Everyone struggles sometimes when their kids have strong opinions or feelings and they need them to just do the thing already. And when frustrations are high, it can be easy to slip into the kind of old-school parenting a lot of us were raised with and that we might be trying not to replicate.

Our guest today, Kirk Martin, host of the Calm Parenting Podcast, knows those struggles intimately. In our conversation, he shares his journey with his son, Casey, and how he came to realize that he needed to throw out the old-school parenting playbook and change his whole way of thinking about autonomy, respect, and collaboration with his child.

We talk about why clinging to parental autonomy isn’t actually useful when you’re in a power struggle with your kid and what parents who might be at their wits’ end can do to shift those dynamics in a positive direction.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Kirk’s own oppositional tendencies gave him insight into the feelings and fears underneath the power struggles
• Strategies for giving kids autonomy while maintaining boundaries and guardrails
• Why parents have to manage their feelings of embarrassment or shame when their kids don’t do things the “right” way
• Reframing disrespect and attitude as information that something’s up and an opportunity to connect
• Normalizing that things will go wrong and allowing yourself compassion
• Why Kirk encourages parents, and especially dads, to problem-solve with their kids like they would with their coworkers

Learn more about Kirk Martin:

• Celebrate Calm
• Calm Parenting Podcast
• Instagram: @calmparentingpodcast

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

All of us have some level of innate desire for autonomy and equality. But for some, the need for autonomy and equality tangles with Survival Brain in ways that have major impacts on their well-being, even overriding basic survival needs like food, sleep, hygiene, or physical safety.

Though it can sometimes look that way from the outside, PDA (Persistent Drive for Autonomy or Pathological Demand Avoidance) is not just a knee-jerk, “You can’t tell me what to do!” PDA causes outsized reactions to perceived threats–threats which can be invisible or confusing to parents, educators, and therapists.

Today’s guest, PDA expert Casey Ehrlich, defines PDA as a nervous system disability that requires a holistic approach that goes beyond in-the-moment behavioral intervention. In our conversation, she movingly recounts how her personal experience raising children with PDA caused her to turn her research background to understanding what PDA is and developing and validating an approach to managing this challenging disorder. And we talk about PDA’s impacts on kids and families, what makes it so mind-bending for outsiders, and how sometimes disrupting and confronting systems can be a benefit of having a PDA brain.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why Casey defines PDA as a neurotype separate from other kinds of demand avoidance seen with autism, executive dysfunction, or anxiety
• Five common elements of PDA that can help parents identify and differentiate it from other concerns
• How PDA-ers’ orientation toward autonomy, equality, and justice can become a source of personal and community strength
• How a drive for autonomy can show up with other neurotypes, and when it crosses into PDA
• Casey’s experience navigating two very different presentations of PDA and burnout with her two kids
• Tools for parents to observe patterns and collect data, (mostly) keep their cool, leave space for their own feelings, and protect their boundaries and sense of self

Learn more about Casey Ehrlich, PhD:

• At Peace Parents
• Instagram: @atpeaceparents
• Facebook: @atpeaceparents
• YouTube: @atpeaceparents
• At Peace Parents Podcast

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• PDA North America
• PDA Society
• Rabbi Shoshana
• Amanda Diekman | Low Demand Parenting
• What is DIRFloortime?

There are many ways to do therapy, and many reasons why people gravitate to certain modalities, both as patients and practitioners.

And while there are some who will insist that their way is the way, we’re happy to acknowledge where our preferred methods overlap and diverge with others, and how different therapies can help people arrive at the same place of better self-understanding and moving through the world with more ease.

Today, we’re chatting with Gillian’s longtime friend and Cognitive Behavioral Therapist extraordinaire, Sarah Markowitz. We get into what’s similar in CBT and a psychodynamic approach, what’s different, and why these schools of therapy tend to appeal to certain people. We also talk about the tricky balancing act between direction and curiosity for therapists, educators, and parents when engaging kids on behavioral change.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Sarah investigates resistance to change from a stance that is both directive and client-centered
• How building experience as therapists leads to more overlap in our approaches than not
• The layers of thoughts, rules, and core beliefs that CBT uncovers over time
• How both therapists and parenting advice have shifted to be more descriptive than directive
• How Sarah’s logical, but not rigid, household, along with swimming, summer camp, and horses, shaped her ability to self-regulate and her default state under stress

Learn more about Sarah Markowitz:

• MindWell Psychology

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• EP 06 - Trickle Up!: Ron Williams On Purpose, Legacy, And Spreading Abundance
• Acceptance and commitment therapy
• Dialectical behavior therapy
• Marsha M. Linehan
• Aaron Beck
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents, Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD
• Dr. Ross Greene
• EP 09 - Fear, Resistance, And Flow: Paula Tursi On Letting Parenting Happen
• EP 08 - Keeping It Authentic (And Surprising): Dr. Matt Morrison On Raising Kids And Therapists
• Dr. Russ Harris

It might sound silly, or even impossible, to have a theory of everything that might show up in our clinical work.

And yet, when we’re sitting with people who are stuck or sitting with people that are suffering, so often it comes back to one of a few fundamental feelings, and all of the emotional gradations that come from them: safety, grief, and shame.

Today, we’re digging into these emotional primary colors that are at the root of so much of what we see in our clinical practices, how they show up and shape family dynamics, and how our personal experiences shape the lens that we bring to our work and how we frame the world.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The patterns of behavior shaped by safety and belonging that Gillian recognized in her clients as parallels from her childhood
• Why nurturing an environment that is consistently safe and loving is a lot harder than it sounds
• How feelings of unsafety, grief, and shame show up for parents and kids
• How shame functions as a product of survival fear and also a measure of if we deserve to be seen and loved
• Why family and child counseling often needs to start with the parents and the family system

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Extreme - More Than Words
• Hurvich, Marvin. (2003). The Place of Annihilation Anxieties in Psychoanalytic Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 51. 579-616. 10.1177/00030651030510020801.
• Winnicott, Donald W., 'Fear of Breakdown', in Lesley Caldwell, and Helen Taylor Robinson (eds), The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott: Volume 6, 1960-1963 (New York, 2016
• Melanie Klein
• Donald Winnicott
• Ep 09 - Fear, Resistance, and Flow: Paula Tursi on Letting Parenting Happen
• Trauma and Recovery The Aftermath of Violence–From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, Judith L. Herman, MD
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD
• Wilfred Bion

Fear has a way of obstructing our development as people, as parents, and partners and friends. Our anxieties make us grasp for control when what we really need to do is get out of the way and let things unfold.

Easier said than done.

Today, we have Gillian’s dear friend and “soul mother,” Paula Tursi, with us. Paula is a New York-based yoga and meditation teacher, spiritual guide, writer and thinker who is at once deeply spiritual and highly pragmatic. In our conversation, we talk about the role of fear in the challenges we face, how she transformed her relationship to fear, and how getting out of our own way can change our lives and our parenting.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Defining the roots of fear through the lens of survival and internal resistance
• How the way we’re seen in childhood ripples through our lives, for good and ill
• How the way we assign meaning to our visceral feelings impacts how we live and parent
• Balancing parental guardrails and trusting kids to know themselves and what they need
• How accepting where we are in the moment helps us move forward and live more fully
• How to show kids they’re loved, safe, and seen even at the hardest moments

Learn more about Paula Tursi:

• Website
• Instagram: @paula_tursi_life_design

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Establishing safety and trust is how we create connections and personal change, in therapy and in life. If we aren’t open to new experiences or perspectives, it’s a lot harder for any of us to get to all the good, gushy, connected stuff that helps us grow.

Today, we're with our friend and colleague, Dr. Matt Morrison, who is the training director of Long Island University's Psychological Services Center. Matt brings his experience supervising student psychologists and joins us to talk about his work on the therapeutic stance (aka how to be as a therapist). We get into how discipline and discovery in the therapeutic relationship counteract anxiety and fear, how that connects with stepping out of self-fulfilling prophecies and allowing for surprise in parent-child relationships, and the advice we’d give to student and early-career therapists.

Matt also shares his experiences of growing up with a depressed parent, how being the center of a parent’s world creates pressure and conflict, and how honesty and hanging in there together can bring healing to the relationship.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The basics requirements of a therapeutic stance that promotes reflection, positive risk-taking, and change
• Why therapy and parenting require a capacity for surprise, along with discipline
• How anxiety blocks coming from a stance of curiosity as therapists and parents
• The challenge of balancing curiosity and honesty in relationships
• How developing self-awareness of our internal competing interests builds agency to create change
• How Matt’s parents modeled honesty and willingness to engage in conflict, even at the toughest times

Learn more about Dr. Matt Morrison:

• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Ask any activist or philanthropist why they do what they do, and they’ll likely have a story about why they care so deeply about their causes. Sometimes those stories go even deeper than they consciously realize.

Today’s guest, Bradley Tusk, philanthropist, venture capitalist, author, and one of Rob’s dearest friends, is committed to ending childhood hunger and saving democracy through mobile voting. Our conversation delves into progressive politics and the tensions that can exist between implementing policy and lived realities, especially in schools.

And while it does get heated, we ultimately uncover a deeper, more vulnerable understanding of the parts of Bradley’s story that motivate him to do this work. Per usual, it comes back to childhood.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• What working in city and state government in his 20s taught Bradley about tangible impacts and the psychology of politicians
• How social inadequacy, superiority, and othering show up across the political spectrum
• The challenges Bradley sees to government that more effectively and equitably serves its constituents
• The tension between the needs of students and the needs of teachers and administrators in educational policy and funding
• Breaking down the roots of Bradley’s intense motivation to put children first, politically and personally
• How mobile voting could bring real constituent accountability to politics

Learn more about Bradley Tusk:

• Website
• Substack
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Solving Hunger
• The Mobile Voting Project

Survival brain impacts the way we parent, and in many ways, it’s the bedrock of our cultural myths. A survival mindset frames the world as a zero-sum game where we have to fight each other for resources. In this model, individualism and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps are the only ways to succeed, and are equated with moral goodness.

We see the impacts of survival-based thinking all around us. People seek external, material markers of status and success that have them always reaching for the next thing and, therefore, never reaching satisfaction.

Our guest today is Ron Williams, a venture builder, systems thinker, and Gillian's bestie. Ron’s big idea – that there is enough for all of us and we’re in this together –asks us to rethink our metrics for success to create positive change for individuals and communities. We talk about evolutionary and psychological underpinnings of selfishness and empathy, and swapping out greed with social good.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How zero-sum, short-term thinking contributes to social instability and unsatisfying lifestyles
• Why leaning too hard on one survival strategy often backfires, whether in parenting or in business
• How the relentless pursuit of money, status, and power breaks down capacities for empathy and connection
• What it takes to shift the narratives about wealth and status and inspire people to think collectively
• How Ron’s early exposure to both possibility and inequality in America shaped the ways he questions our systems, and informs how he parents

Learn more about Ron Williams:

• Co-Created
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan