A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome, stellar listeners! As a mother navigating the beautiful yet challenging journey of parenthood, today’s conversation with Dr. Laura Markham touched my heart so deeply. 

Dr. Laura is the author of the best-selling Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids series (translated into 27 languages!). She combines her PhD in Clinical Psychology with practical wisdom that has transformed countless families worldwide.

Our conversation explores the profound idea that peaceful parenting isn’t about controlling our children’s behavior—it’s about regulating our own nervous systems and creating genuine connection. Dr. Laura shares powerful tools for emotional coaching, healing childhood trauma, and building resilience that apply whether you’re parenting a toddler or leading a team at work.

As leaders seeking growth and transformation, understanding how our past shapes our present responses opens doorways to profound healing—both for ourselves and the next generation. Her insights about validating emotions while setting loving boundaries apply to all relationships in your life.

One moment in our conversation—when Dr. Markham spoke directly to my inner child with such compassion—created such a breakthrough that I couldn’t even talk for a moment. I believe many of you will experience similar healing moments listening to her wisdom. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

• [03:01] – Dr. Laura Markham shares her difficult childhood, including her parents’ divorce and her mother’s subsequent marriage to a narcissistic man.
• [07:33] – Dr. Laura defines peaceful parenting in three big ideas: self-regulation, connection, and coaching.
• [14:52] – Dr. Laura discusses the importance of self-regulation for parents.
• [26:53] – Dr. Laura provides examples of how to handle public situations where a child misbehaves, focusing on empathy and validation.
• [31:03] – Dr. Laura introduces five preventive maintenance tools for peaceful parenting: roughhousing, one-on-one connection time, routines, empathy and validation, and welcoming all emotions.
• [42:39] – Orion shares a concern about her child being bullied at an activity, with Dr. Laura providing a step-by-step approach to handling a bullying situation, including validating the child’s feelings and setting boundaries.
• [50:47] – Dr. Laura shares her top three tips for living a stellar life.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hi, Dr. Laura, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure having you. Thank you so much for being here.

I’m looking forward to talking with you. So before we begin, can you share one of your favorite childhood memories with me? 

The things that come to mind first are not favorites, but I can share a favorite. The things that come to mind first are about being a child whose parents got divorced and whose parents had a hard time showing up. I was a lonely child. I think it’s important for parents who are listening to know, even if you had a hard childhood, that you can do the work on yourself to end up having a wonderful life and be a really great parent. So, that’s the point I’d really like to make to parents. 

My childhood was not very good. My parents fought a lot before the divorce. After the divorce, my mother married a man who was pretty well as a psychologist; I would diagnose him as a narcissist. I would say that I had a not very good childhood, and I would say that that is what spurred me. My mother was clueless. She was a good human being who was struggling herself and didn’t know how to handle the fact that her children were having a hard time. 

I believe every parent deserves support, because every parent comes from a childhood that probably wasn’t perfect, but was still pretty good.

That’s what led me to do the work I do today. I believe every parent deserves support, because every parent comes from a childhood that probably wasn’t perfect and was pretty good. There are still things to work out. Every parent sometimes wonders if they’re doing a good job as a parent, and every parent wishes they had more support sometimes. That’s why I do the work I do. 

And did you remember anything good? 

I wanted to be clear that this is what’s important. I remember my father coming back, and I saw him, and he was the person I felt safe with and could talk to. I must have been three at the time. Running out, he scooped me up, gave me a big hug, put me on his shoulders, and we were walking. There were visitors, or somebody else was around. I think they might have been showing the house to sell because of my parents’ divorce there. I think that’s what was happening. I hadn’t seen him, so I was so happy he’d returned. His embrace and safety, and then being on top of the world on his shoulders, made me feel like I could handle whatever happened. 

Yeah, that’s beautiful. I had the difficult child in myself, and violence was involved, and poverty was involved. There were a lot of things that were very difficult. If I tell you my childhood, you’ll say, “Oh, wow. That’s crazy.” I really resonate with what you’re saying. Regardless of what you’ve been through, you can be a good parent.

And it takes work. 

It takes a lot of work. I did 40 Years of Zen. I don’t know if you heard about it. It’s a program from Dave Asprey where you go for a week of neurofeedback and psychological sessions. They have a private chef, and they give you tons of supplements, like brain supplements from aniracetam, and lots of things like biohacking style—a beautiful place. There are horses outside. It’s the countryside. It’s really pretty. 

I did work there. I always thought about my childhood as super awful, but when I did some of the neurofeedback, a lot of great memories that I suppressed actually came to life. It was a great revelation for me to see that our brain is sometimes very selective, and of course, that a trauma hits you harder and you remember it, but more than a good thing that happened. It was good for me to see that there was some balance there. 

There were some really good moments. I totally agree with you that we can always do better, and I feel like we come here to heal epigenetically, heal the generations, right? Because when I heal myself, I heal the women that came before me and those that will come because time is not linear, and everything happens at once.  

I also agree that we can build on the good moments. Even if there were many hard moments, we can build on the good ones. I would say that’s true for the past, but it’s also true for today. If you’re a parent who had a really hard time with your child this week, look at what you could do differently to give yourself more support, but also look at what did work. Look at those moments when you could stay calm despite their childish behavior. 

Look for moments when you connected warmly and responsively with your child, creating safety for them. If you’re able to find positive moments, you can see what allowed you to create those, and you can use that tomorrow, because we can’t go back and change the past. Well, every one of us can change tomorrow. 

A dysregulated parent can’t offer safety because an unpredictable nervous system feels dangerous to a child. Share on X

I definitely agree with you. Can you talk about peaceful parenting? What’s your definition of peaceful parenting? 

You know you have to have some way to describe what you’re doing, right? The reason I like ‘peaceful’ is that it’s all inside. Parenting isn’t really about the child. It’s really about what’s going on inside us and how we then relate to our child. The effect of the kind of parenting that I recommend is that we are more peaceful and competent in our own hearts and our actions. But the kind of parenting I recommend, peaceful parenting, really has three simple, big ideas. 

The first idea is that we have to be calm, and no one’s calm all the time, right? Every one of us gets dysregulated. It’s all about that ongoing dance as we move through life, noticing how we’re doing, being compassionate to ourselves, giving ourselves the care we need, and healing our own triggers so we can show up as the calm, self-regulated people that we want to be with our children. We’re the role models. We’re allowing our children to calm down, too, to co-regulate. 

When an adult is dysregulated, by definition, the adult is not a safe person for that child. When an adult is dysregulated, the nervous system is dysregulated. What it means is that the nervous system of the adult is unpredictable. We’re in fight, flight, or freeze response. We’re not thinking and not responding to our child with the emotional generosity they need. We’re just looking out for number one at that moment. So, it’s not safe. 

Every one of us gets dysregulated. It’s all about that ongoing dance as we navigate life’s journey.

The children’s nervous system is very tuned into safety because that’s how the human race is still here. Children notice a dysregulated adult, and they’re like, “Okay, no one’s taking care of things here. I’m not safe. I’m going to look out for number one. I’ll clobber my brother if I need to to get to safety, but I’m looking out for number one,” that’s the child’s normal response, whereas, if we can show up, we calm ourselves down, then, we’re able to connect with the child, and the child’s like, “Okay, my parent has got this. I can trust that my parents got this. They’re going to take care of things. I may not like the limit they’re setting. I won’t get everything I want, but I get a parent who will keep things safe, who’s not unpredictable, who’s predictable. Who’s calm and therefore being emotionally generous to me.” That’s number one: self-regulation. That’s the first big idea. 

The second big idea you heard me lead right into is connection. A calm parent can reconnect with the child, even if he just clobbered his brother. A calm parent, first of all, can take care of the brother and make sure the brother is okay, and then can go back and calmly reconnect with that child who did the clobbering. 

Now, we’re leading to the third big idea: coaching. But I’ll tell you what they acknowledge in a moment. I want to stay with the connection because, I say, connection is 80 or 90% of parenting because children can’t receive our guidance. They can’t be influenced by us unless they feel connected. They can’t co-regulate with us unless that connection is there and they trust us. Children’s willingness to cooperate with us, to listen, which means obey, to do what we say, all of that comes from connection. 

And the final idea is coaching. That’s where the mom comes back and talks to the brother who did the clobbering of his little brother. The mom isn’t going in with blame. She’s not going in with shame. She’s not punishing. Because what would happen? What would be the child’s takeaway if she comes in punishing, shaming, and blaming? The child feels, first of all, “It was my brother’s fault. He deserved to be clobbered because he did XYZ.” 

The child never thinks it’s their fault. Every human being, when they clobber somebody, it’s that person’s fault. “Of course, I didn’t want to do such a thing, but I had to. So, the child does not think they are wrong and should do better. They’re thinking, “My brother caused this.” On some deeper level, they’re like, “I know I shouldn’t have clobbered him. I’m a terrible person. I couldn’t control myself, and no one was helping me. My mother’s just making me feel worse about myself.” 

When we respond to our child punitively, they respond to themselves punitively for the rest of their lives. They don’t develop the emotional skills for self-regulation. They develop less empathy because they’re not getting empathy from us. All they’re getting shortchanged on the emotional development they need. But if we can show up coaching them to be their best selves, they’re the ones on the field, we’re the coach. 

We’re not doing it for them, but we are supporting them, helping them through their big emotions. “You were pretty mad at your brother. You were so angry at your brother that he knocked down your tower, and you didn’t know what else to do. You were so mad, and you hit him. Hitting is never okay; it hurts. But you were pretty upset. I hear you. What could we do next time this happens? What could you do so you don’t have to clobber your brother? Because I know you love your brother and don’t really want to hit him. What could you do?” 

“I could call you.” “Yes. You could call me. One of your parents is always there. The caregivers are always there. We would always be there to help. Another thing is when your brother starts to get near your tower. What could you say?” “Don’t come near my tower. This is mine. Please don’t touch,” and then, “Help. I need help here. My little brother’s gonna wreck my tower.” 

When we respond to our child punitively, they develop less empathy because they’re not getting empathy from us.

The parent is coaching the child and developing the prefrontal cortex. They’re thinking ahead about what they will do next time so that they don’t have to clobber their brother. They’re learning the skills, but they’re also developing the brain. And because we aren’t shaming and blaming the child, they don’t feel bad about themselves. They feel like, “Okay, well, anyone in my position might have felt like I felt, but I don’t have to act on those feelings. I don’t have to clobber him. There are other options.” 

The three big ideas of peaceful parenting are really simple, but they’re hard to actually do. As you hear me talking, like, “How do you calm yourself down? How do you connect with your child? How do you offer them emotional coaching at that moment, and set up the conditions where your child can thrive and grow? That’s the work.

Especially because I am a coach myself, a hypnotherapist, and I have learned a lot about regulation. I know a lot. I learned a lot. I studied from the best. So when I make a mistake, I feel so much shame and blame, and I put myself into this high standard where it kills me from the inside. It’s super hard. It’s like, “Oh, I should have known better. I know those techniques. I should have said those things in a better way.” So how do I, as a mom, not beat myself up when making mistakes? 

We all have to work on ourselves to reparent ourselves, because otherwise, we treat ourselves the way we were treated as children, like with shame. We all have to be parents ourselves. And in fact, I would take this a step further. I would say that most human beings go through their entire lives trying desperately to get other people to love them so they won’t feel so much shame about who they are. And yet we know you can’t control another person. Trying to get someone else to love you is a losing battle. 

On the other hand, you can love yourself, and when we love ourselves, we feel lovable. And when we love ourselves, we can take love in from other people, get more love from other people, and act more lovably. We were able to self-regulate better, and we ended up being more loving and receiving more love. But not because we got someone else to love us, right? It’s because we loved ourselves. You always have to start there. 

So when someone feels shame, the work is to look at what that shame is. Just ask, “What age was I when I first felt shame?” You probably were three or four. Probably very little. 

No, I was in utero. 

When we love ourselves, we can receive more love from others and act more lovably.

You were in utero. There you go. I would talk to that baby in utero. “You were a gift. You were a gift to anyone who was going to be your parent. Anyone would have been so lucky to have this daughter come into their arms. Anyone would have been so lucky. You were a gift. Whatever your parents felt at that moment and directed toward you had nothing to do with who you actually were. It was about their woundedness.” I don’t know if they’re even still alive, but if you ask your mother today, or the people who were shaming when you were in utero, they would actually say nothing to do with you. 

It’s hard for me to speak because what you said really touched my heart. I’m going to take a deep breath. Thank you for that. That was beautiful. Yep, we have a lot of work to do. It seems like it’s never-ending, doesn’t it?

I believe it is never-ending. I believe we are in this body to do the work of love, and wherever we stumble, it’s because there’s no love there. There’s something else in the way of love; our job is to create love there. And when I say create, it’s to let that light in, to let that love in through us. And so going back to that child in utero, that baby, and saying, “You’re a gift.” 

That might take a daily meditation for months and months, and you’ll feel a difference the whole way through. What you’ll notice is just much less shame and much more willingness to stand in your own love and your own power. 

Thank you so much for this. I think I had a breakthrough right now. Thank you for that.

I’m so glad.

Something on your Instagram that I read hit home for me, and it said parenting isn’t about what the child does. It’s about how we respond. That is so twisted. When you look outside, moms on Instagram, and movies about how parenting should be, it seems like a lot of time parents get significance from whether or not their child excels in learning or shows up in a specific way, and if he is doing everything I’m doing, and he’s like the perfect robot, then I’m a great parent. But I love what you said. It’s about how we respond. It’s not about what they do. It’s about their emotional world and our connection. 

Absolutely. We can’t control another human being, and if you could, you wouldn’t want to. That would destroy that person, your beloved child, to be controlling them. If you could make your child into this perfect thing, that wouldn’t be a real human, that would be a puppet. That isn’t what we want. It doesn’t matter how the child shows up in the world. In that sense, what matters is how we respond. 

Sometimes, our child will show up and be delightful, and we can respond with delight because that is what we feel. And sometimes our child will show up and clobber their brother or have a tantrum at a birthday party. We could spend months planning that birthday party for our child, and they have a tantrum during the party. We’ve all seen this happen. They were just so excited and overrun, and they just couldn’t handle it. 

Their little nervous system couldn’t handle it, and they had this meltdown because they were disappointed about something, whatever it was. And we as parents have a choice. I saw a dad really shame his daughter. We could do that or say, “Oh, you were having such a hard time. It’s your birthday, and you were so looking forward to this, but now it’s not going the way you wanted it to. Let’s take a breath. I’ve got you. You’re safe. I know you’re disappointed. We can make it through this together.” 

Imagine doing that with your child. What do you think your child’s takeaway will be to do that, versus the dad I saw had his daughter on the floor crying? She was so disappointed, I don’t even know what anymore, and he was speaking down to her, and everyone else was watching. She’s humiliating in front of everyone. He’s saying to her, “You know better than this. Get up right now and be kind to your guests.” She was five years old. 

Our job is to create love; when I say create, it’s to let that light in, to let that love in through us.

There was no way she would get up and be kind to her guests. She was so humiliated that she just wanted to hide. So imagine the takeaway of that child about her father, their relationship, whether he’ll show up for her, and whether she’s safe in the world. Can you imagine whether she’s a good person with the skills to pull it together in a tough moment? No, she doesn’t feel resilient. 

She feels like no one’s got her back, and she might as well give up, versus the first one I described, where the parent says, “We’ll make it through this together. You’re so disappointed and no shame, no blame, just you’re having a hard time.” This is a good kid having a hard time. That’s what it all is. When they’re acting out, they’re acting out feelings they can’t express in words because they’re too little to have the words. 

Even 14-year-olds don’t always have the words. And in fact, the truth is, even 44-year-olds don’t always have the words. We didn’t practice as children. But in this case, what I’m describing is if the child is acting out, and the parents like, “Oh, I won’t be able to put this on Instagram. It’s so terrible. I’m such a bad mother,” that parent is gonna have to do a little work on herself too. She feels like she’s a bad mother, that her child’s acting out, that’s shame. 

What’s she gonna do with that shame? She’s gonna put it right on her child, like that man did. That father was like, “You know better.” Why? Because he felt ashamed in front of the guests for how his daughter acted. He couldn’t handle it, which is hard to handle, shame, to be fair. So what did he do with it? Instead of saying to himself, “I feel embarrassed and ashamed of myself. People are gonna think I’m a terrible father, and I have a terrible daughter.” 

That would be an okay thing to acknowledge and say, “But you’re okay, you’re okay. She’s okay. She’s a good kid having a hard time. I’m a good dad. This is not about me. This is about supporting her and taking care of the guests.” 

Connection is the root of cooperation. When a child feels seen and safe, they naturally want to follow our lead. Share on X

What a beautiful process. 

Exactly. And if he had done that, he would have gone home with a little healing at the end of that day—some healing of his own shame. Instead, because he didn’t know what to do, and we’re all in this position somehow, so we don’t know what to do, he put it on his daughter. So she, this little five-year-old, had to carry that shame from him, and that’s how we visit the shame down in the generations. We don’t do the work, so it gets put on someone. 

If a parent did something bad to that extent or less. When is it a good time to apologize? What’s the right way to apologize or connect with a child after events like that? 

Often we find ourselves in the middle of these situations as parents, so we don’t even know how this thing is coming out of our mouths. We’re in the supermarket, and our kid has just knocked over a jar of something, and it broke all over the floor. We’re like, “Don’t you touch that. You know better, right?” And it’s all our own shame coming out at our child, shaming our child. And then all of a sudden, we look at the stricken look on our child’s face, and everyone’s staring, judging the child and judging us, we assume. 

We don’t know what they’re actually doing, but that’s what we assume, that they’re judging us. If we notice it happening, we can stop it at any place we notice. That’s point one, the event of us doing it, and then here is wherever. So at any point along the road, we can notice it happening. You said, when’s the right time? If we notice, we can stop. I call it stop-drop-breathe. It takes one minute. It’s like, stop what you’re doing, drop your agenda, and take a breath. 

What that does is interrupt the neurotransmitters. Because right now, when the jar was dropping, you went, “Ah.” You got plunged into. You got triggered. You got plunged into fight, flight, or freeze, right? Your nervous system is like, “Ahh,” adrenaline and all the stress hormones, cortisol, at that moment. If you stop, drop your agenda, and take a breath, you don’t have to prove anything; you’re not engaging with any people looking. 

You’re not even really engaging with your child at that moment. You’re just in yourself because that breath signals to your neurobiology and nervous system that it’s not an emergency. If there were a tiger case and you were a robber, you would not be stopping to take a breath. So the nervous system goes, “Oh, hey, we don’t have to pump out more adrenaline here. No more cortisol. It’s okay. It’s not an emergency. She’s taking a deep breath.” 

We can’t control another human being; if you could, you wouldn’t want to. That would destroy that person.

It’s like, “Okay, we have a moment to settle down here,” but it’s just a moment, because at this point, the child is probably crying because she just screamed at them, and also they just dropped the jar, and they’re upset, and everyone’s staring at them. And so your child may cry, or perhaps they’re like, “I hate you. I want a new mom.” 

And you know, depending at that moment, take that breath, and then you have to give yourself a little compassion, because if you just screamed at your child in front of everyone in the supermarket, and they’ve just done something that makes you ashamed, like dropping the jar, you’re feeling down on yourself. Let’s just say every little bit of shame you have from childhood kicks in at this moment, so you have to have some compassion. 

Remember, you haven’t said anything to your child since you noticed this; all you did was take a split second to stop, drop, and breathe. Then you say to yourself, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” whatever works for you, I would say, find some sticky notes, write different little mantras on them, and put them all over your house to see what works for you. The one that worked for me was, “It’s not an emergency.” I don’t think it’s actually an emergency. Very little in parenting is an emergency, we think it is. 

If it is an emergency, your child’s running in the street, or your one kid’s clobbering the other, you’re right in between them. You’re doing whatever needs to be done. You’re not stopping going, “Oh, I wonder what mantra I’m gonna use.” So most of the time, parenting is not an emergency, even if our body is like, “Ahhh.” So, it’s not an “emergency” work. He’s a “good kid having a hard time” work. “I can handle this.” Many parents are like, “Oh my goodness, what do I do?” And we feel helpless, victimized, especially if our kid hits us. It’s like, “Okay, I can handle this.” Play with different mantras. 

One of my favorite mantras, regardless of parenting or not, is that “I can do hard things.”

I love that one too, and I would add something to it. I would say, “I can do hard things, I just need more support. I just need to give myself more support.” Because the truth is, we sometimes need support to do hard things, but we’re all in this together, right? So that’s a really powerful one. I can do hard things. What support do I need? So we’re back in the supermarket. You said, “When do you apologize?” 

At this moment, we stopped, dropped, and breathed just like that, and then we were like, “I can do hard things. This is going to be okay. And we look at our child in the eye and say, “I am so sorry. I just yelled. I am so sorry. I just yelled at you.” Now, we start to empathize. “You were startled when that jar broke. I was startled, too, and I was embarrassed.” You know, all these people are around. Your obligation is not to these people. Your obligation is your child. 

You’re the only person in that supermarket whose obligation is to this child. That’s your job. Your job is not these people. And by the way, somebody is already running to tell a store employee coming over with a mop; it’s not your job to clean it up either. You can apologize to them, but it’s not your job to clean it up. Your job is your child at this moment, because they just knocked over the jar, which they didn’t mean to, and broke it, and they’re feeling bad, but also you just yelled at them. 

So you say, “I’m so sorry I yelled at you. I was startled when the jar dropped. You were startled when the jar dropped, too, right?” At this point, your kid getting this understanding might just burst into tears, or they might be a little defensive. It depends on the kid and how connected they feel to you, how much trust they have, if they burst into tears, it’s because they’re like, “Mommy’s gonna take care of me. I did mess up, but it’s okay. She loves me.” 

You just hold them and say, “Sweetheart, see, they’re coming already to mop it up.” You model for your child how to handle a public mess, and you say, “I’m so sorry we dropped that. We’ll pay for it at the checkout. Thanks so much for cleaning it up. I’m really sorry to have left you with a mess,” and you move your cart out of the way so they can clean up. And that’s that. And probably nobody even comes over to you and says anything. 

Sometimes people do that. They come over if they think you don’t know what you’re doing. Sometimes, if your child bursts into tears and you’re holding them, they’ll come up and go, “Oh, I’m sorry. Would he like a candy?” They’ll do things like that sometimes, and you just say, “Oh, I think he just needs a minute. It was scary when the jar fell, and I yelled at him.” That’s it.

We’re here to do the work of love. Wherever we stumble, it’s simply a place where love hasn’t yet reached—and that’s where our work begins. Share on X

It’s a double validation. I love that. It’s really cool. I have moments where I’m like that. That perfect scenario where I apologize the right way, and I speak the right way. I have all those, like, all my ducks in a row, and I’m doing everything amazing. And then sometimes you’re tired. You’re exhausted. Somebody pissed you off at work, whatever it is, and, yeah, the child is right there. And especially, I’m homeschooling, so I’m with him a lot. 

We have a beautiful bond and a beautiful connection. And I think sometimes I need to take that breath and breathe and be like, “It’s not an emergency. Everything’s okay.” Are you aware of Imago Dialogue? It’s all about validation; I used to do it with my partner. Sometimes I do it with my child, where the empathizing, repeating them, making them feel understood, sometimes just that, could get a child from a hundred to zero, just knowing that somebody there understands what they’re going through.

We all need that. You know, children don’t need everything they want. They don’t need that toy. They don’t need a cookie before dinner. What they do need is to feel understood without being made wrong. We don’t have to say, “You have so many toys. You’re greedy. You’re not grateful,” or whatever. Why would we do that to a child when we could just say, “You think that toy is pretty cool. You wish you could have it. I hear you. We’re not buying a toy today, sweetheart. I see why you really like it.” So just the validation of it. 

The kids like, “Okay, I got it. No toy today.” And again, sometimes parents say, “But you don’t know my kid. He will go zero to sixty. He’s full of emotions and very strong-willed.” If we do the preventive maintenance for a different metaphor. People say, “But what do you do when you’re trying to get out of the house to take your kid to school and the baby just suddenly is a poopy diaper, and your two other kids are fighting with each other?” 

They come up with a bad scenario, right? Every parent who’s faced that bad scenario, first of all, we understand, we all have been there, but that’s when you’re in the breakdown. That’s when your car just ran out of gas, or, you know, the motor seized up because you hadn’t had a tune-up or whatever. And it’s in the breakdown. You really can’t do anything except call the tow truck. 

All you can do at that moment is say, “Oh my goodness, we’re having such a hard time. I guess I’m going to be late for my meeting. I’m going to text them and let them know that, and then I’m going to intervene between my two fighting children and separate them. Then I’m going to change the baby diaper, and we’ll give each other a big group hug and get in the car together.” That’s the only thing you can do. That’s the breakdown lane, right? 

Laughter heals. It releases oxytocin, calms the nervous system, washes away stress, and floods the body with connection. Share on X

But what if you’ve done some preventive maintenance on your car? It’s full of gas, and it’s how to tune up. It doesn’t end up in the breakdown lane. The same thing applies to children. If you have been validating your children, they are now fighting because they’re fighting about something. But if you’ve been validating them, if you’ve been empathizing with them as much as you can, if you’ve been helping them with any big emotions and big jealousies they have of each other, right? 

And I have five specific tools that we use in peaceful parenting that are their prevention tools, the preventive maintenance tools, and I’ll tell you what they are, but if you’ve been doing those things, they’re much less likely to fight at the moment you’re walking out the door. We can’t do anything about the poopy diaper, but we can stop the kids from having the big fight at that moment, right? Shall I tell you the five tools? 

Yes, I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to the five tools. 

These are in no particular order. They’re all important. The first one is roughhousing or laughter every day with every child. There’s a reason for that. When we laugh with someone, we’re releasing oxytocin into our system. People listening probably know that’s the bonding hormone. So if you and I are laughing together, we’re bonding. If I’m laughing with my sibling, I’m bonding with my sibling, and I’m much less likely to fight with my sibling when we’re walking out the door the next morning. 

And if the parent is having a hard time with that kid, having a hard time getting the kid to listen or to obey what they’re saying when it’s bedtime, if they do some roughhousing, not right before bed, because the kid gets all worked up, but earlier in the day, that kid is going to be laughing with the parent, that kid is going to feel much more connected to the parent and much more cooperative, especially those who tend to be anxious. 

Kids need routines because they show them what to expect in their day. It reduces anxiety and helps them feel safe.

There’s an anxiety epidemic among our children right now. One of the reasons is screens; there is not enough downtime for kids, not enough time outdoors, and too much pressure academically. But another reason is that we parents are so anxious, right? So there are a lot of reasons for kids’ anxiety that research is very clear on. 

And since I’m in Israel, we also have the war going on, so sirens and missiles are not a simple thing for a child. 

Absolutely. So kids are suffering from anxiety and epidemic rates right now. One way to support kids who tend to be more anxious or have anxious feelings because they hear sirens is laughter. Laughter reduces the anxiety in the system. It not only releases oxytocin in your system but also gets rid of adrenaline and cortisol, reducing the amount of cortisol circulating in the system. All the stress hormones get reduced. It’s like a reset, even for parents. 

Parents tell me, “I can’t roughhouse with my kid at the end of the day, I’m exhausted.” I totally understand that. But here’s the experiment. I used to do this with my kids. If I were exhausted, you’re traveling with your kids. When my kids were teenagers, I was traveling with them. I was exhausted. I get to the end of the day in a hotel; the last thing I wanted to do was connect with them. And everybody’s grouchy, I would pick up a pillow and throw it at one of my kids, “Pillow fight.” 

We’d have a quick pillow fight, like five minutes of clobbering each other with the pillows and laughing, and at the end of that five minutes, I felt reenergized, and we all felt reconnected, and we were all laughing and in a good mood for whatever happened next. Laughter is really important as preventive maintenance, to feel close to your child, and to help your child work through anxiety and just let go of any feelings from the day. 

The second thing is the one-on-one connection time with each child. If you have more than one child, they need that one-on-one connection time, roughhousing you can do with both kids, three kids, or four, whatever you’ve got. But when you have more than one child, you have to spend one-on-one time with that kid, even if it’s 10 minutes a day, and that’s unstructured time, if possible, where you just sort of pour your love into them, because that’s how they feel your love, it like puts your love into action. 

Third thing rule—I’m going to go through these pretty quickly now—routines. Kids need routines because it show them what to expect in their day. It reduces anxiety, helps them feel safe, and allows you to work into the daily routine connection opportunity. So when they wake up in the morning, you snuggle for a few minutes. When dropping them off at their daycare or school, you’re talking about what you’re looking forward to later in the day, which, of course, is seeing them. 

“I want to hear all about what happened on the field trip or what happened with your friend,” whether he’s back at school today after being sick. The point is to have opportunities to work these little rituals into your day that don’t take extra time but are part of the routine. Routines help kids feel safe, and they help kids feel connected and cooperative, and if this is just what we do at this time of day, every day, like take a bath or brush your teeth, then there’s no power struggle over it. 

This is just what we do at this time of day. If it’s sort of random, when they’re going to take a bath or brush their teeth, they will fight with you about it, because kids don’t usually want to do those things. Okay, so we’ve got three things. We have roughhousing. We have one-on-one time. We have routines. 

The next one is something you want to do 24/7, and that’s empathizing and validating. I have already talked about how important that is. You won’t be perfect. You won’t be able to do a 24/7 because you’re not Mother Teresa. But you know what? Mother Teresa was not a mother. She didn’t do a 24/7 either, and she didn’t have children. So I’m just saying to notice and try to validate when you can. And just work on your ratio of good moments to bad moments. 

The final one, the final preventive maintenance, is to welcome all emotions. It’s okay that your child is sad, it’s okay that they’re disappointed, that child of the birthday party, it’s okay that they’re angry, that kid who’s angry at his brother for knocking down the tower, or the kid who knocked down the tower because he just wanted to play with his big brother. All of their feelings are fine. 

He’s not allowed to knock down the tower. He’s not allowed to clobber the brother. We’d rather she didn’t have a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket. But whatever they’re doing, the feelings are allowed. It’s the actions that we live; feelings are allowed. And that means, if our kids have big feelings, and we try to make the feelings disappear, “You can’t be mad at your brother. No, you don’t hate your brother.” 

We can’t completely protect our children from stress. But I do think we need to notice when it’s too much for them.

No, they probably don’t hate their brother, actually, but they’re mad. They’re allowed to be mad. So we say hate is a big word. You’re saying how mad you are at your brother. You’re saying how you’re so angry at him. You’re allowed to be angry at him. You’re not allowed to hit him. So if we’re allowing the feelings, they allow the feelings and learn how to manage them, but if we shut the feelings down and say you’re not allowed to feel that. “You’re not allowed to feel disappointed at your birthday party. You get up and be nice to your guests.” 

If we make them shut those feelings down, those feelings go away. No, they’re still there in the body. We’re stuffing them down into the subconscious. I call it the emotional backpack. It’s the body. And you know what? Then they’re not on your conscious control, those feelings, and if they’re not under conscious control, then they’re going to do what they want. He’s going to clobber his brother again, because it’s just going to burst out. 

Whereas, if we can allow the feelings, that’s the first step of the child learning to accept their feelings, validate them, and not act on them. That’s emotional intelligence. That’s self-regulation. That’s impulse control. That’s delayed gratification. All the things that we know will help our children be successful in life. 

How do we protect our children from stress? And do we need to protect our children from stress? 

I don’t think we can completely protect our children from stress. But I do think we need to notice when it’s too much for them. When you say, “How do we protect them?” The five preventive maintenance tools I just gave you will help a child handle the normal stresses of being a kid. So every kid in the world is under stress. They’re starting first grade. Their best friends are moving out of town. They’re trying out for school play, whatever it is. 

The normal stresses of everyday life for children—we don’t want to protect them from those things. We don’t ever want our child to suffer, but every child is going to have some of those stresses. They need to learn that they have the resilience to get through it. That little girl at the birthday party would have had the resilience to deal with her disappointment if her father had been in her corner. The way we protect our kids from stress is by showing up for them. 

We help them with their big emotions when they feel stressed, disappointed by life, sad about their friend moving, scared about going to school on the first day, or whatever it is. We help them. We do what I call emotion coaching. We are basically accepting and validating the emotion. That’s the biggest part of it. When we do that, we give our child the support they need to develop their own inner resources, to cope with stress. The stresses will get bigger. 

The way we protect our kids from stress is by showing up for them.

That kid who is four right now will be 14 and subject to bigger stresses, and they’re going to be 18 and 24 and 28 and subject to bigger stresses. They’re going to be your kids, and they’re going to have big stresses in the world, and we can’t protect them from all those stresses. We can give them emotion coaching, and that’s part of what I said when I said to accept all emotions. We’re giving them the preventive maintenance so that they can learn how to manage themselves through a stressful situation.

Yes, resilience. So, talking about resilience in my experience with my child, in one of the activities we do, there is a child there who is a bully, pushes him, and yells at him. I would like your advice on how to deal with bullies. Do you just take them away from the situation? When do you try to change environments? When do you try to use NLP or other methods to guide the child? I’ve done this, and it hasn’t really helped yet.

First of all, we talked about everyday stresses. We also want to do preventive maintenance. So if you’re doing the five preventive maintenance things, your kid doesn’t have a full backpack. He will have more inner resources, but you still want to support him around this particular stress, this bully. 

This one is extreme stress. This kid is very unregulated. 

Okay, how old is this kid? The bully? 

He is four, and my son is five. 

The first thing you do is, sometime when you’re not going to the activity, let’s say the activity is on Tuesday, Sunday morning, you’re with your child, and you say, “Let’s do a puppet show.” And you grab a stuffed animal and another stuffed animal, and you say, “They’re at this activity,” whatever the activity is that the bully shows up at. You say, “Here’s the little elephant and the bear. The bear pushes the elephant. Did you see that? The bear pushed the elephant. Oh, what should we say to the elephant?” 

And your child might have an idea, like, “Push him back,” or “You’re okay, elephant,” or “Don’t let him push you,” or “Don’t touch my body.” Your child will have some ideas. That’s great. And you say, “Great. You’re okay, Elephant. You don’t have to let him push you. Say, “Don’t touch my body,” and the elephant says, “Don’t touch my body.” Then, you can play with different scenarios. 

We’re all here to heal ourselves; in doing so, we heal the planet by bringing more love into the world.

The bear who did the pushing can say, “I’m sorry. I’m in a bad mood today.” And the elephant can say, “I’m sorry, you’re in a bad mood. You want a hug?” And give him a hug. Very unlikely that the scenario will happen for your son and the bully at the activity, right? But we’ve just seen that this bear who does the pushing is not evil. He’s a four-year-old in a bad mood probably every day, because he probably gets pushed plenty at home. 

So we have just communicated with your child. “This is not a bad kid. This is not an enemy. This child is having a hard time, and we can hug it.” Then you say to your child, “Do you think that would work with such and such the bully?” And your kid’s like, “No, I don’t.” You can say, “Yeah, hmm, I wonder what we could do.” And then, remember I talked about how laughter gets rid of the anxiety in your child. 

If they’ve been bullied and played around by this other kid, they probably feel some anxiety. You could get your kid laughing about this. You could say, “I know, let’s have a big hole in the floor open up. The little elephant’s gonna pull a big lever, and the hole in the floor will open up and the bear will drop through. Whoop goodbye, bear. Do you think that would work? You think we can get a hole in the floor at the place, at the activity? Your kid’s gonna go, “No, mommy.” 

But will probably be laughing at you. I’m assuming. So at this point, that’s great. If you can get your child to laugh, they will reduce some of the anxiety about the situation. So this is one tool in advance that you can use to support your child in thinking about what happens when you get there. But that’s on the weekends or days before. So on Tuesday, you say, “We’re going to go to this activity today,” and your kid’s like, “Oh, I don’t want to go to that bully.” 

And you say, “Hmm, that does not feel good to get pushed. What could we do to make things better? What could we do to prevent this bully from pushing?” And your child might say, “I can tell him hands off my body.” You say, “Yeah, give me five. Great. What else could you do? Think they have a lever to pull?” “No, probably not.” And you’re laughing, he’s laughing, and he said, “What else could you do?”

“Well, I could stay near the teacher, if there’s a teacher or coordinator for the activity,” and you can say, “And if that kid, that bully, continues to come after you and push you, I could talk to the teacher, or I could talk to the parent of that child,” because it is our job as parents to step in at some point if our kid is getting bullied by somebody. You said it’s a big trauma, like, obviously, we’re not going to let our kid get pushed around like that, but we’re trying to coach the child. 

We’re not saying, “Oh, this is a terrible, terrible situation.” We’re saying, “This is life. It’s not a good thing that is happening to you. This kid’s obviously having a hard time. This brown bear is pushing everybody, but on the other hand, we can handle this, and I’m right here as your backup.” And then when you go to the activity, you’ve already talked to your kid about it, you’re staying near them, you’re watching, and the brown bear kid, whoever this kid is, the bully, comes up and pushes your kid down, I would immediately get up, go over. 

Research indicates that gratitude is a key factor in fostering a sense of well-being.

If the kid’s parents are there, you say to the parents, “Could you help here, please?” If their parents are not there and it’s the teacher, coordinator, or somebody there, you say, “Could you help here, please?” You ignore the kid for a minute. You pick up your kid, hug him, and say, “That was hard. That was hard.” What do you need to say to the other kid? “Don’t you touch me like that. Hands off my body.” Your kid says, “Yes, good for you.” 

You can say it hurts when you push it. And your kid can say that. So they’re starting to get validated, your own son. And meanwhile, hopefully somebody else has come over to the other kid, and then you turn around to the other kid. You’re down on the ground. You’re on the level of your kid with your arm around your kid, hearing the crook of your arm. You say to the bully, “Did you hear what my kid said to you?” 

Use your child’s name. “Do you hear what he said to you? He said it hurts his body when you push him. I think you’re probably having a hard day. It’s not okay to push the other kids. You do this right in front of his parents. You do it right in front of the coordinator,” and he probably, because you’re an adult and he’s four, will look shamefully at the ground. And you can say, “This started off hard, but we could have a good day here today, couldn’t we? Nobody has to push anybody, right? What should we do now to have a good time together?” 

To that, you say to the teacher or coordinator, and then you move on, but you do it again if necessary. If the parent tells you, “Don’t you reprimand my child,” that can happen. Usually they don’t. Usually it’s worse than that. Usually they ignore you. They turn to their child and they say, “Say you’re sorry,” and they put a lot of shame on their kid. You’re not looking for a ‘sorry.’ You don’t care about that. You’re helping your child feel validated. 

If the kid says he’s sorry, you can say, “Thanks for apologizing. What so and so needs is no more pushing. Thanks. Let’s have a good time here together today.” Then you look at the other parent and say, “Thanks, all good.” If the parent tells you, “Don’t reprimand my child.” You can say, “I’m sorry. This is not the first time that your child has pushed my child, and my child has started to be worried about coming to this activity. So I need someone to speak with your child, and I didn’t see anybody else doing it. But I don’t think he took it badly. I think he took it as my child saying, “Please don’t touch me.” 

That’s amazing. 

Would this work for you? 

Yeah, that’s gonna work. Wonderful. Thank you. 

If you look at the takeaways for your child, it is “somebody’s got my back, but I can also stick up for myself.” That’s what you’re worried about, right? That he’ll be beaten down by this bully and be traumatized. But if he comes away with those feelings, then it’s a growth experience. 

Amazing. Thank you so much. This was phenomenal. I could talk to you for another five hours, probably or more, but I want to respect your time. Before we say goodbye for now, I have two questions. First, what are your three top tips for living a stellar life? And the second one is where people can find you, buy your books, get coaching from you, and all that good stuff. 

There’s one particular tool that even people who are extremely busy can use to rewire their brain, and that is to project love outward to others.

My top three tips for living a stellar life, since I haven’t had time to think about it in advance, I reserve the right to change these by tonight, but the one I would always start with is what we discussed at the beginning of our conversation. We’re all here to heal ourselves, and that heals the planet by bringing more love into the world. And so if that’s what you’re aspiring to, you can always find places to grow and encourage yourself to do that. We don’t really need any more tips than that. That would do it. If we all did that, that would do it. 

But I’m going to add a second one anyway, gratitude, because a lot of times people say, “Well, I’d like to do that, but I don’t know how to feel that sense of well-being, that sense of lovingness. Research shows that gratitude is the way to feel that sense of well-being. When we feel gratitude, it moves us closer to a state of love than anything else. So, just a gratitude practice where you go through your day looking for things to be grateful for, I think you’d probably be enlightened by the end of the week, if you could do that 24/7. 

My third tip would be about how to find that emotional well-being, and there’s a lot of research on this too. It’s research on meditators, and we have found that you don’t have to meditate. If you want to meditate for an hour a day for the next 40 years, you mentioned the 40 Years of Zen, the title of the program you went to. I’m a meditator, and no parent that I know, including me, when I had little kids, none of us had an hour a day to meditate. 

However, many findings show how meditation rewires your brain and makes you happier and calmer. There’s one particular tool that even people who are super busy can use to rewire their brain, and that is to project love out to other people. 

I’m in New York City. I get on the subway, and I just sit there. I look at everyone in my subway car and send them love. Now, do they know I’m doing it? Probably not. Do they see me smiling at them? Sometimes. As my daughter says, “You can’t get on the subway and have an ‘invitational smile’ to everybody. You’ll blend up in trouble.” I don’t have what I would call an ‘invitational smile.’ 

I just have a sense of well-being, and I’m projecting that well-being to each person individually. And with what research shows us, it takes about five minutes of this. Maybe the research was 10 minutes, but it took me about three minutes because I’d practiced it for a long time. Sending love to other people—you’re actually feeling love and in a state of love. When we’re in a state of love, we’re in a state of well-being. 

So those last two tips are gratitude 24/7 and sending love to others at least every day. The research shows that the sending love part works as a way to increase your sense of well-being. So those two things will shift you into a state of well-being and emotional generosity, so that you can do that first thing we talked about, my first tip, which is do the hard work on yourself to show up with love. You’ll not only be healing yourself and having a much happier life, but you’ll also be making the world a better place. 

And where can people find me? I have three books, the Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids series. This one’s being re-released, that new, improved copy, and it will have a new cover. I’m happy to say. I think they’ll get this one a new cover, too. This one is the sibling book, if you have more than one child. This is the basic idea we’ve talked about today. If you like workbooks, this takes you through the lessons in this book and helps you work on your triggers and stuff. That’s the whole first half of the book. 

The second half of the book is about how to connect with your child, and how to set limits that your child wants to cooperate with you without yelling and threats. So those are the three books. But to find me online, peacefulparenthappykids.com. It’s a 1000-page website, so it’s free. It’s a public service that addresses everything you could ask. There’s a search box—anything you could ask from in utero to the teen years.

Incredible. 

On any page of the website, at the bottom, you can sign up for my newsletter again; it’s free. It’s completely free, and it gives you all the tips that we talked about today. Imagine getting something in your inbox every week that reminds you how to do these things, stay calm, connect with your child, and coach your child when they’re having big emotions. That’s what the newsletter is about. 

That’s beautiful. Wow. Thank you so much, Dr. Laura. I appreciate your time, the beautiful wisdom you shared with us, and the beautiful moment you gave me at the show’s beginning. Thank you so much for being here and for spreading the love and the light in the world. 

Thank you for the work you’re doing. It was a pleasure to talk with you today. It’s my honor to talk to parents. 

Thank you, and thank you, listeners, remember to heal and love yourself. Use gratitude to get in the state of love. Project love onto the world and to other people, and have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Practice self-regulation by stopping, dropping your agenda, and taking a deep breath when triggered to interrupt your stress response before responding to your child.

{✓} Establish connection before correction with your child by validating their feelings first, as children can’t receive guidance unless they feel emotionally safe.

{✓} Coach instead of punishing. Replace blame and shame with empathetic guidance that helps children understand their emotions and develop better responses for the future.

{✓} Implement daily “preventive maintenance” through rough housing for laughter, one-on-one time, consistent routines, regular empathy, and welcoming all emotions while setting behavioral limits.

{✓} Re-parent yourself when feeling shame by recognizing when you’re experiencing parental shame and giving yourself the compassion and validation you needed as a child.

{✓} Defuse difficult situations with empathy by acknowledging your child’s feelings without judgment, helping them feel understood during emotional moments.

{✓} Apologize directly when you make mistakes by saying “I’m sorry I yelled” without qualifications, then empathizing with their experience to model taking responsibility.

{✓} Prepare for challenging social situations through role play with stuffed animals or puppets, brainstorm responses with your child, and use humor to reduce their anxiety.

{✓} Practice daily gratitude by deliberately looking for things to appreciate throughout your day, which research shows increases your capacity for love and emotional well-being.

{✓} Connect with Dr. Laura Markham’s resources by visiting peacefulparenthappykids.com, signing up for her weekly newsletter, and reading her Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids book series.

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About Dr. Laura Markham

Dr. Laura Markham, author of the bestselling Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids series (translated into 27 languages), combines her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with practical wisdom to help families thrive. Her relationship-based parenting approach transforms proven research into daily solutions parents can use to create lasting connections.