Motherhood & The Brain
Are you tired of feeling like you’re always at your wit's end, especially when it comes to yelling at your kids?
You’re not alone.
Motherhood can be overwhelming, especially when your preteen seems to push every button and you just can’t seem to get through to them without losing your temper.
This podcast is for moms who are juggling work, family, and everything in between, and are ready to stop yelling and start connecting with their kids in a more peaceful way.
We’ll take you on a journey through the ups and downs of raising a preteen, offering brain-based strategies and practical tips on how to handle everything from discipline to managing your own emotions.
We’ll dive into topics like how to better understand your child’s behavior, how to stop yelling and start listening, and how to build a stronger, more trusting relationship with your preteen.
You’ll learn about positive parenting, emotional control, and simple, science-backed methods for managing mom anger and helping your preteen thrive.
If you’re looking for real, actionable advice on how to deal with the challenges of raising a preteen, this is the place for you.
Let’s make this motherhood journey a little smoother, together.
Motherhood & The Brain
You’re Trying to Be a Good Mom — So Why Does It Feel So Hard?
Have you ever found yourself quickly explaining your tone when someone says you sound upset or a bit strict? That knee-jerk reaction to explain or smooth things over—even when you haven’t done anything wrong—is something many of us do without even thinking.
A lot of it comes from the way we were raised. If we were taught that anger was bad, it makes sense that our kid’s anger feels hard to handle. If no one made space for our emotions growing up, then it might sting when our child sets a boundary or pulls away. These reactions aren’t random—they’re linked to the patterns we picked up as kids.
It’s tough to admit, but sometimes the very things our kids do that upset us are the same things we weren’t allowed to express ourselves. If we were told not to be “too much” or “too sensitive,” it can be overwhelming when our child shows up with those exact qualities. Our brain reads it as danger, not because it is, but because it doesn’t match what we were taught to accept.
But there’s another way. Instead of beating ourselves up for getting triggered, we can meet those moments with curiosity and compassion.
That doesn’t mean brushing it off—it means giving ourselves the same understanding we try to give our kids. With that kind of awareness, we’re more likely to respond with calm instead of reacting out of habit.
When we stop tying our worth as moms to how well our kids behave, and instead focus on being grounded and real, everything shifts. The more we accept all the parts of ourselves, even the messy ones, the more freedom our kids have to be fully themselves too.
This is how things start to change—not through perfect parenting, but by getting real about where our reactions come from and choosing to respond differently.
Want to explore how your own story shows up in your parenting? I’d love to dig into this with you.
👉 The 60-second Yell Less Reset quiz is your first step toward change.
“I never wanted to be the mom who yells…”
But here you are, raising your voice, snapping over small things, saying things you wish you could take back.
You love your kids more than anything.
And you know they don’t deserve a mom who yells.
You just don’t know how to stop; especially when they won’t listen, talk back, or push every single boundary.
👉 The 60-second Yell Less Reset quiz is your first step toward change.
Already taken by many moms who wanted to break the yelling cycle.
Based on the science of how your brain responds to stress, this quiz goes beyond surface-level tips.
It helps you pause, uncover what’s really fueling those outbursts, and start shifting the pattern before it spirals again.
You’ll discover:
✅ Your personal Reset; so you can get your kids to listen without needing to yell, threaten, or give in
✅ It’s not just their behavior; it’s the moment you feel like nothing you say matters
✅A clear next step to help you stay calm and in charge; even when your kids are testing every boundary
For example, how much space you give your children or you don't give your children. When you haven't made peace with your own anger or rage, your child's rage might feel very unsafe. When you were brought up to think that anger was bad and you have done everything in your power to suppress it, and you have done everything in your power to suppress it. When you have a child who is going through big emotions that, for example, rage you might feel threatened because you don't know what that is. You don't know anything. It is shameful. You want it to be a way. You have spent all your life trying to suppress it, trying to show people you do not feel angry and all of a sudden you have this child who is raging.
Speaker 1:It is going to be unsafe for you. It might be unsafe for you to experience when, as a child, if you are denied space and then your child grows up and they demand space or they say they need space, your child's boundaries might feel like rejection. Or when you have buried your grief and suppressed it and you don't want like you suppressed it. Maybe that is what you know, maybe that is your way of doing things. So when your child is sad or when they are experiencing sadness. It might be unbearable to you.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Motherhood from the Brain, a podcast guiding moms of preteen girls on how to navigate emotional challenges that are not addressed in school. We share real stories, expert advice and brain-based methods for handling tough moments. Discover insights to create a deeper connection with your preteen and improve your motherhood journey. Let's tackle the uncharted territory of parenting together, hosted by professional, certified coach Esther Babazi. Coach Esther Babazi.
Speaker 1:Before we begin, I want to share a brief disclaimer. I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist or any other licensed mental health professional. On this podcast, motherhood and the Brain, I share what has personally helped me improve my mental and emotional well-being. My hope is that by sharing my experiences, I might help even one mother out there who is struggling. Hello there, mom.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode of the Motherhood and the Brain podcast, episode number 59. My name is Esther Mbabazi. How are you doing, ma'am? How are you really feeling? Take a moment and think to yourself how am I really feeling? How am I really feeling? How am I really doing? So? What is the weather like over there? Over here, it's sunny but cold. It's cold. It's not yet T-shirt weather, I think. Temperatures today are around 7 degrees Celsius, 7 to 10 degrees Celsius today, around 7 degrees Celsius, 7 to 10 degrees Celsius, and we can't wait for the warmer days that are coming. Enough with the rambling. Let's get started on today's episode.
Speaker 1:So have you ever found yourself saying something like I'm not angry or I'm not being mean, I'm just being honest, even when no one asked you, because I have caught myself doing this more times than I can count. When someone says, people say this many times to me I sound strict, I'm so strict, sound strict, I'm so strict. Or are you annoyed or are you upset? I feel that old reflex kicking to explain that I'm not angry, I'm not feeling angry, I'm not mad, like I find myself going in that mode and just to smooth things over. And to be honest, I have done a lot of work around this. Especially, I don't like when people tell me that I'm strict because I don't know in my brain and you know the whole wiring and pattern thing I think my brain associates with being strict as something bad. So when people say to me that you're strict or you seem upset because of the way I speak, I quickly start defending myself and because of the work that I have done, many times now I catch it. I can see when I'm going into defense mode, when I'm trying to explain myself. Many times I catch it now because of the work that I have done through coaching. So maybe you have felt it too, that urge to smooth things over, to smooth edges over, so you're not misunderstood that urge to make yourself small, to shrink, not to upset other people. Maybe you have felt that, because I know that many moms know this feeling. Many women, especially women. They know this feeling very well. They know the instinct to defend themselves, to explain to soften edges of how they show up, even when they're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1:Maybe someone says to you you sound strict or intense or annoyed and before you even think about it, you're explaining yourself Like this is how I talk. For me, I normally say this is how I talk, I'm not mad, I'm not annoyed Like this is me. It's taken me a lot of effort and work to own it because I thought there was something wrong with me. That is why I explain it most of many times not most of the time, but many times I explain it away. And the thing is, the more you reflect on it, the more you reflect on that thing that you are trying to run away from, the more you realize that you are not just defending yourself from someone's opinion, someone else's opinion. You are defending yourself from shame, from the feeling of shame and from the belief that being too direct, too emotional, too loud or too strong makes you a bad mother or a bad woman.
Speaker 1:This is where this explaining things comes from, because the people who set up society set up society in a way that if you spoke a certain way, then there was something wrong with you. If you cried easily, then you were too emotional and too sensitive. If you speak with a high pitch or a loud voice, you speak like a loud voice, then you are too loud. People set these things up in the societies that we live in and they made certain things good and certain things bad. So we grew up knowing that if you speak loudly, then there's something wrong with you. Then you have to tone it down, you have to keep yourself down. This is what creates that. You have to tone it down, you have to keep yourself down. This is what creates that. And because we do not fit, we do not measure up to those standards that the people who set up society set, then we feel ashamed. This is where the explaining comes from. This is what leads us to explain ourselves, to make us small.
Speaker 1:This is where it comes from, because I believe that knowing where things come from, the thing that we do, when we understand where they come from, then we can choose to do something about it if we want. It is no longer an automatic thing. So you try to distance yourself from that part of you, the part that society does not agree with. Society does not like women who are loud, who speak loudly, who have high-pitched voices then you start to run away from it, because now you have internalized that it is a wrong thing to do. So even when you do that, you want to run away from it.
Speaker 1:The part of you that feels too much, the part of you that feels that you are not enough. You are not measuring up. But the thing is, when you disown that part, or whatever in you that you disown, it does not disappear, it just hides and then leaks out sideways. It can come out in your tone, in your reactions and in the way you show up as a mother. So when you are busy trying not to be the angry mother or the nag, you might find yourself letting things slide that matter. Let me repeat, this is very important when you are busy trying not to be the angry mom, the nagging mom, you might find yourself letting things slide that matter. Or if you don't let things slide that matter, or if you don't let things slide that matter, you might find yourself cracking down harder than what you actually mean to do, because now you are reinforcing this belief that you are enough. So you spin your wheels.
Speaker 1:Maybe, if your kids are not listening and you have this other thing that kids who don't listen to their parents when they ask them to do something, maybe their parents are failing. So when you have a thinking like that, when you believe that, when you think that you are going to go in high drive In order to quote unquote make your kids listen, you are going to raise your voice. These are the things, part of the things, that lead mothers to yell. It is because they believe something. And when you believe something, your brain will go out and find evidence for you. If you believe, if you were brought up in a home where it was expected for you, as a child, to drop anything you're doing and go and do what your guardian or your parents asked you to do. And when your children don't often do that, then you think there is something wrong with the way you were showing up. And this error children don't often do that then you think there is something wrong with the way you are showing up and this error I like to say call it error this thought error is going to lead you to spin, to go in high drive. You are going to raise your voice to get your kids to listen, to get them to do what it is that you want them to do in that moment.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, in situations like this, you are not reacting to your child. You are reacting to years and years of unconscious programming, what scientists call conditioning. You are reacting to conditioning, to unconscious programming. You are reacting to the version of you that you were told not to be when you were brought up in a home and, like I said, where I came from, where I was brought up, even today, in my society, like as a child, you are expected to drop whatever it is you're doing on a drop of a hat, to go and do what the parent or the guardian asked you to do. So that is how I was brought up and that is what I grew up believing, and I've had to do a lot of work, I have got a lot of coaching around this, to release that. Because our brains, like the human brain, it creates these patterns, these wirings, like highways, like, imagine a highway and your brain has those highways. They are built on the things that you have grown up with, the things you have seen, and that is what you do. That is why, many times we do things our parents did, it is because our brain picked those patterns up and we just started doing those things.
Speaker 1:So I was brought up to think that a child has to drop whatever it is they're doing to go and attend to whatever the adult is asking them to do. And when my kids were not doing that, I had a huge problem. I had had like I could not understand it. I could not fathom it. This is one of the reasons why I used to yell. I could not understand what it is. So, as I was doing this work and we were peeling back on the layers and becoming curious, that is how I traced it back and I started to think for myself this is what we do in this work. I started to think for myself does this really mean that if my child is not dropping whatever they are doing to come and do what I ask them, does this mean they are a bad child? Does this mean I'm failing? I started to question all these things in order for me to reach to an answer that I thought was appropriate. Like. This is about finding your way of doing things.
Speaker 1:Like I said, if you are called too sensitive when you were growing up, maybe you cried easily. I know people who cry easily. They cry very easily and people called, at least when you were growing up, they called them sensitive and they try to hide it. And now that their child is doing the same, they're all of a sudden having a problem. They are trying to get their child away from crying easily. So now, when these people, when if you are one of these people when you feel hurt and you push everything down, this leads to exploding. This is what I said earlier earlier that things come out sideways. They come out in ways that you don't expect them because you are just stuffing them down. Maybe you were told to be a responsible person, so now, when you feel resentful or exhausted, you just want to swallow it and it leaks out as snapping, it leaks out as yelling.
Speaker 1:Maybe where you grew up at least this is how it was I was brought up Catholic and we were both consciously and unconsciously told to be quote unquote the good girl. And the good girl, like I said earlier, is the one who drops everything when their parent asks them to do something. They are expected to behave, they are expected to be good. It doesn't matter if what you're doing makes you feel good or makes you feel good, it doesn't matter. What matters is you are living to a certain standard. A good child does A, b, c, d. Matters is you are living to a certain standard. A good child does A, b, c, d.
Speaker 1:So now that you are a parent and your child pushes back or gives their opinion or speaks up against what they believe maybe is unfair, you become triggered because something deeper is going on. You are triggered because what your child is doing is going against what you are taught when you were growing up. Like you have this script you are taught a good child is supposed to be A, b, c, d and now that your child is not doing those things they are doing the opposite of what you were told you feel triggered, you feel like a failure, like you are failing them, like there's something wrong. They're doing that. There's something wrong with your child. There's something wrong with the way you parent.
Speaker 1:It is because of the way that your brain has created these patterns. If you are not encouraged to ask questions when you are growing up and you have a child who will not stop asking questions again, you are going to feel triggered because it goes against the grain. It goes against what your brain knows, and one of the things that I've been saying on this podcast is our brain doesn't want new things. Our brain treats everything new as negative. So that is why when your child is displaying something that is new to you for example, like I said, if you are brought up as a good girl, ever encouraged to ask questions or is expected to go with the flow so when you have a child who is not like that, it becomes very hard. It becomes very triggering for both you and the flow. So when you have a child who is not like that, it becomes very hard. It becomes very triggering for both you and the child. It is because your brain is like there's something going on here. She's not supposed to be like that. There's something wrong. We have to fix it.
Speaker 1:This is not how kids are, and all these thoughts lead you into overdrive and, before you know it, you're raising your voice, in my case, because we want to hide. You know how one of our maternal instincts, as women or mothers, is to raise our young so they fit in. Like I said, in the old days, children had to fit in. If they did not fit in, they brought shame to the mother. Even today, some people still say those things.
Speaker 1:If a child is not fitting in, your brain goes into overdrive to try to get them to do what you think is right, what you think society wants to try to get them to fit in. And when they push back, these are where your brain interprets that that you're failing. Where will they live? Maybe they'll not thrive in this world. They want like it becomes shameful. You want to hide. You want to hide your child. You try to make your child do something so they fit in.
Speaker 1:But from what we know about shame is it teaches us to hide. Shame does not teach us to go find what is really happening. And when we hide we don't investigate. We just want that thing to be over and done with. Whatever the circumstance is that is leading us to feel shame, whatever the thought is that is leading us to feel shame, whatever the thought is that is leading us to feel shame, we want it to go away. We don't investigate, we don't learn anything. And the thing that leads you to shame, or the things that lead us to shame when we hide them, they don't go away. They, like I said, they show up in how we interact with our children, how we treat our children. They show up in, for example, how much space you give your children or you don't give your children.
Speaker 1:When you haven't made peace with your own anger or rage, your child's rage might feel very unsafe. When you were brought up to think that anger was bad and you have done everything in your power to suppress it. When you have a child who is going through big emotions that, for example, rage you might feel threatened because you don't know what that is. You don't know anything. It is shameful. You want it to be away. You have spent all your life trying to suppress it, trying to show people you do not feel angry and all of a sudden you have this child who is raging. It is going to be unsafe for you.
Speaker 1:It might be unsafe for you to experience when, as a child, if you are denied space and then your child grows up and they demand space or they say they need space, your child's boundaries might feel like rejection. Or when you have buried your grief and suppressed it and you don't want like you suppressed it. Maybe that is what you know, maybe that is your way of doing things. So when your child is sad or when they are experiencing sadness. It might be unbearable to you. And the heartbreaking part is we don't mean as mothers or as people. We don't sit and plan how to pass down these things, but we do, unless we interrupt these cycles. And the best way that I know of interrupting these cycles is to use compassion.
Speaker 1:Compassion does not mean letting yourself off the hook for being an quote-unquote angry mom. Compassion means finally letting yourself be human. And how do we do that? We do that by being gentle with ourselves. When you're going through something, maybe your child is raging and you don't know what to do, and you have tried your best, but whatever you're doing is not working. It's making everything even more challenging. You could say, or I would say I see you and I know this is hard. You're not bad because you're overwhelmed, you are not failing because your child is raging all over the place and it seems like there's nothing you can do. It's just.
Speaker 1:Compassion is meeting yourself with kindness and grace. And after meeting yourself with kindness and grace, then awareness comes in. Awareness helps us choose something different. Awareness helps us respond instead of reacting to circumstances or situations. Awareness helps us become curious instead of shutting down. And when we become curious. That is where real change begins and this is part of the work that we do inside my program becoming curious. You know how children, when they are younger toddlers and young children they are very curious. They ask questions, they want to know. But as we grow we somehow many of us somehow lose the curiosity and we just move with the flow blending. But curiosity is where it is at, and in my program we do a lot of becoming curious about where the things that we are doing, where do they come from. We do not do only surface level strategies, we do not focus on tips to make your kids behave, but we do the work of understanding what's underneath your reactions and mastering how to meet yourself with grace. For example, when we look at what's underneath things like why are you carrying guilt? Long after a moment has passed, you talk through patterns that trip you up and, instead of judging yourself for those patterns, you master how to meet them with patience and understanding the kind of patience and understanding you probably offer everyone else when they are in the same situation or similar situations.
Speaker 1:When you learn or master how to coach yourself in the heat of the moment and you don't just change how you feel. You change, how you show up. You feel good about yourself and you feel more grounded when you learn or master how to coach yourself in the heat of the moment. You stop measuring how good of a mom you are by how your child is behaving. You don't rely on your child's mood to feel okay about yourself. You stop taking it very personally when things go sideways. You feel more steady and grounded, even in the messy moments, and your kids feel the shift. The people around you feel and see the shift. They feel the safety of a mom who's not trying to be perfect, but just present. You do not have to disown any part of yourself to be a good mom. In fact, the more you accept yourself, the more space your child has to exactly be who they are. That's how generations change and that's how homes soften and, most of all, that is how you become the mom that you really want to be, not through performance, but through presence.
Speaker 1:So if anything I said today on this episode resonates with you and you feel you're ready, I would love to work with you on this journey. Thank you so much for listening now. Talk to you again next week. Bye for now. What if you could feel in control of your reactions, even when your preteen is pushing all your buttons. I know it's tough, but I would love to help. That's why I created the Yearless Formula. If you want to stop, or at least reduce, yearling and really build that connection that you want with your child, I would be honored to work with you. Just head over to wwwmasteryourownwellbeingcom. Forward slash coaching to grab a spot for a complimentary call to get a feel of what coaching is and how coaching works. Coaching will help you manage your reactions. Wwwmasteryourownwellbeingcom. Forward slash coaching. See you there, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Your time means the world to us. If you found this episode valuable, we would be immensely grateful if you could spare a moment to visit Apple Podcasts and share your thoughts through a review. Your feedback plays a vital role in helping fellow moms discover our podcast and enrich their own motherhood experiences. Take care and bye for now.
