In my previous posts, we explored why you're too tired to parent the way you want to and 7 parenting strategies when parenting feels too hard. Today, we're tackling a question I see parents asking constantly: "What discipline should I use when my child does X?" But when we focus only on stopping behavior, we miss what's actually happening underneath.

Sometimes I see parents online asking: "What discipline tools do you use in X situation?" or "What consequence do you give for Y behavior?"

When we ask these questions, we're missing the opportunity to understand why the child was doing the behavior in the first place.

Adrianna and Tim, parents I worked with, struggled with this. Their kids, Bodhi and Remy, used to fight constantly, and Adrianna would jump in to send each child to their "corner." Their fighting triggered memories from her own childhood, and she would tell them: "Siblings aren't supposed to do that. You guys have to be best friends." But that approach wasn't working; Adrianna couldn't go to the bathroom without one of them pulling the other one's hair out.

Kids act out because they have unmet needs and they don't know how else to communicate them.

Parents whose kids hit each other usually find the hitting happens for one of two reasons:

The hitting child wants to play and doesn't know how to ask the other one.

The hitting child wants connection with a........

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