You're listening to life kit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle.
If you've raised a young child, you will know that they sometimes have these complete meltdowns.
Diana Apong experienced this when her kid was three years old and was frankly disgruntled about everything.
The sippy cup wasn't the right color.
The fruit wasn't cut just right.
Screen time had ended too early.
It made life a little unbearable.
She struggled with how to handle this.
It was really hard.
And so it would just be so much easier to just give in, just give the kid the thing that they wanted.
I knew it wasn't a good long term solution, but I didn't know what else to do.
Eventually, she turned to a psychologist named Lauren Silvers.
Lauren is the clinical director of Family Wise Northwest, an organization that teaches families approaches and language that'll help them raise kids who can regulate their emotions.
And Lauren told her, look, all parents do this.
Everybody overindulges their kids.
We don't want to see our kids uncomfortable.
We don't want them to suffer.
We don't want them to go without.
We love them, and so we give.