What happens to you when you keep advocating for your child and the spaces around them resist?

In this episode, Amy and family therapist Denise reflect on the emotional experience many parents carry quietly. The feeling of being seen as too demanding. The effort of staying composed so you will be taken seriously. The slow shift from noticing resistance around you to questioning yourself.

This conversation explores what it can be like to advocate in schools, healthcare settings, family systems, or professional spaces, and how easily parents can begin to shrink alongside their children.

This is not an episode about strategies or solutions. It is an invitation to pause and notice what advocacy is asking of you, and to gently name that parents need care, tenderness, and support too.

You matter in this story as much as your child does.

There are times when children begin to make themselves smaller. They apologise for taking up space, soften their needs, or quieten parts of themselves that once felt free. Often this is not a problem to fix, but a response to what feels safe around them.

In this episode, Amy Smythe and family therapist Denise Bevan gently expore what it can mean when being "too much" starts to feel unsafe. They reflect on the difference between adaptability and self erasure, and how children learn to shape themselves in response to their environments and relationships.

This conversation invites a compassionate lens on belonging, context, and nervous system safety. It offers reassurance that noticing these moments with care can help children feel held, seen, and safer to be themselves again.

When your child feels like a failure, even your most loving words can start to feel as though they are not landing. You may find yoursefl repeating reassurance, trying to soften the harshness, and quietly wondering why nothing you say seems to help.

In this conversation, Amy Smythe and family therapist Denise Bevan explore what is happening beneath the surace when children speak about themselves with criticism or shame. We look at why some children experience kind or positive words as untrue or uncomfortable, while harsh self-talk can feel more honest or protective.

We reflect on how children gradually learn that thoughts are not the same as face, and why this awareness can come and go, especially during times of stress, pressure or change. The episode also explores the word yet and why it can create hope for some children but feel overwhelming or dismissive for others.

This is not an episode about fixing your child or convincing them to think differently. It is about slowing down, attuning to what your child may be protecting, and notcing what creates space rather than pressure. If your child's view of themselves feels persistent and painful, seeking support from a trusted professional can be a helpful next step. What is offered here are gentle reflections, not solutions.