In this episode, I share the real story of the day I realized we had just dodged a massive meltdown — not by controlling behavior, but by meeting emotional needs before the storm hit.
You’ll discover:
• Why tantrums often disappear when emotional needs are met early
• How color and symbolism help young children express big emotions
• Why co-regulation calms the nervous system faster than discipline
• How a simple daily ritual can shift your entire home environment
• Why emotional safety moves a child’s brain from survival to curiosity
This isn’t about stopping feelings.
It’s about understanding them.
If you’re ready to make tantrums easier — and connection stronger — this episode will open your eyes to what’s possible with the right tools.
👉 And if you want to go deeper, join me inside the Tantrum Tamer Workshop, where I teach the full approach step by step so you can use these tools with confidence in your own home.
RainbowMotion™ is a proprietary emotional regulation framework developed by Anya Garcia.
Daniel J. Siegel – Interpersonal Neurobiology: supports the role of co-regulation, emotional safety, and connection in helping children return to calm.
Stephen Porges – Polyvagal Theory: explains tantrums as nervous system responses rather than misbehavior.
Maria Montessori – Montessori philosophy: honors sensory-based learning, self-expression, and the child’s inner developmental needs.
Developmental psychology research on color–emotion association and symbolic expression in pre-verbal children, supporting the use of visual tools for emotional communication.
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Transcripts
Speaker A:
There was a dead body in the pool. Well, not really. But that’s how shocking I felt the day I realized we had just dodged a massive tantrum. It was a chaotic Tuesday.
The living room looked like a toy tornado had touched down, and my oldest, Julia, was about to lose it over something as small as the wrong color cup. But then—silence. That big meltdown, it never came.
Instead of a full-blown explosion, we got this almost eerie calm. Why? Because I had discovered a simple secret. When I met my daughter’s emotional needs before the storm hit, everything shifted.
That moment changed how I approached tantrums, and honestly, it changed everything.
Fast forward a few years. I had built a whole toolkit for helping small people navigate big emotions. And I used the same approach with my second kiddo, Adrian. And guess what? Same magic. No yelling, no bribing, no epic meltdowns.
It honestly felt like I had stumbled onto a parenting superpower. And I realized this is something every parent deserves to know.
Hey, my friend, and welcome to the Anya Garcia Show.
Here, we will explore the science of learning, the art of parenting, and the mindset shifts that help you simplify your journey to amplify your growth. You see, I thought I would find purpose in courtrooms until motherhood showed me it was waiting at home.
So I traded my attorney briefcase for the beauty of homeschooling, depositions for diapers, and settlements for sensory play. I stepped off the legal path so that I can walk it with you.
Because parenting doesn’t come with a manual or legal briefs, so no wonder it can feel overwhelming and messy. But I see you showing up every day, even when no one is watching.
And that little voice, “Am I doing enough?” I hear it too. But here is the truth. You don’t need more to be enough. Because more doesn’t create peace. Alignment does.
Progress matters more than perfection. And when you stop doubting, you start leading with confidence. And before you know it, you have created a space where you and your child thrive.
Because humans are born with this natural desire to learn and grow, and I am here to help you harness that. Your child’s potential is limitless, and so is yours. We just need to unlock it.
So here is one of the gems I have collected from parenting and homeschooling both of my kids the Montessori way.
I created a simple, playful tool I call RainbowMotion™, a daily emotional check-in using colors. So each day, Julia would pick a color to represent how she was feeling. Red for angry, blue for calm, green for happy. You get the idea. Linking her feelings to a color gave her an emotional map she could actually use.
Then we would take it a step further, talking about all the things she knew that were that color. Red like a fire truck, blue like the ocean. That curious conversation helped take the emotional edge off and made her feel seen, not scrutinized.
But RainbowMotion™ isn’t just about linking a feeling to a color.
It’s about building connection, co-regulating the nervous system, and creating the kind of emotional safety that helps a child’s brain shift from survival mode to curiosity mode.
RainbowMotion™ isn’t just color-coded feelings. It’s co-regulation in disguise, nudging little brains from fight or flight to curiosity and connection.
And this tiny daily ritual gave us a gentle rhythm, a moment to pause, check in, and help her navigate big feelings with calm and clarity.
And before she could speak, I made our first color wheel from a frozen pizza insert. She would point to the color that matched her mood.
It amazed me how naturally she gravitated toward red when she was upset and toward cooler tones like blue when she was calm.
And that is how one day that rainbow wheel turned a looming tantrum into a quiet moment of connection.
From a scientific perspective, using colors to represent emotions is both plausible and developmentally appropriate, especially for young children who aren’t yet verbal.
Here is why it works. Color-emotion associations are often intuitive even before a child develops formal language. Many children naturally link red with intensity or distress and blue with calm, shaped by their environment, biology, and the emotional tone we use when talking about these colors.
Preverbal children also tend to use colors and imagery symbolically. When they consistently see high-emotion contexts like a stop sign or an angry emoji face or even their own red scribbles when they’re upset, they begin to internalize that emotional link even without direct instruction.
And yes, Montessori principles fully support this. Montessori environments honor a child’s natural drive for self-expression and sensory-based learning. A simple color wheel becomes more than a visual. It becomes a bridge for emotional communication.
With the right tools, even the youngest child can tell you exactly how they feel. No words needed.
So try RainbowMotion™ with your little one. It’s a small shift that can create a huge sense of calm and connection in your home.
Now, if you want to learn the full approach and go deeper with me, join my Tantrum Tamer Workshop because I really want you to have all these tools. So you can click the link in the show notes below, and let’s make tantrums a whole lot easier.
