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 19
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You know the feeling? It's Sunday night, you've had a great weekend, and the second you open your calendar app your shoulders tense up. Practices, school events, work stuff, and oh right — you still need lunch stuff for tomorrow. That dread doesn't turn into "okay, I got this." It turns into snapping at everyone around you, staying up too late trying to get ahead, and starting Monday already wiped out.
This week we're talking about the parent tantrum — what happens when the invisible mental load of being the family's project manager finally catches up with you. We get into why this isn't about being disorganized (it's not!), how the dread can start showing up before the week even begins, and the belief that a "good parent" has it all together, every lunchbox perfect, every kid thriving 24/7. Spoiler: it doesn't have to look like that.
We talk through giving yourself permission to be imperfect, handing off tasks to your kids (yes, even the little ones can learn the washing machine), and why taking care of yourself isn't selfish — it's what keeps you able to show up for them.
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.
You know the feeling? The Sunday night scaries, but it's not for your kids, it's for you. We're talking this week about a parent who gets completely overwhelmed and starts to have a tantrum of their own because they are overwhelmed by their family's obligations and what's ahead for the week. So you know you've been there. That feeling when you open the calendar app on a Sunday night, you've had a great weekend, and immediately your shoulders tense, and when you realize everything that's ahead of you and all the things that are on your to-do list that you didn't get done yet. So we got practices, there's school events, work obligations. Oh, that's right, you still need to get stuff for lunch. And you know what? There's a wave of dread instead of, okay, I got this. We're gonna go through the week. And if you're anything like me, what happens is that dread doesn't turn into requests for help or taking a deep breath or knowing that you're gonna get it done no matter what. Instead, it turns to immediate overwhelm and irritability and frustration with myself and everybody else around
me. So that turns into the parent tantrum, right? So we start reorganizing, you start figuring out, you're snapping at everybody because they haven't done what they're supposed to do. You're feeling like you're just never gonna get ahead. You're never gonna have this whole thing wired, and you start just reorganizing everything. So, what's for dinner? No, that's the wrong question to ask at this time. Instead, you're trying to figure out when you're gonna get the grocery ordered in how are you going to be able to get your work deadline done when you got to have two kids in two different places at the same time on two different days. Maybe you start staying up late to get ahead, to get a handle on it, and that just leaves you feeling even more exhausted. Monday morning comes and you are absolutely wiped out, and this is how you're starting your week. Again, this can just really lead to a lot of irritability and it leads to overwhelm, and everything starts to fall behind. You might start saying no to things like play date requests, and then you're feeling guilty about that. So, all of these things are so common. I think a lot of us don't even think about the fact that we
are really juggling so many things without even thinking about it. And it's a mental load. It's not because you're not organized enough, it's not because you're not managing your time well, it's not because you didn't check your to-do list over the weekend. It is because usually somebody's the project manager of everybody else's week and all of the moving parts that go into that. And it takes so much out of them, probably you. And it tends to be kind of an invisible role. These things happen without anybody even noticing. The uniforms get washed and show up in the practice bags, the snacks are in the car when you pick up the kids from school, lunch makings are in the fridge on Sunday night, ready to roll for Monday morning. All of it just happens, but it doesn't just happen. Somebody does it. It's often one parent, and it can really be hard to know that it's taking such a toll on you because it's just gotta get done, right? So when this starts to add up, and more and more things start to add up, then the dread starts to be anticipatory. So your brain starts to try to work on okay, well, that didn't go great last Sunday. Let me think of what I can do, and then you start to get overwhelmed in advance. It's a very vicious cycle, and it's led, I think, also by this belief that a good parent has it all together, gets it all done. Kids are like happy, healthy, taking advantage of every enrichment opportunity, every lunchbox is full of all the most nutritious things, and you show up just looking and feeling great all the time. It can't happen that way. And you know what? It doesn't have to.
For things to work okay, it doesn't have to be perfect like that. So that's the first message I want to give you. In that moment, knowing that it's not perfect means it's okay. It doesn't mean catastrophe. It doesn't mean that you're a failure. It just means that's what happened this week. So take a deep breath. Know it's gonna be fine, and know that there's just different things that you can do to make it work. So let's say you love to pack your kids' lunches, but you didn't have the groceries you ended up needing. That's okay. They can buy something, it's all right. Maybe you can get a grocery delivery in. It's all right. It's gonna happen, it's gonna be okay. It may cost you more than you want to spend, but for one time, maybe you can swing it. Maybe your budget will absorb that expense and it can take the load off of your shoulders.
Maybe your kids buy their lunch and that works out okay. What you want to do is just start to be aware of the all the things that you're doing. Maybe you ask for help. Maybe you start turning over some of these tasks to kids so that they can start to take on the load. They can start to do some things that I think of as executive functioning. So, okay, where's your uniform? Oh, it's still dirty, it's still in your practice bag. We didn't get it out and put it in the laundry. You, let me show you. Eight-year-old, nine-year-old, somebody who's tall enough to reach the dials on the washing machine. Let me show you how to put in your clothes. Let me show you how to make this work. Here's some things in the refrigerator. Let's be creative and invent a lunch for you that meet we might not have. And let's figure out what we need to put on the grocery list so that we can pick up some groceries on the way home in a couple days, and then we have what you want, and you can start putting it in your um in your lunch box. Let's put a sticky note on the refrigerator so you can start to put down the things that um you want me to pay attention to for the weekend. You want to play date with somebody? Absolutely. Let's talk about that here, right here, and we'll talk about it at dinner on Thursday night. So that starts to shift some of this mental load, this cognitive burden that you're carrying. It starts to help kids see that it's not invisible. It doesn't just happen by magic, it doesn't just show up amazingly in their lunchbox or in their practice bag. You have work and planning that happens. So start to know that you don't have to carry all this load, you don't have to do it perfectly, and actually by shifting some of it to your kids and to other family members, it can really help them start to enrich their own lives and have their own stake in what's happening.
So the thing that you can do, you might feel like you're being selfish, like I'm not gonna do this. You know what? It's not selfish at all. It helps save you because they need you. They need you to be in great shape, and you deserve it. So take care of yourself. Maybe putting some of these things on somebody else can help you avoid some of those Sunday night scaries and really take your time and have a good weekend. All right, we hope that this episode lands for you in a way that feels helpful. Hang in there, you got this.
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