Vanessa Coultas - Life Mentoring

The common phrase that accidentally breaks a child’s trust in us.
We say it the moment they start crying ….

It’s the automatic phrase that comes out of our mouths before we’ve even thought about it.

Your child falls, or gets overwhelmed, or breaks down in tears and you instantly say it to comfort them.

It comes from a place of pure love.

You want them to feel safe, and you want the distress to stop.

But when a child is visibly upset, hearing this specific phrase does the exact opposite of what we intend.

Instead of calming them down, it teaches them that they can’t trust us with their biggest feelings.

Open the article to see what the phrase is, why it backfires, and what to say instead to actually make them feel secure. And save this post for the tips!

I love my kids, but I don’t want to go home.

You don’t need to know what you need.

Maybe you are sitting in the car, or staring at the floor, just wishing time would stop.

You love your kids with everything you have, but right now, the thought of walking through that front door and facing the chaos, the noise, feels like too much.

You just can’t summon up the energy for it.

I remember being offered help, that sounds like a bonus.

But I had no idea what anyone could actually do that would make a difference.

Parenting 24/7 is exhausting, and an odd meal cooked or someone taking the kids for a few hours just didn’t feel like enough to begin to help.
I needed more than that.
I was drowning.

And what made it harder was that others didn’t even offer help….

They had no idea I was drowning!

The hardest part of being this burned out is that everyone tells you to “ask for help.”

But when you’re in it, you don’t even have the capacity to figure out what that would look like.

Finding the words, explaining it properly, or trying to solve it just becomes another thing you can’t manage.

You don’t need to solve it today.

You don’t need to explain it.
And now is not the time to try and fix it

I’ve been there.

There is support for this too.

The most misunderstood word in parenting.

We’re told it’s how we fix behaviour.

But it may actually be why our kids stop listening to us.

We hear it in parenting advice all the time.

We use it when behaviour feels out of control.

We use it when we want things to change quickly.

We assume it’s helping.
But rarely do we stop to question what it actually means.

Because when you look at its original meaning, it doesn’t point to control or correction.

It points to learning.

And a child cannot truly learn from us unless they feel safe with us.

When a child feels misunderstood or pushed into compliance, they move into protection mode.

And they are no longer able to take in what we’re saying.

Without trust and felt safety, our guidance becomes noise.
The most misunderstood word in parenting is discipline.

True “disciples” did not follow through force or compliance.

They followed through connection, trust, and belief in the person leading them.

So real discipline is not about enforcing behaviour.

It’s about building the safety and connection that makes a child able to listen in the first place.

👉 Does this change how you see the daily struggles?

DM me if you want support with this

When we wait for a child to agree before we act, a simple request turns into a negotiation.

Suddenly we’re repeating ourselves in the kitchen, by the front door, or at bedtime, hoping the next version of the sentence will make the difference.

I often hear parents say, “But I explained it to them…”

And while that feels reasonable, it keeps the same pattern going.

You don’t need agreement before you move forward.

This isn’t about ignoring your child’s feelings.

It’s about following through without needing emotional approval for it.

Your child can be upset, frustrated, or disappointed.

That doesn’t change the request.

Try this instead:

STATE IT ONCE, CLEARLY
Say what needs to happen without extra explanation.

ALLOW THE REACTION
You don’t have to stop to deal with the feelings first.

STICK WITH THE REQUEST
Feelings can be present without changing what is happening.

STAY CALM EVEN WHEN RHEY DON’T LIKE IT
Follow through without needing agreement in the moment.

Cooperation doesn’t come from convincing.

It comes from consistency without negotiation.

Ever feel like you’re doing everything the “experts” tell you to do, but nothing changes?

You stay calm.
You try to talk kindly.
You explain things.
You set boundaries.
You try consequences.
You try rewards.

Yet you’re still ending the day completely drained, locked in a battle of wills over a screen, a bedtime routine, or the “wrong bowl.”

It’s incredibly exhausting.
But it’s not because you aren’t trying hard enough.

The real reason the rules aren’t working comes down to a fundamental flaw in the advice itself.

In my latest article, you’ll find out exactly why standard parenting tips fail you, why managing the behavior after it happens is already too late, and the 3 things you can do instead to finally stop the daily battles.

If you are ready to stop playing catch-up and change the setup of your home, this is for you.

👇 Click the link below to read the full piece:

https://www.lifementoringnz.com/post/good-parenting-advice

When a child’s world runs on high stress, their behaviour is the first thing to absorb it.

If you think sudden meltdowns, refusal, or backchat are just a phase you have to push through, it’s worth looking again.

You can’t out-wait a stress response.

When you focus only on behaviour, it starts to backfire because you are trying to correct something that is coming from overload, not choice.

And in that moment, your nervous system hits theirs, and everything escalates.

If you’ve been trying to fix this with more patience or tighter discipline, this is the shift:

willpower doesn’t regulate a dysregulated system.

Instead, change the question in the moment.

Stop asking:

“How do I stop this behaviour?”

Start asking:

“What is overwhelming my child right now?”

That change moves you out of reaction and into understanding what is actually happening underneath the behaviour.

You are navigating an incredibly intense, exhausting juggle every day.

Their behaviour is not a challenge to your authority.

It is communication from a system under pressure.

If “No” makes you lose your temper, this is why…

Why?

Because a child’s “no” can instantly switch on a stress response.

When that happens, your brain can stop seeing a child who is struggling and starts reading threat.

Not danger from them, but a threat to control, safety, and predictability.

Your body reacts first.
Heart rate rises, tension builds, and your reaction comes out before your thinking brain has caught up.

If you think this is just a normal parenting phase, it’s worth looking again.

You can’t out-wait a nervous system response.

In that moment, it can feel like disobedience.

But what’s actually happening is a nervous system response from a child who doesn’t yet have the capacity to express a need safely or clearly.

If you’ve been trying to fix this with more patience or better discipline, this is the shift: you can’t override a nervous system response with willpower alone.

Instead, you start by changing what you think is happening in the moment.

1. Pause and name the system response
“My nervous system is activated.
This is not an emergency.”

2. Separate behaviour from meaning

The “no” is not personal or misbehaviour.
It is communication (albeit without regulation)..

3. Look underneath the behaviour

What need is being overwhelmed, or unmet right now?

This is not about excusing behaviour.
It’s about seeing it clearly so you can respond to the need, not just the reaction.

You are not dealing with the behaviour first.
You are dealing with a need that hasn’t found a safer way to be expressed.

It usually starts the same way.

You ask them to do something.
They refuse.

And suddenly you’re in a power struggle you didn’t plan for.

Some parents see this as just a phase.

Something that will pass with time and patience.

Others can see it might become a pattern, but it doesn’t feel urgent enough to change how they respond yet.

And then there are the moments where you know something needs to shift now, because the way you’re handling it isn’t working for either of you anymore.

In these moments, most parents don’t need more effort.

They need a different way to stay steady when things escalate.

When a child flat out refuses, it’s rarely about defiance on its own.

It’s a moment where something underneath has tipped over and they can’t access cooperation in that state.

This is where you have three options in real time:
argue,
disengage,
or stay steady and regulated while holding the boundary.

That difference changes everything.