Ep. 290: 7 Parenting Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Child (And How to Fix Them)
Parenting Great Kids with Dr. Meg Meeker
Dr. Meg Meeker
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this special Ask Dr. Meg live Q&A session, Dr. Meg Meeker dives into the 7 most common parenting mistakes—but this time, with a powerful twist: she shares how each of these actions actually makes your child feel. From yelling and criticism to withdrawing affection or missing connection, Dr. Meg walks listeners through not only what to avoid—but how to repair and rebuild trust, connection, and emotional security.
You’ll hear real questions from real parents, answered in real time. Whether you’ve been struggling with guilt, disconnection, or uncertainty in your parenting, this episode will give you the clarity, compassion, and confidence to parent better—starting today.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why yelling often has nothing to do with your kids—and what it’s really saying
- How repeated criticism affects your child’s self-worth
- The power of saying "I'm sorry"—even when you're the parent
- Why kids feel abandoned when affection is withdrawn
- How distraction can make your child feel invisible
- The subtle but deep effects of not fully accepting your child
- Why time together matters more than any "parenting hack"
Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome to Ask Dr. Meg Live
01:20 – The 7 Most Common Parenting Mistakes
03:15 – Mistake #1: Yelling (and What It Does to Kids Inside)
06:52 – Mistake #2: Constant Criticism and Its Emotional Impact
10:45 – Mistake #3: Not Apologizing—Why It Breeds Resentment
14:11 – Mistake #4: Using Affection as a Punishment
17:05 – Mistake #5: Distraction and the “Invisible Child” Syndrome
19:38 – Mistake #6: Projecting Your Expectations
22:50 – Mistake #7: Failing to Prioritize Time with Your Kids
25:34 – Live Questions From the Audience
29:41 – Final Thoughts: Grace, Growth, and Being a Work in Progress
31:08 – Join the Ask Dr. Meg Community & Newsletter
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is parenting great kids with Dr. Meg Meeker because great kids are raised, not born. |
| 0:09.1 | As we start, I know that you're going to be thinking, oh my gosh, this is terrible. What am I doing wrong? |
| 0:14.2 | Don't think like that because the truth of the matter is we have all done a lot of things wrong. |
| 0:20.3 | And we've probably made all of the mistakes that are in here. |
| 0:24.3 | But, you know, just don't worry about that. Move ahead and just do the best we can. So let's go to |
| 0:31.5 | bad habit number one, persistent yelling. Now, I bet that everybody listening out there has yelled at your kids. I have. I probably |
| 0:41.1 | yelled at every one of them. But when we talk about yelling, think about this. Whether your kid is two or |
| 0:47.4 | whether your kid is 18, nobody needs to be yelled at, period. And you don't like to be yelled at. Your husband, your wife, |
| 0:56.7 | doesn't deserve to be yelled at. You know, if you yell at people in your workplace, you wouldn't |
| 1:02.1 | last very long there. But why do we yell at our kids? You know, if you think about your, |
| 1:07.6 | say you have a five-year-old kid right now and you think about how |
| 1:11.2 | exasperated you get with that kid and, you know, he won't go to bed and he just keeps jumping |
| 1:15.5 | on the bed at night. You're trying to put him to sleep and you just get so frustrated you yell. |
| 1:20.3 | Well, no five-year-old should be yelled that. So why do you yell? Why do we yell? A, we have a lot of stress. And the stress, unfortunately, |
| 1:30.7 | comes out on our kids. It doesn't come out at school. It doesn't come out with our coworkers. |
| 1:35.5 | It certainly doesn't come out with our boss. Sometimes it comes out with our spouse, |
| 1:40.8 | but it really should never come out with our kids. But the kids are the easiest to yell at. |
| 1:46.6 | And that's why we end up yelling at our kids because it's a stress outlet. So in order to stop |
| 1:53.2 | yelling at our kids, we've got to say, where am I stressed? How am I stressed? What is stressing |
| 2:00.6 | me out? How can I resolve my stress? Because the more you can deal with your stress, the less likely you are to yell at your kids. Because nobody wants to yell at their kids. It's just your stress. yelling is your issue, not theirs. They should be able to jump on the bed all they want and never go to bed at |
| 2:18.9 | night and drive you crazy and you should be able to discipline, but not yell at them. The other thing |
| 2:24.8 | that can happen is if you have underlying anger. Now, a lot of us have underlying anger towards |
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