Carole Robin
Say the Scary Thing
Inspired by Carole Robin episode
Carole Robin's "say the thing you think you cannot say" principle works just as well with tantrums as boardrooms.
Carole Robin taught Stanford's Touchy Feely course for 20 years, and her big principle is: say the thing you think you cannot say. "I feel like there's something we're not talking about." Not threatening, just curious.
With your toddler, you're thinking it. You're just not saying it. Third meltdown today and you're smiling like a flight attendant during turbulence. "We're experiencing some choppy air, but everything is fine!" Everything is not fine.
So you try Carole's thing. You look at your kid and say: "I'm feeling really frustrated right now because we've had three meltdowns today and I genuinely do not understand what you need." You're not calling them bad. You're just naming what's happening.
And here's what's wild—sometimes they calm down. Not because you solved anything. Because you stopped pretending this was normal. You said the scary thing out loud, and the scary thing was just "I don't know what I'm doing either."
Turns out psychological safety works both ways.
