IN THEIR FEELINGS Big

What began as an Instagram account sharing toddler tips quickly grew into a global parenting movement with over 2.5 million followers. Now Big Little Feelings founders DEENA MARGOLIN and KRISTIN GALLANT give us their best advice for navigating meltdowns, mealtimes, and everything in between.

IN THEIR FEEL INGS

MINI | We are big fans of BLF and their approach to the tricky toddler stage! What would you say is the biggest misconception about toddlers or parenting this age group?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | We find that a lot of toddler behavior is (incorrectly) perceived as “bad behavior,” when in reality, it’s totally normal and more often than not, it’s actually a sign of healthy development. Tantrums, meltdowns, screaming, kicking, hitting, biting— they’re all common and a sign that your toddler’s development is right on track. So next time you feel guilty or embarrassed about your kid’s behavior, don’t! You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, and your toddler is probably expressing a healthy developmental milestone.

MINI | What should parents keep in mind when approaching little ones dealing with big feelings?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | There are three key things to keep in mind when your toddler (inevitably!) has a tantrum or a meltdown:

1. Tantrums are a normal, healthy part of toddler brain development. Toddlers haven’t yet developed the areas of their brain that help with impulse control, language, and managing emotions, so it makes sense for them to cry, scream, and fall to the floor when they’re upset. (Oh, the drama!)

2. Tantrums are NOT a result of YOUR parenting. In other words: you’re not doing anything wrong— and trust us, you’re the best parent or caretaker for your little one. 3. The way that we (as parents and caregivers) respond to tantrums will do one of two things: level up the tantrums or dial them down, reducing their strength, length, and frequency. Your response is everything and if you stay calm and let your calm be contagious, over time you’ll see your toddler’s tantrums become shorter, less intense, and less frequent.

MINI | How can you be sure, or what tools can you use, to avoid or at least mitigate tantrums or major meltdowns in the future?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | Real talk— you can’t totally stop or prevent tantrums. That said, there are some tips and tricks to help prevent tantrums altogether. One of our favorites is The Timer Trick!

For context, here are two things we know from neuroscience: Time is a concept that toddlers don’t understand and their toddler brain craves power and control. This is why transitions like bedtime, bathtime, leaving the park, leaving a friend’s house, or turning off the iPad are so hard for toddlers! The Timer Trick gives them age-appropriate power and makes the vague concept of time something firm that they can understand and we can use this for any transition. Here’s how to use the Timer Trick:

PREP AHEAD OF TIME

“In two minutes, when our timer goes off, we’ll head to bed.”

LET THEM START THE TIMER

You can totally keep it simple and use your phone! “Do YOU want to push the button? Okay! When it goes off, we’ll know it’s time for bed.”

WHEN IT’S TIME TO GO

“That’s the timer! Do you want to turn it off? Let’s head up to bed.” When you let them press the timer button, they feel as if it’s their choice. They’re in control and leading the show here! It sounds simple, but it’s actually magic.

Tips and tricks aside, the ultimate way to prevent future meltdowns is all about boundaries: may we set them, may we hold them! When your toddler is pushing back or having a meltdown, avoid begging, pleading, and scolding— just swoop in with that boundary, and hold it in a loving, firm way. The more we do that, the less pushback and tantrums we see, because our kid knows that when mom says it’s bedtime, it’s bedtime. This applies to everything: screentime, bedtime, bathtime, all of it!

We’ve all been in a situation where we implement a boundary, our toddler has a meltdown, and we renege on the boundary. This happens to ALL of us, so if and when it happens to you, don’t feel guilty! Nobody gets it right 100% of the time. You’re doing a great job!

MINI | What is most important to avoid when dealing with big feelings from your little ones? Any major no-no’s when handling tantrums or meltdowns?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | In the middle of a meltdown

(or any type of unwanted behavior), avoid punishments or fear-based tactics. Using punishment might stop unwanted behavior in the moment, but research shows that in the long term, punishments don’t work to change behavior. Punishments are rooted in fear and when the brain senses fear, it goes into fight, flight, or freeze mode. That’s why it seems to work in the moment: your kid freezes! But then they go right back to the unwanted behavior. The fear impedes long-term learning, so they didn’t actually learn what to do differently next time.

The true meaning of discipline is “to teach [or] learn.” Our job is to teach our kids how to handle their emotions, needs, and wants in healthy ways. Discipline is a whole topic, but a super helpful takeaway about discipline is what we call “The Two R’s.”

RIGHT AWAY

Your child’s brain—especially the areas responsible for logic and time—is super under construction. So taking away ice cream 7 hours after the behavior took place is simply not going to make sense to your toddler’s brain.

RELATED TO THE BEHAVIOR

Ice cream has nothing to do with throwing a toy car at someone; the connection is confusing for a young child’s brain. Instead, relate the teaching directly to the unwanted behavior.

M I N I86 s u m m e r ‘22

We also want to avoid using food as bribery or punishment so that we don’t accidentally create a dessert obsession!

Let’s assume your kid throws a toy car at their sister. The Right and Related looks like this: “I see that you’re throwing your car at your sister. It’s not okay to hurt someone, and I won’t let you do that. The toy car is going up here until tomorrow, and then we can try again.”

And reminder, when your kid is in the middle of a meltdown, avoid having a BIG reaction. (They love your attention, so when you have a big reaction, it can actually reinforce the behavior!) Instead, dial down the tantrum by being calm, and letting your calm be contagious.

MINI | Let’s move on to another tricky toddler subject— picky eating! How can parents keep from losing their minds at mealtime?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | Our #1 [tip] for eating is “play it cool.” We can’t make our kids eat, and research shows that parental pressure to eat—even well-meaning pressure—actually leads to more picky eating.

The best way to prevent or reverse picky eating is to keep it low pressure. Parents pick what foods go on the plate, and kids decide how much goes into their body.

Here are some of our go-to phrases for picky eating:

“You don’t have to eat it.” “Listen to your body.” “You don’t like broccoli yet. That’s okay!”

It can be so tempting to be a sportscaster during your kid’s eating experience: “Wow, you ate chicken! Oh my gosh!” or “You’re not eating chicken? Why not?” It’s also tempting to dictate or micro-manage the experience: “Two bites of chicken and one bite of pineapple please, and then you can go.” But how would YOU feel if a waiter was standing over your shoulder, narrating your every bite, then dictating what to eat and when? You’d probably be turned off. Instead, play it cool: put your kid’s plate of food down on the table, and take the pressure off. You did your job! Now you can keep it casual and enjoy mealtime.

MINI | You have two amazing online courses to help parents navigate toddler-hood and potty training. What can we find in your potty training course that parents will find particularly game-changing?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | We made the potty training course we dreamed of— one that was totally comprehensive, with step-bystep instructions, scripts, how-tos, and checklists. It covers the before, during, and after of potty training, including all of those specific situations that pop up after

you’ve potty trained, like adding underwear, swimming, using public restrooms, and collaborating with childcare. Plus, ALL the poop things! Honestly, the game-changing part of Potty Training Made Simple is that it really, really, really works. The strategies and game plans are backed by science (that’s our jam), and ultimately, it’s an approach to potty training (or “potty learning,” as we say) that’s a success for you and your toddler. We get tons of DMs and emails every day from parents and caretakers about how effective the course was for them and that’s the type of thing that makes our day. “The true meaning of discipline is to teach or learn.” MINI | Even as experts, we love seeing your personal parenting experiences. What is a personal parenting struggle that you deal with? DEENA MARGOLIN | I think my biggest parenting struggle has actually been my marriage. Being on the same page, finding ways to connect and enjoy each other, figuring out how to share the mental load of juggling a million things related to kids without it just being on my shoulders, sometimes feeling like we’re just roommates raising kids together has been really hard. I feel like no one talks about this side of things, which can feel really lonely and sad, as if everyone else you see (on social media especially) has a happy, perfect family. I try to remind myself that social media is a highlight reel, that everyone has struggles, that we are

Tantrum 101

The Experts Explain Tricky Toddler-hood

STAY CALM When we escalate alongside our toddler or try to negotiate with them, we’re only going to make a tantrum worse. Instead, channel your inner calm. Let that calm be contagious, and you’ll see the tantrum start to dial down. P.S. This is really hard and you won’t always get it right, and that is 100000% a-okay!

OK THE FEELING It can be so tempting to try and “fix” feelings, and accidentally diminish them. “Stop crying, you’re fine!” or “It’s just a crayon! We have a million crayons. Calm down!” But allowing your child to express their emotions is healthy and oftentimes, your kid just wants to be heard, even if it’s about a purple crayon being… purpley. Making them feel seen and heard can shorten (or even stop!) a tantrum in its tracks.

HOLD THE BOUNDARY This is a crucial step in preventing future tantrums and power struggles! Sometimes the biggest “hack” is simply holding a boundary over and over again. Your kid might seem like they want to make all the decisions, but in actuality, they feel safest when you’re the confident leader of your home with clear, consistent boundaries. Over time, your toddler learns that when you say “one more episode,” that means one more episode— and no amount of tantruming, crying, or pushback will change that.

SHIFT TO THE YES Toddlers hear “no, no, no” all day long. When you shift to the yes, you’re taking the focus away from the “no” element of the boundary, and instead you’re giving them a little piece of age-appropriate power. growing and becoming new people as parents, that it’s OK and normal to struggle in certain seasons of life and parenting, and the more we share honestly about these struggles, the more we normalize them and the less alone we all feel. The one constant in life is that things are always changing, so it makes sense that we’re changing and our relationship is changing as parents. We’ve also recently started carving out “dates” which sometimes means ordering food in and just sitting together at our dining room table after the kids are in bed to reconnect and become closer again.

KRISTIN GALLANT | I can definitely fall into the mom guilt trap and the comparison game. “Why can’t I keep a clean house? Everyone else can clean why is it so hard for me?” “Did they have too much screen time? Did they eat even one vegetable today? Did I ruin them? Am I ruining them?” We’re so big on on our page about NOT letting the mom guilt eat at you, because you ARE doing great, but it can be really hard for me to give myself the grace I give others!

MINI | How do you two lean on each other when it comes to parenting?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | We constantly text each other (24 hours a day!) about our insecurities, our fears, our small random moments, our “Hey, did I handle this right?” moments. We also legitimately text each other to celebrate the WINS: the moments we didn’t yell (but almost did), the moment our kid ate a piece of sushi, the proud moments of gushing about the most menial things we do, but we love them so f*cking much that we just have to tell someone! We’re so grateful to have each other—someone who supports

the other fully and completely—whether it’s something we align on personally, or something we do totally differently.

MINI | Welcoming a new baby can be a difficult concept for little ones. As moms of two, how did you prep your kids for the new addition and later deal with any jealousy?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | A new sibling rocks your toddler’s world. They suddenly go from having your full attention and love to sharing it with a loud, crying, needy little being. This can bring up lots of feelings and lots of unwanted behaviors, too. Prepping your toddler for the arrival of a new baby can help prevent jealousy and mitigate unwanted behaviors. We use the PREP game plan all the time— prepping for a new baby, the first day of school, a trip to the doctor’s office, really any life event that can feel new or scary.

In this case, prepping your toddler means helping them get familiar with the concept of a baby ahead of time to ease this transition. You can read books about babies and becoming a sibling, watch age-appropriate TV episodes, use a baby doll to show them how babies cry and get their diapers changed, and even let them help stack diapers in the baby’s nursery. The more familiar the concept of “baby” is, the less jolting the transition will be.

When the new baby comes, if you do end up seeing jealousy (which is totally normal), you can use the 10 Minute Miracle: 10 minutes of focused, one-on-one connection time done daily. No siblings, no phones— just you and your (one!) kid. This might mean having a partner or family member watch the others, or maybe doing this while your other kid naps. And yes, even if we’re with our kids all day long, carving out focused, dedicated one-on-one time is an absolute game-changer. It can decrease unwanted behavior almost instantly!

MINI | What is one thing you want parents to remember about Big Little Feelings or navigating unpredictable child behavior?

BIG LITTLE FEELINGS | The number one thing we want every single parent in our community to walk away with is this: you are absolutely ROCKING IT! You are so much harder on yourself than you’d ever be on any other human being. Beating yourself up because your kid ate waffles for two out of three meals that day? Hey! Your kid was fed and LOVED it. Celebrate that! Notice the good you did that day, let the “bad” go, and know we’re all in it with you.

You are not alone. You are not a bad parent. You are an AMAZING parent, and you’re the best parent for your kid. Promise.

To learn more, visit biglittlefeelings.com.