Sue Donnellan: Getting Your Kids to Listen Without Yelling

Label a misbehaving child and the label sticks, and before long the child is living up to it. Sue Donnellan sees that loop start with parents who are trying to help, and she wants them to slow down before naming what is wrong with their kid.

Our guest this episode is Sue Donnellan, a parenting coach, author, and the founder of Ask Mom Parenting, where she works with parents of children from about two to twenty. She is a mother of four: her first child, and then triplets. Going from one to four overnight is how she describes being thrown into the deep end, and she is straightforward that she did a lot of yelling before she found anything better. She now coaches from what she calls a leadership position, and she also hosts the Ask Mom Parenting Podcast.

Sue and Lisa start with why parents misdiagnose their own children and what a label does to a kid who then wears it. From there they move to accountability, which in Sue's practice always comes before behavior plans. What did you experience growing up, and what are you carrying into this relationship? Is ego in the room? Are your boundaries for sale? When a child is packing a bag between two houses, what are you doing to steady the part of their life you do control? Sue is careful to say she is not blaming parents, and equally clear that the adult is the one who can change the pattern.

The practical stretch covers the phone standoff that Lisa hears about weekly, where a device the other parent bought becomes the thing a child refuses to hand over. Sue's answer is that you own the culture of your own home, that role modeling comes first, and that the real work is investing in the child as a person so the screen has competition. She talks about keeping that time one to one, the intentional one-on-one dates she made with each of her four, and why she never leaned on other families to help raise hers. It closes on decision-making, and why the wisdom you want to pass on only travels across a relationship that already has trust in it.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why diagnosing your own child's behavior can hand them a script to follow
• The accountability questions Sue asks parents before touching the child's behavior
• "Are your rules for sale?" and what happens when boundaries move to match other families
• The phone standoff: why you set the culture of your own home, even with different rules at the other house
• Why role modeling your own screen use has to come before the demand
• Investing in a child as an individual so the device has real competition
• Why one-to-one time beats bringing their friends into the plan
• Why your wisdom only transfers across a relationship that already has trust in it

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why parents misdiagnose their own kids
3:00 Labels, self-fulfilling prophecies, and taking your autonomy back
5:00 Accountability first: what you bring to the table
7:00 When behavior is a symptom of the environment you built
9:00 The phone standoff, and who owns the culture of your home
11:00 Investing in your child instead of fighting the device
12:30 Surly teenagers, connection, and celebrating a tiny win
15:00 Why one-to-one beats involving their friends
16:30 One child, then triplets, and the one-on-one dates
18:30 Building trust early so your wisdom lands later

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Sue Donnellan at Ask Mom Parenting: https://www.askmomparenting.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.