The Life Of Bryony - 46. The Life of YOU: Kate Silverton on Tantrums, Big Emotions & Parenting with Confidence

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Welcome to The Life of YOU! The bonus series where we tackle your dilemmas and share advice to navigate life’s trickier moments. This week, I’m joined by Kate Silverton—broadcaster, child therapist, and bestselling author of There’s No Such Thing As ‘Naughty’. Drawing from years of research and real-life parenting experience, Kate helps us understand children’s emotions, why tantrums aren’t ‘bad behaviour’, and how we can build stronger connections with our kids. Together, we answer your questions about emotional resilience, big feelings, and how to parent with confidence—even in the toughest moments. Today: 💬 Shannon struggles to stay calm when her toddler has a meltdown—how can parents stop their child’s emotions from triggering their own? 💭 David’s 8-year-old shuts down when he’s upset—how can he encourage his child to open up without pushing too hard? 🤯 Emma asks why her 5-year-old has explosive reactions over small things—what’s the best way to help children manage frustration? WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU 🗣️ Got a question or a story to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB 💬 Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB 📧 Prefer email? Drop us a line at [e-mail] If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it—it really helps! Bryony xx CREDITS 🎙️ Presenter: Bryony Gordon 🎙️ Guest: Kate Silverton 🎧 Content Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan 🎥 Audio & Video Editor: Luke Shelley 📢 Executive Producer: Mike Wooller A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on The Life of You, the bonus episode where we tackle your dilemmas and crucially try not to make them any worse. I'm joined once again by Kate Silverton, who's here to answer all of your parenting questions. Invest that time and I promise you the bond between you will strengthen and they'll start finding it a lot more easier and quicker to come to you when they are having sort of troubling thoughts or worries. Kate Silverton coming up right after this. This Friday, grab your friends. Get to the theater and experience the movie audiences are calling an adrenaline rush of a good time.

It's a big screen blast. Find a badass. I know, all right. Novocaine, Friday. fees and not knowing if you're even making the right investments? With Questrade, you get the right tools, stock insights and proper guidance so you can become a better investor. It's time to get the financial future you deserve. Get yours, Questrade. Right. So the first question is from Shannon and she says, I try so hard to stay calm when my three-year-old has a meltdown, but sometimes it feels impossible. I end up snapping, then feel awful about it afterwards. I know I should be the adult, but in the moment their emotions

feel so overwhelming that I end up losing control too. How can I stop my child's emotions from triggering my own? Oh, great question. Well, the first is to recognize what is happening. And Shannon said it that because it's not our children that we find difficult, it's the behavior. So when we look at the behavior, so if we see it's quite frightening for even for a three year old and to see a three year old in the middle of total dysregulation. So it can trigger our own stress response and that sort of sense of our baboon because it feels threatening because we don't know what to do. So this is where the first thing then is to sort of acknowledge how we're feeling

because in that moment that allows your wise hour to swoop down to your own baboon going, it's okay, you've got this, it's alright. So even just taking a breath, doing what I call the palm pause, just even, you know, in that moment just even if you just step away, if you're safe to do so, or just turn your back just for a second, put your palms over your face and just take a deep breath if you can, acknowledging that it is hard and acknowledging that you've been triggered inside because sometimes just that awareness is enough to bring us down to a little bit of calm. Now the other thing and we've spoken about it is really understanding what's going on

for your three year old in that moment. They are not doing it to piss you off, okay? They are in the middle of what is really a neurochemical wildfire. So one, your self-awareness. Two, is acknowledging that they're not being naughty in that moment. They are in the middle of a massive physiological response and that you can help in that moment and you are empowered and equipped to do that by S-A-S-ing it, say what you sense, oh my goodness, you are so cross right now. And even just that act of raising your energy up

can be enough for your little three-year-old to kind of his baboon or her baboon going, oh, she seems to get how cross I am. There's a little flicker of connection and then wow, I get it it you really wanted the cereal box and mummy said no I get it sweetheart so you're going I really do see your distress right now and I'm sorry it's so hard darling come mummy can sit come on darling I know I know it's hard you're really cross you want to hit that pillow you can hit the

pillow not mummy so you're laying the boundary not mummy you're not gonna hit I know it's hard. You're really cross, you wanna hit that pillow? You can hit the pillow, not mommy. So you're laying the bandage, not mommy, you're not gonna hit me, sweetheart. You can hit the pillow because you're recognizing that there's a lot of energy in that little body going on and it needs to come out, but we're gonna teach our children how to do that safely. So at three, they cannot use too many words.

We can't use too many words with them. It's our energy, our tone, and we're basically holding the space saying I've got you I get that this is hard right now But I've got you so if you can that takes a little bit of work sometimes But I think understanding the science of what's going on for our children that they're not being naughty They're not doing it to piss us off even if it's in the middle of wait rows or Tesco's You know, it is just that they are having difficulty regulating and we've got this. When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in, we all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay, to remind us of our ability to believe.

Because their belief in us transfers to self-belief and reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business.

So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Enjoying yourself? I thought so. So let's do this weekly. Please hit subscribe now and never miss an episode. So the second question I think is really interesting because it's the same thing, but the opposite side of the coin. So this is from David and he says, my eight-year-old goes completely silent when something is wrong. If I ask what's bothering him, he shrugs or says nothing. I don't want to push too hard, but I also don't want him bottling everything

up. How do I help him to open up when he won't talk?" Yes, it's very hard for children. It's hard for us to find the words, isn't it? If we ask each other how we feel, we can't always find the words, and particularly for seven and eight years old. So again, we're going to think when we say what's bothering you, we're asking our children to use their prefrontal cortex, which is still developing, and it's quite hard. If we're in an emotional place, something's happened, maybe we feel a bit ashamed, maybe our best friend said they won't play with us, something's happened, it's put us in a bad, sometimes we won't even know, like we just feel a bit pants, you know.

So in that moment we can just acknowledge again and we use what's a brilliant acronym, WINE, W-I-N-E, so we can ask, I'm wondering, I'm wondering if everything's okay sweetheart you seem a bit quiet, I'm fine, okay it's all right, well I'm here, if you want to talk a bit later, I have something with my kids that we call a code red, you know has there been a code red today and they might sort of nod but it's like do you want to talk about it now or later and they they might go later. And then when the lights are off and you lie down at night and put them to bed. So I would say in that moment, the I'm wondering can be quite a good one. If your child shuts down, it's okay. They might not be

able to access the words just yet, but offering the space, okay, you just seem a little bit quiet. And I want you to know that I'm here. And if want to chat later that's great or maybe we can just snuggle up tonight and read a book. Now by opening up that conversation and just saying I'm here and I'm listening you might just find that when you're reading a book snuggled up side by side in bed that night they might just blurt it out because children do want to get it out they just don't always know how. The other thing is we can ask I imagine, so I for imagine. I imagine it might you might have had a difficult day today. Again you're not expecting, you don't feel that you have to get a response in that moment. The N

is for noticing, I'm noticing you seem a bit quiet and then the E empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, like you know just kind of I'm here for you, I'm here to listen and sometimes sharing our own experience of when you know, just kind of, I'm here for you. I'm here to listen. And sometimes sharing our own experience of when, you know, it's okay, sweetheart, I know I don't sometimes want to talk when I'm feeling a little bit low, but you do know that I'm here for you and I can always help. Okay, so I'm here. And just that very soothing, I'm curious about your experience, I'm not going to force it, but I'm here. And you'll often find your child will then just blurt it out, often late at night when you haven't got any time of your

own when you want to get down for Netflix. But invest that time and I promise you the bond between you will strengthen and they'll start finding it a lot more easier and quicker to come to you when they are having sort of troubling thoughts or worries. Thank you, Kate. A massive thank you to Kate for all of her practical parenting advice today. If you found this conversation helpful, please send it to a friend or another mom or dad who might need to hear it. And don't forget to hit follow or subscribe, and if you're feeling particularly generous, leave us a review.

It really helps us to get this content out there to people who need to hear it. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you next time.