In each of these examples, parents are asking their kids to inhibit an urge or desire that, frankly, they are developmentally incapable of inhibiting. We cannot tell a child who is hitting someone to stop hitting, or a child who is running to stop running, or a child who is complaining about wanting more TV to stop complaining. Well, we can (I am someone who says all these things too!), but these pleas won’t be successful. Why? Because we cannot control someone else—we can only control ourselves. And when we ask our child to do our job for us, they are more likely to get further dysregulated,
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