The Problem Isn’t the Meltdown - It’s How You Respond Ep 154

Your baby fusses in the car seat and your chest tightens. Your toddler falls apart when the block tower tumbles. Every instinct says — fix it, fast. 

But what if rushing in is quietly preventing the very thing you want to build?

This week on Talking Toddlers, Erin pulls back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood pieces of early development: resilience.

After nearly four decades in private practice, Erin has watched two patterns play out in mom after mom — the 'Rescuer' who soothes every whimper, and the 'Reprimander' who expects her toddler to handle big feelings like a four-year-old.

Both come from love. Both miss the middle. 

And the middle is where resilient children get built.

In this episode you'll learn:

→ The clear difference between real distress and productive struggle — and how to hear it 

→ Why resilience and emotional regulation are not the same thing (and how confusing them works against you) 

→ How co-regulation actually works — your calm is the curriculum 

→ The simple 3-word framework — Acknowledge. Encourage. Wait. — you can use today 

Erin also shares the story of why she stopped doing direct therapy after watching the children walking through her door change — and what that pattern is teaching us about prevention vs. intervention.

This is the kind of episode every new mom needs in her ears before her baby's first frustration — and the kind every overwhelmed mom needs to hear right now.

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DISCLAIMER:

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.

📩 Questions: contact@HyerLearning.com
 🌐 www.HyerLearning.com

Transcript

Erin 0:00

Resilience and emotional regulation. Are two different things, and if you confuse them and most people do, you will accidentally work against the very thing that you're trying to build. Here it is in plain language, emotional regulation is the skill of managing a feeling in the moment. Resilience is bigger. Resilience is the long game capacity Hello, and welcome to Talking Toddlers, where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. our goal is to develop clarity because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities, so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind, he's thriving through your guidance. We know that true learning starts at home, so let's get started. Picture this, you're driving to the store, just a quick run, diapers, milk, maybe coffee if you're lucky. Your baby is strapped in the back, safe, fed, dry, and then it starts that fuss, that whimper, that low grade cry, that sound that goes straight through your chest like a hook. Your hands tighten on the wheel. Your shoulders climb up to your ears. Every instinct in your body is screaming. Pull over. Get back there. Fix it. But here's the question I want you to truly think about today. Is that what your baby actually needs in the moment or. Is that what you need? Because those are two very different things, and learning to tell them apart, that's one of the most important skills you'll ever build as a parent. Today we're talking about resilience, what it actually is. And what it isn't and why almost everything new parents are being told about it right now is either too soft or too harsh. So let's dive in this beautiful topic. Welcome to Talking Toddlers. I'm Erin Hier, if you're new here. I'm a licensed speech language pathologist. I've spent nearly four decades in private practice working with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. A few years ago, I made the decision that changed the direction of my entire career. I stopped doing direct therapy, not because I didn't love it, I did. For the first half of my career, I felt incredibly blessed each and every day. I got to change lives through play. That was the job. I got to sit on the floor, follow a child's lead, build their trust, build and enhance language and connection, and then watch the family come back to life. There was nothing like it. But somewhere along the way, things started to shift. The families were the same, loving, committed, hardworking, doing their best, but the children who walked through my door, they were different. And seeing fewer and fewer of what I would call a clean, late talker. Right. You know, the kid who was just kind of slow behind his words and it would take him a little time. I understood how to support that. We would often close the gap, catch him up, and he was on his way. Instead, I began to see kids with stacks and stacks of issues, chronic meltdowns, poor sleep, picky eating, so severe. They were living on five foods, most of them beige, constipation. Sensitivities to clothes and sound and textures to every transition and speech delay. The reason they came to me in the first place, it always was in the backseat. It was secondary to all of these issues. That's when the question started keeping me up at night. Because I couldn't unsee the patterns. Most of what I was treating could have been prevented. Not all of it, but enough of it, enough that I had to do something different. So that's what I do here. I teach parents, new parents, especially moms. What I wish every family knew from day one. This episode is a part of a series leading up to a launch of my foundations course, which will kick off June 1st, and we'll talk more about that later. But for now, let's focus on this particular subject, resilience. here's why this matters. I run two small parent groups every week in person, and then two online, and in those rooms I see the same two patterns over and over again. Let me explain. Every week. Two camps and the same pattern. The first camp, I call them the rescuers. These are the moms who jump at every sound. Every whimper gets a bottle or a pacifier, a toy, a snack, a song. If their baby makes a noise that isn't pure delight, cooing, something in her body goes, fix it. Fix it. Gotta help them. And I understand truly the instinct comes from love. It comes from hormones. It propels us forward to act. It comes from wanting to be a good mom, from the culture that tells us women, a crying baby is a failing mom. But here's what's happening underneath. Every time that mom rushes in to soothe a small frustration, she's unintentionally teaching her baby. One thing, you can't handle this. Let me handle it for you. Now, the flip side to that, in camp number two, I called the reprimands. These are the moms who say things like, stop that. Oh, you're fine. Oh, nothing's wrong. Move along. Move along now to a new toddler, you know, 14 months, they're still working things out. A lot of their world is not fine. These moms want capable kids. I get that too. But they're expecting that new toddler to process big feelings or big frustrations and disappointment like a 4-year-old. And that message underneath it all, that's just as damaging or interfering with learning. It's saying your feelings are wrong. Your feelings are inconvenient. Don't bring them here. Just stay cool. Right. Neither of these moms is a bad mom. Let me say that. Clearly. I get it. I see it over and over again. Both of these types love their children fiercely, but both are missing the middle. And the middle is what really propels us the middle. That's where resilience gets built. It gets messy. It is very, very human. But that's where learning takes place in the middle. So let's start with, I think one of the most practical questions. How do you tell the difference between a baby who truly needs you and a baby who's just working through something? Because I'm always pointing out to the new moms and the new dads, this is why he's doing this. those two environments are not the same, right? They don't look the same, and once you begin to learn and hear it and see it, you can't undo that. Real distress sounds urgent. Is it escalates. It doesn't settle when you walk in the room or give them a look, right? Your baby is hungry or overtired, maybe something's you know, hurts them. They're sick. They're frightened, overstimulated that that cry says, I need you now. That baby needs you to step in fast with no lesson, no framework, just go. But then there's the other sound, right? What I call productive struggle. This one is different. It's a grunt, a whine, a fuss, a little ugh of effort. It's the sound of your baby reaching for a toy that's just out of grasp. Or trying to push him up and tummy me time, ugh. And my arms just aren't very strong yet. It's the sound of these efforts getting hard. It's the sound of your toddler whose tower keeps falling over and they can't figure out why. That sound says, oh gosh, this is tricky. Not, I'm scared, not I'm hurt, just. This is tricky, and those two sounds need two completely different responses from you. I'll give you an example from my own practice. A few years ago I was working with a family, a beautiful mom, a sweet little boy, about 11 months old. Every time he fussed, and I mean every time she was there. A toy in the hand before he could even reach for it, snack in his mouth, before he could even ask. Picking him up from his bottom before he even hit the ground. And she came to me because he wasn't talking, he wasn't pointing. He wasn't even reaching. And I had to say to her gently, honestly, he doesn't need to. You're doing it all for him. she wasn't doing anything out of cruelty or neglect. She was doing it out of love. she had trained him without meaning to That struggle was in an emergency and that mom would handle it. Here's the truth. You are going to get this wrong. Sometimes you'll miss a real distress cue and think it was just a fuss. You'll rush in on a productive struggle and wish you hadn't. that's not failure. That's just learning your baby. Nobody hands you a manual for this specific child. You build it one day at a time together. So now that you've got a better idea of what the foundation looks like, let's clear up something that gets muddled almost every time I bring this topic up. Resilience and emotional regulation. Are two different things, and if you confuse them and most people do, you will accidentally work against the very thing that you're trying to build. Here it is in more simple, plain language, emotional regulation is the skill of managing a feeling in the moment. Calming down, taking a breath, not hitting, not biting, not melting down on the floor in the middle of target. Resilience is bigger. Resilience is the long game capacity to move through something hard and then come out on the other side. Regulation is a tool. Resilience is the house you're building with that tool and a hundred different other tools, Think of it this way. Regulation is the hammer, and resilience is the whole house. Here's why this matters so much for you right now. if you believe your job is to make every bad feeling disappear, to get your child calm as fast as possible, every single time you're focusing on regulation. And in doing that, you accidentally prevent resilience from ever forming because resilience doesn't grow and calm. Resilience grows in manageable struggle. Your baby or your toddler who never feels a small frustration, never builds the muscle to handle a bigger one. Your toddler who gets rescued from every scraped knee, every dropped cracker, every fallen over tower, arrives at preschool with no experience recovering from disappointment. I, and when we wonder why so many kindergartners can't cope, this is not a mystery. This is math. So here's the part I want every new mom and dad to hear twice. You don't have to fix it. You have to be present through it. Babies and toddlers don't regulate themselves. They can't. The part of the brain that does that work isn't built yet and won't be for years. So what do they do instead? They borrow yours. This is what we call co-regulation, and it's one of the most important concepts in early development, and almost nobody teaches new moms. We mention it in passing. We give it a label, but rarely do we give you the full picture. Your nervous system is the thermostat. Your baby is reading, the temperature of the room. If you're panicked, they're panicked. If you're steady, they start to steady with you. Let me put it another way. Imagine you're traveling in a country where you don't speak a word of the language, you're tired. You're turned around and suddenly someone runs up to you. Arms are flying. The face is tight. The voice is loud and fast and boisterous. Even without understanding a single word, your whole body would go on high alert right now. Imagine the same scene, same stranger, same foreign words, but this time. The face is calm. The voice is soft. The gestures are easy, and you still don't understand a single word, but your body knows I'm okay. I can trust this. That's your baby. Every day, in every hard moment. They don't have the words yet, but they have you, your tone. Your face, your shoulders, your gestures, your breath, that's their curriculum. And here's where I want to be very direct with you, because I see this in my groups every week, and I've seen it for decades. If you are dysregulated, if you are panicked, rushed, frazzled, or anxious, your baby is absorbing that every time. So part of your job, and I know this is hard, trust me, I know it, but your job is to manage your own state. Not perfectly, not performatively, but just enough because your calm is not a bonus. Your calm is the intervention. Now, here's where I'm going to take you somewhere most parenting podcasts won't because almost everyone talks about resilience like it's a feelings topic. I'm here to tell you it's not. It's a deeply language-based topic, and here's why. When your baby is working through a small struggle. And you stay close and calm and you narrate what's happening. You are doing three things at once. The first thing, you are feeding their receptive language, the bank of words, they understand long before they can say them. The second thing you're doing is that you're giving them words for feelings. Words they'll use for the rest of their lives to name what's happening inside them. You are handing them the tools for self-awareness, and the third thing you're doing, you're teaching them that feelings have a beginning, a middle, and an end that this hard thing passes. That's huge. That's foundational. So let's make this practical. Here's a simple three step frame that you can use starting today. Here are the three words. Acknowledge, encourage and wait. Three words, three steps. Remember them, acknowledge, name what you see, short, calm, just a few words. Hmm, that's tricky. You are working hard. You want up uhoh? That's it. Not a paragraph, not a lecture. Three words, maybe four, because here's the key. When your baby is stressed, their ability to process language drops off a lot, right? They're vulnerable On a good day. Their language is just coming online, so it's hit or miss. We add frustration or disappointment, and most of your words fall right past them. They're not even attending to them. They don't even hear them, so don't flood them with more words. Anchor them. the second thing, encourage. So you cheer the effort, not the outcome, right? The effort. And there's a big, big difference. You say things like, oh, almost keep going. You've got it. Try this one. Short, warm, confident. You have faith in their effort. And then the third piece, wait, and this is the hardest part, I think for most of us, moms and dads, wait, stay close, stay soft. Don't fix it. Give them three seconds, five seconds, sometimes 10 seconds. Let them try. Let them struggle. Let them figure it out or let them reach the edge of what they can handle, and then you step in with a little warmth, a little prodding, a little prompt, right? Maybe it's just subtle, but just enough of a boost on their bum to get them up on the chair. let me walk you through what this might sound like in real life scenario Number one, tell me time. Right. Your baby starts to fuss the old instinct. You flip'em over, game's done. The new approach. You acknowledge tummy time is hard. You encourage, you are so strong. Lift that head and then you wait. Get down on their level. Smile. Give them eye contact, sing a little, stay close. If they keep working, celebrate that. Look at you. You are doing it. Yes. If they hit their limit, scoop them up Warmly. Ah, you worked hard. Good job. Scenario number two, you're in the shower. Your baby starts fussing in the little bouncer seat. Remember, only use the bouncer with intention. The old instinct is like you panic, you rush outta guilt, you get done. You don't even finish properly rinsing your hair. The new approach from the shower acknowledge, I hear you. Knock, knock, knock. I hear you. And then you encourage. Mom is almost done. I'm washing my hair, wash, wash. They don't understand, but they hear your tone and then you wait, finish your shower, come out calm, not frantic, not rushing. They live in the moment of fussiness and that's okay. Scenario number three, They're in the car seat, right? You're going for a short drive. Your baby starts to fuss. You acknowledge, I know, buddy. Yeah. In the car again. Encourage almost there. Look at that fire truck and then you wait. Keep driving. Sing, narrate what you see out the window like I just did. Stay warm, connected, stay steady. They pick up on your vibe. Here's what's happening. In every single one of those moments, you are telling your baby without any fancy words, I see you. I believe in you. I'm right here beside you. We'll get to the other side. That message repeated thousands of times in the first three years. That's what builds resilience. I wanna pull back for a minute and tell you why I'm so serious about this topic. I've been doing this for almost 40 years, and in that time I have watched something shift in our kids, something that breaks my heart because I believe most of it is preventable. Kids are arriving at preschool at kindergarten, unable to handle small disappointments. Unable to wait. Unable to try something hard without melting down, unable to regulate without a screen or a snack or in an adult stepping in, fixing it for them. And then we hand those kids to a system that isn't built to catch what was missed in the home. A system that honestly, after four decades with me in it and around it and through it, it's not moving the needle for most of these things. It's just managing kids. I'm not telling you that to scare you. I'm telling you that so you understand what's actually at stake in the small moments. A car seat fuss is not an interruption of parenting A car seat fuss is the parenting tummy Time is not just a muscle workout. It's resilience work, it's language work, it's trust work. Every time you stay calm through a small struggle, you lay a brick every time you narrate. Instead of rescue, you lay a brick. Every time you let your baby. Try, wobble, fail and try again while you sit close. Good confidently and warmly. You lay a brick, you are not parenting a moment. You're building a foundation. And that foundation, by the way, is nearly impossible to rebuild later. We can put up some, structure supports, but the window is now wild. They're little. While their brains are wide open to just absorb all of these opportunities. That's how God designed us to make it easier in those first three to five to seven years. This is why I talk about prevention every day. This is why I stop doing therapy, and this is where I work now Okay, so here's your task for this week. Pick one moment during your day, just one. A small fuss, a tricky toy, a wobbly seat, a short car ride and practice. Acknowledge what's going on, encourage you got this buddy, and then wait three words. That's your whole assignment. You will feel awkward in the beginning, right? Your, your urge, your drive to, to fix it. You will feel like you should be doing more. You'll probably mess it up the first several times. Do it anyway. That's called learning. Courage doesn't come from reading about it. It comes from practicing it. One small moment at a time. And listen, if what you heard today landed somewhere real for you, if you're nodding along and also feeling a little overwhelmed, unsure. I want you to know this is just one piece of a much bigger picture. My foundation's course opens June 1st. It's where I walk new moms through everything, the whole framework. I have built over four decades, step-by-step in plain language for moms just like you. If you want to be the first to know when enrollment opens, the link is down below. Get on that list. until next time, be present and purposeful and playful. You've got this. God bless and I'll see you in the next talking toddlers.