I don’t know who needs to hear this, but raising a 6-and-a-half-year-old girl in 2025 is not for the faint of heart. We’re talking full-blown teen energy in a tiny body. Big feelings. Big opinions. A huge heart. And a brain still wiring itself to manage all three. We know this is developmentally normal. We know her prefrontal cortex won’t be fully developed for decades. We know she’s absorbing everything — from what she sees on screen to how we respond to her hardest moments. But none of that makes it easier when the sass hits at 7:38am, or the tears start before dinner because her sock felt weird. We’ve read the books. We believe in the research. Kim John Payne’s philosophy on holding firm limits with deep empathy lives rent-free in our parenting toolkit. But damn, this season is stretching us. Balancing validation with boundaries. Gentle parenting with real consequences. Protecting her joy and her nervous system. Limiting screen time not just for what it shows — but for what it ...