Most of us inherited the way we parent. We either admired how we were raised and set out to do the same thing, or we hated it and ran in the exact opposite direction. Either way, the blueprint was drawn by someone else.
Very few of us ever sat down and chose. Chose how we communicate. Chose how we let our kids communicate with us. Chose how we discipline, how we encourage, how we respond when they're falling apart.
I get it, because I was that parent. "I don't need anybody telling me how to raise my kids." Then I took a child development course, educational psychology courses, and became a teacher, and realized how much I didn't know about parenting. I learned what kids are actually capable of at each age, and why they melt down. I learned how to respond so they don't shut down or explode, but learn to actually communicate.
Nobody handed us that knowledge.
We were just expected to figure it out.
This is where you stop guessing.
What if the backtalk isn't disrespect, and the real reason changes how you hear it?
What if the shutdown isn't your kid ignoring you? What if it's them telling you something they don't have words for?
What if your kid storms off to their room mid-conversation, and it has nothing to do with defiance?
What if "because I said so" isn't landing, and it has nothing to do with them bucking authority?
What if the backtalk isn't disrespect, and the real reason changes how you hear it?
If you read those and thought "no, my kid is just being disrespectful," good.
You're exactly who DSUYK is for.
Whether you are skeptical or curious, come see what I'm talking about.