Welcome to Tantrum of the Week, the parenting podcast that helps you make sense of your child’s hardest moments. Hosted by Lynn McLean, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor™, each episode explores one real-life tantrum and uncovers the emotional needs, triggers, and stressors underneath.
You’ll learn how to:
Understand the why behind your child’s behavior
Respond with calm and confidence — not frustration
Build emotional regulation skills through connection
Use play therapy-informed parenting strategies that actually work
Whether you’re dealing with bedtime battles, sibling fights, or after-school meltdowns, Tantrum of the Week offers practical tips, expert insight, and a reminder that you’re not alone.
🎧 New episodes weekly. 📍 Based in Houston, Texas — helpful for parents everywhere.
•Lynn McLean, LCSW-S, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor ™ •Episode 16
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This week's tantrum doesn't look like a tantrum at all — it's a high schooler flatly refusing to go to school. As the first day approaches, junior-year pressures (college talk, testing, shifting friendships) are piling up, and instead of melting down, this teen just digs in: I'm not going. You can't make me.
We talk about why a parent's instinct to argue and persuade often backfires, and how getting curious instead — asking open questions, playing detective — can uncover what's really going on underneath the resistance. Plus: how to shrink an overwhelming first week into manageable steps, and how to solve social friction (carpools, shifting friend groups) without caving or over-fixing. If back-to-school season is turning into a standoff at your house, this one's for you.
Thanks for listening to *Tantrum of the Week* with Lynn McLean, LCSW-S, Registered Play Therapist–Supervisor™.
New episodes each week to help parents understand and respond to their child’s biggest feelings with calm, confidence, and connection.
This week's tantrum of the week is not really gonna sound like a tantrum because it involves a high schooler who basically is tantruming by saying nothing except they're not gonna go to school. They have um been in the lead up to getting ready for the first day of school. It's a few days before. It's a school that they're familiar with, they have friends there, but they have felt disconnected from some of those friends over the summer. Also, they're entering their junior year where a lot of talk about college is happening, uh, next steps after high school, testing for college admissions. The pressures are sort of building, and they're aware of this, and they're a child who really wants to um do well and to connect with people, and it hasn't felt very doable for them as the weeks have led up to the school. So, what's happening is when parent brings up, oh, okay, yep, we're gonna be um going to school. This is the routine. This way, um, we're gonna carpool, or um this is gonna be your extracurricular schedule, the child is just saying, Yeah, you know, I'm not going. I'm not gonna go. I don't want to go. I hate school. This is it. You can't make me. I'm not
I'm not gonna do it. I think there can be um such an anxiety response in the parent when they hear this kind of talk from their high schooler. I think it can feel like a call to argue. Yeah, you are going, along with a lot of really good reasons why the child has to go to school. I mean, it is the law. You have to go to school, it's required. And if you want your child to do well, you know you want them to go, you want them to get good grades, you also want them to be happy and have activities and friends that they enjoy. So all of those can be real reasons for a parent to dig in and say, Well, yeah, you are going. And guess what? To try to talk them into all kinds of things. You're gonna see so-and-so, you're gonna have this teacher or that teacher, you know how much your brother loved them, you know how much you love your um gymnastics team. This is all something that you've looked forward to. I don't understand why you're talking about this. You can really argue with them in a way that's meant to be convincing or distracting or helpful, but what it does is it's trying to talk a child into feeling a way that they don't feel. And you know what? At this age, they're a teen. They know how they feel, there's a lot on their plate. So it's really understandable, both sides, parent and kid. I think remembering that everybody has real perspective that matters to them, including parent remembering that about the teen. That's the part that we as adults tend to leave out, is it a powerful way to help this child move through what is sounding like a hard transition into this school
year. So when you're thinking about what's happening, I think you can be a detective and start to um ask your child since they're old enough. So tell me about this. I'm curious, how are you feeling? You might not even want to ask the how you're feeling. It's like I told you how I'm feeling. I'm feeling like I'm not going to school and you can't make me. Instead, you can offer some yes or or not yes or no questions, you can offer some um statements. Yeah, I'm interested in this. I'm interested in knowing more. I'm interested in hearing about why you're saying this. Sometimes, as parents, we can think that when we engage kids in conversation in this way, it's gonna make them think that, for example, not going to school is an option. That's not really the case. You're just asking them about what's happening for them and why they're saying this in a way that doesn't feel like they're gonna shut you down. So tell me more. I'm interested. The gymnastics team felt like it was going smoothly. Maybe it's not right now. Um, anything you can do to open a door that they could step through or something, you know your child so well, you probably have some clues about what might be going on. So some of your responses might be invitations based on what you know about them. After you get some information, maybe you can uh make some plans with them, have some ideas for them about a smoother transition into school than just, hey, you're showing up, you're gonna make straight A's, you're gonna get amazing results on your college
entrance, um, pretests, like all of those things, that's a high expectation, and they may already be worrying about their ability to meet those expectations. That may be part of what's going on. So instead, you just be like, Yeah, you know what? First week of school, all you got to do is show up, get to your classes, figure out what's going on, and then decide how you want to approach things over the weekend. So lowering expectations, making the steps smaller that your child has to accomplish can maybe go away to reducing their anxiety about this and reducing their resistance.
There may be some social um bridge that you can help them cross to make going easier. Oh, so maybe the carpool doesn't feel great this year because they had an altercation with somebody that was in it, or maybe they're out of step socially with some of the kids in the carpool. Maybe there's an all, you know, some alternative arrangement you can make for them that would help them. Again, you don't have to bend over backwards, and you're not saying, oh, you don't have to do this thing. You're just saying, you know what, I know this is hard. Let me come alongside you and help support you. Children, even teens, and I think it can feel weird to call them children, they are under a lot of pressure to solve things themselves and try to uh manage a lot. And I think as adults, sometimes we don't even know everything that's on their plate. So that's why asking these questions in a non-confrontational way can help you understand what's ahead for them, understand what they're thinking, and give you some clues about some ways that you can help ease them into this situation of a new school year that feels like a lot of pressure without it turning into a knockdown, drag out battle.
Because we you don't want that. Um, I hope some of these ideas help, and I hope that um back to school ends up going great at your house, and that you don't have these um stonewall tantrums going on. Hang in there, you got this.
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