Embracing the Messiness
Happy Thursday! You made it!
I recently watched a video of a blue-tongued skink being born. The craziest part was seeing it walk away from its own birth.
Want to know what animal doesn’t walk away from the delivery room? Humans. That’s because we’re effectively the opposite of the blue-tongued skink – While it’s born ready to do everything an adult skink does, human babies take a looooong time to grow up.
Practical Translation? Kids are not small adults. They don’t act like adults and don’t think like adults.
Practical Application? Kids might “get floppy” when they don’t want to do something. They might push boundaries. They might be unpredictable. They might not pick up on obvious cues. They might make life feel really, really messy.
All this mess is how kids figure out the way the world works. The mess IS the curriculum.
💥Real World Strategy:
Next time you find yourself wondering why everything feels so hard, remind yourself that kids are scientists; their job is to test theories and messily figure things out. That means our job as parents is to expect some mess while we notice areas for potential growth— skill gaps, cognitive gaps, behavior gaps– and support them as they grow.
🔋Resource of the Week:
Wondering why blue-tongued skinks have live births when most lizards lay eggs? It’s because they are “ovoviviparous,” which means they’ve evolved to hold and hatch their eggs internally to keep them safe. Want to see for yourself? Check out a Blue-tongued Skink live birth courtesy of Australian Geographic. (Preview before showing your kids! Like many natural wonders, it’s fascinating and revolting at the same time.)
🌊Use Your Membership to Dive Deeper
Want to dive into concrete strategies and examples about why kids act the way they do? Check out Parenting in the Real World: Protect Childhood (Level 1, Course 1, Section 6) and Dig into Behavior (Level 1, Course 3, Section 1).
Want to talk it through? Join us on our next coaching call.
💬 Join the Conversation:
Chat with me and other parents about this week’s topic on Bluesky/ Instagram/ Facebook/ TikTok.
💌Newsletter Archive:
Missed a good one? Want to revisit past topics? Find them all here.
✨Need More Support?
I leave time in my schedule every week for current clients who need some extra TLC. Grab a time on my calendar. (If you don’t see something that works, email me at cari@carinewmancoaching.com, and I’ll do my best to work some calendar magic.) Parenting doesn’t have to be this hard, and you don’t have to do it alone.
You’ve got this.
🩵Cari
p.s. Know another parent who could use short, sweet, and actually useful parenting tips written for real people by a real person? Forward this along! (And if someone sent this to you—nice work, you have thoughtful friends!) Click here to sign up and access the full archive.
