. Then you get to work and you’re just like devastated because you didn’t get to start the morning off well. Or it feels like the connection was ruptured first thing in the morning and that can feel really terrible for the child. But then also for that parent who then goes through the guilt cycle and the self-blame and all of that. And so it just. It’s tough. It’s tough.

DR. AMY: Yeah. Okay. We need to take a break and let Sandy read a word from our sponsor. And when we come back, I just want you to give some moms some tips on what they should do if they find themselves becoming dysregulated. When we come back.

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DR. AMY: I love those stories. Okay, so Dr. Amber, I would love for you to share a little bit about these three different approaches that you have created or identified or named, really, for parents to use when they need some help with their regulation.

DR. AMBER: Absolutely. I’m excited for this part. So in the book, I talk about this framework that I call the PCR method and the P, the C and the R, they all stand for something, a specific type of approach that you can take when you are finding yourself becoming dysregulated and/or have been dysregulated for a really long time. I realized that there needed to be three different approaches for a few reasons. One, because everybody’s different. And so, you know, people just gravitate to, or need a certain approach, depending on who they are, but then also, depending on the season of life that we’re in, or what we’re going through. So, for instance, sometimes I just need like the basic tools, like, I just need to breathe. I just need to think about what has triggered me. But then other times I realize I need to actually just sit with my emotions and really go deeper with myself and go more internal. And less about tools and more about, “Okay, well, let’s go in.” And then there are other moments where I just have to laugh and chuckle and say, “Hey, this is life. We’re going to roll with it today.” And so I want to explain all three of those a little bit, and then talk about how you utilize them. So, for the first one, it’s the P stands for practical. And so that is the approach for the parents who feel like I just need some tools. A lot of times, this is the place that I like to start for the parents who feel like they grew up and didn’t get the tools they needed. Maybe they feel like they came from families who weren’t comfortable talking about emotions and feelings. And so they just felt like they don’t have the tools they need to deal with big emotions now as parents. So we start there. And so in the book, I talk through this six-step system for how to recognize what your parenting triggers are. And I think we all have them. There are certain aspects of parenting that feel just really rough and might elicit big emotions from us. And it’s important to know what those are so that we then can know how to handle them, how to prepare for them, how to address them. We can’t make those moments go away, but we can be more prepared for them when they come up. So the P is really just what are the practical skills that you need, the practical tools that you need, and what is the process for you to learn those. This part of the framework can also be really helpful to do with a mental health provider, too, if you feel like you need some extra support with just really thinking about the tools and the skills that might be most appropriate for you. So, the C is for conscious and with this one, this is the area where I’m like, “Okay, you’ve got the tools. You’ve got some skills. You’ve been practicing those. Now. It might be time to go deeper a little bit. And really, let’s just think about, what are these emotions that keep coming up for you that are then leading to this regulation? What do you think about these emotions? How do they feel for you? Why do you think they’re here?” And so that’s really the moment where you get to kind of sit with yourself, be with yourself, and reflect on the actual emotions. Not trying to make them go away, but really just trying to better understand them. With this approach, I really want, the goal is to become more self-aware with what’s going on for you and what’s impacting you. And what I have noticed is that with this, the C, the conscious, many people often start to connect with this inner part of themselves that maybe needs more of something. Maybe needs more joy, or maybe needs more support, or maybe needs more encouragement. Or sometimes there’s this little child in them that’s like, “Hey, I needed this, you know, 20 years ago, can we work on this?” And so in that part of the book, I talk about this concept of reparenting, which is essentially like, you know, all of us has this little child in us who maybe didn’t get all their needs met. And maybe now they’re kind of tugging at you like, “Hey, can you pay attention to me? I need this met.” Your parents can’t do it anymore. And that’s okay. It’s up to you now. So just kind of going inward and really learning more about your emotions, your emotional experience and what’s impacting you so you have more self-awareness around it. And then lastly, that R is the realistic and it’s my favorite part. And it’s really just saying, “Hey, I’ve done all the things. I’ve gone internal. Now I’m going to radically accept that parenting is hard. I will continue to make mistakes. I am an imperfect parent and that is okay.” So really that last piece is just what are the things that you need to just have some more acceptance around with regard to this journey of parenting? Because we can’t change it all. It will be tough. It will be challenging. How can we just radically accept what is and then move forward? So, putting all those pieces together, I think, can be really helpful. And again, I encourage people to think about where you are in your parenting journey, where you feel like you need to start. Many people might need to start with the practical piece, or there might be others who are like, “Hey, I actually just really need to work on some acceptance because there’s a lot of things here that I can’t change.” Or others might feel more comfortable with being in that conscious piece where they get to learn more about themselves. But I think they all can be valuable in this journey and even better when you put them all together.

DR. AMY: Yeah. What I found in the counseling setting is when people can choose to radically accept some things. Yeah. It is this “Aha!” moment that there aren’t a whole lot of other things left that you really need to work on. Right? So you walk in thinking everything is horrible and then once you choose to radically accept those things that you absolutely have no control over, they just exist. They just are the way they are. And then you break down the rest. You realize maybe I don’t have as much work to do as I thought I did.

DR. AMBER: I love that. Yeah. It just takes away all of the noise and you really get to go to the things that you actually can control. And many of them are, you know, not, not many things, you know, you know, not a lot of it. And so it’s, I like that. It’s just kind of accepting what is can be so powerful. And I think sometimes we just undermine or don’t realize how impactful that can be.

DR. AMY: Well, and to have someone give you permission to just let it go, right? Because I think sometimes we get in this perfectionist mindset as moms, especially, right? And so, if we don’t do it perfectly, then we shouldn’t do it at all. Or if we don’t do it perfectly, then we’re a complete and utter failure. Right? But so I think then, when we can say, somebody gives us permission, that’s okay just to accept that some things are going to be the way they are. We probably are going to screw our kids up in some way or another over the lifetime of parenting. You know, we do the best that we can, you know, with the tools that we have and we just keep learning.

DR. AMBER: Absolutely. And I think what I have got from writing this book and talking to all these parents is just this idea of framing parenting is like this, this lifelong journey, you know, that none of us are great at when we first start, but we get better over time, but better doesn’t mean perfect. And so there, there’s a bunch of opportunities for learning, you know, both for our child, but then also ourselves. And, and I just love that part of this, how we get to learn about ourselves and we get to learn from our mistakes, but also we get to model for our kids how to make mistakes and then how to repair that and how to deal with that. And that is just so helpful.

SANDY: You guys remember the movie “Parenthood” with Steve Martin and from, I can’t, I think it’s the ‘80ss.

DR. AMY: It’s from the ‘80s. Dr. DR. AMBER’s too young to remember that!

SANDY: I’m dating myself! One of my favorite scenes in there is at the very end when Steve Martin is dysregulated, cause the whole world is spinning and he’s looking around the room and his, I believe it’s his mother-in-law, who’s in her senior years and she’s just going with the flow. And she says to him something to the effect of, you know, “Some people, when they go to the amusement park, they love, you know, this type of ride, the one that just spins and they like this type of ride, the one that doesn’t really do anything but swing, but I like the roller coaster.” And she goes about how, you know, the roller coaster has the, you know, most fun. It’s got the highest highs and the lowest lows. And it was kind of like this metaphor to parenting. And I kind of think about that all the time of like, parenting is just a dance. It’s a roller coaster. It’s a journey and learning how to accept the journey is part of the fun. But that’s where our growth is to just like you’re saying, Dr. DR. AMBER. Being a parent isn’t really about our kids. It’s about us learning how to be an even better adult and learning all the things we didn’t know because our kids just mirror back to us, all our flaws.

DR. AMBER: Oh, absolutely. It’s, it’s funny. I love that. And that’s the approach I take in my own parenting journey. And in this book, I actually dedicated it to my son because he’s the one that I feel had to kind of take the brunt of me being so imperfect when I first started as a parent. He’s my oldest. And so, you know, I think about him a lot as I go through this journey, but then also I recently was thinking of all the things he’s teaching me that he doesn’t even realize it. Like he’s teaching me that it’s okay. Like I’ll be saying something, he’s like, “Mommy, it’s okay.” And I’m like, “Oh, you’re right. I don’t have to be worried about this right now.” Or he’s just teaching me just to be playful. Like my kids this morning created this whole dance party in his room with like these lights and they turned on Kids Bop. And in my head, I’m like, “You guys, it’s actually time to leave for school.” But we took a few minutes to have a dance party. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, he’s teaching me that it’s okay to be playful. Like it’s, it’s okay. And to not take things so seriously. And I really need those lessons. So I love that we get to learn so much through this process of parenting. I’m learning a ton and I hope that my kids are learning as much as I’m learning, but I’m learning so much just in the short amount of time. And I want more people to take that approach to this. There’s highs, there’s lows, there’s ups, there’s downs, but, you know, put it all together. It’s this great experience that we get to be on a journey together with our kids and it’s beautiful.

DR. AMY: I love that. So will you still write the original book that you proposed?

DR. AMBER: I have no idea. Maybe, maybe I, you know what you’ve planted the seed. Now, let me think about it and I will get back to you.

DR. AMY: Okay.

DR. AMBER: I want to write, I do want to write another book, but now I feel like my world has been opened up. There’s so many things I want to talk about now, but maybe.

DR. AMY: All right. Well, you’ll have to come back and talk about that one.

DR. AMBER: Absolutely.

DR. AMY: Yeah. Is there anything that you didn’t get to say that you want to leave our listeners with today?

DR. AMBER: No, I just hope that you all enjoy this book. And, you know, one thing I will say is that if you do feel like you’re in this process of struggling with your big emotions, that you’re not alone. You are not alone. Trust me. And I think that there is some hope and some support for you. And I hope that this book can be a part of that for you. So, you’re not alone and you’re doing great.

DR. AMY: Yeah. I think that that had the biggest impact on me as I read your book and I read the research study that you did and that “Aha” moment that you had that 70 percent of moms feel dysregulated. And so that’s a phenomenal message, right? It’s why group therapy works so well, because you realize that there are other people struggling with the exact same thing. And so for you to put a little bit of group therapy between book covers, that’s pretty genius.

DR. AMBER: Well, thank you. I didn’t, that wasn’t intentional, but it happened. I’m grateful.

DR. AMY: All right. Dr. Amber Thornton. Thank you so much for being with us today. Listeners, if you would like to connect with Dr. Amber, you can visit her website, dramberthornton.com. She’s on Instagram at Dr. Amber Thornton. Actually she’s on all social media accounts at Dr. Amber Thornton. We’ll put all those links in the show notes so that you don’t have to remember that. Hey, if you like listening to us, please leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple podcasts so that we can reach more smart parents like you guys. And we’d love to see you on Instagram at the Brainy Moms. And Sandy is super fun on TikTok at the Brain Trainer Lady. So if you want to check out how to improve cognitive skills and what those activities and tasks look like, visit her there. So look, that is all the smart stuff we have for you today. So we’re going to see you next time.