Kris Geering on Gentle Parenting That Holds Up in the Middle of Target

Interview by Heather Anderson

Kristene Geering has spent more than 30 years working with young children and their families, first in early childhood special education and now as a parent coach through her practice, Let Us Learn Together. She has a master's degree, a level II credential in early intervention, three published parenting books, and a front yard with a hobbit hole in it. She is also the mother of 164-year-old twins, which means she has personally field-tested every bit of advice she gives, usually with applesauce in her hair. If you've read all the gentle parenting books and still feel like something isn't working, this one is for you.

Your website opens with a hard season. After years of trying to become a mom, a twin pregnancy left you unable to walk once the babies arrived. What was that time actually like, and how did you find your way back to the joy part?

I had tried so hard to plan for everything, because that's how I manage my own anxiety, and then everything just went out the window. My husband had never even changed a diaper. But that was fine, because I was the expert and I was going to handle it. And then I couldn't. I physically could not do it. So he came home from the hospital with not one but two newborns and a disabled wife, and he was a superstar about it. 

But even with family there for the first three months, I couldn’t sleep, nurse, or even walk without help. Every possible challenge you could throw at me, I was getting.

I was also over the moon happy. The way I framed it, I wrote a blank check to the universe. And the universe said, we're going to give you two babies, but you're going to pay double. And I said, done!

In a nutshell, my pelvis went unstable and my babies were huge, seven and a half pounds each at 37 weeks. That meant that I was in a wheelchair when I was pregnant, and for the first several weeks of their life I still needed a walker to get around. It was rough.

It was also one of the most joy-filled periods of my life. I still remember being on the toilet (I’m not sure I was ever OFF the toilet….), dreading the fact I had to stand up, when I leaned forward, looked down at this enormous belly, and just wrapped my arms around it. I thought, I'm never going to hold my babies this close again, ever in my life. I felt so honored that these two little souls had chosen me as their way into the world. It was a miracle. It still echoes to this day. Everything else was worth it.

Before early intervention and parent coaching, there was a theater degree, four years teaching English in Japan, and training in drama therapy. What did each of those give you that you still use with families today?

The theater degree, as much as everybody told me it was worthless, was phenomenal. I learned how to improv, to roll in the moment and go with the flow, and how to focus under extreme pressure with literally thousands of people staring at me. I had to figure out what you do when something goes wrong or doesn't go the way you planned. That's a lifetime skill set for any job, and it's definitely a parenting skill set.

In Japan, I learned how to shut up. I couldn't easily understand what anyone was saying, so I got four years of practice not spouting my opinions into the world and actually listening. That turned out to matter enormously. I've worked with a lot of families of kids with disabilities, and that is a really vulnerable place. They don't need me telling them what they should or shouldn't do. They need me to listen, understand what their goals are, and support them while we build a plan together. That's my role. It is not to walk in and dictate.

Both of those fed into the drama therapy studies, where I got training in psychotherapy, non-directive play therapy, and communication. I ended up leaving that program during a time of real upheaval when my mother was dying. After that, I just wanted to focus on what I really wanted to do, which was work small children and their families. Early childhood intervention was the best way to do that, so that's where I went.

Your whole framework is called S.C.U.B.A.: See the Child Under the Behavior, and Adapt. Walk us through what that actually looks like when a kid is melting down in the middle of Target.

A kid melts down in the cereal aisle, and the first thing that happens is the parent freaks out and feels like the entire store is staring at them and suddenly all the books they read evaporate. Even if they knew what they wanted to do before they walked in the store, now that’s all gone and they feel frozen. That's exactly why I built the framework. It's quick and simple to recall when your brain has gone offline.

S is See. Take a beat and remember that your first job in this moment is to observe and gather data. Instead of looking at everyone around you, look at your child. Dan Siegel would ask, is this an upstairs or a downstairs tantrum? Tears, red face, sweating, shrinking away, running, hiding, those are physiological stress responses, and they're not voluntary. If your kid is doing any of that, what they need is more cues of safety, not a lesson. No teaching in that moment.

C is Child. Is this developmentally appropriate? If your kid is under five, yes, tantrums are appropriate. If your kid has special needs, it may be appropriate for where they are. And your kid is not like any other kid. Even if two came out of your body at the same time, I guarantee they are not the same. I say that from experience, personal and professional.

U is Under, and it has two parts. What's going on under the surface for your kid? Big changes like a move, a new school, a best friend leaving, divorce, any tectonic shift, and kids will freak out more because they can't talk about what's happening to them. I had a family bring me a 12-year-old who had suddenly stopped doing homework and gotten really disrespectful at home, a total 360 for this kid. After a month or two we figured out he was being viciously bullied at school and hadn't told anyone. Well, no wonder. He didn’t know how to talk about those experiences, so he acted out. And behavior is communication.

The other part of Under, and I'd argue it's almost more important, is what's going on for you. If this behavior is bothering you really, really hard, why? That's not shaming. It's just, take a breath. Is it something from your past you might want to work through with a therapist? Are you worried about what strangers think? That piece is what lets a parent stay grounded enough to co-regulate.

B is Behavior, which is simply a reminder not to put a story on it. Your three-year-old is not screaming in the middle of Target because he's a young Machiavelli trying to ruin your life. Developmentally, he doesn't have enough prefrontal cortex to manipulate you. That's not how brains usually work. So instead of "he's being a little jerk and doing this on purpose," try the objective version: my kid just threw himself on the floor, he's screaming at high volume, and he just kicked a box of cereal. Okay. That's what's happening. What came right before it? What happens after? That's information.

A is Adapt. So here I am in Target. I take a breath. I look at him. He's three, so tantrums happen. I also know he does not do well with lots of sound, and his dad just went out of town for the weekend. Okay. First I'm going to sit down and co-regulate to bring him back. If he can't calm down, that's fine. I'll scoop him up, we'll go to the car, and maybe we shop another day. If he can calm down, great, back in the cart, we keep walking. And I will not give him the thing he was screaming for. That part is very important. You don't want the lesson to be, if you scream loud enough, you get what you want. You want the lesson to be, my parent is going to be there for me when I'm freaking out, no matter what. Trust me when I say that is the message you want your teenager to have fully internalized.

“If you’re reaching out for help at all, you’re already a fantastic parent. Full stop. Every really good parent knows they aren’t perfect and can always do a little better.”
— Kristene Geering

So many parents have read all the gentle parenting books and still feel like it isn't working. What are they missing?

A lot of what gets called gentle parenting is just wrong. It's gotten this reputation as giving in, or having no boundaries, or letting your kid run the show. I've read so many articles that say "I tried gentle parenting and it didn't work," and I think, that was not gentle parenting. That was something else entirely.

Gentle parenting is holding a boundary and not being a jerk about it. If you ask my kids whether I'm strict, they'll say, oh hell yeah, my mom is a total hard ass. If you ask them whether I'm gentle, they'll say, yeah, she's really, really kind. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. But somehow the message that's gotten out is that if you're kind, you must be caving. So if it hasn't been working for you, my first question is, what's your definition? If it's that you have to constantly give in, only name feelings, and never allow a natural consequence, that's not gentle parenting. Gentle parenting helps kids feel safe, and kids feel safe when there are firm boundaries in place they can trust their parents to hold. Gently, but firmly.

The other thing they're missing is that the books are written for a generic kid, and you don't have a generic kid. You have your kid. You have to parent each child the way that child needs to be parented, and you can do all of that inside a gentle framework. Screens are a perfect example in my house. My daughter could give a flying fig about screens. TV is fine, games are kind of fun, but she'd rather color or ride her bike or talk to a friend. My son gets really sucked in and has trouble regulating. So he and I have had many conversations since he was quite young. Things like, “What do you get from the screens? I think it might be too much for you. I'm going to set your tablet to shut off after a certain time, and I'm doing it because I want to make sure it isn't harming you. Do you have questions about that? Do you understand why?”

He had a limit. His sister didn't. It was never a problem, because he understood she didn't want screens the way he did, and he understood the limit came from love. Very gentle. Very firm. Completely different for each kid. The true upside to all of that is now he’s at an age where I truly can’t control his screentime, but he can consider and set his own goals and boundaries, with me in the role of mentor instead of enforcer.

Your kids are twins. What did they teach you that your master's degree didn't?

I'll give you one small story. I had to wean earlier than I wanted because of my pelvis. My stepmom, who is a postpartum nurse and a licensed lactation consultant, had come to help when the babies were born, so I was very blessed there. I was nursing them, one on each side. Before my daughter latched on, she looked up at me, totally motorboated my nipple, and laughed like a loon. Meanwhile my son is on the other side going at it like milk was oxygen. I called my stepmom in a panic. What does this mean? And she said, it means they're different kids. She's ready to wean and he's not. You can wean one and not the other.

Intellectually, I should have known that. But I felt really dumb in that moment, because in my head they were a set. To this day I have to remind myself. They tell me every day, with every ounce of their being, that they are two different people, and my brain still wants to file them like salt and pepper. Different, but they always go together. They don't. I get that lesson from them constantly, and I apparently need to keep getting it.

You've become a bit of a chores evangelist. Why chores, of all things, and what do they have to do with executive function?

I wrote a book about it, so I clearly have feelings. Chores are a fantastic way to support executive function, which is all the stuff like planning, prioritizing, getting started on something, and following steps in order. Every one of those shows up in a chore.

Any kid can do any chore at any age. It just depends on how you define the chore. A two-year-old who can walk can help take out the trash, because "can you help pick up all the paper on the floor" is taking out the trash. They can't carry the bag to the curb. That's fine. The thing I want parents to get in the habit of is looking at what their kid can do easily, what they can do with a little help, and what's just not there yet. That process is called scaffolding. Teachers do it consciously all day. Parents do it too, usually without realizing.

So say you're teaching dishes. Step one, step two, step three, and you're really clear about it. If your kid struggles with all three steps but can manage with supports like a stepstool, put up a picture of what each step looks like. If step four is putting the dishes away but everything's fragile, they can't do that yet. Doesn't mean they can't do dishes at all.

On a deeper level, when kids get to contribute, they feel like a meaningful part of the family. That's huge for developing a sense of self. “I'm a helper. I'm a person who helps others.” Chores also teach interdependence, which is the give and take of being in relationship with other people. My kids are teenagers now and they each make dinner once a week, which means I don't cook two nights a week, and it's great. When they have finals or a performance, I step in and cover their night. When I'm presenting at a conference or I'm sick, they cover for me. That's what it means to be part of a community where you both give and take, and both feel good. A chore can be a way to express love for someone, and I think that’s truly magical.

What's something parents get wrong about chores that actually makes things harder?

Confusing consistency with rigidity. Parents get really inflexible about a chore, and then it becomes this constant push back and forth. If instead you get a little gentler (see, there's the gentle parenting) and say, “I've noticed you're not doing the dishes the way we agreed. Something's clearly getting in the way. What's going on?” Now you're on your kid's side. You're a team. Maybe they need a checklist. “Okay, let's make one, try it for a week or two, and check back in.” What could have been a fight has been transformed into a bonding moment.

Also, a kid not doing something doesn't mean they're being defiant or a jerk. It means something is in the way, and if you can help them figure out what and solve for it, I mean who wouldn't want a person like that in their life? I would love someone to do that for me on a regular basis.

Doing it yourself because it's faster is another one, and I say that without throwing any shade. People do what works for them, and that can change day to day. But if you can reframe it from, "It’s easier to just do it myself" to, "I'm actually preventing my kid from practicing skills I know they need," that can make it easier to let go. If you can let go of even just one thing, that shifts everybody's trajectory.

Chore charts can be helpful depending on how you use them. I am not a fan of the ones that say every five-year-old should be able to do these things. Nope. Every five-year-old is different. Break the chore into pieces, figure out which pieces your kid can do on their own or with help, and put those on the chart.

Rewards are an interesting piece. In general I'm not a fan, especially tying allowance to chores, because then it's a job, and you can quit a job. If your kid decides they don't want the ten dollars, you suddenly have no leverage. If they're doing it because they're a needed part of the family, that's a totally different framework. But there's a big "but." If you have a neurodivergent kid, especially a kid with ADHD whose brain processes dopamine inefficiently, rewards can genuinely help them stay locked in a little longer. So I can't give one blanket rule. For those kids, over time you can shift the reward from a token or other tangible to an emotional check-in, like a big hug or a high five. That's still a hit of dopamine, and it's one they can carry out of the house. If your kid gets a high five every time they do the dishes and then moves into a dorm and high-fives their roommate for doing the dishes, that's a pretty fantastic way to live with other people.

You also wrote a book about building self-soothing skills through snuggles. For the parent whose kid goes from calm to calamity in four seconds flat, what's one thing they can try this week?

That book is really about introducing parents to the eight senses and how much sensory processing has to do with self-soothing. So here's the one thing. Take a week and just observe your kid. Figure out one thing that genuinely soothes them. Maybe they like it really dark. Maybe they like it really loud, or really quiet. Some kids love sticking their fingers in paint and sticky stuff, and for other kids that does the opposite of calming. You don't need a detailed journal. Just a quick note. Oh, she really loves finger painting. Oh boy, he does not like watermelon, it's too sticky, I wonder what else sticky he doesn't like. As you start to see what soothes your child and what doesn't, you're building a toolbox. And as they get older, you hand them those tools so they can soothe themselves down the road. Or you can read the book. It's about 80 pages, and there's a free download.

Speaking is, in your words, your favorite thing ever. What happens in a room full of parents that doesn't happen anywhere else?

There's an exchange of energy you can only get in person. I can feel that this parent over here needs things a little softer, so I give something soft. That parent over there needs it a little lighter and funnier, so I say something light and funny. I think it comes from the performance background, but I absolutely love juggling all those energies in a room, meeting everybody's needs, and still hitting my own goals for the talk. It's like this huge puzzle I get to put together every time. Even if it's a talk I've given a dozen times, it's never the same talk, because the audience is never the same. And I get really great ideas from parents. I love learning what their kids are like and what works for them. There's nothing else like it.

Your front yard has a hobbit hole. Your family describes itself as geek-chic. Please explain both, and tell us what nerd fandoms run this household.

Even with the hobbit hole, the primary fandom is Star Trek. We're a Star Trek family. It's not that we're anti-Star Wars, it's just that Star Trek is a much lovelier universe, at least in the original series. Geek-chic is what a lot of people in Silicon Valley probably are, honestly. There are a lot of neurodivergent folks like us who love really, really geeky stuff and think it's cool, so we gave it a name.

The hobbit hole exists because my husband once saw a picture on Facebook and said, wouldn't it be cool to have a hobbit hole. I said, we could have one. He said, we can't have a hobbit hole. I said, challenge accepted. I figured out how to build one in our front yard, and it was a playhouse for the kids for several years. Now it's mostly storage. But when we sell, it's going to be the house with the hobbit hole down the street from Google.

Lightning round.

Best parenting advice you got from a theater director. When you're in the moment, roll with it. The show must go on.

Worst chore you had as a kid. Cleaning up dog poop in the backyard.

Snack you'd survive on if forced. Pretzels.

Thing your twins are absolutely correct that you're bad at. Math.

If a mom is reading this and thinking, "I'm a good parent, I just feel like I'm failing at it," what would you want her to know? And what's the easiest way to start with you?

Being imperfect is a gift. I work mostly in Silicon Valley, where there's enormous pressure on parents to be perfect, and that trickles right down into their kids. So I'm a huge proponent of please do not be perfect. Please mess up. Let your kids see you totally screw the pooch, come back from it, say "wow, I really got that wrong, I'm sorry," and try to make it better. Now you've got a better relationship with your kid, and your kid learns how to do that later with a partner or a friend. Nobody's going to be perfect. It's not even a thing you can define.

If she'd like to improve on some things, it's never too late. And if you're reaching out for help at all, you're already a fantastic parent. Full stop. Every really good parent knows they aren't perfect and can always do a little better. She's more than welcome to reach out to me. If I have a way to help, I'm happy to share it. If I don't, I'll help her find somebody who can.

Connect with Kristene Geering on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

You can also find her on The M List, The Mamahood's searchable database of mom-recommended resources, or connect and collaborate with her inside The Club membership for women Founders.

Heather Anderson