Podcast Episode 412: Tantrum Tactics: How to Stay Calm When Your Toddler Loses It Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn Crohn (00:00)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom Podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn and I’m joined here by the brilliant Brie Tucker. ⁓

Brie Tucker (00:07)

Hello, hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn (00:09)

Brie, we’re talking about toddlers today. We get to revisit that point in our lives when we had a toddler. I love toddlers.

Brie Tucker (00:17)

 The thing about those kids that I love the most is that, and you and I have teenagers right now, right? So I’m just going to like take us back to toddlers. They don’t hide their emotions and they don’t hide their thought process. You can read it all on their face. And I love it. Like when they get a concept, they get like this huge smile and they’re so excited. It’s just, it’s there. So yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (00:41)

Yeah, I do not enjoy the toddler phaase at all.

Brie Tucker (00:47)

It is a lot of work, yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (00:49)

I would rather have the teenager who I’m like, ooh, you’re thinking about something and you’re hiding something from me. I view it as a challenge. I really, really like this age

Brie Tucker (00:57)

 Then does that mean I can share some of the challenges from my teenagers with you?

JoAnn Crohn (01:02)

Yeah, totally. I’m down with it. But today we are talking about toddlers. So if you have a toddler or if you have a toddler you love, I’m going to ask a lot of questions about what’s going on right now with my niece and also my nephew, who’s not a toddler, but he’s has some big emotions going on. We’re talking all about emotions. And to help us with that, we have Devon Krenzman, PCC, who’s founder of Transforming Toddlerhood. She’s a certified coach and a mom to a three year old who’s helped thousands of families navigate toddlerhood with calm and confidence. She’s on a mission to flip the script on the terrible twos and beyond as she helps parents see this stage as a once in a lifetime chance to build social, emotional, and relationship skills. And her upcoming book, Transforming Toddlerhood, offers tools and perspective to make these early years one of the most rewarding stages of parenting. So with that, let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to the podcast, Devon . We are so excited to talk with you about toddlerhood. We don’t get to talk about toddlers much here on the podcast, and they are one of the most, I think, frustrating moments of childhood for many parents because of the big emotions involved. And I can’t wait to hear your slant on it.

Devon Kuntzman (02:21)

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to have this conversation. And I want to say that even though we’re focused on toddlerhood today, parenting is one type of relationship in our lives. And so I often get told the things that we talk about with toddlerhood, these tools and skills can be used in so many different relationships across the board, whether it’s with your teen, with your parenting partner, your peer, your friend, your boss. So that’s what’s so exciting about this.

Brie Tucker (02:49)

My favorite thing to say is that teenagers are just, and I go back and forth between toddlers and preschoolers, that they go right back to that as teens. They just have a better vocabulary. They go back to having the tantrums and the very self-centered thinking and all of that just with better vocab. It’s crazy.

JoAnn Crohn (03:06)

Yeah, I still use tools that I learned during their toddlerhoods with my kids who are now 16 and 12. I think that these help them all throughout their lives. But Devon , I was looking into a little bit of you and your backstory and you used to be a nanny for high profile families. And during that time, you discovered something about toddlers and how you were interacting with them that really informed what you do today. Can you share a little bit about that?

Devon Kuntzman (03:32)

Absolutely. So there were a couple of things that happened during this period of time that led me to creating Transforming Toddlerhood. One of them was that as someone who was with these toddlers all day, I saw parents come home after a long day, tired, exhausted, really wanting to like connect with their child and then their child just falling to pieces because they miss their parents and they have these big emotions saved up for them. But then what I saw was this miscommunication where parent wanted toddler so much, toddler wanted parent so much, but the communication was going like this because parents felt frustrated by all of the tears. They just wanted this nice happy moment and that’s not what they were getting and toddlers just wanted this connection, but their parents were frustrated. And so I was like, my gosh, what is going on here? We’re having these communication errors with these tiny humans who just don’t know how to say I’m having a hard time or I really miss you and they show us with their behavior. And then at the same time, I had my own thing going on because you know, every day I felt like if the child had good behavior, you know, there is no like meltdowns and all the things, then they were good and I was doing a good job. And that was a great reflection on me. I was doing a good job. if, right?

Brie Tucker (04:59)

If they come home upset, yeah, right.

Devon Kuntzman (05:01)

And then if they’re melting down in public and it’s like, you know, or whatever, they’re like refusing to eat their peas, peas are flying across the kitchen. I’m like, they’re bad and I’m doing a bad job. And then one day it all came to a head. I’m like, this is so unsustainable. We’re all unhappy what’s happening here. And it’s really when it just all clicked. And I’m like, I’m a human. They’re human. We’re all just having a hard time right now. Like this kid’s not trying to make my life miserable. He’s just having a hard time. And when that clicked everything changed and I’m like, listen, everyone needs to know that toddlerhood is not terrible. It’s a critical developmental period and we’ve got to change the conversation here.

JoAnn Crohn (05:40)

And what you’re describing here is something that like so many moms we work with describe even if their kids are older and they’re out of the home for most of the day like at work and they come home and their kids are melting down and their kids aren’t their best selves and mom’s not their best self and that’s when that mom goat really starts to come up that like I am doing something wrong if my kids are not happy to see me and you’re saying like it’s just normal it’s just two people being unable to align correctly.

Devon Kuntzman (06:11)

⁓ Yeah.

Brie Tucker (06:12)

to add in there, like when you’re talking about the mom guilt, JoAnn, like there’s also that piece where I feel like Devon was kind of hitting on it too. so maybe you are a stay at home mom and you’re with your kids, right? And then when your partner gets home, they start melting down and the partner not understanding why it’s happening and you being tired and exhausted from the day, it ends up coming back to you and your partner’s like, why is he always so grumpy when I come home? What are you doing with him all day? Why is he always so emotional? And then that just makes us shame spiral, right? Partners not trying to make you feel like crap. They just, like you just said, Devon , they don’t understand what’s going on because a lot of us don’t entirely understand.

Devon Kuntzman (06:59)

Absolutely, and with our brains, like we have fully mature brains and it’s hard for us to control our emotions. And then we have these expectations like we think a child with an immature brain, little life experience is going to be able to do something that we struggle to do and can’t always do. And when we think about it logically when we’re not triggered, we’re like, this doesn’t make any sense at all.

JoAnn Crohn (07:20)

That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. When toddlers are having these really, really huge emotions, and I see it a lot, like my sister is talking about it now. She has a one-year-old and she has a six-year-old. And, you know, there’s that mom guilt that comes in with the meltdown, and there’s also the, my gosh, like, I have no idea what to do in this moment. So what’s the first thing that you recommend a parent do when their toddler is just melting down of emotion?

Devon Kuntzman (07:47)

Yeah, the first thing I always say is we have to establish safety and there’s two types of safety here, okay? There’s the physical safety and the emotional safety. And the physical safety comes first. This is so important because sometimes there actually is a physical safety threat, right? Your child might be so upset they’re trying to hit you or they might be hitting their head on the floor. Maybe they’re gonna fall off the couch or something like this. And so we want to establish that physical safety.

even if there’s actually maybe something physical that might be a problem or if it’s just perceived, right? Like our brain’s just on high alert. We have to establish a physical safety because then we can use the five magic words. This is not an emergency. And I encourage everyone to write it down, post it on the wall, the fridge, the door, your bathroom mirror, all the places, and say it out loud. This is not an emergency because this is how we disrupt our stress response and start to create that pause. That pause where we can come back for our emotional equilibrium, get grounded and establish that emotional safety. So then we can respond to whatever happened.

JoAnn Crohn (08:57)

Yeah, that’s a great thing.

Brie Tucker (08:59)

Yeah, like saying that this is not an emergency is actually something I’ve been doing here at 45 with my anxiety, like having to tell myself this is not an emergency. It’s not an emergency. No one’s hurt. No one else is freaking out. Like my head is telling me, so it must be okay. So.

Devon Kuntzman (09:18)

I love that.

JoAnn Crohn (09:20)

So that’s the first part, establish that emotional safety, establish that physical safety, say this is not an emergency. I wanna hear what to do next right after this break. Okay, Devon, we’re right in the middle of a toddler meltdown. We told ourselves this is not an emergency. What’s the next step?

Devon Kuntzman (09:37)

So the next step is then to just do what it takes to disrupt your stress response and calm yourself down, ground yourself. And so that might be smelling some essential oils, lighting your favorite scented candle in a safe spot. It might be going and opening the window and getting some fresh air. It might be counting. You’ve got to know what it is for you. It might be just validating yourself because no one’s going to come to our rescue and validate our feelings and emotions. It’s really our job to disrupt our own.

And we’re supposed to do this with our kid, but no one’s coming to do it for us, and we’re like, my gosh, it’s all duty over here.

JoAnn Crohn (10:20)

It’s like we’re all alone in this battlefield and here we are being like, let’s go smell a rose because it’s it’s so hard as a parent. You feel so lonely, but I love that, that you have to know what calms yourself down. What, like out of curiosity, what do you use to calm down Devon ?

Devon Kuntzman (10:38)

So I’m one who I like to look outside, like somehow connecting with nature, even if I can’t go out there is helpful for me, or sitting down right where I’m at or even laying down because I’m someone that the more I can move, the more that movement adds to the energy of the upset that I’m feeling. So if I can like still myself by sitting down or laying down, it like starts to break that energy for myself.

JoAnn Crohn (11:05)

that’s a good thing. Brie, do you know yours?

Brie Tucker (11:07)

Okay, so when my kids were toddlers, if it was really, really bad, sometimes I would take them to a safe spot. So like I would take them to their room and be like, I know you’re really upset, but mommy just needs a couple of minutes. And then I would go and put in like my headphones or I would just go sit in the bathroom for a minute, breathe and then come right back. So like, I want to say it was probably like just a couple of minutes of that with teenagers, I just go in the other room and I’m like, I’m done. I got to check out for a little bit. We will talk when I’m not elevated. So what about you, JoAnn?

JoAnn Crohn (11:45)

same. With toddlers, it was deep breathing, but I didn’t get too overwhelmed with them. I expected it every moment of every day. feel like my nervous system was just like at its point where I’m like, well, this is another meltdown. Cool. Another, you know, it’s a daily thing. 3pm. We got this.

Brie Tucker (12:02)

I can bring you back to a point JoAnn, because we have known each other for so long. And Devon , I think you’re going to love this one. I’m going to give you a scenario that happened to you, JoAnn, when your youngest was a toddler. And I would like to know how you handled that situation. So I remember it was the end of the evening, you were making dinner and you had poured yourself a glass of red wine. And I will just stop the story there and let you pick up as to what happened and how you managed to get through that one. Do you remember what I’m talking about?

JoAnn Crohn (12:30)

Oh no, he was complete chaos. um, he went and he grabbed the glass of rewind off the counter, it over his head. So I looked over and there was like red wine dripping down his whole head. And then he went and went to go open the oven to like see what’s going on inside the oven. And it was just complete chaos.

Devon Kuntzman (12:48)

Was this a three year old? Yeah, as I gonna say, this sounds exactly like three year old behavior. Not two, not four. It sounds like three year old behavior.

JoAnn Crohn (12:50)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (12:57)

That’s like psychic powers there. That was good!

JoAnn Crohn (13:02)

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was hilarious. I took a picture. good. See, in me, would have

Brie Tucker (13:08)

Okay, wait. ⁓ okay. Wait, I have an idea. Now guys, I’m doing this on the fly. Everybody in podcast land. I’m trying to think the worst scenario I had with my kids when they were toddlers is one night. My kids are only like a year apart. I went outside to take the recyclables out. My husband was still at work. I was making dinner. We had like macaroni and cheese on the stove. And I was like, okay, I just got to walk outside of our garage and literally on the other side of the garage, just right there, I could still see the inside living room where the kids were watching TV was our recycle bin. And I went to go drop the recycles. And as soon as I like, closed the lid, I heard a second thing go, boom. And I’m like, my god. And I run to the door, my toddler had shut the door. And then my preschooler went up and locked it with a deadbolt.

Brie Tucker (14:06)

I had to over to a neighbor’s house, ask to borrow his phone to call my husband and my parents. You both had the spare keys. And my neighbor was like, Oh, I know how to pick locks. You want me to get in your house? I’m like,

I don’t even want to know why you know how to pick locks, but get me in there. Because I could just see everything going wrong. And when I got in, my kids were crying. They’re like, where did you go? Oh, man. Every bit of you to not yell at them, I’d be like, you locked me out.

JoAnn Crohn (14:37)

It’s crazy behavior. I mean, Devon , I’m sure you have some stories like that too.

Devon Kuntzman (14:41)

my gosh, yes. And this story actually reminds me of there’s a lot of stuff going on around social media right now, this idea of like, you’ll never meet a gas lighter like a toddler, right? Like your toddler.

JoAnn Crohn (14:52)

Teenagers. Teenagers are a better gas lighter than a toddler. Yes.

Devon Kuntzman (14:56)

I haven’t gotten to the teen years yet. But anyways, I mean, I think that my most challenging, probably worst parenting moment is when my son was 13 months old. So just had learned to walk. We were on a trip. He had learned to walk. We’re on a plane coming home. He wasn’t feeling well. And then like projectile vomited all over me himself and the 25 year old guy who was sitting beside me. was like mortified in tears. He was screaming. And this poor guy was so nice. And he’s like, don’t worry my dad’s an EMT I can handle this and I was like oh god and he was like sitting in like my son’s puke for like an hour and a half on this flight and I tried to like can you please just give me your phone number so I can like Apple pay you a Venmo I want to buy you and your girlfriend dinner tonight and he wouldn’t I was like oh that’s so sweet I was mortified though I was like a wreck of

JoAnn Crohn (15:47)

I would be mortified too, so embarrassed, especially like with all of the stories right now about like unruly airplane passengers and children. it’s a tough world for toddlers on an airplane.

Devon Kuntzman (15:58)

There really is but you know, I think in this moment, like coming back to also like how we can calm ourselves down is like this idea of like, sometimes having this reframe and our brains can be so helpful is that my child is not being mean, bad, rude, manipulative, trying to give me a hard time. They’re struggling. They’re having a hard time. That’s what’s happening right now. And oftentimes, that’s literally what I’m chanting in my head when I’m faced with some type of toddler chaos is like,

This isn’t going to last forever. This is just a moment in time and he’s struggling right now. He’s a good kid, you know? And that’s what I’m just telling myself over and over and over and over and over again.

JoAnn Crohn (16:41)

You know, that’s an interesting thing to bring up because I watched my parents watch my nephew and my niece and they are very old school with the way they handle behavior. like my nephew was melting down and I heard my dad go, no. And my nephew just cried harder and harder. And I was beside myself because you know, they’re my parents, they’re in charge. I can’t say like, hey, mom and dad, don’t do that. Like this is not a great thing to do.

So what, like a lot of parents, and I think they were raised in this generation too, is that they think that kind of recognizing emotions is like giving in. Like you’re not showing somebody how to behave, you’re not showing your toddler how to behave. So how can parents balance this validating of emotions, helping their child through the emotions without like having this fear that they’re reinforcing some kind of unwanted behavior?

Devon Kuntzman (17:38)

Yeah. My husband and I were talking about this last night because my husband got my son out of the bath and he was looked like he was going to kiss my husband then spit in his face. He also skipped his nap yesterday and he was exhausted. Right. And so, you know, in that moment, you know, my husband went and handled it by my son ran away. He walked over to him. sat down beside him, put a hand on him and, you know, reinforce the limit and expectation.

JoAnn Crohn (17:47)

That sounds like a toddler behavior.

Devon Kuntzman (18:08)

And in a very clear way, but in a kind way. And my son said, next time I’m not going to do that, Papa and everything. But then we said, we thought, and we’re like, my goodness, like so many kids would have just, you know, been yelled at. And he’s like, yes, because growing up I was taught like you have to, in French, my husband’s French, so like the translations, like you have to like make your mark, right? You have to mark this moment. Like if you don’t do something right now, you’re not going to teach your child a lesson and the behavior is going to continue. So I think so much about our inability to validate emotions comes from fear of the future. It’s not actually, it has anything to do with the present moment, but we’re afraid of like what could happen in the future. And it distracts us from the point of the matter, which is your child is having a hard time. You can validate emotions and experience without condoning behavior. So that’s why we say you want to ignore the behavior but not the child, right? You want to like support your child with their emotions, teach them skills, but you don’t want to put a lot of focus on the behavior that you don’t want to see. You want to set a clear limit, but you don’t want to spend too much time giving that behavior a bunch of attention.

Brie Tucker (19:18)

I’m just going to say like this one thing. Like I feel like our parents are the older generation. They were taught to raise children almost like the way that I’m being taught to raise my daughter’s puppy.

JoAnn Crohn (19:34)

It’s true. I use the same parenting methods on my puppy as parents of the older generation used on their kids.

Brie Tucker (19:41)

The yelling of the no. I was just doing that this morning because the puppy was screaming like, my husband had put our older dog, he had taken him in the bathroom to give him a bath and the puppy didn’t know where his brother went and was freaking out. And I just was yelling, no, ⁓ stop it. Like he had any clue what I was saying. And like that was gonna help. And yeah, yeah. So it’s interesting how that is.

JoAnn Crohn (20:06)

Well, Devon , something you said like in the middle of a toddler meltdown. First, make sure everybody’s safe physically and emotionally. Second, ground yourself in a frame. And we kind of got into what to do after that, but I want to like make it really concrete for everybody right after this.

So once you have grounded yourself, Devon , and making sure that you’re in a place where you can respond non-reactively, what’s the next step when your child’s in this meltdown? Yeah.

Devon Kuntzman (20:34)

Well, oftentimes less is more in the middle of a meltdown. So you have to think of a meltdown kind of like a bell curve like this. And so when your child’s like halfway up at the top or like halfway down, they’re probably not going to hear you because they are like stuck in a stress response. They’re in fight or flight mode. They’re not going to hear you. So what you’re really doing is just upholding limits and keeping the physical and emotional safety. You might sit near them. You might give a little bit of validation. You might come back and forth and check on them.

But I think the main thing is with a tantrum is what happens after is you want to talk about what happened and teach skills. You want to know, okay, what triggered this and then talk about how we can handle it next time to give them those skills of something that might prevent the tantrum or how to handle their big emotions and practice those different calming skills and things. But one thing that I think is so important for parents to know is that if your toddler is having trouble moving forward from the tantrum or meltdown. might be because they think you might give in on the limit that you’ve set if this is a chantrum over a limit. So sometimes you need to move forward. You need to be the leader and move on and then your child will follow you. So it might mean like go turn on some music, get out a toy and start into something else and then your child will likely calm down and follow you because they want to be close to you and they also see that there’s no chance that this might change the situation or whatnot. So it’s just really important to remember that you’re the leader. And so sometimes we have to help our kids move forward by moving forward ourselves.

JoAnn Crohn (22:11)

That’s a great strategy because like I see a lot of holding limits with toddlers and like many people would just be like, no, no, why aren’t you listening to me? You’re not listening to me. I said no. And what you’re saying is instead of repeating, repeating yourself over and over again, it’s just to go do a different activity. Use that distraction to your advantage and move on from it.

Devon Kuntzman (22:30)

 Yeah, absolutely.

Brie Tucker (22:33)

And yet another example of how teenagers are like toddlers. I’m just going to say that and leave it.

JoAnn Crohn (22:41)

It’s hard though with teens because they remember like an elephant. Yeah. know how elephants have really good memories? Maybe that’s not true. I’ll need to fact check myself on that phrase, but teenagers will come back to you again and again and again. And they’ll be like, yeah, remember when you said this like a week ago? I’m still going to push this limit. It’s a different thing with toddlers. Toddlers, feel the distraction works.

Brie Tucker (23:05)

I get this straight up. “That rule is so dumb. Why can’t we just change it?”  And you know, that’s what a toddler would be thinking too. Like, so dumb. I can’t have a handful of goldfish when we have dinner in five minutes. Like, it’s a dumb rule. I’m hungry. I should have it. If they had the language, I bet that’s what they would be saying.

Devon Kuntzman (23:24)

But this example that I just gave about moving forward, I like actually it was about food and I wasn’t giving my son any more snacks because he actually had a plate of food. So I actually brought that plate of food with me, sat it down on the floor, which we don’t normally eat on the floor, but I was like, Hey, we’re just bringing this plate of food here. Got the toys out, got the music. And then after a minute he came over, sat down beside me and then grabbed a piece of chicken and ate it and just started eating his food. And it’s like, they just have to know sometimes that we’re really serious about the limit and that when we move on, it signals that.

JoAnn Crohn (23:56)

Yeah. So a lot of moms though, listening to this, they’re like, well, that is not how it reacted the last time. Maybe I lost my temper. Maybe I yelled at my child. I screamed. And then they feel guilty about that. How can we recover in those moments where we weren’t really our calmest selves? We made the mistake. What could we do then to build a connection with our kids?

Devon Kuntzman (24:19)

Yes, I’m so glad you brought this up. I just want to tell everyone you are not failing in these moments. You are a human being. You’re not a robot. You can never be a robot. You can’t program out your feelings, emotions, and needs, nor do you need to because children need a human vulnerable parent more than they need a perfect robot parent. So I just want everyone to hear that. is so important. Beyond that, we have to make a choice. Are we going to like look in the rear view mirror?

you know, the back of the car and be and what it could have, should have land, beat ourselves up, tell us how we’re doing such a bad job, how guilty we are, or are we going to choose to say that was hard? That’s not what I wanted to do. Here’s how I want this to go next time. And then practice it and try again, because when we’re willing to learn alongside our child, when we’re willing to practice, that’s when all the growth and learning happens for yourself and for your child. And the best thing that we can do is focus on repairing the relationship. have a whole chapter on this in my book where it talks about how do you recover after you lose it in these moments.

JoAnn Crohn (25:25)

That’s a good point about first of all learning alongside your child because it’s not something that we really saw our parents do. We never saw this modeled and a lot of us go into parenting repeating those generational cycles. So how can we respond differently than our parents did if we’re seeing that this is a

Devon Kuntzman (25:46)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, first, it’s just awareness is the first step, right? It’s just noticing, I’m stuck in this pattern, not beating yourself up, and also not jumping to the other end of the spectrum and then being permissive, right? Because that doesn’t help anyone either. what you want to do is just start taking ownership and accountability. So instead of saying, like, you made me so mad, so I yelled, but I’m sorry. What we want to say is something like, gosh.

I felt really frustrated like no one was listening to me or no one could hear me and I lost control and yelled, I am really sorry about that. Or you might say, how was that for you? And then validate your child’s experience and then apologize and say, hey, I’m really sorry, that’s on me. And that’s not how I want to be in this relationship. And then you might even say what you want to do next time and then practice it right there because now you’re showing your child.

that you’re committed to doing it differently. You’re showing them that you’re human, you’re gonna make mistakes, but you also are trying to have it go differently as well. And this feels really weird in the beginning, but being vulnerable gets easier and easier with time.

Brie Tucker (26:55)

I love that because we all know that our toddlers are little mirrors of us, right? Like, if you stop and you say a curse word, what do they say for the next 10 minutes? That curse word, like nonstop. my gosh, like this is a little bit older, but I remember when my daughter went to kindergarten and the kindergarten teacher reached out to me and was like, so Audrey keeps saying what the in class. And we know that she’s not saying the last word of it, but if you could help

Brie Tucker (27:24)

her not say that it would be very helpful and I’m like crap I say that all the time

JoAnn Crohn (27:29)

And then Audrey’s like, crap.

Brie Tucker (27:34)

she would be. And so like, yeah, that 100 % is true. So like, if you have ever experienced that with your kids, I think, then you know that admitting when you’ve made a mistake, showing your child how to come back from that mistake, admitting that you’re not perfect, because they think we are, they really do think we are perfect at that age.

JoAnn Crohn (27:53)

I want to talk though a little bit Devon about the shame that comes when you start being vulnerable with your kids and owning up to your mistakes. Because at the start of my parenting journey, my parents never did that with me ever. And it felt so foreign to take ownership over my behavior, even though I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt like flooded with shame thinking like I am the only person here who is taking responsibility in this situation. Nobody has done tha for ways they have treated me ⁓ in the past. And so there’s these complicated emotions that come up as a parent with like, okay, I wasn’t treated this way, but I do wanna raise my kids this way. And you almost feel shame for being vulnerable, but you also feel a little like hurt and grief that this was never given to you. And I just wanna open it up for discussion on that because I don’t think it’s something we talk about a lot.

Devon Kuntzman (28:49)

This is such a good point. mean, it is tough being a cycle breaker. Like it is not only a conscious choice that you’re making, but it’s like something that you really have to recommit to time and time again when it feels good and when it feels bad. And it is really hard. This is what’s so hard is because you’re asked to kind of reparent yourself and heal your child wounds and give yourself that validation that the younger self, that validation, that love and care. At the same time, you’re trying to give it to your child. And no matter what age your child is, whether you’re doing this when your child’s two or when your child’s 12, and it is challenging. And this is where we see how hard we truly are on ourselves and how the different hurts that we might not think about consciously on a daily basis are actually kind of rule the roost in what we’re doing in subconscious ways.

JoAnn Crohn (29:46)

Yeah, and I don’t know about you guys, but like apologies too. I had to look at them in a different way as a parent than what they were presented to for me. Because like even now, like some apologies aren’t done well. Some apologies are like, oh, I’m so sorry. And then the person who is being told sorry almost feels like they’re responsible for not making that other person feel bad because that person hasn’t taken complete ownership of the situation. It’s more of like, I’m sorry, I’m such a horrible person. And you’re like, you’re not a horrible person.

You’re okay. So like relearning to do those apologies too as a parent is also a hard thing.

Devon Kuntzman (30:22)

Yeah, I mean, that’s why my four step process starts with taking ownership. That’s why the actual apology is step three. So I went through the process, but I didn’t maybe name it out loud. But step one is take ownership. Step two is to understand the impact. Step three is apologize and step four is the redo. The apology is actually the third step, not the first step. And that’s why, because if we make apologies the first step, we’re like oftentimes doing it by like throwing ourselves under the bus, like. you know, still coming from this place of beating ourselves up, coming from shame, which is different than coming from an empowered place, which is saying, yeah, I did this and I’m sorry, and I’m committed to doing it differently next time. That’s coming from a place of looking out the windshield, right, towards what’s next, not looking through the rear view mirror.

JoAnn Crohn (31:08)

Yeah. I think I love that.

Brie Tucker (31:10)

I love that analogy. Yeah, like I look through, dang, I don’t know how I’m not hitting stuff. I’m looking in that rear view mirror all the time.

JoAnn Crohn (31:18)

It’s a hard place to be. So Devon, you have a book, Transforming Toddlerhood. Tell us all about that.

Devon Kuntzman (31:25)

Yes, well, this book has been a long time coming. I really wanted to write a book that was comprehensive, science-based, and easy to digest because we have these books like what to expect when you’re pregnant and we have books about infancy, but we didn’t really have a reference manual for toddlerhood that is just really easy to understand and implement. So I wrote a book with 45 mini chapters broken down into five parts that discusses the toddler parent, discusses toddler development and how to align your discipline with development. And then three sections covering just about every single challenge you might have with your toddler with toddler tips, scripts, red flags, FAQs, all the things that you need to just go to in the moment. You can read it cover to cover, or you can just keep it on your nightstand. And as your companion, when the going gets tough, you’re in a tantrum, you’re having separation anxiety, you’re having parental preference, go to that chapter, get the support you need.

Brie Tucker (32:24)

So what I’m hearing is you wrote the parenting manual that everybody is like looking for because we don’t have you wrote

Devon Kuntzman (32:30)

For toddler’s. I love it. Yes.

JoAnn Crohn (32:33)

That’s excellent. Well, everybody go get that book. then Devon , we always like to end the podcast episode this way. What is one thing that you were looking forward to in your life right now?

Devon Kuntzman (32:46)

Something that I’m really looking forward to besides my book coming out is my son starting school for the first time, a forest school program. And I’m so excited for him because he’s been talking about it every day for the last couple of weeks. And I’m like, it’s so sad to see him grow up, but it’s also so exciting at the same time. And so I just want to embrace all of these new milestones and savor them. And so I’m really excited about that.

JoAnn Crohn (33:13)

That’s awesome. You’re going to have a great time.

Brie Tucker (33:14)

I miss that. A little bit of a perspective here, Devon . My oldest just went off to college and today is his first day of school. And I said to him last night on the phone, like, listen, at some point during the day, can you just snap a selfie so I can have a picture? And he’s like, why would I do that? I’m like, because I have a picture of you on every first day you’ve ever had, starting with preschool. And I just want one for me to see you on your first day of college. And he’s like, yeah, I’m not doing that.

Brie Tucker (33:44)

That’s just how my kid is. I will break him. I promise I will break him and I will get that picture. But it’s interesting how those first like from preschool on, like they always are huge to us as parents. They’re so heartwarming. So

Devon Kuntzman (33:59)

They really are.

JoAnn Crohn (34:00)

Devon, thank you so much for being here today and for taking us through how to handle a toddler meltdown while also keeping yourself in check and making sure that you’re adhering to those limits that you set and reframing it and what to do if you don’t ground yourself and you end up yelling and how to apologize and how to repair. It has been such a joy talking with you today and everybody out there in Podcastland, remember, the best mom’s a happy mom.

take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (34:32)

Thanks for stopping by.

JoAnn Crohn (34:36)

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