The CALM Parent - with Katie McKenna
Sep 22, 2026 · 30 min · 11 segments
You've said the same thing a hundred times. It's the same conversation — and now you're standing there thinking, this can't be my life. Surely it's easier in everyone else's house. This week, I…
Katie McKennaHost
And last week I talked about what is realistic parenting, because even as I'm saying this, it is unrealistic to parent from a place of regulation all the time.
And as it should, right? Because we're human, because we have a heart, we have feelings, right? We're going to be impacted.
And so when I'm talking about recognizing and how to parent from regulation, this is that we are able to parent more from this space.
So then we're going to be aware when we go into dysregulation, right, when we go into fight or flight.
And the purpose of that then is that when this happens, we're going to be able to restore peace in minutes and not hours or days.
Because when this happens and we yell and lose our shit, that we are able to recognize it as close to the moment it happens.
It might take us a couple of minutes and we are able to apologize and atone and correct our own behavior.
but still hold limits in those moments with our kids right own completely what we did wrong but still hold whatever limit and that that's not going to change because often what happens here is when parents do end up losing their shit they feel so guilty they have such shame in fact it can silence them and they don't want to tell anybody about it which can add to this guilt and shame And so then they really want to not only make it up with their child, they really want to get rid of this feeling of me feeling really bad, get rid of this guilt and shame.
And so then we're going to parent from this place and then not hold limits with our kids and then get stuck in this cycle.
And last week I talked about what is realistic parenting, because even as I'm saying this, it is unrealistic to parent from a place of regulation all the time.
And as it should, right? Because we're human, because we have a heart, we have feelings, right? We're going to be impacted.
And so when I'm talking about recognizing and how to parent from regulation, this is that we are able to parent more from this space.
So then we're going to be aware when we go into dysregulation, right, when we go into fight or flight.
And the purpose of that then is that when this happens, we're going to be able to restore peace in minutes and not hours or days.
Because when this happens and we yell and lose our shit, that we are able to recognize it as close to the moment it happens.
It might take us a couple of minutes and we are able to apologize and atone and correct our own behavior.
but still hold limits in those moments with our kids right own completely what we did wrong but still hold whatever limit and that that's not going to change because often what happens here is when parents do end up losing their shit they feel so guilty they have such shame in fact it can silence them and they don't want to tell anybody about it which can add to this guilt and shame And so then they really want to not only make it up with their child, they really want to get rid of this feeling of me feeling really bad, get rid of this guilt and shame.
And so then we're going to parent from this place and then not hold limits with our kids and then get stuck in this cycle.
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