Science Minded

I’ve been sitting on some very exciting news.

I’ve signed a book deal with Hachette, which still feels slightly surreal to type.

The book is about something I’ve been thinking, researching, speaking and probably ranting about for years:

What if parenting isn’t supposed to be quite this hard?

Not because children should be easier, or because we’re trying too hard, but because somewhere along the way, I think we’ve made childhood harder to understand.

We’ve become incredibly focused on “managing” children, or ourselves, in an attempt to optimise parenting. We want the secret tricks to get them to listen, cooperate, sit still, calm down, regulate their emotions and become resilient.

And in all that effort to raise children well, I wonder if we’ve sometimes forgotten to actually enjoy them.

This book is my attempt to bring us back to the child in front of us.

And while I often talk about parenting, this book is absolutely for educators and teachers too. Really, it’s for anyone who spends their days alongside children and wants to understand them better.

We’re going to talk about why children make so much more sense when we understand their developing brains, nervous systems and bodies:

Attachment. Temperament. Sensory processing. Executive function. Movement. Play. Regulation. Big feelings. Behaviour. Boundaries. Neurodiversity.

Basically, why behaviour that looks defiant, dramatic, attention-seeking or just plain baffling often makes much more sense when we understand what’s happening underneath it.

There will be science. Lots of science. Obviously.

But there will also be spiders, ninja jumps, ridiculous questions and my own two little humans woven through it.

Because this isn’t about creating perfect children, parents or educators. (They don’t exist!)

It’s about understanding childhood well enough that maybe we can worry a little less and enjoy the extraordinary, messy, chaotic, magical little people in front of us a whole lot more.

And because I’m writing this book for the adults actually living and working alongside children, I’d love your input.

What do you wish you understood more about kiddos? Let me know in the comments!

Rewards absolutely have a place in parenting. We don't need to feel guilty because we bought our child an ice cream after swimming or celebrated a great soccer game with a treat.

Life is full of celebrations: Birthdays. Graduations. Promotions. Achievements. Children deserve celebration too.

The question we want to focus on isn't "Are rewards bad?", it's "What do I want my child to notice about this experience?"

Children already come equipped with an incredible capacity for intrinsic motivation. Nobody promises a toddler chocolate if they keep practising walking. Children are naturally driven to explore, practise, master skills, belong and become more capable.

Our job isn't always to manufacture motivation. Sometimes it's to protect the motivation that's already there.

Imagine your child scores a goal, they might think:

"I've been practising."
"I'm getting better."
"I helped my team."
"That felt AMAZING."

But if every goal earns $5, something can shift. Instead of noticing the pride, mastery or contribution, they may start noticing the payment. Research on motivation suggests that expected external rewards can sometimes crowd out intrinsic motivation, particularly when they're used for activities a child already enjoys.

This doesn't mean rewards are bad.

Some things simply aren't intrinsically motivating. Brushing teeth, taking medicine, getting immunisations. Sometimes external motivation is a useful scaffold.

We just don't want the scaffold to become the whole structure.

So instead of only asking: "How do I get my child to do this?"
Try asking: "What do I eventually want them to value?"

We can help them notice the natural rewards:

"You worked really hard for that."
"Did you notice how much easier that felt?"
"You looked so proud."
"It feels good to help your team."

And then? Buy the ice cream. Because if every swimming lesson ends with sitting together, chatting AND sharing an ice cream. How beautiful is that? It means it's not about the ice cream, it's about ritual, attention, delight, celebration and connection.

Let's celebrate our children. Connect with them. And buy the ice cream.

References: Deci, Koestner, & Ryan 1999; Ryan & Deci 2000

One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to think highly of them.

Not because they always deserve praise.
Not because their behaviour is always acceptable.
But because the story we tell ourselves about our children shapes how we respond to them.

When we begin to see a child as "manipulative", "attention seeking", "naughty" or "difficult", it becomes much easier to justify responding with frustration, punishment or emotional distance.

When we instead hold them in unconditional positive regard, we ask different questions.

🤔"What might be happening for this child?"
🤔"What need is underneath this behaviour?"
🤔"How can I hold this boundary while protecting our relationship?"

Unconditional positive regard doesn't mean having no boundaries. It doesn't mean excusing hurtful behaviour and it doesn't mean lowering expectations.

In fact, I think it's the opposite.

The children we hold in the highest regard are the ones we believe are capable of learning, repairing, growing and doing better.

High expectations and high warmth belong together.

We can calmly stop behaviour that isn't okay while communicating: "I may not like what you're doing right now, but I will never stop seeing your worth."

That doesn't make children entitled, it makes them feel safe enough to learn. Shame rarely inspires lasting change but Connection does.

The children who most test our capacity for connection are often the ones who need it most.

Sometimes the most important thing we can protect isn't our child's self-esteem. It's our own ability to keep seeing the good in them, even on their hardest days.



References: Rogers, 1957; 1961; Bowlby, 1988; Powell, Cooper, Hoffman, & Marvin, 2013; Siegel, & Bryson, 2020; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007

Most parents have had this moment.

Our child is running laps around the lounge room.
Jumping on the couch.
Emptying every drawer.
Demanding you watch every cartwheel.
Saying "No!" to everything.

It's easy to think, "Why are they doing all this and how do I make it stop?!"

But there's a better question...
"What developmental drive is trying to be met?"

Children don't play randomly, their brains and bodies are constantly seeking the experiences they need to grow.

🔸Seeking movement because their nervous system and motor systems need it

🔸Driven by exploration, taking apart the remote or mixing every bottle in the shower because curiosity is how children learn

🔸Seeking mastery, repeating the same puzzle, trick or LEGO creation for the hundredth time because practice builds competence

🔸Looking for connection, asking us to watch every jump or join every game because shared joy is one of childhood's greatest teachers

🔸Testing risk, climbing higher and balancing further because capability grows at the edge of challenge

🔸Seeking power, insisting on doing it themselves or wanting to make the rules because children are wired to discover how they can influence their world

🔸Expressing something they can't yet put into words through stories, pretend play or dramatic games

This doesn't mean we say yes to every behaviour. Of course not. But it can be helpful to learn how to separate the drive from the behaviour.

The drive is often healthy, the behaviour might need a different, safer, more sustainable outlet.

Instead of: "Stop climbing the kitchen bench!"

We can try: "You've got a body that's looking for a climbing challenge. Let's find somewhere safe to climb."

Trying to stop the drive is a losing battle. Instead, we lean in and find a way to redirect it, that's one way we can all win.

Because when we understand what children are trying to achieve through play, we stop seeing problems to fix and start seeing developing humans telling us exactly what they need.

What "annoying" play phase is happening in your house right now?

Fire alarm aren't the problem.

They alert us to a problem.

The same is often true of children's behaviour.

When children hit, scream, refuse, throw, run away or melt down, our attention is naturally drawn to the behaviour itself. We want the behaviour to stop.

Sometimes this leads us to focus on consequences, rewards, scripts and behaviour management strategies.

The difficulty is that behaviour is often a symptom, not the cause.

A child who lashes out may lack the skills to handle frustration.

A child who refuses may feel overwhelmed.

A child who melts down may be exhausted, stressed, hungry, anxious or struggling with expectations that exceed their current capacity.

When we focus exclusively on stopping the behaviour, we can miss the information the behaviour is trying to communicate.

This doesn't mean having no boundaries. Children need clear, consistent limits.

It means pairing boundaries with curiosity.

Instead of only asking, "How do I make this stop?"

We can also ask, "What need or skill is this behaviour pointing me towards?"

Because when we address the fire, the alarm becomes a lot quieter.

References:

Greene (2014); National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2004);
Siegel & Bryson (2011)

One of the biggest mistakes we make with young children is assuming that because they can talk, they should be able to consistently act on what we say.

A four-year-old has only been using sophisticated language for a couple of years.

A five-year-old? Not much longer.

Yet we often expect them to hear an instruction, stop what they're doing, shift their attention, remember the request, organise their body and follow through immediately.

That's actually quite a complicated task.

What makes this even harder is that children don't learn primarily through explanations.

They learn through relationships, observation, imitation and experience.

Think about how children learn to talk in the first place. We don't sit them down and teach them grammar rules. They learn by listening to the people around them, watching what they do and joining in.

Behaviour develops in much the same way.

This is why children can often tell you the rule but still struggle to follow it.

Knowing what to do and being able to do it are two very different things.

So when we find ourselves repeating:

"Put your shoes on."

"Pack away the toys."

"Come to the table."

over and over again, it can be worth asking a different question.

Have I only told them what to do?

Or have I shown them?

Children are apprentices in being human.

They are constantly watching how we speak, move, respond to frustration, solve problems and treat other people.

Our modelling is often far more powerful than our explanations.

This doesn't mean children don't need boundaries or expectations. They absolutely do.

But sometimes the most effective way to teach a behaviour is not another reminder.

It's showing them what it looks like.

Because young children often learn more from what we consistently do than from what we repeatedly say.

Comment below - What's something you've caught your child copying from you recently?



References: Bandura (1977); Diamond (2013)

Recently my 6-year-old announced that he hated the sun and wanted it to disappear forever.

His reasoning?

The sun was in his eyes.

Thankfully, I was able to pause and catch that it wasn't really about the sun.

It was about his frustration, discomfort and a feeling that was bigger than the words he had available to describe it.

So instead of arguing with him, I responded to the feeling underneath.

Then, once he was a touch calmer, we ended up learning what would happen if the sun disappeared.

(For anyone wondering, we'd all be dead. My son's biggest concern was whether the cars would still work. When I pointed out that functioning vehicles would probably no longer be our biggest issue, he laughed and said, "Oh yeah!")

The whole interaction reminded me of something important:

When children say "I hate you", they're often doing exactly the same thing.

They're not delivering a carefully considered judgement of our parenting.

They're expressing a feeling.

When we stop arguing with the words and start listening for the feeling underneath, we can respond to what the child actually needs.

And that's usually where the conversation changes.



References: Hoffman, Cooper & Powell (2017); Siegel & Bryson (2011); Delahooke (2019);
Gottman & DeClaire (1997)

Recently I was in a Kindergarten room and observed one of the most amazing things. An educator encouraging 4 and 5 year old children to lie on the floor and use the ground to support their elbow while writing their name.

It might seem small, but developmentally, it was a HUGE and an incredibly thoughtful adjustment.

At this age, many children are still developing the core strength, postural control, shoulder stability and fine motor coordination needed for drawing and writing tasks. When we ask children to sit upright at a table and write, they are often managing multiple physical demands at once before they even get to the actual learning task.

By lying on the floor with the elbow supported, children gain physical stability through the ground. Their body no longer has to work quite so hard to hold itself upright, freeing up more energy and control for the writing itself.

This educator I observed demonstrated this beautifully with a little boy I’ll call Leo. Leo was sitting up and having a hard time writing his name. He seemed disheartened and dejected. She encouraged him to try it again but lying down with the ground supporting his elbow. The educator then showed him the difference between the two attempts. It was obvious. His letters when lying down were clearer, more controlled and easier to recognise.

But what mattered most was that she helped Leo notice the difference himself.

This shifted the moment from adult-directed correction to child-centred learning. Leo wasn’t simply being told how to do it “properly.” He was being supported to understand his own body, his own learning and what had helped him succeed.

That kind of reflective noticing builds far more than writing skills.

It builds confidence. Agency. A sense of “I can do this.” From there the skills feel possible.

This is what strong developmental practice often looks like in early childhood.

Not harder, stricter, not pushing children faster.

A deeply understanding of children and thoughtful adjustments to the environment to support their success.

References: Haan (2015)

Something happens in our brain when our child melts down.

We want to fix it. Fast. So we say the first thing that comes out. And often, that first thing, however well-intentioned, makes everything harder.

I've done it. Most of us have. And it doesn't mean we're doing it wrong, it means we're human, and our own nervous systems are responding right alongside our child's. When someone we love is distressed, our brain registers it as a threat. We move to action. We want the distress gone, for them and if we're honest, for us too.
That's not a character flaw. That's biology.

But it's worth knowing which phrases tend to backfire, because once you can see them, you can start to catch them.

❌ "Calm down."
Telling a flooded child to calm down is like telling someone drowning to swim better. They would if they could. A dysregulated nervous system cannot follow verbal instructions, it needs a regulated nervous system nearby to co-regulate with.
Try: "Let's slow down your breathing, then we can talk."

❌ "Just breathe."
Same problem, different packaging. Telling a flooded child to breathe is like handing that same drowning person a map. They need co-regulation first, not instructions.
Try: Modelling slow, exaggerated breaths yourself. Their nervous system will often follow yours, even when words can't reach them.

❌ "You're fine."
This one dismisses before it connects. Even when we mean it kindly, even when it's technically true, it communicates something the child hears loud and clear: your experience isn't real. And that lands hard.
Try: "This feels hard. I'm here."

❌ "There's nothing to be scared of."
Fear doesn't respond to logic. Not in children, not in adults. You can't think your way out of a felt sense of threat, and neither can they.
Try: "This feels scary for you. I'll keep you safe."

❌ "It's not a big deal."
It is a big deal. To them, right now, it is the biggest deal. Minimising it doesn't shrink the feeling, it just quietly teaches them not to trust you with the next one.
Try: "This really matters for you. I get it."

And then, if you can, try to imagine it from their perspective. Not who's right and who's wrong. Simply what feels real for them in that moment. That shift alone can change everything about how you respond.

The goal in a flooded moment isn't compliance. It's safety. Once they feel safe, everything else becomes possible.

I'm curious about your experience with this. Which of these phrases is hardest for you to resist in the moment? And is there one that surprised you, that you hadn't thought of as dismissive before? I'd genuinely love to hear from you in the comments.

Carollo et al. (2023); Siegel & Payne Bryson (2012); Porges (2011)