When your kid is in the middle of a tantrum, logic and lectures don’t work.

I’ve studied over 200 kids and worked with hundreds of families, and one thing is clear: Tantrums aren’t about defiance. Research shows that during emotional overwhelm, a child’s prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for reasoning and language) essentially goes offline. It’s why “use your words” falls flat when they’re screaming.

What they need in that moment is connection. These seven magic phrases work with your child’s nervous system by calming the storm, restoring safety, and teaching emotional regulation — the real skill behind resilience.

When your child is mid-meltdown, your instinct is to make it stop… fast. You want the screaming to end, the tears to dry, the chaos to pass. So you start talking: “Calm down,” “Use your words,” “Tell me what’s wrong.”

But often, the fastest way to end a tantrum is silence. When your child’s body is in full distress, every word you add is like oxygen to a fire. Their “thinking brain” has shut down. Words simply can’t land. But your nervous system can reach them instantly.

Sit close. Stay relaxed. Saying nothing essentially communicates an important phrase: “You’re safe, and I can handle this.” Once their breathing slows and the peak has passed, that’s when your spoken words can start to land.

This short phrase is a lifeline. You’re not walking away, threatening consequences, or trying to reason. You’re anchoring them back into connection.

A tantrum often triggers a primal fear: Am I still loved when I’m out of control? Your calm presence answers that question instantly. Connection regulates the stress response faster than correction ever can. Emotional safety quiets the body’s alarm system.

Instead of minimizing their emotions or rushing them through it, this phrase acknowledges the size of the feeling. It helps kids see what’s happening inside rather than being consumed by it.

Validation activates the brain’s calming pathways. When children feel seen, their bodies release tension. And that’s the first step toward emotional awareness.

Parents often swing between being too permissive or too harsh. This phrase strikes the balance. You’re separating the feeling from the behavior, and validating the emotion while holding the boundary.

Consistent limits paired with emotional acceptance build impulse control — the foundation of self-discipline.

Sometimes, a “time-in” works better than a “time-out.” This phrase teaches your child to regulate with you. Invite them to sit, breathe, or just be still until the storm passes. Proximity restores safety faster than isolation ever could.

When children are dysregulated, they need your nervous system to co-regulate theirs. Your calm is contagious.

This phrase helps acknowledge the emotion underneath your child’s behavior: disappointment, frustration, or longing. When kids feel seen, they don’t need to keep screaming to prove their feelings are real.

Validation lowers the brain’s threat response. Once a child feels understood, their nervous system begins to settle — and the tantrum ends naturally, without punishment or bribes.

Unconditional safety is what every child needs most. Tantrums often test an unspoken question: “Will you still love me when I’m not lovable?”

This phrase answers it clearly and teaches emotional security for life. It also rewires the shame response. Children learn that love isn’t withdrawn for imperfection, and that’s the beginning of self-worth.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting and the creator of FOUNDATIONS, a step-by-step guide that helps parents heal and become emotionally safe. She is widely recognized for her expertise in children’s emotional safety and for redefining what it means to raise emotionally healthy kids. Connect with her on Instagram.

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I’ve spent seven years studying achievement culture and interviewing hundreds of high-performing kids and their families. One issue that comes up again and again for parents and teens is how much the high-stakes world of college admissions affects their relationships.

Amid a competitive, expensive and uncertain process, it’s easy to understand a parent’s temptation to micromanage every detail. But this can often lead to fights and resentment.

Having observed the strain that the college admissions arms race can have on family life, I have a non-negotiable parenting rule: with my three teens, we don’t talk about post-high school plans until the spring of their junior year.

Once spring of junior year rolls around, we confine college conversations to an hour each weekend at a time our child chooses, usually Sunday afternoon. These boundaries keep the topic contained and our relationship from being consumed by it.

That one guardrail has been transformative. It stops the anxious parent drip — the constant stream of “Did you finish that supplement? Did you ask your teacher for a recommendation?” — from seeping into every car ride and family dinner.

Instead, my husband and I collect our questions and save them for Sunday, leaving the rest of the week open for all the other things my teenagers have on their minds.

We want to protect this time and provide space for their developing selves, for interests and curiosities that aren’t constantly filtered through the lens of what a college admissions officer might be looking for.

Of course, my kids know they can always talk to us. But by containing our anxious parenting questions, we’re doing what we can to reduce the already immense pressure they might be feeling. 

Growing research finds that students in “high-achieving schools” (those with strong test scores, diverse extracurriculars, and graduates bound for top colleges) are now experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use compared with national norms.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine classified youth in these high-achieving schools as an “at-risk group,” alongside children living in poverty, in foster care, or with incarcerated parents. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reached a similar conclusion, identifying “excessive pressure to excel” as one of the top environmental threats to adolescent wellness, right next to poverty and trauma.

It may sound counterintuitive to put kids who attend well-resourced, high pressure schools in the same category as our country’s most vulnerable youth. But the data show that both groups experience chronic, unrelenting stress that can undermine mental and physical health. 

“Mattering,” or the deep human need to feel valued and to add value, is a powerful protective factor for youth mental health.

Young people learn that they matter through the messages they receive at home. One of the most effective ways to do that is to make unconditional worth visible. 

One mother I interviewed told me about a metaphor she used to demonstrate this. She held up a $20 bill and asked her child how much it was worth. Then she wrinkled it, stepped on it, even dunked it in a glass of water. “Now how much is it worth?” she asked. The answer, of course, was the same. 

Like that $20 bill, our children’s value doesn’t diminish when they bomb a test, get cut from a team, or aren’t invited to a party. Our job is to remind them that their worth will never change, no matter what.

So much of parenting is spent getting through endless to-do lists that our kids don’t always see the delight we take in being their parents. Try greeting them once a day the way the family dog does, with total joy.

Small, consistent reminders that our love isn’t conditional can shift the entire atmosphere at home. They tell our kids that their value isn’t tied to their performance. 

In our family, this became the inspiration for the “one-hour-a-week” rule. It was one way to put mattering research into practice. It’s our reminder that home should be the one place where you never have to prove your worth.

When kids aren’t performing to earn our approval, they’re free to pursue goals that actually mean something to them.

So this year, as my daughter goes through the admissions process herself, I’m holding firm to our Sunday rule. Because the relationship I’m building with my children matters far more than any acceptance letter ever could.

Jennifer Breheny Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller ”Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It.” She lives in New York City with her husband and three teens. You can follow her on Instagram @jenniferbrehenywallace. 

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

Growing up in a Pakistani-Indian household, Dr. Sidrah Nisar’s parents encouraged her from a young age to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

“It was a very education-heavy focus growing up,” the 30-year-old tells CNBC Make It.

Nisar decided to go the doctor route, but instead of working with humans, she treats cats and dogs as a veterinarian in Corona, California.

“I was definitely always an animal lover growing up,” she says. “I am allergic to cats and dogs and any type of fur, so it was a little thing I had to overcome, but I definitely am very happy with my career choice.”

Nisar held full-time positions at a couple of different animal hospitals before her sister, a fellow vet, suggested she pick up shifts as a relief vet using an app called Roo to earn extra cash. “I was like, ‘Wow, I could be making $1,300 [or] $1,400 today,’” she says. 

At the time, Nisar was earning around $125,000 as a salaried doctor in private practice. She started picking up shifts on Roo in May 2023 and left her full-time position in September of that year.

Now, she works as a relief vet full time. Rather than holding a staff position at an animal hospital, she finds clinics in her vicinity and works up to 10-hour shifts four or five days a week. 

Nisar earned just over $366,000 from shifts she picked up on Roo in 2024. She became a brand ambassador for the app in March 2024, earning her an additional $18,000. Including a couple of other vet shifts Nisar worked outside of Roo, her total income for 2024 was $386,000.

Vets on Roo earn nearly twice as much per hour as the average full-time vet, and on average make $1,266 per day, the company says. Nationwide, vets earn a median of $125,510 per year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The increased pay working as a contractor versus a full-time employee has been nice, Nisar says. And though it has some downsides, relief work is “also significantly less stress,” she says.

“When you’re doing relief [shifts], you go in, you do your work and then you leave and you don’t have to worry about the follow-up care or the drama that you can get when you stay at a practice,” says Nisar.

Nisar says her parents paid for both her undergraduate degree and veterinarian school, allowing her to graduate debt-free. But the jump from living as a student and making no money for more than five years — two years of undergraduate and three and a half years of vet school — to working full-time and making six figures was an adjustment.

“I had more money than I could handle,” she says.

Nisar says she was a little frivolous at first, spending on “unnecessary things” like luxury bags and gifts for family members. She once spent $4,000 on jewelry in Tokyo, partly due to a misunderstanding about the exchange rate. But the moment made her realize, “I definitely can’t splurge like this, and I need to be careful with my money,” she says.

A financially savvy uncle helped answer Nisar’s money questions and set her up to manage her bills and start saving for the future. She opened a brokerage account and started putting money aside, she says. She now invests around $800 per month.

In June 2024, about a year into working as a higher-paid relief vet, Nisar purchased a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Southern California for $890,000 with a 20% down payment. She pays about $8,000 per month for her mortgage, homeowners association fees and utilities

“When I realized I’d be making significantly more money, I decided to invest that money instead of just having it sit in a bank account. And I decided to buy a house,” she says.

While Nisar appreciates the extra income she’s able to earn as a relief vet, “you kind of always have to be hustling and looking for work,” she says. Fortunately for her, she hasn’t yet had a month where she struggled to find enough shifts to make sure her financial obligations are met.

Another drawback: She had to get her own health insurance as a contractor, which costs her around $2,300 a month for health, vision and dental coverage.

Though she’s getting married in early November and will soon split costs with her fiancé, Nisar currently lives alone and covers all her bills on her own. Here’s how she spent her money in August 2025.

• Housing and utilities: $8,052 on her mortgage, homeowners association fees and utilities
• Wedding expenses: $2,515 for her photographer and wedding attire
• Insurance: $2,450 on health, vision, dental, pet and life coverage 
• Food: $1,700 on groceries and dining out
• Discretionary: $1,450 on weekly home cleaning services and pet supplies
• Car payment: $1,000 for her Tesla
• Savings and investments: $800 into her Roth individual retirement account 
• Phone: $550 for phone plans for herself and three of her family members
• Subscriptions and memberships: $107 for a gym membership, streaming services, AppleCare and ChatGPT Plus

Nisar’s parents “really drilled” the importance of financial security into her when she was growing up, she says, and she’s grateful for the life she’s able to live due to her income. She doesn’t track every dollar she spends, but she’s more conscious of where her money is going than when she was fresh out of school, she says.

“I do have a budget now, but if I want to splurge on something I won’t stop myself, because, thankfully, I make enough money that I’m able to,” says Nisar.

In addition to earning considerably more money, working as a relief vet has also given Nisar a better work-life balance than when she was a full-time employee, she says.

“I definitely am able to leave work at work and I don’t bring it home with me versus being a full-time vet,” she says. “I feel like I was consistently just thinking about my job when I wasn’t at work.”

She also has more flexibility to enjoy traveling and spending time with her own pets: two cats and her fiancé’s dog.

Though Nisar has enjoyed her experience as a relief vet so far, it’s not for everyone, she says.

“You are going into a brand new clinic most of the time and you’re meeting new people,” she says. “You have to be patient. You have to be flexible because you’re doing what they want you to do. You’re there to help them.”

Some days on the job are hard, and some cases can be emotional given the nature of working with sick animals, but Nisar enjoys the work and is happy to see all the cats and dogs she cares for, she says. 

“There’s a lot behind the scenes that you don’t see,” says Nisar. “We definitely don’t play with kittens and puppies all day. That’s a part of our job, but it is not our entire job.”

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Feeling financially unsafe in a relationship can happen to anyone, even billionaires.

Kim Kardashian said her ex-husband Kanye West’s unpredictable spending habits — including suddenly purchasing and giving away multiple Lamborghinis at a time — contributed to her decision to end the marriage in 2021, she told host Alex Cooper in an October episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.

“Not feeling safe, not even physically, maybe emotionally or even financially,” Kardashian said. “That’s a really unsettling feeling.”

Whether it’s to pay bills or afford housing and food, we need money in life — which is why a lack of financial safety, or financial insecurity, is scary for most people, says Erika Wasserman, a financial therapist and CEO of Your Financial Therapist based in Parkland, Florida.

The average person’s unpredictable spending habits may not involve purchasing five Lamborghinis at a time, Wasserman says, but it can look like impulsively buying five Lego sets or taking out a new line of credit. Any situation where you don’t see eye to eye with a partner you share finances with has the possibility of causing a significant amount of strain, she says.

“When you can’t trust the partner that you’re with on how you’re spending, saving and investing money, you become scared and fearful,” Wasserman says. “Then, it rolls into other aspects of your relationship.”

Financial intimacy should be just as important as emotional or sexual intimacy in a relationship, yet people often skip talking about their finances because it’s taboo or uncomfortable, Wasserman says.

An October study by business software company Intuit found that 37% of U.S. consumers start sharing their salaries around the time they decide to exclusively date their partner. Wasserman says this isn’t enough: More people should talk about their finances when committing to serious relationships.

Our financial habits impact everything in life. While money isn’t why most couples fall in love, once the initial spark fades, financial behaviors can make or break a relationship, Wasserman says.

If couples disagree and “there’s no habit changing or plans in place, the spread tends to get bigger,” Wasserman says. “That’s where you see relationships start splitting apart.”

Wasserman says the biggest red flag to watch for when determining whether you can align financially with a partner is stonewalling. Someone who avoids conversations about money or hides their spending early in a relationship will likely continue that behavior as things progress, she says.

“If you’re both willing to work on [financial intimacy], then there’s hope for the relationship,” Wasserman says. “But if one person’s checked out, it doesn’t work in any part of your relationship — with sex, with religion, with money. If you’re both not willing to work on it and be open, then it’s time to evaluate the relationship.”

When building financial intimacy and safety, focus on sharing your financial habits through storytelling, like sharing how often you went out to eat as a kid or your experiences grocery shopping with your parents. Direct questions about financial habits “tend to put people on guard,” Wasserman says.

If you do need to be direct, which Wasserman says can be important and appropriate at times, do it with “compassion and empathy.” Understand that your partner may have a different background than you, and that can shape how they view conversations around money.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do to set yourself up for success is to just “start the conversation,” Wasserman says. “Financial intimacy takes time. It’s grown together. It’s open conversations. It’s being vulnerable.”

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If you don’t have children and don’t plan on having any, many of the “default” settings of personal finance may not apply to you. You may not, for instance, plan on leaving legacy wealth, as many parents do, and you certainly don’t have to worry about paying for a kid’s wedding or college education.

But who will take care of you or make decisions on your behalf in the event that you can’t make them for yourself? For many Americans, the default answer is, “my kids.”

If something bad happens and you don’t have children who will take care of you, things can get complicated quickly, says Maddy Roche, chief growth officer at Childfree Trust, a fiduciary firm specializing in childfree and permanently childless people.

“Think about some of the structures that assume that you have children, whether it be insurance planning, estate planning, medical relationships,” she says. “You can’t get an elective surgery unless you have an emergency contact. Those are the things that we run up against when time’s too late.”

The solution, she says, is to start thinking about these scenarios early. “As hard as it is to think about the future, one of the best ways to ensure that you’ll be respected in the ways that you crave and deserve is to be proactive,” she says.

Just about every financial professional will tell you that everyone — whether you have kids or not — needs some form of an estate plan, which expresses how you’d like medical and financial decisions to be carried out in the event of your death or incapacitation.

This becomes even more important for people whose family strays from the norm, Jay Zigmont, a certified financial planner specializing in childfree clients, previously told CNBC Make It.

Because health care and government systems look for next-of-kin, there may be no one obvious to contact in the event you get into an accident while out of town, for instance, he says: “That means the government or health-care system will be making decisions for you.”

To avoid those scenarios, you’ll need documents in place, such as powers of attorney and a health-care directive. These documents go by different names in different states, so talk with an attorney about your specific needs, but the gist is that they lay out your wishes and designate a decision-maker for you should you become incapacitated.

These wishes could be as consequential as whether or not you want to be on a respirator or as straightforward as what to do with your cats while you’re in the hospital.

For many childfree people, figuring out who will execute your plan comes with some complications. You may, for instance, want to nominate an extended family member to oversee your care — but that could create conflicts of interest if that person stands to inherit your estate.

“Some people feel like they need to offer monetary compensation for these roles. Say, for instance, you have a long-lost nephew,” she says. “Are we sure he won’t feel conflicted in terms of helping you manage your affairs — that you’ll stay in the kind of quality facility you need if he feels his inheritance is on the line?”

In some states, you may be able to hire a fiduciary to execute your estate — someone who is bound by law to act in your best financial interest. For the most part, though, you’ll have to cultivate what Roche calls a “strategic relationship” with a trusted friend or relative.

The key, she says, is to make sure you’re on the same page as early as possible.

“You need to start to think about your wishes and make sure they’re documented and make sure the people you’re nominating really know what you want to happen,” Roche says. “Talk with people about what these roles are and what you expect of them. It’s all important to be thinking about.”

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