If you've ever felt personally attacked by a four-year-old's lie or a teenager's eye roll, this episode is for you.

Much parenting stress comes not from what our kids are actually doing, but from what we make it mean about us, and untangling those two things is one of the hardest parts of raising kids.

In this episode of the Differentiated Love and Sex Podcast, Catherine Robuck (relationship coach) and Jackie Aston (certified therapist) cover:

• Why lying, defiance, and other frustrating kid behaviors are often normal developmental milestones, not signs that something is wrong with your child or your parenting

• The idea of co-development: that raising a child pushes the parent's own growth just as much as it shapes the kid's

• Why separating what's happening inside you from what your kid is actually doing is a skill, and one most of us never learned

• A real case where a parent's willingness to tolerate her own anxiety, not a change in her child's behavior, was what shifted a child's functioning

• What it looks like for parents to loosen control as kids move toward adulthood, and why that transition tests both sides of the relationship

This is the kind of pattern Jackie and Catherine help clients work through directly, whether it's showing up with kids, a partner, or both.

If any of this sounds familiar, Catherine offers a 50-minute consultation to talk about what working on it could look like.

For more information about Aron Carlson or to contact him, visit his Psychology Today profile.

Attend one of Aron's parenting workshops.

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