The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
5 Hacks: How to Speak Kid #35
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Have you ever felt like talking to your kids is like speaking an entirely different language? You tell them to put on their shoes, and suddenly it’s like you’ve asked them to climb a mountain. Believe me, I’ve been there. In this episode, I’m breaking down why our kids don’t always seem to get what we’re saying—and spoiler alert, it’s not because they’re ignoring us.
We’ll dive into the science behind how kids’ brains work, why they process the world differently from adults, and how we can adjust our approach to get through to them. I’ll share five creative hacks I use with my own kids—simple tools that help me communicate in a way they actually understand. If you’re tired of power struggles and tantrums, this episode is packed with practical tips that can make life a little easier (and a lot more fun).
What You’ll Learn
- Why kids’ brains work differently
I’ll explain how their brains are still under construction and why emotional reactions often take over. - How to communicate in ways that work for them
From using stories to simplifying language, you’ll learn how to meet your kids where they are. - Five creative hacks for talking to your kids
I’ll walk you through how I:- Use iPad bugs to make screen-time transitions smoother.
- Play tooth detective to turn teeth brushing into a fun, nightly ritual.
- Talk to my kids’ bellies to encourage healthier eating choices.
- Sing instructions to make them stick (hello, Daniel Tiger fans!).
- Use puppets to make even tough conversations more approachable.
Why This Matters
I truly believe that how we communicate with our kids shapes not only their behavior but their emotional development and sense of connection. When we approach communication with playfulness and empathy, we’re not just avoiding meltdowns—we’re building trust and lifelong communication habits.
This Week’s Challenge
Try one of these hacks! Whether it’s rethinking how you handle screen time or singing through a tricky moment, I’d love to hear what worked for you.
Resources I Mentioned
- The Whole Brain Child by Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and Dr. Daniel Siegel
- The Way of Play by Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and Georgie Wisen-Vincent
Let’s Connect
I love hearing from you! Share your thoughts on this episode, tell me what hack you’re excited to try, or let me know about your own creative communication wins.
- Email: podcast@wholeparentacademy.com
- Social Media: @WholeParent on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
Want More?
If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review or rate the podcast—those 5-star reviews mean the world to me and help get the message out. And don’t forget to preorder my book, Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice. It’s packed with tools just like the ones we talked about today, but dives even deeper into how to parent with connection at the center.
Thanks for listening, and until next time, let’s keep learning how to speak kid—it might just change your life (and theirs)!
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast. My name is John. If there's one thing that separates us humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, it's our mouths, specifically what we do with them. Verbal communication is one of the most complicated and uniquely human skills that we have. The ability to form words, to convey ideas, express emotions and try and connect with people around us is pretty mind-boggling if you pause and think about it for a second. You tell your children that you love them. You read out loud the sonnets of Shakespeare, you try to explain that hilarious TikTok video to your partner. At the end of the day, all we're doing when we talk is pushing air through our throats while carefully contracting a bunch of tiny little muscles in our faces to make a bunch of sounds, sounds that are more or less random to anyone who doesn't speak our language, and yet to those who do. Carefully chosen words can evoke emotions like few other things. And then there's the cultural aspect. And then there's the cultural aspect. Words communicate ideas, and that means people from different cultures with different ideas don't always mean the same things when they use the same words.
Jon @wholeparent:One of my graduate professors told us this story about getting coffee in Boston while he was at a conference there in the 1990s. He orders a coffee and the guy behind the counter asks him if he wants it regular or cream and sugar. Light cream and sugar. My professor replies Great, says the guy. The guy turns around, he pours him a cup and he proceeds to start to dump loads of cream into this coffee. Horrified, my professor gets the guy's attention and starts clarifying Uh, really, light cream. You got it, boss. The guy says with a shrug that clearly says suit yourself. He turns back around and dumps half the cup of coffee out, not to make room for more coffee but to make room for more cream. Turns out in Boston a regular coffee is a coffee with two creams and two sugars. Light means that you want a coffee that's light in color, really light. What my professor asked for means that you want to splash a coffee in your cream.
Jon @wholeparent:On this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, we're talking about talking Specifically the way that we talk to our kids Because, let's be honest, sometimes it feels like we're speaking entirely different languages. If you've ever said to your kids, put on your shoes, we're leaving, and been met with a blank stare or worse, a full-blown tantrum, you know exactly what I mean. Explaining even the simplest concepts to kids can feel like being a Chicago guy trying to order a coffee in Boston. Sometimes it feels like you're shouting into the void, but here's the thing. It's not because they're ignoring us Well, okay, sometimes it's because they're ignoring us, but not all of the time. More often than that, it's because of the way that kids process the world, in a fundamentally different way than we do. Their brains are wired for stories, for metaphors, for play, not for logic and reasoning. So how do we bridge the gap? How do we learn how to translate put your shoes on to something that actually makes sense in their world?
Jon @wholeparent:In this episode, I'm going to share five creative ways that I talk to my kids, ways that help them understand what I'm asking, cooperate without a fight and even make some of those dreaded tasks like brushing your teeth or turning off the screens a little fun. We'll dive into the power of metaphor, why storytelling works better than commands, and how we meet kids where they are developmentally. Along the way, I'm going to tell you how my imaginary iPad bugs have helped curb screen time, why I talk to my kids' bellies, about their food and the weird games that we play every night to make teeth brushing a battle-free experience. If you're looking for practical, creative tools to connect with your kids and maybe even avoid a few meltdowns along the way, you're in the right place. Before we get into the practical tasks, I want to start with a little bit of neuroscience, because understanding how kids' brains work changes everything about how we approach talking to them.
Jon @wholeparent:Let's start with a big picture idea. Your child's brain is a work in progress. It's under construction. There's a foundation there, like breathing and eating and even emotional responses, but the fancy wiring for impulse control, long-term planning and reasoning it's still being installed. A lot of this fancy wiring happens in their prefrontal cortex, which isn't even developed until your child is into their mid-20s. That means a lot of what we expect kids to do, like calmly explaining their feelings or reasoning through a tough situation, is neurologically impossible for them to do. It's not that they're refusing to cooperate. It's that their brains literally haven't caught up to those expectations yet fusing to cooperate. It's that their brains literally haven't caught up to those expectations yet.
Jon @wholeparent:Research by doctors like Bruce Perry, a leading neuroscientist in child trauma and development, have shown that young children rely heavily on their limbic system, the emotional part of their brain to process the world. They aren't processing things in their prefrontal cortex the same way that adults do, because it's not fully formed yet. That's why they have big reactions to seemingly small, insignificant things. If you've ever given a three-year-old the wrong color cup, you've witnessed the limbic system in action. What's more, a developed prefrontal cortex is what allows us, as adults, to effectively delay gratification and not go for those things in the moment that might not be healthy for us in the long term.
Jon @wholeparent:What we have to realize as parents is that our kids are not just tiny adults. They experience the world completely differently because their brains are just different. They're driven by emotion and immediate needs and a desire for connection. That's where our communication matters the most, and that's why they don't just need to learn how to listen to us. We need to learn how to talk to them. When we yell and demand and bribe, we're speaking a language of our fully adult brains Reasoning, logic, authority. But to connect with our kids, we need to speak in the language of their developing brains Stories, play, empathy, curiosity. We need to speak in the language of their developing brains Stories, play, empathy, curiosity.
Jon @wholeparent:Two of my favorite authors in this area researchers in their own right. Drs Tina Payne, bryson and Dane Siegel wrote this book, the Whole Brain Child. I talk about it a lot. One of the things that's so memorable from that book is their upstairs-downstairs brain metaphor. The idea here is that the upstairs brain, the prefrontal cortex, comes offline. It goes dark when the downstairs brain starts to drive. They write. When a child is upset, they're operating from their downstairs brain. Our job as parents is to help them climb the stairs. That's why connecting first before correcting becomes so incredibly important.
Jon @wholeparent:A child who feels heard and understood is far more likely to cooperate than one who feels dismissed and controlled. But that's not the only way that their brain differs from an adult. Kids also process language differently because they have a different attention span. Using complex big words doesn't work for them. They need simple and concrete communication. For example, if you say something like pick up your toys, we have guests coming over and it's going to be easier for everyone to walk around, that might make sense to your adult brain, but to a child that's just way too much information. A child's brain latches on to the first and the last thing they hear, which leaves out the middle the first and the last thing they hear, which leaves out the middle. In this case, your reasoning. Translating that same idea into kid language would sound something like let's pick up your toys so we have room to play with our friends. It's the same idea, just said in a way that they can actually understand.
Jon @wholeparent:Lastly and this one's really big often it's not even what we're saying, it's how we're saying it. When we communicate with our kids out of anger or frustration, they pick up on that emotion more than they pick up on what we're saying at all. The mirror neurons, the neurons in their brain that mimic what they see out in the world, especially the actions and impressions of their parents, fire, and they're more likely to throw a tantrum, not because what we're asking is unreasonable, but because they are triggered by us being triggered. On the other hand, when we stay calm and use really thoughtful, constructed language, we actually show our kids how we want them to receive that language. And so if you're frustrated that your kid is having a meltdown over what you're saying, the question is not only am I communicating with them in a way that they can understand, it's also am I communicating in a way that's making them feel threatened or anxious? Here's the big takeaway If you want to get through to your kids, you have to understand their incredible and yes, often frustrating brain. Their brains are building connections every day, and how we communicate with them is a huge part of what shapes that process.
Jon @wholeparent:Okay, now that we've talked about why this stuff is important, I want to give you five really creative hacks that I use to communicate with my kids in ways that actually work. I'll give you each hack and then I'll explain briefly why it seems to work. Feel free to use these exactly as I lay them out, or to adapt them for your kid. Not all kids are the same and so not all metaphors are going to work the same way. Here are just five that seem to really work for my kids, and it makes sense because they work with the brain and not against it. Okay, kid communication hack number one I call this iPad bugs. I kind of alluded to it in the introduction.
Jon @wholeparent:If you have kids who are a certain age that they're starting to use and utilize screens, you know that it can be really really hard to get them off of those screens. The reason that it's really hard to get kids off of screens is pretty simple Dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in our brain, basically a messenger that communicates things, and dopamine is the neurotransmitter that communicates. Very simply, give me more of this thing. What we know with adults is that dopamine is released when we do pleasurable experiences. For example, a lot of dopamine is released when we are intimate with our partner, whether that's physical intimacy or even emotional intimacy.
Jon @wholeparent:What we don't often think about is that for our kids, screens are dopamine superchargers. That's why Dr Anna Lemke, a psychiatrist at Stanford and author of the book Dopamine Nation, says that screens themselves are alluring and potentially intoxicating to kids at any age. That means that when it comes time to get off the screen, often kids will have what's called a dopamine surge. It's a moment when your child's brain reacts to the stimulus that's triggering dopamine production in their brain by giving them a surge of dopamine to try and get them to fight back and get that stimulus back from you. This is why a lot of kids, especially neurodivergent kids diagnosed with ADHD, a condition that deeply impacts dopamine production in the brain, can have an almost feral reaction to the end of screen time. It feels like a threat to their survival and so they go into fight or flight, desperately scrambling to try and keep that dopamine coming.
Jon @wholeparent:Understanding how screens trigger dopamine in kids and then subsequently that dopamine surge causes kids to have a huge meltdown, is actually exactly what I'm communicating to my kids when we talk about iPad bugs. Most adults, I know, can't really fully grasp how neurotransmitters like dopamine work inside their own brain, but conceptualizing it is actually incredibly freeing, not only for adults but also for young kids. That's where I came up with the idea for iPad bugs. Basically, I explained it to my kids in this way After we have a particularly bad meltdown over the screen going away a dopamine-fueled tantrum what I call the iPad bugs wreaking havoc I'll talk to my kids about the iPad bugs and why they felt the way that they did. I don't try and do that in the moment. Researchers say that it takes about 5 minutes for the effects of a dopamine surge to wear off on kids, but often times I'll wait as much as 15 or 20 minutes before I readdress with my kid what just happened.
Jon @wholeparent:I'll start by asking them questions like how did that feel to have the iPad taken away? Or even what were you doing that made you feel like it was so bad to stop? I then validate their experience. I tell them that even adults struggle with screen usage, which isn't just something I say. I know this to be true of myself and so many parents that I know. And then I immediately pivot to talking about the iPad bugs, the real villain of our story.
Jon @wholeparent:Ipad bugs are the name that I've given to the dopamine that's triggered by screen use. I explained to them that while they're using a screen, they have little bugs in their brain that come out and say I want more iPad. I want more iPad, and I even use sometimes really silly voices for these. That I'm not going to do on the podcast, but you can imagine. I explained to them that the longer that they use the iPad, the more iPad bugs come out, and the more iPad bugs that are out, the louder they're going to be when it's time to be done with the screen. I explained to them that it's not really them who wants to keep using the iPad. It's the iPad bugs screaming at them that they want to keep going. And, most importantly, I explained to them that everyone, even grownups, have iPad bugs, and it makes it hard to stop.
Jon @wholeparent:What's truly amazing about this is where my kids probably would not understand anything that we just talked about with neurotransmitters like dopamine. Ipad bugs are a very clear picture of what's going on for them and, most importantly, it expresses to them a really deep and profound truth, which is that hormones like dopamine can deeply affect our mood and how we react to things. After two or three conversations like this, even my toddlers mood and how we react to things. After two or three conversations like this, even my toddlers can explain to me, when they're not in a dopamine surge meltdown, exactly what iPad bugs are all about and at some point, when they really internalize it, we can start using that iPad bugs language before the tantrum happens, oftentimes significantly shortening them or avoiding them altogether when they start to feel that dopamine surge and they want to react. All I have to say now is I hear those iPad bugs coming out and oftentimes my kids will smile and playfully tell those iPad bugs to get the heck out of here. I'm trying to move on with my day. Of course, this doesn't mean that we never have problems getting off the screens. Things change over time. My eight-year-old is less affected by this language than he once was, but I would guess that we've avoided about 90% of that iPad-fueled dopamine rage just by learning how to talk in a way that they understand, that they can conceptualize and that they can draw on in moments of dysregulation, on in moments of dysregulation.
Jon @wholeparent:Okay, hack number two I call this tooth detective. This is the way that I talk to my kids about brushing their teeth. A lot of dentists I know will just use kind of a variation of the iPad bug idea. They call them sugar bugs and the idea is that you have to get into your mouth and clean all those sugar bugs away because they could eat at your teeth during the night, and if that works for you, that's fantastic. What I found in my personal life is that that creates a level of discomfort and fear around tooth hygiene that I just don't need in my life. So while I will still absolutely tell my kids that the reason that we brush our teeth is primarily to avoid cavities, which I will just explain to them as really uncomfortable bonks or injuries that they'll feel inside their mouth, really I try and make this into a game that I call Tooth Detective.
Jon @wholeparent:They've actually come to like it so much that at this point, even though my wife does bedtime for my middle two almost every single night, they still want me to be the one to come brush their teeth and play tooth detective. The game works like this I am the tooth detective. They open their mouth and I investigate their teeth, looking for all of the different things that they might have eaten that day. Some days I've spent almost the entire day with them, and so I know everything that they've eaten and I basically get a hundred percent. Other days, they've been watched by my wife or someone else, and that means that I have to guess what they've eaten. What makes this fun for them is that they are the ones who get to tell me yes or no. They're excited to tell me when I'm wrong and when I'm right, and so as I'm brushing their teeth, I say things like oh, I think there's a banana back here. Where did that come from? Is there some cereal up here in the front? Did you eat pizza today? They giggle and they laugh and they tell me whether I'm right or wrong.
Jon @wholeparent:This has been a huge one for us, because my oldest really did not like brushing his teeth and we didn't have any way to make it fun for him, and so I am really embarrassed to say we just didn't brush his teeth enough. As a result, when he was four, we took him to a dentist where he had some pretty significant cavities so significant, in fact, that he had to be put under general anesthesia so that he could have all of them taken care of. That experience was traumatic and difficult in its own way, and I'm sure in some future episode I'll talk about how to process trauma like that with kids. But suffice it to say our way of thinking about teeth brushing changed pretty drastically after that. But I didn't want to hold my kids down or force them to do this, because I knew that that would invoke its own level of trauma and discomfort. That was just unnecessary. So instead I thought about how they viewed things, I thought about the way that they understood their teeth and I tailored an approach that was specific to that. Kids may not understand bacteria and microorganisms that are present in sugar that can stay on your teeth and slowly eat away at the enamel. But what they can understand is that you shouldn't leave food in your teeth because it could cause problems. And so by simply playing tooth detective we accomplish the goal of getting them to brush their teeth while also making an enjoyable enough experience that they don't build a negative association with dental hygiene. Again. Does this mean that the moment that I started doing this, I've never once had a night when my kid didn't want to brush their teeth? Of course not, but the change between my first son and my next two kids has been absolutely profound. What was once a nightly and difficult battle has become a fun and engaging connection point at the end of the day. And that's ultimately the goal of really good communication to turn difficult moments into connection points.
Jon @wholeparent:Okay, hack number three is another one having to have around the house, whether it's a holiday or some other reason. Rather than trying to communicate with their mouth, I communicate with their belly, and then I communicate as their belly back to me. Let me give you an example. Let's say my three-year-old is asking for cereal for the third time today, not to shame anyone about their dietary choices with their kids, but to me that would probably not be something that I would want to encourage. Rather than just saying, no, you can't have cereal today, or you've had enough cereal today, I'll just default and talk to their belly. Hey, belly, what do you think Liam's mouth is saying? That he wants more cereal, that it tastes good. Do you need more cereal or do you need something different. That's when the belly chimes in. Yes, I understand that the mouth wants more cereal, but I need something with protein. To be clear, the belly has different voices, but I'm choosing the goblin belly voice today because it's probably the least annoying on a recording. Fairy belly is more like this and you don't want to hear me do that for the next minute.
Jon @wholeparent:The conversation between me and the belly continues. But, belly, the mouth really wants more cereal. Why do you need protein? Mouth wants more cereal because cereal tastes good. Lots of things taste good. Some things give me more to help grow.
Jon @wholeparent:Belly, are you saying that you never want to have cereal again? No, of course I like cereal, but cereal only one time per day, maybe in morning for breakfast time. Now is dinner time. I need sandwich, something delicious with peanut butter. Oh, maybe a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Does that sound good? Belly, peanut butter sounds good.
Jon @wholeparent:At this point we add Mouth back to the conversation. I don't communicate his mouth. Liam communicates his mouth, but I'll do my best impression of him. What do you think Mouth? Belly seems to want peanut butter. What do you want? I still want cereal. You still want cereal. Can we find something that Mouth and Belly both like if you don't like, a sandwich Pasta. Yeah, pasta sounds good, but belly was asking for some protein. Can we do pasta with sauce? This back and forth dialogue between dad, belly and mouth usually comes to a resolution where belly's needs are satisfied, while Liam still feels like he has agency in the choice and he's still picking something that works for him. The important thing to remember is that I'm communicating on behalf of my three-year-old's body. The truth is, his body will not feel as good if he doesn't get good nutrition. I'm just voicing that for him, so it doesn't become a command from dad. It becomes a conversation with his own body.
Jon @wholeparent:I want to pause here for a moment before we move on to hacks four and five, to address what is often an elephant in the room with these first three. When I talk to parents about these three, they will often say that I'm lying or somehow manipulating my kid. Explaining something to someone in a way that they will understand is not manipulation or dishonesty. There is a chemical in my child's brain that is demanding more of the screen. That chemical is dopamine. And just because I'm explaining dopamine as iPad bugs with a metaphor does not make it dishonest. It makes it age and developmentally appropriate communication that can actually lead to a deeper understanding of themselves and their world. The same is true with their teeth and their world. The same is true with their teeth. I'm not actually finding bananas in their teeth, but I am trying to eliminate the residue that came from the banana, even though it's microscopic, and I can't see it. To a toddler, something that is so small that you cannot see it does not exist, and so I express to them that I can see something because it helps them understand that it actually exists. Again, not dishonesty, just explaining in terms that they can understand.
Jon @wholeparent:This last one, talking to the belly, is the one that I get the most pushback from. It feels wrong to express what's happening in a child's body when you can't actually know. But take a step back for a moment. You know what you would feel like if all you ate all day was sugar. It would not be that your mouth stopped liking that sugar. It would be that your belly, your digestive system, started to reject it. So is it really that much of a stretch to communicate ahead of time to future project something your child's prefrontal cortex is not yet developed enough to do and say I'm not going to feel good if I stay on this less healthy trajectory.
Jon @wholeparent:The key here is understanding that educating a child is a discipline of negotiation. We have to teach kids things in ways that they can actually internalize and understand, and a lot of good can come from us communicating things that most people think are too complex for children to understand in simpler ways that they actually can. So if any of these make you feel uncomfortable, feel free to not use them or to adapt them in ways that feel more honest to you. But I wanted to address, before I move on, that this can feel a little uncomfortable to adults raised in Western culture that doesn't use myth and story the same ways as our ancestors did, ways that often are the best way to communicate with a child's brain. Okay, hacks four and five I'm not actually going to give you examples of because we're out of time on this episode, but I did want to offer them to you as tools that you can use if and when it makes sense to use them. Unlike the first three, these are not tools of what we communicate. These are tools of how we might communicate better.
Jon @wholeparent:The first one is choosing to sing your words rather than just speak them or explain them. Researchers have found that music impacts the brain in a really unique way. Specifically, it activates both the limbic system the downstairs brain, as Tina and Dan call it and the prefrontal cortex the upstairs brain at the same time. What this means is that when you sing something to your child, they're more likely to actually be able to internalize and hear it. Similarly, if your child is struggling with a specific behavior or a concept or some rule of society, creating a song about that thing can help it be memorable and accessible in moments of dysregulation. If you're looking for a list of songs that cover a wide variety of topics and tend to be really effective with young kids, go and check out Daniel Tiger. I'm not sponsored by PBS or the Fred Rogers Corporation or anything like that. I just think Daniel Tiger has the absolute best songs that you can sing to your kid. Whether it's potty time or frustration or loneliness or fear, that can absolutely be a game changer. So the next time you're really struggling to communicate a concept to your child, try singing it. The last one is another Mr Rogers classic, and that is Hack 5, use, use puppets.
Jon @wholeparent:In my experience with children both my own and many other children, I have found that kids are so much more willing to listen to and communicate with a puppet than with an adult. Puppets are just magical and I hope that somebody studies this someday. I've started to utilize puppets in my own parenting and it has totally taken it to the next level, especially with kids who are in that three, four, five-year-old age range. Concepts that I teach my kids with a puppet seem to stick significantly better than concepts that I explain as their dad. Again, a lot of the neuroscience behind this I don't understand. What I know is that it works. And if you're thinking to yourself right now but, john, I don't have any experience as a puppeteer, I don't even have any puppets around my house, that's okay.
Jon @wholeparent:A puppet to a child can just be a stuffed animal that you hold and use a silly voice for. I remember this one time when we were trapped in a traffic jam in Chicago. It was hours and hours of sitting strapped into a car seat and my kids were absolutely losing it. I saw that we had a little Lilo and Stitch stuffed animal. It was Stitch and I picked it up and I started to talk to my kids as Stitch. Suddenly, all of the anxiety and dysregulation of the situation completely disappeared. My kids started having fun with Stitch, talking to him, playing games with him, and the time passed so much more quickly and with so many fewer tears and tantrums. Stitch wasn't even a puppet. I was just holding him in a way where I bounced him on every word and I faced my face away from them so that they didn't see my mouth moving. But even that was probably unnecessary. Kids want to believe, and so, if you even give them the opportunity, they will believe in the puppet. If there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it's that the way that we talk to our kids has the power to shape not only their behavior, but also their sense of self-connection, their emotional development.
Jon @wholeparent:Whether it's using puppets or singing or metaphors like iPad bugs talking to their belly or being a tooth detective, these approaches aren't just about getting your kids to cooperate in the moment. They're about building trust, connection and communication habits that are going to last them a lifetime. So this week I challenge you to try one of these hacks. Maybe it's just rethinking a part of your daily routine and singing about it, or finding a playful way to explain something to your kid. That usually is met with resistance, whatever it is, approach it with the mindset that communication is primarily about connection, not compliance. I want to leave you with one more metaphor. Say a person came to work next to you at your job who didn't speak the same language as you. Would you just continually tell them things in your native language with increasing intensity, until they finally got the picture? Or would you learn to communicate in ways that would actually work with the way that they understood the world and communicated themselves? Kids aren't just mini-adults who we can shape and form using our adult-centric language. They have to be communicated with on the terms that their brain development allow, and so go out there and learn how to speak, kid, because it will absolutely change not only your life but theirs too.
Jon @wholeparent:If this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. You can leave a review on Apple Podcast. You can rate this show five stars. You have no idea how much it helps us to get the message out and make sure to email me. Tell me what hack you're excited to try or what creative communication skills you used after listening to this episode that worked really well. You can send that email to podcast at wholeparentacademycom or shoot me a message on social media at Whole Parent, as always. If you liked this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with another parent in your life who might find it helpful. And if you haven't pre-ordered my book, Punishment-Free Parenting the Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising your Voice, now is the time. It's packed with tools and insights that are really similar to what I talk about in the podcast. But just go deeper to help you parent with less stress and more connection. Until next time, I'm John. This has been the Whole Parent Podcast.
