Disclaimer: This episode includes discussion of sensitive topics, including abuse, sexual abuse, and childhood sexual abuse. Although there are no explicit descriptions of child sexual abuse during the episode, please take care of yourself as you listen. If this content feels overwhelming or triggering, we encourage you to pause or take a break. Your safety and well-being matter more than anything we share here.

In this potent and deeply personal episode, Cara and Rythea sit down with Abigail Gunn, MsEd, LMHC, LPC, licensed therapist and founder of People Make Sense. Abigail is changing the way we talk about childhood trauma, dissociation, and recovery—with compassion, sharp clarity, and a commitment to truth.

This conversation explores how parenting can become a powerful catalyst for facing your trauma. Abigail shares how having children of her own helped surface repressed memories, and how her time in Al-Anon played a key role in awakening her from long-standing dissociation.

Rythea also shares her experience of retrieving her own repressed memories through dreams, writing, and reenactment in therapy. Together, Cara, Rythea, and Abby explore what happens when a child is forced to choose between their own humanity and the perceived humanity of the adults around them. They discuss how trauma shapes the developing brain, and how dissociation becomes a survival strategy that can last long into adulthood.

Key Topics:

• Childhood trauma as a profound and formative experience
• The myth of “false memory syndrome” and its negative impact on survivors
• Trauma as neurodiversity—and what it teaches us about the brain
• How trauma interrupts development and distorts the crucial stage of reality testing
• The weaponization of attachment, care, pleasure, and love performed by perpetrators
• Parenting as a trigger and pathway to memory retrieval
• Reclaiming self-worth by placing responsibility on abusers
• The body’s role in healing and bringing forth memories

Abigail shares how recovering memories of her own childhood sexual abuse led her to challenge dominant narratives in psychology, including the myth of “False Memory Syndrome.” She brings a fierce softness to the conversation—grounded in lived experience—and reminds us that trauma is not a disorder, but a normal response to harm.

Get to know Abigail Gunn and People Make Sense https://peoplemakesense.com

Follow Abigail Gunn on Instagram & TikTok @people.make.sense

Support YKDS https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

Support the podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

We (Rythea and Cara) are white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. We’re committed to featuring guests who differ in gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and lived experience in order to broaden this conversation and reflect more voices. 25% of proceeds from this podcast go to creators of color who have shaped our growth and healing.

Rate & Review: Moved by this episode? Leave a review and help us reach more parents and survivors walking this path. Healing is possible—and no, your kids don’t suck.

Cara and Rythea dig into how hypocritical they feel as parent advocates when they fall so short on their own commitment to staying loving. They have a good laugh and some deep process about how childhood wounds and unconscious aspects of self show up when they least expect it.

They explore specific situations where they have worked hard to be different, but keep getting triggered into the same kind of reactivity. They brainstorm (and unravel) how the umbrella of non-coercive, collaborative philosophy keeps them grounded and afloat, even as they make constant mistakes.

Cara comes clean about the bedtime triggers she faces with her daughter and how demoralizing her trauma responses make her feel. Rythea exposes how a mother-wound with her own parent blocks her from allowing her child to individuate gracefully.

Together, they ask: how does the parenting approach we use bring us back to our hearts and playful connection with our children through the long haul? What does it mean to model a process for our children when we’re the ones unraveling?

Key Topics:

• Feeling powerless or threatened by your child’s autonomy
• Parenting from your wounded parts
• Modeling emotional processing in real time
• Creating micro-moments of connection, even in rupture
• Honoring your child’s developing identity and values
• The tension between belief and behavior in parenting

If you’ve ever wondered, Am I even doing this right?, this episode is for you. Cara and Rythea remind us that real parenting is messy—and that returning to connection, especially after rupture, is where the healing begins.

Tools & Resources Mentioned:

• The EARS acronym: Empathize, Affirm, Relate, Support/Solve
• Parts Work (Internal Family Systems)
• Co-counseling techniques for emotional processing

Book a parent mentor session with Rythea: https://rythea.com/for-parents

Check out Cara’s Relationship Toolkit: https://www.caratedstonetherapy.com/your-relationship-toolkit

Support YKDS https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

Rate & Review

Share your thoughts! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.

How is our parenting an act of resistance or compliance to larger systems that harm? How do we know if we are unconsciously carrying out patterns of oppression in our families? What does it look like to step out of what is expected of us and parent from ancestral values?

In this episode, Leslie Priscilla shares how being raised by two Mexican immigrants and parenting her own bicultural children inspired her to create Latinx Parenting. She opens up about how parenting in the context of colonization and white supremacy has forced many families of the global majority to adapt their parenting in ways that stray from ancestral wisdom. We talk about how parenting philosophies like attachment parenting and homeschooling are often seen as white-dominated spaces, even though these practices existed in many cultures before colonization disrupted them.

Leslie Priscilla is a Queer Neurodivergent Non-Black Xicana/Child of Mexican Immigrants with Rarámuri lineage. She’s a mama of three, a certified Parent Coach with over 16 years of experience, and the founder of Latinx Parenting—a movement rooted in the liberation of familias through nonviolence, reparenting, and ancestral healing.

In this conversation, Leslie gets personal about how she has been raising her children and how her family follows a flow of collaboration and organic learning. She brings us into the heart of nonviolent parenting, based on the work of Ruth Beaglehole, and reminds us that "at the root of every behavior is a need that is seeking to be met."

Key Topics:

• Colonization’s impact on parenting across generations
• The erasure of ancestral caregiving practices
• Nonviolent parenting as liberation
• Parenting as an act of social and racial justice
• Understanding every behavior as a need trying to be met
• Parenting as a portal to self-healing and collective growth

This episode is a warm, powerful call to the collective healing work needed to liberate future generations—one parent, one family, one kid, at a time.

Get to know Leslie Priscilla and Latinx Parenting https://latinxparenting.org/

Follow Leslie Priscilla on IG @latinxparenting

Support YKDS https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

Rate & Review

Share your thoughts! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.

We heard you and you want to know: How the hell do you collaboratively and consciously parent when you have multiple kids?! Non-coercive, conscious mom-to-five, Tanisha Henderson is here to answer this question and SO MUCH MORE.

The episode begins with Tanisha sharing her personal journey to becoming a conscious, collaborative parent. She discusses her inspirations, pivotal moments, and the transformative experiences that led her to embrace non-coercive parenting as her guiding philosophy. She shares how she has come to see each of her kids as a whole person, how she supports the relationships between her children, and guides the flow of a busy and focused household. Tanisha homeschools so her skills are especially impressive when talking about the dynamics of learning and growth. There is no way you will not learn something uplifting when listening to this episode!

Tanisha's work extends beyond her own family - listen as she shares her experiences working with other Black families who face specific struggles and triggers that she is has tackled personally and now professionally. We were utterly moved and uplifted by Tanisha’s passion for her purpose and we hope you’ll feel the same!

Find Tanisha on her Facebook page: "Kid Advice with Tanisha Henderson" https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095308454472

Support YKDS https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

Rate & Review

Share your thoughts! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.

In this powerful episode, Cara and Rythea sit down with Josh Connolly, bestselling author of It’s Them, Not You: How to Break Free from Toxic Parents and Reclaim Your Story. Josh has become a leading voice in the mental health world, known for his no-nonsense approach to healing family trauma and supporting those affected by parental alcohol issues and toxic parents.

Together, they discuss the importance of simple, direct language when addressing painful family dynamics—and how that clarity can be life-changing for children. Josh opens up about becoming a father at a young age, and shares how he came to terms with his own traumatic childhood and how that has shaped both his parenting and sense of self. The conversation also explores somatic practices (aka: anything that brings you INTO the body) as a gateway to emotional connection, especially for those socialized as boys who were taught to disconnect from feelings.

This episode could be especially powerful for parents who have struggled with male conditioning. Josh talks about self-protection and reactivity as a response to being raised male, being forced to shut down and mask, and finding intense relief from facing the lie and harm of that path.

Key Topics:

• Understanding yourself as a highly sensitive person
• Supporting boys and men to feel and express their emotions
• Explaining what somatic practices are
• Healing from toxic parents or a dysfunctional childhood

Josh’s grounded presence and emotional honesty offer an accessible invitation to anyone ready to rewrite their story or anyone dealing with a complicated and abusive past. Whether you’re a parent or an adult child looking to heal, this episode serves as both a resource and an inspiration to repair from a place of self-trust.

Purchase Josh’s Book: https://www.joshconnolly.co.uk/

Follow Josh on IG @josh_ffw

Support YKDS https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

Rate & Review

Share your thoughts! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.

In this deeply honest episode, Cara and Rythea dive into the nuanced world of non-coercive parenting through the lens of Internal Family Systems, Parts Work Therapy, and Inner Bonding. They unpack what it means to parent in the moment while working with merged parts—protective internal voices that take over when we're triggered, especially by our kids.

This episode explores the uncomfortable but powerful truth: sometimes we see our child as our abuser. Cara and Rythea get real about how this perception emerges, how it relates to unhealed trauma, and how those reactive parts are trying—however messily—to protect us.

Cara and Rythea share real-life examples when their children activated them, and how they identified and engaged with the parts that took over. They talk about what it’s like to notice in real time when you're not in your Self and how to compassionately return.

Key Topics

• Understanding merged parts and protectors
• Tools for recognizing when you're not in Self and how to return
• Projecting past trauma onto your child
• The healing potential of seeing your protectors as helpers, not enemies
• Cultivating Self-Energy
• Dismantling parental shame and reconnecting to our children

This work isn’t about parenting perfectly. It’s about parenting from presence, about having a relationship with yourself so that you can have an authentic connection with your child. By integrating your own protective parts, you make space for your Self-Energy to lead—and from there, all relationships, especially with your kids, become more truthful and safe.

Resources

• Meditations by Dick Schwartz https://insighttimer.com/drrichardschwartz

• The One Inside podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-one-inside-an-internal-family-systems-ifs-podcast/id1460334766

• Inner Bonding https://www.innerbonding.com/

Book with Rythea calendly.com/rythea

Book with Cara calendly.com/caratedstonetherapy

Support https://buymeacoffee.com/yourkidsdontsuck

It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

Rate & Review

Share your thoughts! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.

In this episode, we sit down with our social media manager/helper/everything-assistant, Joey D’Angelo, who shares their relationship with our work on the podcast. Joey is not a parent, but is full of childlike wonder and endless compassion, and has been on a recovery journey which includes reparenting herself. What happens when we turn the principles of mutual respect, emotional regulation, and co-regulation inward?

Joey shares the impact of their upbringing and how that led to their development of Borderline Personality Disorder (aka Emotional Dysregulation), and their journey through BPD recovery, re-building self-trust, reparenting, and applying conscious parenting methods to heal inner wounds. Together we explore reparenting through the lens of collaborative parenting—without parenting any children.

On this episode, we discuss: ✨ What is reparenting is, and how to recover our inherent self-trust

✨ Learning new relational languages that are non-coercive, and how this neurological rewiring is challenging in the short term, but will create more peaceful relationships in the long term.

✨ How collaborative parenting principles—like connection over correction—apply to self-growth and personal healing

✨ Practical ways to nurture your inner child with empathy and patience ✨ The challenges and breakthroughs of unlearning harsh self-talk and internalized criticism

Whether you're a parent or not, this conversation offers powerful insights into healing, self-trust, and cultivating an internal environment of love and understanding.

Joey is a gender non-conforming, neurodivergent queer in their mid-30s. They are a white, AFAB non-parent, single person who has a value system rooted in understanding intersectionality and developing communities where equity precedes privilege. They worked in film and TV for 7 years, ran their own business between 2018 and 2021, and have worked in events, marketing, and social media for over a decade. Joey lives with Borderline Personality Disorder (also referred to as Emotional Dysregulation) in Toronto, Canada and is actively involved in justice for people who are insecurely housed, and their BPD diagnosis has completely shifted the way they care for themself, offering a North Star that's rooted in balance, comfort, and fun.

Get in touch with them:

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube: @hi.itsjoey

Website: www.joeydangelo.squarespace.com

As non-coercive, collaborative parents, how do we move through self-blame and really trust our child’s process?

In this episode, Cara supports Rythea to explore the trigger of being helpless over her daughter’s pain. Rythea unpacks, in real time, patterns of self-hatred and self-blame that are tied to underlying beliefs around parenting and self-worth. Rythea, with Cara’s facilitation, models a process of expressing the unbearable feelings around keeping her child safe, happy, and healthy. This episode takes you through the healing process of a parent taking responsibility for her own triggers, memories, and conditioning, in the face of things she cannot control as a parent.

The friendship between Cara and Rythea, as well as their knowledge as therapists, guides this episode into places listeners rarely get to see and hear on a parenting podcast.

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It’s important and essential to put our voices (Rythea and Cara) in a context. We are two white, cis-gender, straight, middle-class women living with financial and societal privilege. Because of this, our perspectives are limited and do not reflect the realities of all our listeners. This podcast will feature guests with expertise around conscious parenting who differ in gender, race, class, abilities, sexual orientation, and histories from us, to broaden the conversation and reflect the lives of as many people as possible. 25% of the proceeds of this podcast will go to creators of color who have been mentors and influences on our work and in our growth as parents.

You can donate to this podcast by going to https://linktr.ee/yourkidsdontsuck

Book with Cara: calendly.com/caratedstonetherapy

Book with Rythea: rythea.com/supportsession

Rate & Review:

Enjoyed this episode? Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform! Your feedback helps us reach more parents looking to embrace collaborative, non-coercive parenting.