52: The powerful role the skill of greiving plays in boundaries & weaning

Hey friends, I'm back behind the mic and easing into a new season with a heartfelt episode on a topic that might seem a little odd - how grief is an important part of breastfeeding boundaries. In this episode, I open up about the emotional undercurrents we face in transitions—from weaning and toddler boundaries to unexpected life moments that stir up deep feelings.

Grief shows up in subtle and surprising ways as our children grow, especially during limit-setting moments. I share personal stories, including the tender experience of my daughter's emotional resilience after the loss of a pet, and reflect on how guiding our children through their frustration, sadness, and eventual acceptance can become one of the most valuable life skills we nurture in them. If you've ever felt the tug of grief during a parenting milestone, this episode on gentle parenting, breastfeeding boundaries, and emotional development in toddlers is for you.

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Transcript

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​[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Start to Stop Toddler Breastfeeding. It has been a while since I have put out a new episode. I have been working behind the scenes with clients and with my new community that I recently created and got running, which is called Moms and Milk Village and with my own family of course.

And, I've just been giving myself some space to not be putting out too much forward-facing content like podcast episodes and. Instagram and blogs and all that stuff. And I've also been moving platforms for my website, all the techy stuff behind the scenes too, and it's been really good to take that step back.

But I have been feeling the itch lately to get some more content out for you guys. Excited about talking back into this microphone once a week or every other week. if you are new here and you're like, you took a break, what's happening? It's fine. You are so [00:01:00] welcome here in this space, and I'm really excited to have you.

Just know that I'll be sharing some more good podcast episodes and blog posts coming up, over the next weeks and months. I really wanted to do a big fancy new season launch, with all of the. Dopamine sparking promo posts and hype, but I just didn't have the energy for it right now.

It just didn't feel good to me at the moment. And I was like, that's okay. I got stuff I wanna say, and I'll just, I'll just do that. We'll just come in gently into the season and yeah, I hope that that feels some good for you too. Today, I'm gonna be speaking from the heart a bit, and we're gonna be talking about grief and emotion, especially in the context of parenting and.

Breastfeeding 'cause that's what this podcast is all about. I'm gonna be talking about grief through transitions like weaning, but also grief that comes up in those like limit setting moments, right? Not just in [00:02:00] the big, big thing of, oh we're we're done breastfeeding, which can have grief with it.

Absolutely. And I actually wanna put a slight caveat here that there is something called post weaning depression. That is a phenomenon, breastfeeding moms can experience and you can experience it regardless of how long you breastfed for, how frequently you were breastfeeding, how much you wanted to Wean or not Wean.

It's a more of a physiological response to weaning and unfortunately we don't know as much about it as I wish we did, but it is something that you might experience and, it is more symptoms of clinical depression. 

Weaning and you might need some more support. And if that lasts for a time period beyond like four, six, maybe eight weeks, definitely seek help from your medical provider, of course. And of course, if even in that timeline of 4, 6, 8 weeks, if it's intense, get the help that you need, [00:03:00] 100%. it's could be bigger than just grief.

Okay. Moving that out of the way. There will be references in this episode. It's actually a lot about, the death of pets and that kind of loss. And if you are feeling sensitive to that topic, for whatever reason, it is 100% okay to skip this episode. You'd never have to come back to it if you don't want to, but you can if you do later.

Um, if you wanna make sure that you hear the upcoming episodes that will be coming out. Go ahead and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast player you like to use, apple Podcast, Spotify, whatever. Um, so that you don't miss future episodes coming out. That way you'll get notified and, uh, you'll be able to hear, hear them right away.

Okay, so let's talk about where grief shows up in parenthood. So grief is a tender, universal part of [00:04:00] parenting, but we often don't talk about it. Now, not everybody experiences it at every stage, but some stages you might experience it in early parenting. You know, it could be as simple as putting away the newborn clothes because your little tiny baby has outgrown them.

or even just your kids moving up a size, you know, from 18 months to the two T clothes. There can be grief that comes with that sometimes when your kids stop needing diapers, when you realize that your family is complete and maybe you won't have any more kids, and maybe that's what you wanted and maybe it's sooner than, when you wanted that to happen.

And that one, is a little more obvious, but sometimes we still don't acknowledge that there's a grief there or allow ourselves, we might acknowledge, oh yeah, that makes sense. I might grieve that, but we don't necessarily give ourselves the space to do it and to move through it. And there's definitely grief around weaning, and it doesn't have to be dramatic or devastating to count as [00:05:00] grief.

Talking about those parenting moments, I remember the night before I gave birth to my son. Who was my second child, I had a scheduled C-section, which is a whole other story I'm sure I've shared on the podcast and previous episodes. But I knew that night that it was going to be our last night as a family of three.

And I remember breastfeeding my daughter to sleep and quietly crying. Feeling this weight, this wash of emotion come over me, and letting myself kind of quietly move through that grief. And I came out of the room afterward and I tried to explain it to my husband, but I'm still not sure that he totally understood it because I was excited and so was he.

We were both really excited that we were gonna have a new baby tomorrow. Right. We were so anxious to meet him. you know, see him touch him, all of that wonderful stuff. And we were excited for our daughter to have a little brother, but [00:06:00] I was still feeling this weight of loss over losing the fact that like we were a family of three over losing my daughter as being the only child.

We were welcoming a new and exciting thing and new and exciting season, which I was super happy about, but there was this unexpected sadness there for me too. And you know what? You might think I'm crazy for saying that. And I used to think people were crazy when they would say those kinds of things too.

I was like, sure. But it hit me and I felt it. It was real in that moment. But something I learned from that is that. When we say goodbye to something old, we are simultaneously saying hello to something new. And holding both of those things is really the heart of the grieving process. 

Although in my experience, and again, I'm not an expert on grief, but in my experience, that's been a core. Part of grieving the intense losses. And now I will [00:07:00] say that I have not experienced the loss of a partner or the loss of a child. so I can't speak to that, and I won't pretend that I am speaking to that because I've never been in those places.

But I have had losses close to me that were really meaningful. and this is still a part of that loss for me, and a part of moving through that loss is being able to hold that goodbye to something old and that hello to something new. So when people hear me talk about breastfeeding boundaries and big feelings that come along with those boundaries, I.

They might be, and often are surprised to hear me talk about grief in the context of breastfeeding boundaries because like the words just don't seem to fit together in a way, that makes sense intuitively at first glance. But boundaries and grief are intimately intertwined, in my opinion and my experience.

So let me explain a little bit. Any time that someone bumps up into a boundary. [00:08:00] They have to let go of the fantasy or the expectation that they had in their mind because they thought that that boundary either wasn't there, they've never experienced that boundary before, or they thought they could cross that boundary.

Right? And so I'm sure your minds could play with lots of different scenarios of boundary crossing where somebody, expresses surprise at a boundary that's there. Maybe anger or frustration, right? They didn't expect that to be there, right? There's a picture of their, in their mind of what they thought was gonna happen, and then when reality doesn't match that picture, there's the discrepancy there.

And grief is a natural part of accepting that loss or change, even for toddlers. Now, not everybody. We'll move through the grieving process because at the end of the grieving process is acceptance. It doesn't mean you can't kind of experience a new wave of grief in the future.

Absolutely. But, some people will just continue to fight. They'll continue to change [00:09:00] that boundary, that limit. Right. so, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but even for toddlers, this is a process and the loss, again, it doesn't have to be. Massive in order to experience this, right? Like I was talking about with, moving from a family of three to a family of four, right?

Like it's small and it's, it's a net gain when you really think about it, right? nothing devastating was being lost, but I still had to move through that process a little bit. so we, we see this in Toddler breastfeeding all the time, whether it's. realizing that night feeds aren't working for you anymore.

or even just shortening a feed, right? So that is, especially the shortening feed. I consider that part of like a healthy personal boundary for you. If you realize, ugh, I am not okay with continuing on this breastfeeding session, right? That's a healthy personal boundary that your child is kind of bumping up against.

You're recognizing this is not good for me right now, and your child is like, wait a second, [00:10:00] this was always fine. Why is this a problem? I wanna continue breastfeeding. So, you might be saying like, not right now, instead of, yes, you're shortening that feed, whatever the case is, your child is bumping into that new limit and they're gonna feel it.

They had an idea of what was gonna happen, the feed, the comfort, the closeness, and that's not happening. And it's, it's confusing. It's, it's a loss, right? A small loss, but it's a loss nonetheless. And when our child hits that loss, when they bump up against that limit, when they recognize, wait a second, this is not how I thought it was gonna be, this is not what I want it to be.

Like, this is not what I was expecting. They, the first thing they're gonna do, like they're gonna do two things. And the first thing is that they're gonna try and change it. They're gonna, they're, they're probably gonna get mad. They're frustrated. 

And he's expected it to go one way and it's like, wait a second, that's, it's not working right. if there's a limit here that. peace doesn't connect like it should. or I open up the meat and [00:11:00] it's bad. That's a limit, right? Like I'm, I'm not going to eat that meat.

There's a change here. There's a loss, and it can be frustrating at first and. I might get angry, like I might try to change it and feel this like, ugh, frustration that I can't just make this meat not be bad and not be brought and not be spoiled, right? And now maybe there is a quick change of like, oh, hey, I can do something about this.

Maybe I'm at the grocery store and I realize that this meat is bad. Maybe I can say like, excuse me, get me a new package, please. I could do that. but in a moment when I'm at home. And there's no way for me to get to the store. I have to pivot, right? I have to make a change. There's gotta be something new that happens, and I need to not stay in that frustration because I can't just make this chicken not rotten.

Right? so it makes sense that our kids want to change the thing because if they could change the thing they would feel better. And [00:12:00] it's easy to feel like, oh, well, we never want our kids to, be able to change limits and boundaries because then they're gonna walk all over us. Then they're gonna expect every limit and boundary can change.

And I want to gently push back against that a little bit because I think that, at least for me and my kids, I want my kids. To learn that they can effectively create change in their world, in the world around them, in, relationships, in, big issues at large. I want them to know, Hey, I'm coming up against a limit and I'm gonna do something about that.

And I can make a change. I think that that's an important thing for my kids to know, and I also want my kids to know that there are things that they cannot change, and I want them to know how to move through that. And move to a place of [00:13:00] acceptance so that they don't get stuck in it. Because like I said before, we can all think of those people who don't know how to recognize that something's not gonna change and they get stuck.

The first thing that our kids do, right? They do two things. So the first thing is they get mad, they get frustrated, they try to change things. But the second thing is that when we hold that boundary with empathy and kindness, their anger eventually melts into sadness. As Dr. Gordon Newfield likes to say, that's a phrase from him and Dr.

Deborah McNamara. So I wanna give credit where credit is due. and that's that moment when they realize this limit isn't going to move. Something here will not change. I cannot change this, and with enough support that sadness will soften into acceptance. They're sad first, they're angry and they're mad.

And that frustration is motivates them to be creative, to, petition, to, argue to, do all the things they need to, to [00:14:00] change that thing. When they move into that sadness, that sadness is part of that acceptance because the sadness is a realization that this is not gonna change.

And so they feel sad about it. And with enough support, that sadness softens into acceptance, and that is the journey. Frustration, sadness, acceptance. That's the grieving process as I see it. And when we allow our children to go through that grieving process, supported and held by us, they gain a skill that is going to serve them for the rest of their lives.

The same way that understanding that they can effectively create change is an important thing for them to know, an important skill for them to have. Learning how to effectively create change. It's equally important in my eyes, for kids to know and to have the skill, that. They can [00:15:00] accept when things will not change.

So yesterday I had this show up in a really powerful way in my life and it was what sparked. This podcast episode, we were fishing. My husband, my kids, and I, and my daughter. She had caught this teeny tiny little fish. Now, she was really excited when she caught it, but when she caught it, my husband recognized that species and said, Ooh, that's an invasive species, and legally we can't just throw it back in the water.

It had to be killed. So she was excited at first that she'd caught this fish. and then of course my husband checked, double checked the regulations and confirmed it. And I remember saying like, babe, I don't wanna watch you do it. I'm just, I'm just gonna go over to this blanket. So I just sat down, and wasn't facing his direction.

But I glanced over and I saw my 8-year-old daughter sitting on the picnic, like the picnic, table bench with her back towards her dad, my husband. and she kind of had her legs curled up a [00:16:00] little bit. She wasn't in a tight ball, but she had her legs curled up a little bit. Her chin was resting on her hand.

She kind of had her fingers over her mouth and she was just looking out over the lake. And, I. You know, from the outside, somebody just glancing, they wouldn't have thought, this person is clearly upset, right? She wasn't visibly upset in any way, but I noticed that that's not a typical position for her.

And so I just said, Hey, hey kiddo, are you feeling a little bit uncomfortable right now? And she surprised me when she kind of looked over at me and her voice wasn't aggressive, it wasn't full of emotion, and she just said, of course I am mom. Now, the way that she said it is something that Dr. Steven Porges would call, like say, had porosity, right?

So we can say that that voice had porosity, it had lots of movement in it. It was musical, right? Like of course I am mom. It wasn't flat, it wasn't aggressive. which is a sign that she was in a regulated state. It was a sign that she was, [00:17:00] not, I don't wanna say calm, but that she wasn't like dysregulated, she wasn't responding in a way that felt too intense for her.

It was, it was still, she still felt in control of herself. she didn't need me to support her. She was okay in a lot of ways. Right. But she just admitted like, of course I am. Of course, I'm uncomfortable with this. and that really struck me because of course is something that I say all the time when I'm teaching self-compassion.

Of course, of course. It feels that way, right? And I got that, that phrase in the context of self-compassion. I mean, lots of people use it, but somebody who uses it a lot is, Leslie Potter from Pure Joy Parenting, and she's a mentor of mine. And so it really stuck out that she's used those words, of course.

And, yeah, it's a way that I use to help myself and to teach other people to [00:18:00] help themselves, to communicate to themselves that what they're feeling is okay to feel. Right, that their reaction makes sense. And here she was like saying it to herself for herself. I noticed, right. She didn't collapse, she didn't suppress, she just acknowledged it.

It is what it was. Right? She was, of course, she was uncomfortable. Of course she was upset. This was hard. She processed it and then. When my husband was finished, she walked over and the little fishy, whose little body was still kind of like on the side of the pathway and she gently moved the fish underneath a bush so that no one would step on it.

I think it was her way of honoring the fish a little bit, right? and then she went back to playing and she was happy and there wasn't. Like it, she didn't miss a beat, you know? and there wasn't any hangover from that experience. And I just thought, wow, like this really is the fruit of years [00:19:00] of gently walking through these moments with her.

I was holding her while she was building that skill. Now I'm not saying she's got it down pat and she will never need support again. I'm not saying that at all. We all do, right? No matter our age, at times. But it was so evident for me because it really reminded me of another time when she walked through this journey and it was her fifth birthday and leading up to her fifth birthday, our dog, who was 14 at the time, was sick.

And we had taken him to the vet a couple times and we thought he was improving. It seemed like he was improving. And then. Then he wasn't. And our vet, we had gone in, I think in that morning or the day before. It was, it was leading up to like very close to her birthday. he said he was gonna try one more thing, but if that didn't work, that, that was kind of the, the end.

He didn't recommend to having [00:20:00] any more intervention. and so her birthday came and he was. very, very sick and we knew this was going to be the end. and she spent the day. I have a photo of her in her little headband with her little springy antenna, like a little bumblebee she had on fairy wings.

Of course, she's like turning five, right? She has her pink, 2, 2, 1, her little rubber boots and she's running around the backyard and intermittently coming over to our, her, our sweet dog who was laying down 'cause he couldn't stand. She's bringing water to him and food, and she would just rest her head on his stomach and pet him gently.

And it was the sweetest thing to watch. We did put him down that day. It was on her birthday, which was very hard for my husband and I, of course. But it was also beautiful to watch her hold both the grief and the sadness of that day. And it was particularly [00:21:00] profound again because it was so different than my experience growing up when I was a kid.

I didn't have people to support me around. Grief, and I'm gonna get in a little bit to some of the examples from when she was a kid and like, or a kid, she's still a kid, but from when she was a young Toddler and why and how she had that capacity and how we built that capacity into her and supported that capacity within her, I should say.

I don't really feel like my husband and I did it, but we supported that in her, as she learned that skill. And nobody really did that for me. When I was a kid, I did grow up around animals and I remember multiple times animals just kind of disappearing. Nobody would really explain to me what happened.

And one time I remember seeing, I. The animal's body after and thinking, oh, it died. That's what happened. And I really learned that it was silly to get upset about death. And if it wasn't silly, it was [00:22:00] probably dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that. The feelings would be so big, and you wouldn't be able to get out of that feeling.

And so it's better to just not feel it. It's better to just not acknowledge it. We're just gonna keep rolling, right? Everyone was scared of upsetting me. Everyone was scared of me having any feelings about that animal. and. When I was a little bit older, young teenager or so, our family dog, also got put down or passed away.

I don't remember exactly the context around it, but I do remember my mom leaving to go to the vet and I was just like. Stone faced. I was like, okay. Like I got no emotion around it. Like, fine, see you later. And as soon as she left, I started sobbing, like uncontrollably sobbing. I was scared of the intensity inside of me.

I didn't know what to do with all of this feeling. And I really went through, I, I don't even remember exactly how that ended. I think I called a [00:23:00] friend and they were like kind of freaked out by how much I was crying and they didn't really know what to do either. But. You know, I just remember that kind of becoming a pattern for me in my teenage years and young adult years as I would just shove down any emotion, not feel it, any loss, any change.

I was strong. I had all of the, you know, like everybody thought I was just this. Super mature person who could just handle anything. But meanwhile it would all get like pushed, pushed down until it would erupt and I would be so scared of all of that feeling and intensity that would come up inside of me.

And so that's why I do this work with my kids. It's why I let them see and feel, the anger, the frustration, the sadness, and why I validate their right to feel what they feel because. The alternative is what I lived, stuffing it down, losing the ability to process change and growing up afraid of my feelings, right?

So [00:24:00] the capacity in my daughter, it didn't happen by accident. It was built through years of supporting her through that grieving process when there were things that she couldn't change, including during breastfeeding. When she was about 18 months old, she got obsessed with toothpaste. She wanted to brush her teeth constantly, and at first it was great, like awesome. She's brushing her teeth, she's so excited about it. It was so cute. But eventually it became too much and I mean too much for me.

It was constant. I don't want you ingesting all of this toothpaste. It's not okay for me anymore. And I knew I'd really reached my limit. So I said no. she was furious. And remember I had always said yes before she was so angry at me.

She was 18 months old. She's losing it, melting down. And yes, my daughter would have meltdowns that lasted four hours. And this was my early days of learning this process, of learning that journey. And so it was one of my first times of testing it out, [00:25:00] but I stayed with her. I held space for her. I helped her name those feelings as she would let me, right?

Sometimes she didn't wanna hear that, but I said things like, oh baby girl, that anger. Oh, you're so mad. That big mad feeling is so big inside of you. I know you really want that toothpaste. It's so hard when you can't have it. And I just stayed there with her and I watched as her anger, her mad, her frustration melted into sadness.

And then I supported that sadness and I watched as that sadness softened into acceptance. And it's been a while, but as far as I remember, 'cause I remember being shocked that she didn't really ask again, and she didn't ask again. 

A way that was something that was like instinctual inside of me to use would've been scaring her. Oh, you can't use that toothpaste. It's gonna upset your stomach. It's got. Fluoride in it or whatever it was, fluoride free toothpaste. But I could have scared her by saying, oh, if you have too much of [00:26:00] that, it's gonna poison you.

It could make you sick. I could have used those things to motivate her to no longer want to brush her teeth all the time, but it would've been instilling fear in her right. And maybe she would've been afraid to brush your teeth again. I also could have, Made her want to stop by shaming her, right?

I could have told her she was too big and too mature to be acting like a baby, you know, wanting to brush her teeth all the time. Big kids only brush their teeth in the morning and at nighttime, right? But I didn't have to use fear or shame. It was just presence, like it was my presence. And so the next time she went to brush her teeth, she didn't have fear or shame.

She had presence. And she had trust. She didn't even need to know all the reasons why she shouldn't be brushing her teeth all the time. And I'm not saying there are times a hundred percent where explaining things to your kids is important. And I support clients with that all the time. I teach that, but I didn't [00:27:00] need to use it in that context.

It wasn't really about the toothpaste, it was about the feelings, the emotions she was having wasn't so much about the fact she couldn't have toothpaste anymore, right? She needed to be supported through that journey. It was about the feelings, the intensity of those sensations and emotions inside of her.

and I've done this through so many transitions with her from diapering. You know, like when she went to like potty training to wiping, I remember she wanted me to wipe her for a long time. Okay. so I've done this through so many transitions and. Night, weaning, shortening feeds, all that kind of stuff.

And each time walking her through those stages, frustration, mad to sad, to acceptance, and now years later, as was evident on her fifth birthday, as was evident yesterday when we were fishing, I get to see the strength of that skill and that emotional muscle, right? That she's, she's [00:28:00] built, we've built, we've built together and supported her together to have, and so.

Here are the takeaways that I want you to have. Number one, your child's desire is innocent and pure. It's okay that they have these feelings. It's okay that they want those things. It's not wrong for them to want to breastfeed. It's not wrong for them to want to brush their teeth all the time. It's not wrong for them to want their animal back, right?

it's a beautiful thing. It means that they're in touch with that vulnerable, innocent part of themselves. They're not, changing themselves to please you. That's great. So remember that. Also, remember that they need to borrow your grownup brain when they are going through those feelings.

They need you to be their anchor. In that storm. it's not so much just about you being calm and them borrowing your calm. It's them borrowing your [00:29:00] steadiness. It's them borrowing from you the confidence that everything is going to be okay, that they can feel these feelings and they're not gonna last forever.

They're gonna come and they're gonna go that they have that capacity. And you know what? If you're in that moment and. You're struggling to find that anchor inside of you. It's okay to lean on somebody else's brain for that anchor, somebody else's nervous system. It's okay to text a friend. It's okay to call your partner if they're at work.

it's okay to turn on a podcast episode like this to hear my voice, to regulate through my tone of voice, my confidence in you, my confidence in your child that you are gonna get through this. It's gonna be okay. So number one is that your child's desire is innocent and pure. Number two is that they do need to borrow your grownup brain, and you don't have to have a script know exactly what to say, exactly what to do.

This is happening in an [00:30:00] unconscious level that's hardwired into both of you on a, on a physiological, biological level. it's, it's part of your relationship and it's unconscious. So just trust that, trust that anchor. And then lastly, the third thing that you need to remember is that there are three stages to this grieving process, right?

Frustration and anger, where they're gonna push back against that boundary. And when that frustration and anger is heard. When they feel understood in that frustration and anger, it's going to shift into sadness. And you can help draw out that sadness a little bit by saying, yeah, it's so hard when you can't have what you want.

Does that feel sad that you can't always have that thing right? So you can help draw out that sadness a little bit. So that's the second stage, is they're gonna begin to feel that loss. The anger and the frustration is when they're trying to change it, they're not willing to accept that loss.

They're trying to change it, and the sadness is when they're recognizing, wait, this really is a loss. [00:31:00] And then that third thing is the acceptance that comes, and that's when they understand. So when that sadness, or sorry, when the frustration and mad feel. Heard, feel, understood, then they're gonna melt into some sadness.

And when that sadness feels hurt and seen and understood, it's gonna melt into acceptance. And yeah, frustration might bubble up again later. That doesn't mean it didn't work. It means that your human. They're human. You're human. And they might just have that little bit of grief bubble back up again.

And that's okay. I do find that, working through this process, when you're really in it with them and you sit through the whole thing, oftentimes the intensity and the amount of asking really, really like shockingly drops off afterwards. but it's okay if it pops back up again. Just do the process over again.

It's okay. and lastly, if there [00:32:00] are unmet needs or unsolved problems, if we're gonna borrow language from, Dr. Russ Green. Unmet needs and unsolved problems are going to compound the stress that your child's under in that moment, and it's gonna make it really hard for them to move through that process.

Not necessarily impossible, but really hard. And so if you are anticipating this limit, if you know. Things are gonna change at bedtime tonight, or you know, whatever. An hour from now, there's gonna be a limit that they're gonna bump up against. They might have some feelings about it. Do your best to support your child before that.

You don't have to freak out. But think about it. Maybe we should get outside and run around for a little bit and I'll just make sure that they've had some water and a snack, right? Spend a little time with them. Make some eye contact, smile, play together for a moment, even if it's just a silly couple of glances or a little, you know, like scritch of their hair.

Something that feels connecting. Do that ahead of [00:33:00] time so that they have a little bit more capacity. They're gonna be in their highest state, for lack of a better way to express this, right? Because when we're stressed, we regress. And so when they're in a stressed state, they're gonna have even less skill.

So we want them to have the highest level of scale that they have right now in order to move through that change. Now, sometimes these moments happen when you cannot have prepared ahead of time. I've had it happen in the car, especially like on road trips when. Something's promised. You guys are all excited about, Hey, we're gonna stop at this place and we're gonna do this thing, and we're all excited about it.

And then you get there and it's closed and there's literally nothing any of you can do about it. And sometimes there's not an alternative option. and you're tired. You've been driving, you know, everyone's uncomfortable and hungry and all of that stuff is going on. And so now you're walking through this, you know, grieving process in a moment [00:34:00] of intense stress for everyone and.

I don't want you to feel any shame around that. Now you might feel the shame might come up, in which case, of course, of course we feel that shame. Of course we feel it all. Right. But that can often just be a process of riding it out and it's, you know, at that point it becomes, 

Like harm reduction. Right? We're just trying to reduce the amount of harm being done because there's gonna be a certain level of harm that feels like it's happening to all of us in that moment. So ride it out. Do your best. okay. That's basically my only little caveats for that. thank you so much for tuning in for holding space for this tender topic of grief and for recognizing that, you know, boundaries aren't just about saying.

No, there also, there's a second part to that that's really important. It's about teaching our kids something sacred, about loss, about love, about their own capacity. if you're walking through a weaning season or navigating some tricky emotions in your parenting, you are not alone. I am [00:35:00] here. With you.

I have a free guide, how to Say No to the Feed while still saying Yes to the need. And you can grab it at own your parenting story.com/guide. after you download it, you'll get some weekly emails from me. I'll let you know when new podcast episodes are coming out. Don't forget to hit subscribe so that you get that notification from your podcast app as well.

it has been great to hang out with you. I'll catch you in the next episode.