Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. Diane and Elaine here. Sometimes we like to bring you hot topics, and sometimes we focus on the recurring themes that come up in our coaching. We look for patterns and explore what resonates most. And this week, Diane's got a great topic for us.

Diane Dempster: Well, the backstory for this topic is that, as parents, we often feel like, "But we have to do this! This has to happen! That has to happen!" There's this overwhelming sense of urgency that creeps in.

This really came up a lot at the end of the school year. Parents would say things like, "Okay, I understand my kid is struggling. I get that my child has executive function challenges, but there are 14 missing assignments, and they have to be turned in by Saturday night. What do I do?"

That sense of urgency shifts us energetically. It pulls us away from what I call creative problem-solving, which is where we really need to be when helping our kids navigate challenges. For example, my child is struggling to turn in assignments, or they’re having a hard time getting up for work. And if they don’t get out the door, they’re going to lose their job.

I had another client whose kid was taking an online class over the summer but kept sleeping in and skipping the lessons. The parent was stressed: "They have to pass this class! I’ve already made the investment, and if they don’t pass—" You can just feel the energy building.

I don’t know if you see this in your groups, Elaine, but I’ll often catch parents escalating—“But it’s like this!”—and you can hear the urgency in their tone and see it in their body language. It happens to all of us. Sometimes it feels like there’s a time crunch or a critical urgency that we can’t ignore.

The problem is, that urgency makes it so much harder for us to stay calm, clever, and creative—the mindset we really need to support our kids effectively.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, well, what’s coming up for me as you’re saying this is that what you’re describing is attachment. It’s a deep attachment to the outcome. It’s a focus on the task rather than the relationship, and it’s an attachment to how something has to be.

When our kids are little, we do need to be attached to the outcome because there are things they need to learn—that’s our job, right? But as they get older, if we stay overly attached to the outcome, we’re actually preventing them—robbing them—of the opportunity to learn through their own approach, their own method, and their own process.

Diane Dempster: Right, and I love that you added that because it ties back to that sense of urgency we feel as parents. It’s like, “They’ve got to learn this! How common is it to think, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re getting older, and they haven’t learned this yet. They have to learn it now!’”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. But if we’re so attached to the outcome and we’re holding the agenda, they’re not learning anything, right? This is why we talk so much about agenda.

Because here’s the thing: we can wake our kids up and get them out the door. But if they’re not the ones saying, “I want to wake up and get out the door,” then we’re just dragging them to their success instead of enrolling them in it.

Diane Dempster: Right. So I think what we’re talking about here is the short term versus the long term, right? It’s easy to hear everything we’re saying and respond with, “Yeah, but they still have to go to school!” So if I can’t get them out the door in the morning, what do I do in the meantime?

And that’s what I really want to invite us to think about—this is a process. Helping them figure out how to get out the door in the morning, and helping them get buy-in for it, doesn’t happen overnight. If we’re too attached to the outcome and freaking out that they’re not going to make it to school today, we’re not going to be in the best place to help them. Honestly, we’re going to shift into the reactive, animal part of our brain—the fight-or-flight response—thinking, “I have to fix this. This has to change right now. How do we get this done?”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. It’s the difference between ownership and scaffolding, right? When we’re working with parents—whether it’s in coaching groups for teens or young adults—we’re always looking at, “What are we working on next? What are they working on next?”

There are going to be times when you do scaffold to help them get out the door—because maybe they’re so focused on getting their homework done that they can’t manage that part yet. In that case, scaffolding makes sense because that’s where they’re putting their energy.

But if what they’re focusing on, or “taking aim” at, is getting out the door, then the approach is different. It involves more ownership and accountability. So part of this process is knowing when we’re in scaffold mode—supporting them because they’re working on something else—and when we’re supporting them in developing ownership of a particular task or goal.

Diane Dempster: Right, and both of those—scaffolding and ownership—are problem-solving modes. So go back to the initial idea: once you’re in problem-solving mode, you can start to figure out, “Am I scaffolding this? Am I teaching the skill? What’s the next baby step? How do I move the situation forward?”

The alternative is staying stuck in that “I have to fix this, and I have to fix it now” mindset. I think that’s the real call here: How do you start noticing when you’ve shifted into that “This has to change. I have to change it. I’m the only one who can fix this. They’re never going to figure this out” mode?

I had a teacher who used to call that “disaster mind”—we also call it catastrophizing. When you notice that catastrophizing creeping in, or you feel your body getting more anxious—like sitting up straighter, tensing your neck, or tightening up—you’re physically signaling that sense of urgency.

Here’s the truth: you don’t have access to your full capacity as a human when you’re in that space. Your brain shifts to fight-or-flight mode, and problem-solving becomes nearly impossible.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I’m smiling as I hear you say that because it reminds me of a podcast episode I did with Rosalind Wiseman. She’s known for her work on empowerment, particularly student empowerment—she wrote Queen Bees and Wannabes, the book that inspired Mean Girls.

Rosalind talked about how critical it is for parents to get out of the way and manage their own anxiety, which is something we talk about all the time. She highlighted two behaviors that parents often fall into. The first is catastrophizing, and the second—I absolutely love this term—is when adults have a self-righteous temper tantrum. Isn’t that great?

The self-righteous temper tantrum is part of this dynamic. It’s that “Yeah, but...” moment when we justify our reactive behavior. For example, if you’re storming into a school, determined to “teach them a lesson” or “set things straight,” you’re so sure you’re right that it doesn’t really matter what the scenario is. That self-righteous certainty keeps you stuck in reactivity.

Diane Dempster: But there’s a chicken-and-egg thing that happens here. Because what you’re describing is a dysregulated response—whether I’m going in with that self-righteous mode or I’m going in with “the sky is falling” mode. Either way, I need to pause and ask myself, “Wait a second, what’s underneath this reaction?” Is it fear, emotion, overwhelm, or something else? Because at the core, that self-righteous behavior is still a fight-or-flight response.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. That’s what Rosalind was talking about. The whole point was that we, as parents, have to get ourselves out of the way. Those two behaviors—catastrophizing and self-righteous temper tantrums—are prime examples of how we step in the way.

And when you apply that to what we’re talking about here, it’s clear: we can’t problem-solve if we’re in a reactive place. And yet, when we are feeling reactive, we feel like we have to solve the problem. It’s the quintessential paradox.

Diane Dempster: Yes! Okay, so let’s take a break, and when we come back, we’ll talk about what to do about it.

[After Break]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Perfect. Welcome back, everybody. This is the Parenting with Impact podcast, and we are diving into this paradox we just identified.

Diane Dempster: Can you say it again? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The quintessential parenting paradox is that we can’t problem-solve when we urgently need to solve a problem, and yet, when we urgently need to solve a problem… Well, I’m not sure what I just said.

Diane Dempster: You said, “You can’t solve a problem when you’re in reactive mode, but when you’re in reactive mode, you feel like you have to solve the problem.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s it. Yes.

Diane Dempster: There’s this urgency to solve the problem, right? Just knowing and accepting that truth can make a difference. That’s why we always teach “commit to calm.” Committing to calm doesn’t mean you’re calm all the time. It means recognizing, “Wait, maybe I’m not my best self when I’m feeling this urgency, this reactivity, this sense of ‘I have to fix this now.’”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. It’s about being responsive versus reactive. That’s really what we’re talking about here. When we’re in reactive mode, we’re not problem-solving from our highest, best self—or even using our best brain. We have to slow down, reclaim our brain, and create space in order to respond thoughtfully. Does that sound fair?

Diane Dempster: Right. So that’s the first step, right? Let’s go back to the trigger model we taught. I can’t remember which episode it’s from, but let’s connect this back to that episode on the trigger model. Part of this is just noticing: “Wait a second, I’m in hypervigilance. I’m in reactivity. I’m in that ‘I have to make this happen’ mode.” Whatever it looks like for you—we all have different flavors of it.

Hopefully, you’re starting to get a sense of what it feels like in your brain and body. Take a moment to think about it if you haven’t already. The key is noticing when you’re in that state and asking yourself, “Okay, wait. Is this a time to react, or is this a time to respond?”

If you can create that space, great. If you can’t, then stop what you’re doing. It’s like when your kid is having a meltdown—you stop, calm yourself first, and then decide: “Is this the time to really focus on this meltdown?”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Really focus on the meltdown instead of whatever else might be pulling your attention.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. And it’s also about managing the meltdown in your own head. If you can calm yourself down, that’s fantastic. If not, your priority becomes calming yourself rather than worrying about reacting versus responding.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, Diane, what just came up for me is a coaching session I had with a client—not about parenting, but about business issues. He was talking about this very topic, and we were exploring how to pause and take a moment before reacting, so he could respond more thoughtfully to the dynamics around him.

The interesting part is that we ended up reflecting on how he learned to do this as a parent to a child on the autism spectrum. He realized that the skills he used as a parent could directly apply to his work as a leader in a business environment. The exercise was essentially the same: What are the things we can do to slow ourselves down, take that moment, and remind ourselves to pause before we react?

Diane Dempster: Exactly. And the tool I love to teach is this: If you practice it all the time, you’ll be able to use it when you need it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes, that’s the same reason I used to teach pregnancy yoga!

Diane Dempster: Right! It’s about building the habit so it becomes second nature. One way I teach this tool is simple: whenever someone asks you something, or before you take any action or say anything, you take a deep breath first. For example:

• Someone asks, “Hey Mom, what’s for dinner?” You pause, take a breath, and respond, “We’re having spaghetti.”
• Or they say, “Hey Mom, where’s my backpack?” Again, pause, breathe, and answer.

This won’t feel easy at first, but it’s incredibly effective. It’s all about slowing yourself down and becoming more aware of your own pace.

Because when you’re anxious, frustrated, or overwhelmed, your brain starts to speed up. That makes it harder to think clearly and respond effectively. Sometimes, it’s about consciously deciding: “How can I spend today at a calmer pace?”

And then noticing when you’re starting to spin up. For me, it’s about recognizing that moment and asking myself, “Okay, how do I bring myself back down?”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You know what’s striking? I don’t know if we’ve ever done a podcast episode specifically about pausing. But when we first started coaching, I think it was one of the very first parenting tips we ever shared. It’s such a foundational piece of coaching!

We’re all about bringing coaching skills to parents, and I don’t know how much we emphasize this, but a core part of coaching is noticing the pause, honoring the pause, and creating space for the pause. It’s all about pausing to allow for reflection.

Diane Dempster: I was teaching a class yesterday, and I was coaching—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Like a group?

Diane Dempster: What’s that?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A group of coaches?

Diane Dempster: No, I was teaching a group of people who are becoming coaches. I was coaching in front of them, and at one point, the person I was coaching got really emotional. I just waited.

You know how it is—you just wait. And someone typed into the chat, “How long do you wait before you say something?”

That’s the discipline.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s a kind of strength.

Diane Dempster: You wait until you notice a shift in the person’s body. In this instance, I could see her body language change, and I knew she was in a place where she could hear the next question. It’s the same for you—how long do you wait? You wait until your body shifts, until you feel okay, I’m not revved up anymore, I’m relaxed enough to choose to respond rather than react.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But you can only do that from a place of awareness. And that’s one of the hardest things about both coaching and parenting—staying with things that are hard. It’s being with other people’s discomfort and our own discomfort. I was coaching another client the other day, and they have much younger children. We talked about how you can’t keep teaching emotional self-regulation to your child if you’re constantly rescuing them just because their emotions make you uncomfortable.

Diane Dempster: Well, the discomfort you’re feeling is probably a reactive response, right? I can’t handle this. A client of mine was wrestling with this very issue yesterday. She was struggling with her young adult child’s success in a class—“This kid has to succeed. They have to pass. They have to do this!” But part of what they might need is to struggle with it a little bit. And she was trying to figure out how to balance this: How do I decide when to step in, and when to step back?

The bottom line—and what we’ve been discussing—is that we are always deciding when to do what. And your ability to make those decisions changes completely depending on whether you’ve calmed yourself down. If you notice that you’re revved up, your decision-making process is different. It’s not always about being fully revved up—sometimes it’s just being agitated. We teach the concept of aware, alert, and alarm, right? We all know when we’re yelling at our kids, or when we’re shut down, or when we’ve completely lost control.

But most of the time, it’s that in-between state—where you’re like, “I know I’m not in my right mind right now, but I don’t quite know how to hold it together.” And that’s when many of us end up in what I call “fake calm”—when it looks like we’re calm on the outside, but inside, we’re not really holding it together.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, and this applies to our kids, too. I remember when my son was about eight or nine, I told him, “We’re going to take some time, calm down, and wait before we talk about this.” He was like, “Okay, I’m ready to talk about it.” But I said, “Actually, I know you think you’re ready, but we’re going to wait. We’re going to do this differently.” He was so angry, but it was so clear to me that my main job was not to let him move into problem-solving from that triggered place. Instead, I needed to help him shift from fake calm to real calm, which actually took about 20 minutes—not the 2 minutes he wanted it to be.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and the voice in our head often says, “I don’t have time to get calm.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right, and “We’ve got to fix this now!” But this is really about managing ourselves so that we can create the space for them to learn how to manage themselves.

Diane Dempster: I love that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, we need to start wrapping this up. How do you want to conclude?

Diane Dempster: I think it’s just a reminder that our intention is always to respond rather than react. We understand that. And I’m going back to your earlier point: when you're in reaction mode, you don't even realize you’re in reaction mode because you’re so focused on trying to fix it. You feel like you have to solve the problem right now. We get stuck in that loop. So, there has to be a conscious effort to pause and ask ourselves, “How do I self-manage?” Because, frankly, we’re not going to be able to self-manage when we need to. I don’t know how else to say it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, and that brings us back to the term we used earlier, which is so true. Maybe it’s not just the parenting paradox—it’s the human paradox. I can’t solve a problem when I’m reactive, but when I’m reactive, I feel like I have to solve the problem.

Diane Dempster: I feel like I have to solve it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. And that’s the piece of self-awareness that we can start to address and do something about.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and we can even teach our kids about this, which is a whole other podcast episode, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or maybe it’s this one, alright? Anything else before we wrap up?

Diane Dempster: No, thanks for the conversation. I love this.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I’ll include the trigger journal and a couple of podcast links in the show notes, so check that out. Anything else?

Diane Dempster: No, just thanks for listening. As always, thank you for what you’re doing for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, you make all the difference.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A huge difference. Take care, everybody.