my story
How I got here
My daughter was about two when she stubbed her toe, huffed, puffed, and said "fucking hell."
I wasn't cross with her. I was just suddenly very aware of what she'd been watching. She wasn't doing anything wrong, she was doing exactly what she'd seen. And that was the moment I stopped being able to tell myself it wasn't that bad.
I'd been a psychologist for years by that point. I understood why people get stuck. I understood patterns, and loops, and why knowing something and being able to do it are two completely different things. I knew all of it.
What I came to understand, properly, in my own life, not just in a clinical setting, is that shouting is what happens when you've been trying the same thing on repeat and it keeps not working.
You want a different outcome and you keep not getting it. The frustration builds, and eventually it explodes.
I started paying attention to the loop. Where it started. What I was doing that wasn't working. What I needed instead. It got easier. Not because I tried harder, trying harder had never been the answer, but because I started using the right tools at the right points in the build-up.
I still lose it sometimes. But where it used to be most days, it's now once every few months. And when it happens, I know exactly what to do next.
That shift is what I built my work around. Because if it took me that long to crack the practical application, then the advice most parents are working with was never going to be enough. You don't need more information. You need the right tool for the moment you're actually in.
