Parenting can feel like a whirlwind, especially when your kids are testing boundaries and emotions are running high. In this week’s episode, Dr. Renee White sits down with Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini, a child development researcher and passionate advocate for parents, to discuss how we can approach parenting challenges with clarity, confidence, and compassion.

Siobhan, the creator of Science Minded and a mum herself, brings over a decade of experience studying children's social and cognitive development. She shares thoughtful, evidence-based strategies to help parents set boundaries that feel right for their families while supporting their children’s emotional growth.

You’ll hear about:

• Why clear boundaries create emotional safety for kids.
• How parents’ capacity influences the boundaries they set.
• Practical tips for responding to persistent or challenging behaviors.

Resources and Links:

Learn more about Dr Renee White and Explore Fill Your Cup Doula Services

Follow Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini on Instagram: @science_minded

Explore Siobhan’s work at Science Minded

Want to be nurtured and nourished after the birth of your baby, have a peek at our doula offerings.

If you want to gobble up our famous Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies, look no further!

Got questions or feedback? Reach out anytime at hello@ifillyourcup.com, visit ifillyourcup.com or join us over on Instagram @fillyourcup_

Disclaimer: The information on this website presented by the Fill Your Cup is not a substitute for independent professional advice.

Nothing contained in this podcast is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.

[00:00:27] Dr Renee White: I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Science of Motherhood. Hello and welcome to episode 152 of the science of motherhood. I am your host, Dr. Renee White. Hello. Hello. Hello. Guacamole. It's December and, uh, we're T minus two weeks until Christmas. Enter panic stations. Are you one of those people who you're like, babe, I got this.

[00:02:36] Dr Renee White: So yes, lots of, lots of personal experience with this topic. And that is around setting boundaries with your little ones. Siobhan has got an amazing set of skills when it comes to children's social and cognitive development and you'll hear in the podcast, how. Her work really focuses around the dyad that is the parent child relationship.

[00:03:27] Dr Renee White: And she, like, her socials are just so, so good. And I, I just love, I always jump on there and I'm like, what can Siobhan help me with today? So you'll see that she has got the, she's got The account science minded, which is, and I'm going to find the actual handle for you because there's underscores and yes. Okay. So it's science underscore minded. There we go. I knew there was an underscore in there somewhere, but our chat today is essentially off the back of me reaching out to her and going, Hey, can you help me with some like, um, boundary issues with kids? That would be really great. Thanks very much. So Siobhan talks about attachments.

[00:04:41] Dr Renee White: Like what you say to a two year old is going to be a very different conversation to what you would have with, you know, a six plus. But we talk about not only. As I said, you know, the child kind of perspective, but also from an adult perspective as a parent, how do we navigate those things with your co-parent, you know, your partner, your husband, your wife, you know, whoever that is, how do you navigate that?

[00:06:04] Dr Renee White: Hello and welcome to the podcast, or should I say welcome back to the podcast? Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini, how are you?

[00:06:22] Dr Renee White: Episode nine. Oh my god. is um, that's a long time ago.

[00:06:47] Dr Renee White: I know, and I've moved states. Yes. Last time. Yeah. Last time I would have spoken to you. We were still in Melbourne.

[00:07:00] Dr Renee White: It absolutely is. Uh, no regrets, no regrets here. Today's episode, as I discussed with you offline is a bit of a selfish one. Um, it's one that I was like, yes, I was looking through your content and you always are so insightful with your, you know, education around attachment parenting, and I absolutely love it. But, and this is, this is the selfish part, but I know it's going to be valuable for everyone. I've got friends and family who really want to know about some interesting stuff about boundaries for kids.

[00:08:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:08:57] Dr Renee White: But then I want to really dive into boundaries and I want to pick your brain around how to kind of enforce those in a really safe, respectful way, but firm as well. But before we dive into that, obviously for the listeners who didn't listen to episode nine, if you're new, if you're new to the village, please go back to episode nine.

[00:09:33] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: That's right. Yeah. I mean, there'll be a lot more research now that's, um, it's so interesting and I don't want to sidetrack our conversation, but I was reading, um, um, I work with daycares a lot and I was reading a thing talking about some educators talking about how the behavior of kids now versus 5 years ago is so different and how do they handle it? And I remember. I haven't commented on it yet, but I remember thinking, guys, COVID, 5 years ago, and 4 years ago, this is covered babies. Yeah. And the long reaching impacts. We are only beginning to understand and it's going to affect like, there's, there's reports, um, like national education reports about how this stuff's going to affect affect us and our kids and society as a whole into the 2030s, the 2040s, like, there's some genetic, like, there's chronic stress situations.

[00:10:45] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And it's very interesting from a research perspective to think and to learn about the lasting impacts of that stuff.

[00:11:38] Dr Renee White: Um, you And they just need that reassurance from, from that close circle. But yes, tell us who you are, what you're doing. What are you up to now with your cherubs?

[00:12:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: The circle of security as a bite sized intro is a intervention program that came out of America in the 90s is the only program that is, um uh, like, has almost 30, 40 years of, uh, evidence behind it to support its capacity to strengthen relationships and to improve the security of attachment, and it's an 8 week program and I run it and it's great.

[00:13:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And yeah, lots of kind of emotional, um, security and attachment and parenting and compassion. Absolutely compassion because we all try our best and we're all doing our best at the end of the day and we all muck up because we're humans and that's an important part of teaching our children that humans make mistakes and they can make mistakes too. Anyway, that's a long, yammering, disconnected explanation of what I do.

[00:14:44] Dr Renee White: And it's just, I don't know, I find that when you apologise to your kid for something, there's just this reset button that happens and then they are more likely in the future, I think from this is my personal perspective to to reflect when they have acted poorly as well and I apologise.

[00:15:37] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely. And so, okay, let's, let's, let's get on point. Cause I want to talk about attachment parenting. So from, from the perspective of like someone so green, they have no idea they might've heard of the term attachment parenting. How would you describe it to the listeners?

[00:16:26] Dr Renee White: We are all about evidence based here. So just, you know, get on it.

[00:17:01] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, they wrote a book in the, no, but I think it was the eighties, but they really highlighted this idea of the five Bs. As the way to create attachment, which side note is not how you do it, but he emphasised that the kind of, uh, the shortcut to secure attachment is breastfeeding, baby wearing, bed sharing, uh, bonding at birth, and then the only 1 that actually is related is being responsive. Okay, there's a little bit of truth to all of these things that breastfeeding can help but only because it's attuned. So you can breastfeed your baby in a highly unattuned way, like if you just shove the baby on the breast and make no eye contact and like feed them for specific times and don't tie into their cues.

[00:18:37] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: We're there for them that they learn to trust that we will. Meet their needs, their emotional needs, their physical needs, all of their needs, which can get a little very stressful for parents because that could be, you can hear that and say, oh, I'm going to meet every one of my child's needs. That could be a lot of pressure. The beauty of things is that there's a lot of research started by Tronic in the 70s, but continued all the way through that. The research has found that in order to have a secure attachment, we typically need to be responsive to our kids 30 to 50 percent of the time, which is actually pretty great, right? I can do 30 to 50%.

[00:19:23] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. Yep. Totally. But no, 30 to 50 percent different, different studies find different things, but approximately that, and, the key thing here is it's not that, oh, cool. That means I can turn off 50 percent or 70 percent of the time. What it means is that we don't meet our children's needs because we are humans and because we aren't perfect. So, when my, when I'm like cooking dinner and trying to put the baby in the bath and doing all the things and then my 5 year olds on the couch crying because he stubbed his toe. Even though I want to be able to help him, sometimes there are other things that come first and in that situation, his emotional and physical needs aren't being met and that sucks.

[00:20:48] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So attachment parenting in essence is being present, being emotionally available. It's much more connected to the emotion and relationship needs and it's circle of security and the researchers. Um, Bert Powell, Kent Hoffman and Glenn Cooper, um, who founded it, talk about this idea that we are the safe haven that our children, sorry, the safe harbor that our children explore from. So, when they feel safe enough to go out and explore the world, and then when they've been out in the world, and they, their tank is empty, or they hurt themselves, or they're tired, they come back into us as a safe haven. And so we, that's the circle that they, we're they are. And they go out, they explore and then they come back and they refill their cup from us with our love and our connection. And then, and then it just continues on that circle.

[00:22:28] Dr Renee White: I can totally, uh, feel that even like, I actually want to know when your child comes to you, and this is just me being selfish again with, um, real life scenarios, I'd love to know, what do you do when you're feeling touched out and one of your, beautiful cherubs comes to you and say, mummy, I want to cuddle. And you're just like, Oh man, I just can't. What do you do? Cause I've got something that I do, but I'd love to know what you do.

[00:23:32] Dr Renee White: Teeny Tiny Stevies.

[00:23:43] Dr Renee White: I love it when it backfires

[00:23:57] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:24:28] Dr Renee White: Right.

[00:24:37] Dr Renee White: This seems familiar

[00:25:37] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And this is valid and you have needs to and I always think about attachment. It's not about the child, and so often, attachment is child focused, but attachment is a dyadic thing. Attachment is always a relationship. There's you, me, and then there's our relationship and attachment is the relationship because if I'm giving you everything, and I'm running on empty that's negatively affecting our attachment. And not only is it negatively affecting our attachment, it's showing you that it's perfectly okay. To run yourself on empty for someone else.

[00:26:13] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Which is not the message we want to send to anyone. And instead, and that's why boundary is so important because it helps teach and model to our children that I value us more than you and me. So I'm doing what I can to protect us. Through boundaries.

[00:27:18] Dr Renee White: You are more than welcome to come sit on the bed next to me with your headphones on and have some iPad time. Cause she'll just want to, she She just needs to, um, she has a thing with her feet. She has to touch with her feet. That's her comfort thing, right? And I should have known because she was a huge kicker in my belly.

[00:27:42] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:27:43] Dr Renee White: The burning gates of hell during pregnancy. Yeah. So she will always want to touch me with her feet, which is fine. But I'm like, I just need to close my eyes and lie down for 20 minutes, sit next to me. Do your touch with the feet thing, I don't say it to her, she knows it's going to happen right?

[00:28:04] Dr Renee White: Yeah, exactly. And I'm just like, and then everyone's happy. And then I'm like, and I've actually said to her, I need to do this now. So we can have an enjoyable time with an activity that you choose next, because otherwise I'm going to be really tired and I'm going to be like, I'm not going to be a good mum. Right. So we, we're at that point now, um, which is good, but that was like micro movements from, you know, two and three, when, you know, we talk about that type of stuff.

[00:29:09] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Like, if you're in survival mode, this is not the time to be doing these things. No. Doing what you can with what you've got, finding ways to survive and to, um, yeah, just keep everyone healthy and safe is like, emotionally is the most important thing. Lots of this stuff does, like you say, happen more, um, in more detail and more conversationally as they get older.

[00:29:52] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: This is my line and he doesn't respect it because he's an 18 month old and I don't think they have respect for anything at that age. Um, but. Like, it's more about me being like, I'm not going to let you and being confident that this is something I'm going to stick to, even if you're sad about it. And at the moment, when he's little, it's like, I'm not giving you the kitchen knife, even though you are so desperate for the kitchen knife. He managed to get it the other day because my husband was holding him and he grabbed down and he held it up with such a victory in his eyes and then we went, whoa, whoa, whoa, managed to get it off. But, like, it's I think about being confident. And so, yeah, for him, the things he want are knives, scissors, and medicine. So, like, super, the good thing is that those are things that are so not okay for a small child to have.

[00:30:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Exactly.

[00:30:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It's the situations where it's easy to give in and sometimes I do, because I'm a human person and I think you kind of talked about it earlier about with traveling that sometimes it like time. There are times in our lives where we do need to be flexible and demonstrating that without boundaries to our kids. It's really important too like. Yes, on school holidays or on vacation or on, like, things are more flexible. So we do like, we're more flexible. Our family and we're much more flexible around food about, like, eating about treats about screen time.

[00:32:26] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. So it's re it reinforces whineness and, um, asking and asking and asking and that is something I'm really starting to try and get better at 'cause my 4-year-old is really persistent. It's one of his many qualities that is, will serve him well in life and is challenging as the parent of him that he's kind of like, I'll just keep going, going, going, going. And so I've had to learn that I have to be really firm at the outset mm-Hmm and. That all starts in my own head being like, is this a boundary? I'm willing to hold. Do I have the mental capacity to hold it? Do I have. The time to fight it, um, and And that's, I think it's kind of that ties into the idea of like, pick your battles because sometimes it's not worth it. And I don't know if you have this, but in recent years, I've been like, I find myself fighting something or like being really hard on a boundary that I don't care about.

[00:33:22] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And halfway through it, I'm like, why am I doing this? I don't know, but I've committed.

[00:33:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It depends, right? Sometimes there was one recently, I kind of remember what it was where my husband turned to me. He's like, why are you doing this to yourself?

[00:33:50] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. And then I go, well, shit, I don't know. And then usually in that, like it doesn't happen that often, but sometimes I will. Turn to my kid and say, look, daddy has pointed out that it doesn't actually matter that much.

[00:34:04] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And he's right. So, like, and then, then I'm usually my sassy 4 year old be like, oh, so daddy's right. And mummy's wrong. I was like, no, we're not going with that. He loves to turn the knife and but yeah, so we're often try to be super transparent and honest with our kid. Again, he's old enough to have those conversations.

[00:34:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But I think I was raised in a household for lots of different reasons. And again, it was the 90s where. Authority, like, the parental authority was. hard and fast.

[00:34:40] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And there was no questioning.

[00:34:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And the irony is both my parents are quite scientifically minded. So in like, in all of like the academic teaching or like the world teaching, it was like question everything, be skeptical. But I didn't really ever feel that that applied within the parenting domain. Um, and that's something I definitely want my child to be able to ask questions about is my parenting and we've started to have conversations about and he's a bit too young to really get it to be like, I've never been a parent before. So, I'm figuring this out and you know how you're learning to be a kid. I'm learning to be a mum and we're going to teach each other and we're going to make mistakes. I'm going to work together because we're on the same team.

[00:36:02] Dr Renee White: And, and obviously it's going to, um, be different with different age groups, you know, when you've got like a two to three year old versus a, you know, four to five year old, what is the game plan with that? And I want it, I want your advice from as far back as do you sit down or do you suggest to parents that, you know, they need to sit down together and work out, okay, This is not working.

[00:36:53] Dr Renee White: Is there any value in sitting down with that child and saying, look, We've noticed that you continue to push the boundary in the hope that we will say yes to whatever that is. Let's say lollies, you know, whatever. I don't know. And so do you sit down with them and say, look, we all need to get on the same team here. And do you have a discussion with them about what that boundary is going to be? I guess maybe part three is, is the value in having a discussion with your child. before it all goes pear shaped. So you're not actually in that moment of negotiation. It's already been established that this is the boundary.

[00:37:56] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I think the caveat is that it depends. Which is absolutely crap answer. And I, everyone hates that because we want nice, simple bite size, do this and this.

[00:38:08] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Oh, I love a silver bullet. I want them all day. But so I think the, so I'll go backwards. The benefit of sitting down with your kid and saying those things, provided they're capable of having those discussions. Um, and even if they are capable of having them, they're still going to push the boundary.

[00:38:26] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I think the risk of having those discussions is sometimes parents think, well, I've told you, so now, you know, not to do it. That's the value of having the sit down is not for the kid. The value of the sit down is for you as the parents to get it really crystallized in your head that right, I have decided that if you do X, I will do Y.

[00:39:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Our kids don't have to do anything. Yeah. If if we're if they need to do something, then it's a request. It's not a boundary. And having the conversation with the kid, a child's job is to test boundaries. The point is um, a child is to learn. what's safe, what's acceptable. And that's how we learn. Like, I was thinking about this the other day, like as thinking about first time parents, how we often get first time parents, it's very common. And you would know in your work to be black and white about things.

[00:39:36] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And the reason we get black and white about things is because we're trying to learn the boundaries of any situation. And we're trying to establish our own boundaries. And if we're constantly like dancing with the gray, We don't know where the boundaries are.

[00:40:07] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:40:29] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:41:11] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:41:23] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:42:00] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: They don't have that freedom to explore. They're running around crazy in the room and they're just trying to do anything. But then it's chaos and we just go, oh, fine do it, fine do it. Like, and so it's this kind of, I can't remember what I called it in the post, but something about flimsy fences and. I don't know, but the idea that we put up all these boundaries, but we don't hold any of them.

[00:42:52] Dr Renee White: What are some of the hallmarks of a child who feels like that?

[00:43:34] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:44:17] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Right.

[00:44:52] Dr Renee White: Oh, God yeah. Especially as first time parents. You're like, and we are navigating this for the first time.

[00:45:06] Dr Renee White: I, I, I approve of all of those things. I am going to ask a few specific case studies around, um, Uh, drop offs. How does one handle that? So let's give the case scenario that you've got, so it's a kindergarten kid, a little boy, um, mum, they've discovered that mum can just not do drop offs anymore because it ends in tears and the child just won't let go of mum.

[00:46:06] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I'm smiling because this is me with my eldest. So, I'd like to, um, preface this with temperament matters so much. So temperament is kind of the precursor to personality. And it's typically what we talk about with little ones because personality doesn't become solidified until well into later childhood and adolescence, but temperament kind of explores the way in which our bodies and brains and nervous systems interact with the world.

[00:47:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: They're chill, happy kids. That's actually the majority of people. Apparently, both of my children are not that way, but, um, particularly my eldest is, and it's hard to know chicken and egg situation because covert and chronic stress can exacerbate these things, but we will never know the answer to those questions. But these little ones need more support when it comes to, um, drop offs and being cared for by people who are not necessarily their primary attachment figure. It can be really, really challenging. So, my eldest cried at drop off until last year. And thankfully, towards the end of last year, it was just silent tears, which is still terrible because they still got cortisol racing through his body.

[00:48:23] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And so if mum is going into every day, highly activated, highly distressed, spending her whole day stressing about her kid, that's not great. That's not great for anyone. The other thing I would do would be trying to highlight who, the kids favorite educator is so, um, if they're in a kinder room, is it the kindy teacher?

[00:49:11] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: They probably have a wonderfully healthy relationship attachment relation with dad, but it's not like, the primary 1, and so, therefore, they don't feel as conflicted when they get when they separate. So, what I'd be doing is building up as much as you can. The attachment with the caregivers that can be. And I really highlight caregivers here, and I know that in the early learning space, we're moving away from the term caregiver to educator. And I understand why for lots of reasons, political and etcetera, giving care and offering care and support is so beneficial and essential to the well being of little kids, particularly five and under, because they can't learn and grow and do all the things they need to do if they don't feel emotionally safe.

[00:49:58] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And so I'd be doing things like finding highlighting who his person is at at Kindy and then like, really amping that up, like, making, talking about them, talking about the teacher, um, telling stories about the teacher at home, um, making opportunities to connect with the teacher asking, like, what's your favorite color? Like, just really kind of not love bombing. That sounds bad, but. finding ways to really enhance that relationship so that when they go to kindy, they feel safe and secure. Having said that, it's hard work. It can take a really long time. We did all of those things with my big boy. Um, and it was just developmental for him.

[00:50:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And it was only now he's in kindy. It was only kind of the first few months of kindy where it started to calm down, but it's really hard. And lots of these things outside of our control, particularly with all of the difficulties in childcare and like staff turnover can be really hard because you build a relationship with one educator.

[00:51:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Exactly.

[00:51:35] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, that relationship. With the parents will never be superseded by a teacher, but it's not about replacing exactly like you say, it's about providing another layer. In the same way that we support our kids with sleep and like, when we take away a dummy, or we add something else, like, we add a different layer of comfort. It's exactly the same as that. Um, 1 thing that has worked wonders with my big boy, because my husband has to travel for work a bit. Um, so there's this book called the invisible string.

[00:52:43] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And anytime we get sad or miss each other, we press it and we can feel each other pressing it. And then he's turned it into when, when my husband travels, he's turned it into when I press it, it tickles daddy's bum. And he loves this idea of his dad being like squirming in a meeting because his bum's getting tickled, which is just a beautiful spin to personalise it.

[00:53:31] Dr Renee White: And I'm assuming that The classes that you teach in the security circle, um, circle of security is with both parents. How do you balance, like, for example, if one, if, if you've got a child who is like from zero to a thousand in emotion, or, you know, as you say, they're trying to push the boundaries. How do you balance out, like, maybe one parent is also quite, volatile as well and they get really frustrated quickly and, and cross versus some, you know, the other parent who is trying to be compassionate about it and, and, and work through and regulate that emotion.

[00:54:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. I also, um, use it. So in this, in that example, that's me and my kid, I'm quite reactive. I go from zero to a hundred at times. And so it's a mixture of when, when that happens, my husband and I, we do lots of him going, hi, so you know how you exploded? I was like, yeah, I definitely did that. Didn't I? So a lot of it's self awareness.

[00:55:36] Dr Renee White: A lot of criticism.

[00:55:56] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:56:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Just being accountable in our family is really important. Like being able to call each other out is something we really value, but it is hard when you're on the same page. And I guess it comes down to in that instance. My husband and me, and we try, like, we're increasingly getting our child involved in this, our big picture values are the same.

[00:56:48] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I guess if you don't have the same big picture values, and if you act like, if you're arguing about the core tenants of parenting of, like, no, they shouldn't be allowed to do X, Y, and Z, like, if that isn't there. it is a lot more challenging and you need to have good conversations.

[00:57:49] Dr Renee White: Yeah. How do you manage that?

[00:58:10] Dr Renee White: Yeah. You've got like the sign language.

[00:58:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:58:36] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:58:58] Dr Renee White: Yeah, sure.

[00:59:04] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:59:36] Dr Renee White: Yes, I'm a huge advocate for that.

[00:59:46] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. Highlighting that humans don't agree so much of the time.

[00:59:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And if you live with another person, there's going to be things you don't agree about. And, like, really modeling that there's some things you don't agree about. But you choose to not care and just deal with it. There's some, some things that you don't agree with that you need to bring to and come to a discussion.

[01:00:31] Dr Renee White: I totally agree. And I think it translates like it translates as easily at, you know, We had a bunch of kids over at our house yesterday for a big mega play date. Um, and there was a disagreement over, you know, the scooter and, you know, it was just, no, I want to, I want the scooter and, you know, six other kids were going, but hold on a minute. I want the scooter too. Like we wanna have turns and I could hear them and I was watching them. Mm. I was like, just, you know, perched up

[01:01:08] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I was like, oh, how's this, how's this gonna play out? Um, and in the end, um, you know, there was just too many cooks in the kitchen. Yeah. And um, Eva came and got me and she was like, we can't decide about the scooter. And like literally I walked down. And I'm thinking, I'm not making any decisions on this. They're going to have to work it out themselves. But I just was present. And I was just like, so like, I was just like, so what's the game we're playing. And they started to explain what was happening. And then it just diffused because everyone kind of started to get their turn about their opinion.

[01:02:21] Dr Renee White: It's how you. Project that opinion onto others and also what you do with that. You know, are you going to take it on and feel either one, that you need to have that opinion as well and be the doormat, two, are you just going to stand there be like, that's totally cool. But I've got my opinion as well, like, I think that they are all really, really important lessons to have.

[01:02:54] Dr Renee White: Yes!

[01:02:58] Dr Renee White: Oh my god, yes. And be, also, Be thoughtful and critically analyse those opinions, but don't, but not coming from a perspective of I'm going to prove you wrong. You know, I think that that would be, we're talking about me ticking off milestone goals with my kid. That would be like a huge, like, bucket list item for me to go. Yep. My kids are totally open to hearing other opinions and being like, yeah, cool. That's great. You know, but have you thought about this? Yeah, I think that would be awesome.

[01:03:49] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[01:03:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Self compassion. That's really, like, I, someone asked me the other day about if I could go back to, like, the me in the first year of my eldest, um, what would you do? What would you say? And I remember, like, I wouldn't do or say anything. I'd just hug me.

[01:04:09] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, like, there's, you know, And it ties into opinions and everything which like everyone's really trying the best they can. And if I think if we can approach everyone and ourselves with that concept and that idea and just give each other so much more grace and compassion, we'd all be so much better off.

[01:04:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: There's a quote that keeps coming back to me throughout my adult life and it's by a poet slash, I don't know what the right word is, but he was intentionally wrote very whimsical, ridiculous poems that my granddad used to always tell me.

[01:05:37] Dr Renee White: It's the beautiful part.

[01:05:40] Dr Renee White: It's absolutely beautiful part.

[01:05:44] Dr Renee White: Oh, okay. I'm going to get you to send me a link to. Yes. Last question we always ask our guests, famously borrowed by the lovely Brene Brown. What do you keep on your bedside table?

[01:06:01] Dr Renee White: do you have a full blackout one?

[01:06:04] Dr Renee White: Oh my God. I love them.

[01:06:17] Dr Renee White: Get a Kindle. Okay.

[01:06:24] Dr Renee White: I was, and I have been converted.

[01:07:03] Dr Renee White: Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I love mine because we've got, um, a shitty old house with shitty old curtains that don't do anything with the light. And, um, yes, that is why I have to use mine. And they're great on a plane as well.

[01:07:27] Dr Renee White: Oh god, let me have a look.

[01:07:33] Dr Renee White: Okay, I'm geographically challenged, so I couldn't tell you. Uh, I'm just looking on the app now. So sunset here at the moment is quarter past six at night. Okay. And sunrise is quarter to six, but we're about to do daylight savings.

[01:07:52] Dr Renee White: This coming weekend. So everything will kind of even out. Yes. But you lovely people in Queensland.

[01:07:59] Dr Renee White: Rebellion.

[01:08:24] Dr Renee White: That is so funny. Oh, yeah. I'm sure I'm sure there's some sort of political thing around. Look, it has been absolutely amazing to have you back on the pod. Thank you so much for coming.

[01:08:37] Dr Renee White: It's so insightful. I feel like I've learned so much. And I know that others are going to take so much value from this. Really great case studies and I think, um, yeah, lots of learnings, lots of learnings.

[01:08:55] Dr Renee White: Oh, I know. I was like, I think I, I joked to someone the other day and I was like, I feel like I could be like Joe Rogan and talk to someone for like three hours on these podcasts because I don't like, and I just, I catch myself and I'm like, Oh my God, like it's been like well over an hour. We need to wrap this up. But yes, I love chatting with you. I love all your content. I think it's amazing. So yes, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

[01:09:23] Dr Renee White: My pleasure. All right, everyone. Until next time, we will see you. Bye.