In my years as a family therapist, 1 approach worked consistently to get angry and defiant little kids to be loving and obedient:

10-minute sessions EVERY DAY with each child where the parent just asked questions, paid attention, and showed them love.

Stopped so many behaviors.
Some played Go-Fish, some colored pictures, just just sat together. No screens. 10, literally timed on a countdown clock they could both see. Questions and questions with no advice or directions or scolding. Just interviewing with interest as if the parent cared about their child
10 minutes a day with each child turned things around even for families with older kids who were starting to use physical violence against adults to express their anger.

Being treated like they were loved changed their entire behavior pattern. Imagine that.
If you want your kids to listen to you, they have to feel loved and they need to know you’re interested in them. That gives them something to lose if they act badly. Kids naturally want to please their parents but many feel like it’s impossible so they go the opposite way.
Give your kids love and be interested in them and suddenly they’ve got something to lose if they act badly. You don’t have to ground them or scream at them or spank them. Defiant kids will use those punishments as fuel.

But your disappointment is way more powerful, if attached.
It all comes back to attachment. If your kids feel unworthy of your love and believe you don’t even like them, they won’t listen. They have a vested interest in forcing you to give them attention instead. And they’ll convince themselves they don’t need your love.
Give your kids clear love and focused attention. Develop their attachment to you. Natural processes will kick in and they will fear losing their connection to you. So they’ll fear displeasing you. That becomes enough.

Then you love them unconditionally, but attention is earned.
Attention becomes their currency. And if they can get that attention for good behavior, they’ll do it.

But you have to make yourself pay attention to good behavior.
You get out of your relationship with your kids what you invest in it. So invest smarter. Pay more attention.
Paying attention to your kids improves their mental health.

If you want to give them a healthy future:
✅Put your phone down
✅Make eye contact
✅Ask questions
✅And listen with interest

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More from @AdamLaneSmith

Mar 20
1 retweet = 1 harsh Psychology truth

I was a licensed psychotherapist for many years, and these are the most painful Psychology facts no one wants to confront. Let's go.
Men value respect over love, especially in romance. Because a woman can love a man and cheat on him, but respect will keep her loyal. Men instinctively know this.
Modern women are terrified to say the words "I respect you" to a man because they feel it gives him power.

But a man being uncomfortable saying "I love you" for the same reason is counted as an emotional crime.
Read 72 tweets
Mar 15
Hard truth ahead.

Most people today are NOT growing up inside a healthy marriage.

Your parents’ marriage (or lack of one) was supposed to be your first experience of safety, connection, and emotional regulation. But for most people? It was the opposite. 🧵👇
A healthy marriage should have been:
✔️A place where you felt safe from the storms of the world.
✔️A launching pad into adulthood where you learned trust & stability.
✔️A model for how two people love, negotiate, and commit.

But for many? Their childhood home was a battlefield.
If you were raised in a secure marriage, you grew up seeing:
Conflict handled calmly.
Affection and teamwork between parents.
Predictability—you knew what to expect.

By the time you hit adulthood, these habits were ingrained. You didn’t have to “learn” security. You lived it.
Read 12 tweets
Mar 6
You keep falling for people who hurt you. You crave the ones who won’t commit. You stay in relationships that drain you.

It’s not because you want to suffer—it’s because your brain has been trained to mistake chaos for love.

Let’s break the cycle. 🧵👇
If love feels like an emotional rollercoaster, that’s because your nervous system has been conditioned to chase the high of uncertainty.

The push-pull dynamic, the inconsistency, the emotional starvation—it’s not love. It’s an addiction to the feeling of winning someone over.
This starts young.
If love from parents was unpredictable, you learned to work hard for affection.
If attention came with conditions, you learned to perform for love.
If you were ignored, criticized, or neglected, you blamed yourself.
This wired you to chase approval.
Read 14 tweets
Mar 5
Couples therapy often makes things worse—especially for avoidant men.

If you’ve ever sat in a session and felt like it was pushing your relationship closer to ending rather than fixing it, you’re not crazy.

Let’s talk about why couples therapy can ruin a relationship. 🧵👇
Most assume couples therapy saves relationships.

But therapists are warned in grad school that most of the couples they work with will break up.

And no surprise—because couples most likely to need therapy are least likely to fit the therapist’s preconceived expectations.
Avoidant men, in particular, get singled out and hammered on in therapy.

Why? Because traditional couples therapy is designed for emotionally expressive people—those who process feelings out loud.

But avoidant men? They process internally. And that’s where the trouble starts.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 4
Your marriage isn’t what it used to be. The passion is gone. The connection is fading. Every conversation feels tense or empty.

You didn’t get married to be miserable—but you don’t know how to fix it.

Here’s why most marriages break…and how to turn yours around. 🧵👇
Right now, you feel stuck.
You love each other, but you fight too much.
Or worse—you don’t fight at all, you just feel nothing.
The bedroom is cold.
The tension is unbearable.

You think, “Maybe we’re just not compatible.” But that’s not the issue.
Most failing marriages aren’t broken from incompatibility—they’re broken from cortisol association.

Your nervous systems have linked each other to stress, frustration, and disappointment instead of love, safety, and connection.

That’s why every interaction feels worse.
Read 16 tweets
Feb 20
Ever feel like you’re just not good enough? Like no matter what you do, people will see through you and reject you?

This isn’t random—it’s a trained belief from childhood.

Let’s talk about why you don’t respect yourself and how to fix it. 🧵👇
If you struggle with low confidence, anxious attachment, or feeling like people will abandon you, it likely started early.

As a child, if you were yelled at, ignored, pushed away, or neglected, your brain tried to make sense of it. And the explanation it came up with was brutal.
Kids don’t assume their parents are bad. They assume they are bad.

“They wouldn’t yell at me if I was good.”
“They wouldn’t ignore me if I was lovable.”
“They wouldn’t leave if I was worth staying for.”

This becomes the core belief that runs your life.
Read 12 tweets

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