Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour
I am a Chid & Adolescent Psychotherapist. The podcast are educational and orientated towards parents. We cover a wide range of sometimes, tricky subjects, in the hope of reassuring parents that no matter how hard things may seem, there are things you can do.Thank you.Kim
When Behaviour Speaks
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A child rarely walks up and says, “I feel unsafe,” “I feel responsible for you,” or “I’m afraid you’ll leave.” More often, they show it and the message can look like defiance, aggression, anxiety, withdrawal, school refusal, sleep problems, or a sudden need to control everything. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this is the introduction to my series I Wish My Parents Would, built around one core idea: when words are too hard, behavior becomes the child’s voice.
We start with the kinds of things children w...
When Avoidance Must End
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Silence can look like peace, but for a child living with an avoidant parent, it often lands as abandonment. We take on a tricky, necessary idea: avoidance has a story that deserves understanding, and it also has consequences that can’t be carried indefinitely by children or partners. I walk through the moment where “I’m just overwhelmed” has to become “I’m responsible for what my withdrawal does,” because leaving the room, going quiet, and letting someone else manage every hard emotion are still actions.
We break down why shame is such a comm...
How Many Absences Can A Family Hold
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Something can be “fine” on the surface and still quietly break a family from the inside. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m widening the lens beyond the child to talk about the other parent the one who stays, tries, copes, and slowly becomes the relationship’s emotional manager when an avoidant parent repeatedly withdraws from emotional responsibility.
We look at how this dynamic forms: the careful timing, the softened language, the constant scanning for signs of withdrawal, and the gradual decision to stop asking for what you n...
Feelings Without A Home
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A child doesn’t need perfect parents to learn emotional health, but they do need emotions to be allowed to exist. When a parent is emotionally avoidant, a child’s fear, sadness, or anger can start to feel like something they must hide, manage alone, or act out just to be noticed. That’s where the phrase “feelings without a home” comes from, and it captures the quiet loneliness behind so many behavior problems.
We walk through how emotional regulation is actually built: first through co-regulation, then through internal skills that develop ov...
When Childhood Enters Love. What could possibly go wrong?
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Childhood doesn’t stay in childhood. We carry it straight into our friendships, our romantic partnerships, and eventually our own parenting, often without realizing it. Kim Lee Jardin, adolescent psychotherapist, unpacks how avoidant parenting shapes the internal working model we build early on: a largely unconscious prediction system that decides whether people will be there for us, whether our needs will be tolerated, and whether we’re worthy of care. That model can sit beneath “I want closeness” while whispering “expect abandonment,” creating confusion and repeated heartbreak.
We talk through the real-world p...
How Avoidant Parenting Shapes A Child’s Inner World
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A child doesn’t just remember how a parent reacted. They build an inner map of what relationships are supposed to feel like and then they live inside that map for years. We talk through how avoidant parenting can quietly train kids to shrink their needs, hide distress, or perform “goodness” that is really driven by fear. Using a clear chess analogy, we show how family systems create predictable moves and how children, with the least power, become the ones who carry the emotional cost.
From object relations theory to attachment theory...
A Family Organized Around Absence
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A family can look stable from the outside while quietly revolving around one missing center: a parent’s emotional participation. When that absence becomes the organizing force, everything shifts. Hard conversations get postponed, feelings get minimized, conflict stays unresolved, and day-to-day life turns into a constant effort to avoid discomfort. We talk through how “systemic avoidance” develops and why it is rarely about one person’s flaw and more about a pattern everyone gets pulled into.
We lean on family systems theory to map the roles that form when one parent underfun...
The Mavericks
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The avoidant parent and the violent child. Stop negotiating with the volcano!
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A child screams, threatens, breaks things, or lashes out and suddenly the whole household revolves around preventing the next blow-up. That can look like “a bad kid” from the outside, but I’m interested in the harder question: how did this child learn they have to create a crisis before anyone responds?
I walk through a common avoidant family pattern where a parent delays, dismisses, withdraws, or disappears emotionally until the child escalates. Over time, escalation becomes reinforced, and the parent’s retreat brings short-term relief that sets up an even bigger c...
The Child Who Learned Not To Need
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A child who never asks for help can look like a dream, calm, capable, and “so mature for their age.” But what if that independence is not confidence at all, and it is a workaround for a home where comfort is unreliable? I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m digging into the child who learns not to need when a parent is emotionally avoidant or dismissive avoidant.
We walk through how this pattern forms through repetition, not drama: a frightened child gets brushed off, tears meet irritati...
Avoidant Parents (part 2)
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The Avoidant Parent. Series intro
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A parent can be in the room and still feel miles away. That gap, between physical presence and emotional reachability, is where a lot of quiet damage happens for kids and for the partners trying to hold the family together. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m opening this series by getting very specific about what people mean when they call someone an “avoidant parent.”
We’re not talking about a diagnosis or a trendy label. We’re talking about a pattern where emotional closeness, conflict, or responsibi...
The label part 2 (the other episode was abruptly ended)
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Beyond The Label
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This is intended for UK listeners, those in the US should review state and federal laws.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3524
Listeners in Europe might consider
https://e-justice.europa.eu/topics/family-matters-inheritance/parental-responsibility-child-custody-and-contact-rights_en
A child refuses contact and suddenly the whole case can get swallowed by one word: “alienation.” We do not deny that manipulation can happen, but we refuse to let a label stand in for analysis. I walk through why contact refusal can stem from fear, anger...
'Little Hands'
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I made an agreement with myself not to post my music on this page, but having had so many people who have heard it encourage me to do otherwise, I thought I would.
I really hope that it is something that touches you in some way. The new website, kim's- music.com will have the full album, ‘Reflections’, the remastered tracks available. Coming soon....
If you like this song, you are very welcome to share it, and it is free.
Thank you for listening
Safeguarding Comes First
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Safeguarding gets treated like background noise when parents are locked in a contact dispute, but I want to bring it back to where it belongs: front and center. When a child says no to contact and allegations fly, the most important question isn’t who tells the better story. It’s whether the child is suffering harm, or facing a meaningful risk of harm, and what needs to happen before anyone talks about “restoring” contact.
I break down why emotional harm is so easy to miss in family court cases and why it ra...
A blunt instrument?
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A few sentences in a CAFCASS report can change a child’s daily life for years, which is exactly why we slow down and question how those sentences get written. When family court decisions hinge on a Section 7 report or a safeguarding summary, the assessment can feel like it carries the weight of a full investigation, even though it often happens in a tight time window after conflict has already escalated. We talk about the “snapshot” problem: a parent can present as calm and still be unsafe, while a parent who looks anxious might...
A Counter Allegation Can Turn A Safeguarding Concern Into Suspicion
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A single label can hijack an entire family court case. When a parent raises safeguarding concerns like domestic abuse, coercive control, sexual harm, or frightening behavior, it is alarmingly common to see a fast pivot to a counter allegation: parental alienation. We talk through how that pivot happens, why it is so persuasive on paper, and how it can quietly turn the focus away from the child’s lived experience and onto suspicion of the reporting parent.
We walk step by step through the core fork in the road when a ch...
Protection Recast As Alienation
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A child comes back from contact and something feels off. They’re quieter than usual, suddenly clingy, angry, sick to their stomach, wetting the bed, or refusing to sleep alone. You can’t prove what it means, but you can’t ignore it either. That’s the impossible space we sit with today: the moment a parent believes their child may be unsafe, and the act of trying to protect them gets reinterpreted as parental alienation.
We talk through why this happens and why it’s so hard to untangle. A parent des...
A Child Refuses Contact, what might that mean?
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“I don’t want to go.” Four words that can trigger panic, rage, and heartbreak in separated families, and can quickly pull schools, therapists, and the family court system into the middle. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m shifting the focus away from adult interpretations and back to the child’s experience. Refusal is behavior, and behavior is the headline, not the story.
We unpack the range of reasons a child might say no to contact, and why reaching for labels like parental alienation too early can bl...
When A Child Refuses Contact
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A child says “no” to contact and suddenly the adults are fighting over a single phrase: parental alienation. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I want to slow the rush to certainty. When we treat a child’s refusal as proof of manipulation, we can end up deciding the outcome before we’ve understood the story, and that can silence the one voice that most needs protection.
We dig into where the term “parental alienation” comes from, why the “syndrome” framing sounds more clinical than it actually is, and how that l...
The Maverick
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From the new album- 'Reflections'. Coming soon from kims-music.com. Release date soon
Fire in The Hole
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I can do better than that.....
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Burn Alone
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When a connection feels like a twin flame, the ending doesn’t just hurt, it rewrites your sense of reality. We lean into that raw, poetic space where the spark fades, the mind starts circling for answers, and you’re left trying to tell the fire from the shame. The lines are simple but loaded: survival after love, the way doubt dims what once felt bright, and the quiet terror of not knowing what was real.
We also draw a hard boundary that can change how you heal: there’s a path to...
Keep your name.......
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A Clinician’s Response To The Great ADHD Myth
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A prime-time documentary can spark a needed conversation, but it can also blur the line between good questions and bad conclusions. We watched Channel 4’s “The Great ADHD Myth” with interest because concerns about rushed ADHD diagnosis, uneven assessment quality, and careless prescribing deserve daylight. Then the program reached for something much bigger: the suggestion that ADHD may not be a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder. That claim carries an evidential burden the film simply didn’t meet.
We walk through what “where is the evidence?” really means here, and why ADHD research can’t be red...
When A Child Refuses Contact
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The Three Rs For Healing Harmful Relationships
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Some relationships do not break us in one dramatic moment. They wear us down in cycles that are easy to explain away day by day, and only obvious once we step back far enough to see the pattern. I share a clear framework I use to help people make sense of those experiences, and I also give a quick update that the paperback edition of my book, The Life That Belongs to You, is now live on Amazon.
The heart of the conversation is the Three Rs model: recognition, reckoning, and r...
The Life That Belongs To You. The Author speaks.
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Harmful relationships rarely announce themselves with a single, obvious moment. Sometimes the damage is quieter: the steady drip of adjustments you make to keep the peace, the slow loss of confidence in your own judgment, the feeling that someone else’s moods and needs have more authority than your reality. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m also newly an author, which still feels strange to say out loud. I share why writing this book took more than expertise, it took translating lived experience into words that can actual...
The Life That Belongs To You
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Most people don’t wake up one day and choose a life that feels wrong. It happens gradually: small compromises, old family rules, relationship patterns you learned early, and a quiet habit of putting someone else’s needs in the driver’s seat. We talk candidly about that moment of realization, and why we decided to stop the planned finale of the Three Rs series and write the book instead: The Life That Belongs to You.
We walk through the Three Rs framework, Recognition, Reckoning, and Recovery, as a practical model for he...
The Reckoning
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The most dangerous part of a coercive, abusive, or manipulative relationship isn’t always the obvious cruelty. It’s the slow rewrite of your reality, where hope keeps you working harder, doubting yourself more, and calling it love. We unpack the moment that finally breaks that spell: the reckoning, when the life you thought you were building collides with the life you’re actually living.
We walk through why recognition can feel more painful at first, because uncertainty used to protect you. When that uncertainty disappears, you’re left grieving what you didn...
The first stage. Recognition
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You can’t heal what you’re still calling “normal.” Recognition is the moment the fog lifts after an abusive relationship and you finally see the pattern for what it is, not what you hoped it would become. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m starting this final stretch of the series on recovery by slowing down and naming that first stage clearly, because it is often the hardest to tolerate and the most important to get right.
We talk about how abuse distorts relational reality from the ins...
Ep 1. Empty Box Syndrome
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A controlling relationship rarely announces itself with shouting or bruises. It more often arrives as something flattering, intoxicating, and strangely “meant to be,” the kind of attention that makes you feel chosen. I call this pattern the Empty Box Syndrome: a beautifully wrapped presentation that wins your trust, followed by the moment you realize the substance was never there in the first place.
We walk through how coercive control, manipulation, and deception actually unfold in real life. The shift can be quiet: a “concerned” question when you do not reply fast enough, a...
Introduction to Coercive Control
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Love does not usually flip into fear overnight. It changes in small, almost invisible steps until you wake up one day and realize your confidence is smaller, your friendships are fewer, and your choices revolve around someone else’s moods. I am Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I am continuing my Dangerous Relationships series by turning to coercive control and emotionally abusive relationship patterns, not to help you diagnose someone, but to help you recognize what it feels like when your psychological freedom is being taken away.
I wa...
Dangerous Relationships Episode 2. Living Inside The Relationship
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Dangerous relationships don’t usually start with danger. They start with attention, excitement, fast closeness, and that intoxicating sense of being truly seen. Then, slowly, the center of gravity shifts and you find yourself carrying more, questioning more, and shrinking more, while the other person keeps taking.
We put diagnosis to the side and focus on lived experience: what it’s like inside an exploitative relationship, how manipulation can hide in plain sight, and why even smart, capable people stay. We break down the difference between mutual discovery and strategic observation, and...
Dangerous Relationships. Understanding Sociopathy
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A charming person can sound deeply self-aware, say all the right things, and still leave you stuck in the same painful loop. We pull apart that confusing experience by naming the gap between intellectual insight (knowing the words) and emotional insight (owning the impact), and we connect it to how dangerous relationships quietly erode your confidence in your own reality.
We turn our attention to sociopathy as it’s commonly understood and clarify the clinical landscape along the way. “Sociopath” isn’t a formal diagnostic term, and responsible diagnosis requires professional assessme...
Dangerous relationships. Recovering Your Reality
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Dangerous Relationships. Narcissistic Patterns. Emotional Insight Vs Intellectual Insight
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Someone can sound deeply self-aware and still be emotionally unreachable. That single contradiction sits at the center of many dangerous relationships, especially when narcissistic behaviors or narcissistic traits shape the rules of the bond. We start by answering two hard questions: how a person can appear generous, thoughtful, and believable to everyone else, while the people closest to them live with a completely different reality, and why smart, capable partners often end up doubting themselves instead of doubting the relationship.
We break down a distinction that changes how you listen: intellectual...
Dangerous Relationships. Narcissistic Traits Vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder Ep1.
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“Narcissist” is one of the most used words online and one of the most misunderstood. I want to slow the conversation down and bring the term back to something useful: not a casual insult, not a shortcut to certainty, but a way to think clearly about patterns that can make relationships feel confusing, destabilizing, and unsafe.
We start with a distinction that surprises a lot of people: healthy narcissism is real, and it’s essential. It’s the self-recognition that helps us build confidence, set boundaries, and hold onto our worth when lif...
