Right about now, you may be thinking one of two things: my children are amazing and I love spending time with them in this period (valid) or my children are nuts and challenging and defiant and I’m at my wits end (valid).

You could have thought both thoughts this morning.

You could have thought both thoughts at the same time!

And even if you are working right now, your child is most likely being cared for by someone else, out of their regular routine.

It can be really difficult, particularly in this moment, to regulate our own emotions and deal with the emotions of a child (or two or three or four!) on top of that. Each child has different needs and demands on a good day. If they are cooped up inside, even if they can run around the kitchen island, you may be seeing a new side to them: a challenging side.

My joy list contains podcasts, so I’m inviting you to listen to one to help support you in this moment where you may be pulling your hair out because Henry fell off his scooter and ended up in urgent care with seven stitches during COVID and now wants to say “no” to absolutely every invitation to eat and clean I throw to him. He wants ice cream and brownies and his iPad.

Improv-based play support for challenging behavior is a great way to bring play into your environment, organically. It’s 20 minutes: the time for a comfortable walk, doing the dishes, laying in bad before sleep. I’m looking forward to bring a few of these ideas into our home.

After you take a listen, I would love to hear from you. What did you learn from this episode? Any action you can take based on what you heard?

We also want to note that you actually may find your child’s behavior “better” — and we’ll write about this soon.