Ripples of Resilience

Episode 9: Love And Limits: Raising Resilient Kids

• Jana Marie Foundation • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Conflict doesn’t mean something’s wrong with your family. It simply means everyone’s needs actually matter. We sat down with clinical child psychologist and mindfulness teacher Dr. Peter Muttminy to unpack how everyday clashes can become moments of learning, connection, and real growth. From preschoolers who need clear limits, to elementary kids obsessed with fairness, to teens chasing identity and belonging, we outline what changes at each stage and how to respond with a mix of warmth, structure, and skill.

Together we break down the Nonviolent Communication framework into four steps you can use tonight: name what happened without judgment, recognize the feelings below the surface, connect to core needs on both sides, and make a specific, doable request. We pair that with active listening that avoids the empathy-killing “but,” and a practical “reflect and redirect” move that helps kids reach their own goals while meeting your boundaries. When emotions run hot, we talk about calling a respectful timeout, not as punishment, but as a reset, followed by a quick huddle to set a better plan.

Most importantly, we reframe discipline as teaching. The aim isn’t compliance for today; it’s self-regulation for life. By shifting from manager to consultant as kids grow, you help them internalize values, make wiser choices, and recover faster from mistakes through honest repair. If you’ve ever wondered how to keep authority and still build trust, this conversation offers clear language, concrete examples, and compassionate structure to calm conflict and strengthen your bond.

If this episode helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s in the thick of family negotiations, and leave a quick review to help more caregivers find these tools. Your small actions create big ripples.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for immediate support.

This podcast is brought to you by Jana Marie Foundation and A Mindful Village.

Jana Marie Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in State College, Pennsylvania which harnesses the power of creative expression and dialogue to spark conversations build connections, and promote mental health and wellbeing among young people and their communities. Learn more at Jana Marie Foundation.

A Mindful Village is Dr. Peter Montminy's private consulting practice dedicated to improving the mental health of kids and their caregivers. Learn more at A Mindful Village | Holistic Mental Health Care for Kids.

Music created by Ken Baxter.

(c) 2025. Jana Marie Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

This podcast was developed in part under a grant number SM090046 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA, HHS or the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Welcome to the Ripples of Resilience podcast by Jana Marie Foundation, where we'll explore practical ways to support young minds and foster emotional resilience. I'm your host, Marisa Vicere, president and founder of Jana Marie Foundation. Conflict is inevitable in any relationship, especially between children and adults. How we respond can either create distance or build stronger connections. In today's episode, we'll explore practical strategies to approach disagreements with empathy and understanding, turning everyday conflicts into opportunities for learning, growth, and deeper connection. I'm thrilled to be joined by our resident expert, Dr. Peter Montminy, a clinical child psychologist, certified mindfulness teacher, and parenting coach from a mindful village. Welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Montminy.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Thank you, Marisa. Good to see you again.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Thank you. So let's dive in. Why do conflicts between children and adults happen so frequently, even in otherwise loving families?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Well, different people have different needs. Boom. I actually gave a short answer for a change. Right? So at different ages, developmental needs are going to be different, right? Temperamentally, we have different sensitivities. Some people like, you know, more activity or less activity or many, many different needs, right? So where you have close living quarters of any different people with different needs and different strengths and struggles, too. We all have different strengths. This is easy for me, but hard for you, right? Or I struggle to, you know, do it this way, but that's a struggle for me because I don't struggle that way. So pause, breathe. We have these differences. How can we live within those differences lovingly? Is just a key for human nature, human families, tribes, communities, cultures, right? Red large. And the other component to that is really, especially when we're in families that are caring. If you didn't care, you'd be indifferent. And there wouldn't be conflict. So actually caring inherently includes conflict. Versus we think we have to be happy all the time or harmonious all the time, and we have to be afraid of discomfort or conflict. No, let's allow our love to be big enough to hold and include I care enough that sometimes we're going to have differences, and I care enough to be in conflict with you. Now, this episode today is about how do we do that constructively, not destructively, yeah?

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Absolutely. And you mentioned that we're all at different stages of development, and that's especially true as our kids grow around us. And so how does that influence the way that our children handle conflict?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah. We can think of preschoolers or tots. We'll start there and then we'll do elementary school and then middle and high school. So I break it down often into tots, tweens, and teens. Just my alliteration fixation, as you know. So the tots, the the pre-operational thinking, they have magical thinking, right? Which is why it's such a fun, creative time, the magic years. Uh a famous book by Thelma Freiburg many, many years ago, still worth reading. Um, uh at Fantasies by Day and Fears by Night, right, is very rich in the preschool years. And they're very self-centered. They think they're very powerful, or the world revolves around them, or they can feel very powerless and that the world is kind of collapsing in on them. But clearly they're more self-centered, self-focused, and they're not thinking logically yet. They're thinking emotionally, and so they're gonna be clearly more impulsive and reactive. And what they really need from us is love and limits. We're gonna talk about at these three stages, shifting ears of emphasis, though at every stage, kids need our love and limits. But especially early on, these preschoolers are looking for autonomy as their greatest developmental task and figuring out what they can and can't do. So they they need our loving no's as well as our loving yeses, our loving limits, right? Very clearly stated. And we're gonna have conflict around that. So let's accept that this is a developmental part of parenting little young kiddos. And the more we cannot get into, well, let's have this rational conversation or let's see if it's okay if this or worry about, but I don't want my kid to kind of have a meltdown. Pause, breathe, love and limits, including allowing them to get frustrated. You cleanly follow through with that limit, and eventually they learn to conform to it, and it's less friction-laden. So I'm getting a little carried away there, but if that makes sense, and that's some of the developmental needs and tasks of that age group and what we want to do parenting-wise. With our our uh middle childhood kids and elementary school kids, now they're into concrete operational thinking on PIJ's developmental scale. And they're really into now what I call more the scientists. They're they're experimenting and they're looking at things that are clear, logical, concrete. They're very much now into more rule-governed behavior, and this is where fairness and the idea of fair and unfair really starts becoming really a big issue. Um, their big task is mastering. It's mastering academic tasks, mastering social tasks, managing self-care tasks. It's managing these concrete parts of daily living. And so they really care about that and trying to figure out what are the rules and what's fair and unfair, especially as it pertains to me. So here we want to respond more with love and logic, warm empathy to whatever their struggle may be, and logical rules and consequences that go with it. We want to be able to set those reasonable rules and follow them as consistently as possible with some flexibility, never rigid, yeah? And then in the teen years and adolescence, we're developing more in Piagetian terms, formal operations, so the capacity for abstract thinking and introspection more and looking beyond the immediate kind of time and place and observable situation to more of the internal feelings, the nuances, what does this mean for my future? And the psychosocial developmental task of teens is about all about identity and intimacy, forming who I am outside of the family unit and where I belong. So they're really looking at belonging as a core key. Uh and as they figure that out in a more kind of philosophical way or a more psychological way, you know, the meaning of friendship isn't no longer just, well, we like the same activity, so we play together. It's we have the same values and we can trust one another. And they're trying to figure out their own ethos of life and how that still matches ours or is going to be different from ours. So we start getting deeper conflicts around that type of thing. And here we want to keep providing love and limits still. We want to provide love and logic still. But the developmental task of parenting our teenagers, especially through age 13 to 18, is love and letting go, is gradually letting go of the control, not totally giving up. So it's a very gradual process. And as I said earlier, you kind of earn those privileges and freedoms by showing you're able to handle it more maturely. But really looking at gradually moving from the boss and requiring things and controlling more things to the an advisor, I often counsel parents on. And late teens, you move from being the boss and requiring things to more of an advisor and recommending things, and giving your kids the space to create their own identity, including make their own some of their own mistakes.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Thank you so much for pointing that out. I know in tuning into teens, one of the programs that we run here at the foundation, we often talk about that idea of moving from that manager to consultant role. And it's so hard because we want to be there to help protect our kids. And we also need to give them the freedom to become their own person.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Right on.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

And you've done a great job reminding us that conflict is inevitable, and it's because we care. And we know that it can be frustrating at times for both parties involved. It's also an opportunity for learning, connection, and problem solving. One of the frameworks that we often use and that can assist when we're caught in these moments of conflict is one by Marshall Rosenberg called Nonviolent Communication. What are the four components to the nonviolent communication framework?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah, and we've talked before, thrilled that I also have training in that and extensions of it in different mindful communication skills that are based on that work, very rich work. So we the four components, we start out one with observation, which is observation of factual on the ground, what is here, the behaviors, the observables, without judgment, without opinion, without as much like kind of filtering and spinning, if you will, trying to get to the bare bones of, hey, right now you're doing this, and when you do this, and I'm expecting that, so we can fill in whatever the blanks may be. You're playing on the screen, and when I say it's time to turn the screen off and come to dinner, or you're on your phone a lot when I'm asking you to look at me and have this conversation with me, often we have these friction points around screen time nowadays, right? So we can say, hey, I noticed that sometimes your behavior is doing this, and I'm asking you to do this, and we wind up arguing about it. And you're looking for common ground for the kid to go, yeah, that's true. Now, they may blame you for why that's happening, and you may blame them for why that's happening, but we want to stick to just basic observable behaviors and find some common ground that we can describe the conflict situation in those bare bones ways. Does that make sense?

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Absolutely.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

And then we want to go to the next step, which is beyond and you picture the iceberg floating on water, those observable behaviors are the tip of the iceberg. Step two is about addressing the underlying feelings and needs that are driving that behavior. That's really the bulk of what's going on. So we want to then check in with every behavior. What is a behavior? It's an external expression of some internal feeling or need. So we want to check ourselves, not just to be arguing and having power struggles over the observable behavior, but we want to pause and think, what's the underlying feeling going on that you know the kid is behaving that way because they're enjoying it or because they are trying to avoid something that makes them anxious, or right? What's the feeling? And so when we can understand their feeling and we can check and say, why am I getting so, you know, oh, I'm frustrated with this child, what's that frustration about? Which takes us to the third level, which really under undergirding the feeling is the basic needs. The child has a need for, again, autonomy. They want to get out and do things independently on their own. They have a need for mastery, they want to be able to do things their way. They have a need for belonging and fitting in with what they think is important to fitting in, these basic human needs. We say, oh, the kid's just doing it for attention. Well, attention is a basic human need. So how can we help the kid's behaviors get his need met for attention so he can feel maybe better about himself or feel more connected or affiliated? Need for affection. All these basic human needs. What's their human need in the moment that's driving that behavior? What's my need as a parent? My need. And again, we want to come back to what's my highest intention. I hope for my child to develop self-control. I hope my child to get along better in life. I hope to have more harmonious relationship with my child. I hope to be able to be respected and have my child learn to respect authority. We have all these different needs. So what we want to get to ultimately then is the fourth step, is a request that is addressing how we can meet your need and my need in the healthiest, smartest way, right? The smartest, safest way, the most constructive way. Let's see how we can meet your need and my need in a better way so that we can have more family fun and less family fighting. Bottom line, right? And that's that maybe one of my core needs is I care enough. What I really care about here, you know, isn't necessarily exactly about the computer or the phone. What I care about is you learn some responsibility, that we learn how to have differences and work them out more peacefully and productively. That's what I really care about. So how can we meet those needs in a better way?

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Thank you. I know one of the things that has helped us a lot with this framework is the idea that it reinforces the values that we have as a family. And so when we share, especially as our kids are getting older and moving into those teen years, when we can share why it's important. So it's not just about putting the phone away, it's about meeting the needs that we have as a family and also being aware of our family values that we have, that then we can work together for that request. And they start to understand the why a little bit more than mom's just being a pain again.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah, 100%. I often like to zoom out before zooming back in, I call it. And the zoom out is to always look at the what and the why before zooming back into the how. So that's beautiful. And the why is about what do we really care about? What are our basic needs, which is a hundred percent really a way of saying what do we value most in this family. And when you do that with kids often enough, you often find out you have more common ground than you think. So again, when you establish that common ground, listen, we want to do this so that we can get along better, so we can kind of get stuff done, so you can grow into being able to handle your business better and get and life can be easier instead of harder for you. I wish that for you. Do you wish that for you? Well, yeah, mom, dad, I do. Great. So now we're just down to the details of let's figure out then how we can do this part of our day or how we can handle this conflict a little bit better, understanding we have the shared values. Absolutely core way to approach it. And I my shorthand for that is the what and the why. What are we talking about here and why? What really matters based on our values. And then let's now collaboratively figure out the how. That you know, that's the details. Let's work on it. But we share this common value and goal.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Thank you for sharing more information about the nonviolent communication framework, the observation, the feelings, the need, and the request in using this as a way to really share about that why. While this framework can be really useful, this isn't the only framework that is out there or the only skill that we have to tap into. So, what are some of the other practical conflict resolution strategies that you know of?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah. We want to always remember to still start with that pause, the power of the pause. What's my intention here? What do I hope to achieve with my child? And then listen before speaking, right? Back again to s seek first understand before being understood. So we do that with active listening skills. Active listening skills is being present with your eyes and ears and heart and reflecting back to the child a sentence or two. So I hear you saying this, I understand you think this. I see that you really want or don't want this. It's a one-sentence acknowledgement of I really see and hear you. Let me get it and for more deep conversations, all right. Let me let me get this straight. What I what I think, you know, what I hear you saying is that you really feel that it's unfair that we do it this way and you really want it this way for this reason. Right? Good to know. And not but reflect and validate the feeling with active reflective listening. And not but, no buts. Yes, I understand you think that, but we need to do it this way in this household. As soon as you say but, you flush that empathy right down the toilet. So pause, breathe. Yes, I understand. Okay, now I'm hearing you that you think and feel this. Is that right? Yes, okay. And I need this, or I think this, or we still need to get this job done. I understand you want to play and you need to do your homework. So let's figure out how you can do your homework more quickly and easily so you can have more play time. It's the simplest equation. We're not opponents. We're not arguing about do your homework and you know, punishment, and you can't, I don't want you to play. Of course, I want you to play and be happy. So I understand you don't want to do homework right now. And let's figure out, given that you don't feel that you don't want to, let's figure out how you can do it more quickly and easily to get to some more of what you want. So it's reflecting and validating their feelings and then redirecting them to the appropriate behaviors to get where they want to go. Reflect and redirect to me is a core um core communication skill. And if you're struggling to figure out how they can get that homework done more quickly and easily, then you step into back to what we've talked about before, collaborative problem solving. Let's take a look again at your needs and my needs, expectations and limits, how you can work within that. What are some suggestions about what you think might work here? And we can do some mutual brainstorming, and then let's select one and try it and see, and let's pay attention over time, is this improving it or not? So we have a whole episode on collaborative problem solving. You can go back and look at those steps more closely. But we want to bring that in after starting with empathic active listening first.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Yes. And I know in our past episodes as well, you've talked about the idea of time in versus time out. Can you refresh us on what that is?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah. So for me, time in is paying attention to how we're talking, working things out, doing things together, problem solving together. Time out is when the feeling temperatures are too high, the the room, you know, it's too hot, we're we're we're being more reactive instead of thoughtfully reflective, we're just talking over each other, we're we're discobobulated. And I say we because it can be the child or the parent or both of us, right? So any time that somebody is too hot to handle a productive conversation, by definition, literally, let's just call a timeout. And timeout is not punitive, it is not about punishing or shaming. When you know, I work with kids, I say, look, when you watch a sporting event, when does a coach, a basketball coach, call a timeout? When his team is a mess on the floor and they're disco-bobulated and they're not flowing in their best, and he calls a timeout to bring people over to say, let's pause, breathe, and regroup. So a timeout is about we are out of sorts, you are out of sorts, or I'm out of sorts enough. We need to just call a timeout to come over to the sidelines to a quiet space somewhere to regroup, reset our energy, reset our thinking about this so we can make better behavior choices, absolutely. And then I get into all the exit interview or the debriefing. You come out of timeout with uh what's our game plan for doing better when we step on the floor of the game of life here, right? Yeah. And so that's maybe more for another day, too. But we we want to use that to really measure when the the feeling temperatures are too hot. Let's call that timeout to step away, regroup, and come back to use these other nonviolent conflict resolution skills.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

I think that's so important. I know one of the things we talk about in some of our programs is emotional coaching and that idea that it doesn't need to be all the time that we're using these skills. When we hear about collaborative problem solving and conflict management, it's there's gonna be times where our feelings are just too hot to engage in those. And what studies have shown is that if we're engaging in this 30 to 40% of the time, we're doing great, right? Like it doesn't need to be 100% of the time. It's not about getting it perfect every time. It's about recognizing what are our needs, what are the people's needs around us, and and reacting in those moments to those needs that we have. And sometimes we can do that pause and respond. And sometimes we just might need that timeout to be able to regroup ourselves before we fully engage in that conversation.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Completely, completely. And there's there's other other studies that support that as well in terms of what we call rupture and repair. It's actually healthier to have ruptures because it's more realistic when you can then repair them and come back and say, you know, my bad, or oops, you know, we got carried away, and model again, ownership for frustrations, mistakes, whatever. So there's nothing wrong about having conflict or even eruptions, not that they don't feel good and we don't want a lot of them, but when we have rupture, it is a beautiful learning opportunity to come back and repair it and show relationships can weather storms. That's a vital, powerful message.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

And I know that sometimes when we talk about conflict management or even nonviolent communication, the idea is out there that if we're using these skills and we're practicing them, then really we're just avoiding the discipline altogether.

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Right.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

But that's not really the case, right?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

No, absolutely not, not at all. Let's think about the idea of what is discipline in the first place and what's the point in it. Discipline comes from the same root word as disciple, meaning to teach or to learn. Effective discipline actually teaches the child a lesson, right? And not like just as a power control, I'm going to teach him a lesson. What's the lesson we actually want the child to learn? And when we can pause, breathe, and be intentional about that, then effective discipline is really anything that helps the child learn how to self-regulate better, learn how to manage their screen time or homework responsibilities better, learn how to control their temper better. So discipline, effective discipline is really about what are we doing to help the child learn to pause, breathe, and self-regulate themselves better. And these non mindful communication skills, nonviolent communication and these active listening and limit setting and timeouts, is all about strategic discipline. It's about getting the result you want so that you're you don't have to keep being heavy-handed with the carrots and the sticks, but your child actually internalizes regulation and they go from needing external discipline to internal self-discipline. And that comes about, that can come about through these constructive, empathic, supportive means combined with limit setting and then coaching and skill building. We put those pieces together across all our episodes. That's what you and I are trying to get out into the world and keep helping one another and all parents and teachers out there be able to do. You can connect these dots in a loving and firm supportive way that teaches our kids self-discipline so they're less dependent on the external consequences for making their behavior choices in life.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Thank you. Thanks so much for all this great information. We've gone over so many helpful tips today. Now let's see how we can put them into action. What do you think? What are some easy, or not easy, but what are some steps that we can take as caring adults in our community to help our young people?

Dr. Peter Montminy:

Yeah. Pause. Hey, I care enough about you to be real about when we have these conflicts. Conflicts are going to happen. They're because I care and you care about getting your needs met. Let's figure out what you feel in need and want and what I feel in need and want, and how we're going to work that out together in a way that makes sense. When, by the way, when you have these conversations, they're not 50-50. You're not sitting down at a table of equals. You're still the adult. You're the authority figure. This isn't conceding authority. This is saying, I am strong enough as the adult to say this is a problem. Let's take a look at what you're feeling and needing and what I'm feeling and needing and how we're going to work that out better with more ease and less dis-ease, right? So it's intention and mindset, and then using the language that supports that. Remembering to seek to understand with reflective listening before seeking to be understood with respectful speaking. And we model that and we repeat it over and over again, as you said, maybe less than half the time, but we keep building towards that and we keep strengthening the fabric of our relationships.

Marisa Vicere, Jana Marie Foundation:

Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Montminy, for again sitting down with us and looking at ways we can continue to grow resilience in the lives of young people. In our next episode, we'll be exploring self-compassion, what it really means to be kind and understanding toward ourselves, especially during challenging moments. We'll discuss practical ways parents and children can practice self-compassion, how it supports emotional resilience, and learning to treat ourselves with the same care we give others can transform the way we relate to our families and communities. This podcast is brought to you by Jana Marie Foundation, where we're dedicated to opening minds and saving lives through conversations that matter. And by A Mindful Village, where Dr. Peter Montminy provides holistic mental health care for kids and their caregivers. Together, let's keep showing up, speaking up, and supporting the young minds who need us most. Remember, even the smallest actions can create waves of change.