Yeah.

I don't know how to uncurl this hand yet.

And then a few weeks later comes a difference.

You again ask for it.

And for the first time, they uncurl and pass it across.

And that is a very different thing.

Instead of everything coming this way now, the tide is turning.

They have a totally different sense, but I love – your guard dog idea because we all have one and it sits in our heads all the time and it comes out all the time and I think that we must be aware too that as adults we're not always in control of ourselves either and we look at our children and we wonder why they're not and we're not always there as well so Why do you think so many parents accidentally end up parenting that survival brain instead of the child? Is it because they don't know this stuff or is it because they get so pressured that they give in? Do you get what I mean? It's

Mary, my question would be, just at the start of it then, you've got your child, they're having a meltdown, what's your first approach as a parent?

Right, your very first approach as a parent is to stop and to...

And you're going to be surprised, so get ready for this.

Okay.

Immediately, when your child is having a meltdown, the defense system in the brain has taken over.

It's got into the driver's seat.

It actually pushes out any maturation that may have occurred up till now in the reasoning or in the emotional department.

Yeah.

Mary, my question would be, just at the start of it then, you've got your child, they're having a meltdown, what's your first approach as a parent?

Right, your very first approach as a parent is to stop and to...

And you're going to be surprised, so get ready for this.

Okay.

Immediately, when your child is having a meltdown, the defense system in the brain has taken over.

It's got into the driver's seat.

It actually pushes out any maturation that may have occurred up till now in the reasoning or in the emotional department.

Yeah.

What were the recurring challenges you kept seeing across time and across families that led to this book?

Right.

Well, the common denominator I was seeing in everything as they were pouring into my practice was that what they were doing didn't seem to work.

They were coming from all sorts of ideas, all sorts of theories about how to raise children, and yet all of them were saying, we hit a point where we've done our best, we're pouring our love and our energy into this child, or we're really trying to use this system or that system, and it's not working.

And so...

I went into this kind of deep journey to figure out what is the thing that they are not seeing.

And there was something that I could see really clearly, but I needed to find the right language for it.

You've literally got to see the red rag come down and But talk us through some situations where you're literally training that defensive protective guard dog and calming it.

What were the recurring challenges you kept seeing across time and across families that led to this book?

Right.

Well, the common denominator I was seeing in everything as they were pouring into my practice was that what they were doing didn't seem to work.

They were coming from all sorts of ideas, all sorts of theories about how to raise children, and yet all of them were saying, we hit a point where we've done our best, we're pouring our love and our energy into this child, or we're really trying to use this system or that system, and it's not working.

And so...

I went into this kind of deep journey to figure out what is the thing that they are not seeing.

And there was something that I could see really clearly, but I needed to find the right language for it.

Yep.