Watch my video → How to End Your Child's Meltdowns in 8 Weeks or Less
How do you stay calm with your child when you can feel your own anger rising?
My guest, Nathalie, is a working mom raising a young child within a long-distance blended family, often parenting on her own while managing a demanding career.
She shares how things shifted from occasional tantrums into longer, more intense meltdowns, especially during times of overstimulation and change. What became harder to ignore was not just her child’s behavior, but how quickly her own parental anger began to escalate alongside it.
Nathalie had already spent time reading parenting books, going to therapy, and learning about parenting strategies like validating emotions. She understood the importance of staying calm. In practice, those moments felt very different, especially when she felt judged, overwhelmed, and alone without another parent to step in.
As we talk through her experience, she describes reaching a point where her reactions started to worry her, and how that awareness led her to approach toddler tantrums differently. Her story shows how emotional regulation becomes harder under pressure, and what can begin to shift when the focus moves away from stopping the meltdown and toward staying present through it.
You’ll learn:
[00:00] Introduction
[01:39] How a blended long-distance family, a visiting grandmother, and escalating tantrums pushed Nathalie's anger to a breaking point
[04:20] Nathalie tried everything and felt so alone until she joined the program
[05:54] She stopped walking on eggshells, embraced the meltdowns, and let go of the guilt
[09:39] How her childhood wounds were triggering her anger, and the shift from validating emotions to sitting with them
[12:13] She discovered she could co-regulate her own mother the same way she co-regulated her toddler
[13:27] What she told skeptical parents who thought they'd already tried everything
[17:00] How unrealistic expectations of moms made her feel like she was failing, and what shifted
[21:46] She started the program before her children would remember the yelling
[24:34] The peace of mind that came from doing right by her kids, and how the program made a lasting difference
Find more from Dr. Hilary:
Raised Resilient | Website
Raised Resilient | Instagram
Raised Resilient with Dr. Hilary Mandzik | Facebook Group
Raised Resilient Chaos to Connection Program | Website
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