Sustainable Parenting

117. Why Kids Behave Have Angry Outbursts at Home (But not in Public)

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

Share episode

Why do kids seem to save their biggest meltdowns for home?
You watch them stay polite and calm at school or during a family gathering—but the moment they’re back with you, it’s like a switch flips. Suddenly, there’s whining, power struggles, or a full-blown tantrum. If you’ve ever wondered why they hold it together for others but fall apart with you, this short episode of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast offers clarity, compassion, and simple parenting strategies that work.

This weekly podcast is here to support you with real-life parenting tips & tools—so you can bring more calm & peaceful parenting into your daily routines and truly enjoy your family time.

In this episode, we unpack what’s going on beneath your child’s after-school meltdowns and explore how anxiety & emotions often build up until they feel safe enough to release them—right when they’re back with you.

You’ll walk away knowing:

  • Why your child’s toughest behaviors often show up with the person they feel safest with—and how that connects to parent-child connection
  • What might be missing in your expectations (are they too high… or too low?) and how this impacts power struggles, especially with toddlers
  • Three practical and gentle parenting strategies to reduce tantrums, end the yelling, and make transitions feel easier

We also touch on tools from past episodes that are especially helpful if you're raising a neurodivergent child or want more support with gentle discipline:
 🌟 Episode 42: Why Typical Strategies Don’t Work with Neurodivergent Kids
🌟 Episode 115: Why Yelling Works—and What to Do Instead

If you’re looking for positive parenting ideas that are doable, supportive, and rooted in connection, this episode was made for you.

✨Want more?

1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

2) Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen.

3) Buy a 3 session Coaching Bundle (saving you $100) - for THREE 30-min sessions 1:1 with ME, where we get right to the heart of your challenges, and give you small, powerful shifts that make a huge difference fast.

Speaker 1:

Hey friends, has this ever happened to you? You get a glowing report from the teacher or you watch your child hold it together for a family gathering or party, polite, patient, maybe even a little quiet, but the minute you get in the car or you get home it's like a switch flips. Suddenly there's whining, meltdowns, backtalk. If you've ever wondered why can they behave so well out there but fall apart at home. You are not alone and today's episode is for you. Today, we're going to unpack this with understanding and compassion so that your life can feel easier and lighter and more joyful in your family time together. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome, all right, friends. So I'm so excited to help you understand what's underneath this behavior and three ways to solve it, and you're really going to understand these solutions after I share a story with you about Whitney, who came to understand the power of a carrot, and a client named Stephanie, who came to understand the power of a buffalo.

Speaker 1:

First of all, there are two main reasons that our kids are more explosive towards us and more polite out there in the world. First, it's a compliment. I know it's like, wait, I don't want that kind of compliment. I want that I love you so much, you're the best mom ever compliment. But honestly, that's what this behavior is conveying, because our kids only are more explosive and test more boundaries because they feel safe enough with us to do so. There's something very real called the after school restraint collapse or after camp restraint collapse, after party restraint collapse, and it's this essence that they're holding it all together as much as they possibly can. And then when they come home it's like, oh, okay, finally I can let down all the effort I had to put in to being in that space. So, friend, first of all, it is a compliment that they're being this way. It means you are safe enough that they feel comfortable to do that.

Speaker 1:

Another reason that kids sometimes are more explosive with us is our expectations might be really high or really low. What I mean is sometimes we get lost at where we're at in our child's development and we started out doing everything for them. Then we got to this place where we just like tell them what needs to happen and before we know it they're in this place of wanting more autonomy. But we're still operating off the default that they should just do what we say because we said so and we're clashing Our expectation that they should just do what we say because we're in charge is too high. It's not realistic with their developmental stage of desiring more autonomy and more freedom, and maybe at that camp or school day they are getting a little bit more autonomy and freedom. So our expectations may be of what this should look like being too high, or are they being too low Meaning every time the child does melt down at us, we negotiate with them and it's like what I say we don't want to be negotiating with a terrorist or we encourage more terrorist behavior. If we're having low expectations like, oh well, if he's just so tired he's upset, I'm just going to give him the candy bar, I don't care, I don't want to battle over it we reinforce that behavior happening to get things that they want, and that could also be a reason we're seeing this. So check ourselves. Are our expectations too high, not matching their developmental need for autonomy, or are they too low? And we've been negotiating with these terrorist moments enforcing more of that behavior. Now what do we do instead when they come home so that we can have this go better and have life feel easier? We want more joy and ease in our daily life. We don't want to be yelling at our kids. We want them to cooperate and be good listeners. So when they get in our car or their get home with us after some time at school or a camp or party, I want you to think about these key three solutions and remember in just a moment we're going to be talking about how that solution came out with the value of a carrot and the value of a buffalo.

Speaker 1:

First and foremost, check the vitals. One client, whitney, really learned this when she was saying gosh, every time I pick up my daughter from school and we do a walk home, she's just so difficult. She flops on the ground. I feel like I have to pick her up and drag her. We end up in these screaming matches and I'm like my gosh, you were just so great when I got you from school, what is happening? So she started to implement bringing some carrot sticks with her so that they could nibble on those as they walked home. And what do you know? The child was way more regulated and it also just made this like more communal moment.

Speaker 1:

Secondly, if your kid gets easily overstimulated in the car or through their day, then they're put into the car with a screaming younger sibling or a sort of annoying younger sibling. Then let's empower them with ways to put on headphones or let's empower them with a way to be able to have noise canceling ear coverings or even just little tiny earplugs. Let's empower them with squishy toys that they can use to squeeze out the aggression or adrenaline they had through the day of being overstimulated. And the more a child might have some sensory challenges, the more we definitely want to have a sensory toolkit for that ride home or a plan for a bit of their sensory diet, like large joint compression happening as soon as we get home, and for more if your child may have some sensory challenges at the end of the day. Please check out episode 42 of mine, where it was titled why typical strategies don't work with neurodivergent kids, cause this is a unique thing that we want to make sure we're addressing. Episode 42, helping you with neurodivergent kids.

Speaker 1:

All right, step two is connect before you correct. Now you've probably also heard about this throughout the time and being a listener here at Sustainable Parenting and if you haven't, please make sure you click the subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes to really get the full tool belt of sustainable parenting tools. But connection before correction addresses that concern I was talking about, about maybe having expectations be too high or too low, so if they're starting to melt down it was the worst day and why don't you have anything for me to play with? Or why can't we go to the park? Lead with connection, and an easy way to do that, I say, is to name it, to tame it. And in my last episode, episode 115, we dove into a process I call whoa, low and slow, which is a great template for how to name a child's feeling, naming it to tame it, how to slow down the pace, to really connect to what they're feeling. Before we correct and let's not forget the correction, though we want this combination of both validation and boundaries, so it's okay to try to slow down. Name what you hear they're frustrated about and then say but let's talk in a respectful way, let's slow down and we can use our big boy voice. Then I'm able to hear you better. I want to help understand. So a combination of validation and boundaries, connection before correction. And if you want to hear more about that, check last week's episode, episode 115.

Speaker 1:

And third of all, the power of the buffalo. Stephanie, with the power of the buffalo, was noticing that her long 30-minute drive home from the private school her child was going to was just torturous with the child. When she tried to ask how was your day? Did you this, did you that? Who did you play with? Everything was answered with a one word answer and shortness and crabbyness and annoyance and she was like ugh. And then we're just in this like brutal 30 minute drive together and I've missed my kid all day and it's just like such an icky way to start into our evening.

Speaker 1:

So we talked together about trying the strategy of sharing a high, a low and a buffalo. So what this looks like is setting a rhythm with your child and you can talk about it in advance. How about when I pick you up today? I'm going to ask you if you want to share with me your high, your low and your buffalo the buffalo we call just something random or something you're looking forward to. So what was your high from the day, your low from your day and your Buffalo? Something you're looking forward to tomorrow or something random? And an interesting point to keep in mind here is that it's important to not rush into what was your high, what was your low? Tell me, I really want to know it. Like, how are you, what was it? Sometimes our kids just need a minute.

Speaker 1:

So if you've said ahead of time just something like hey, when you're ready, I'd love to hear your high, your low and your Buffalo, and just wait, hold silence. Or if you have a child that gets annoyed even at at you, saying that I invite you to try out not being the first one to speak, like you give them a hug, I'm so glad to see you. And then once you get in the car, you hold silence and you just wait until they initiate something. Sometimes those kids that get very frustrated easily and just explosive with any question you ask when they initiate, it looks very different and they just start, you know, word vomiting things you wouldn't believe that they are open to sharing because you just held silence.

Speaker 1:

So, friend, these are my three key tools for you to be able to see a difference that can make your evening more enjoyable, your time after school, your time after you've left a party more enjoyable with an otherwise explosive child. I saw it happen with Whitney, saw it happen with Stephanie. The power of the carrot, the power of the buffalo and these other tools of connection before correction, validation and boundaries. I hope this serves you to be parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time, so parenting can finally feel sustainable. And, friend, join us next week as we're going to dive into how we can often feel like failures in motherhood or fatherhood and the truth about that feeling. See you then.