297. Spirited Child: Our Experience and Our Solutions

If you're raising a child who feels everything deeply and expresses it loudly, this episode is for you.

Today, we’re diving into a topic that sparked our biggest listener response ever—first explored in Episode 157 with Claire Lerner—and it’s all about parenting children with big reactions.

Both of us are moms to what we lovingly call “big reactors.” These are the kids whose emotional outbursts and transitions hit differently. They're intense. They're spirited. And traditional parenting advice? It usually doesn’t work.

We talk about:

• What we learned from our game-changing conversation in Episode 157.
  
  
  
• Why big reactions are often wired into your child’s DNA.
  
  
  
• The reality that gentle parenting isn’t always effective with these kids.
  
  
  
• How transitions can be a major trigger—and how we’ve learned to navigate them.
  
  
  
• Amy’s experience taking her whole family to therapy (and what actually helped).
  
  
  
• The critical role of one-on-one attention for highly sensitive or strong-willed kids.
  
  
  
• The surprising ways these kids ask for love—even when it doesn’t feel like love at all.
  
  
  

This episode is here to remind you—you’re not alone. And while parenting a big-feeling kid can be exhausting and confusing, it’s also deeply rewarding. The bond you can build is incredible when you find what works and stay consistent.

If you’re raising a spirited child, a highly sensitive kid, or a little one with intense emotional reactions, this episode is a must-listen.

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This episode was brought to you by the Pivot Ball Change Network.