What if conflict with your child is not a sign that something has gone wrong, but part of the work of raising a capable human? In this episode of Name What Works, Ashley talks with Joe Newman, behavior consultant, speaker, and author of Raising Lions: How to Raise Children Who Can Handle Conflict, Difficulty, and Win.

Joe shares how his work began from the inside out. As a child, he was studied for hyperactivity and grew up internalizing the belief that he was broken, disordered, and morally bad. Years later, he returned to schools to work with the kids who reminded him of himself: the defiant kids, the hard kids, the kids teachers were struggling to reach.

Ashley and Joe talk about why so many traditional parenting approaches fail, especially when children become teens. Joe explains that many parents rely too heavily on control, approval, disapproval, explanations, and moralizing. But as kids grow, especially into adolescence, they begin seeking power, autonomy, and peer approval. The parent-child relationship has to shift. A major theme of the conversation is that parents need to have needs. Children do not benefit from parents who sacrifice themselves completely. They need adults who can assert needs, hold boundaries, create cause and effect, and tolerate frustration without making the child feel morally bad. Joe also explains why lying, defiance, and resistance are often developmentally normal. The goal is not to shame kids for testing limits. The goal is to understand the behavior, expect the conflict, follow through consistently, and teach responsibility through real-world cause and effect.

In this episode:

• Why some children internalize feeling broken or bad
• What inspired Joe to work with difficult and defiant kids
• Why parents need to have needs
• Why self-sacrifice can weaken the parent-child relationship
• How teens move away from approval and toward autonomy
• Why lying can be developmentally normal
• Why cause and effect matters more than moralizing
• Why chores, follow-through, and frustration build responsibility

If you are raising a child or teen who pushes back, lies, resists, or challenges your control, this episode is a reminder that conflict does not mean you are failing. Your job is not to erase frustration. Your job is to use it wisely, stay in relationship, and teach the skills your child needs to handle life.