Tosha Schore: When Your Child Comes Home From Your Ex's Enraged

The limbic system floods the cortex when a child goes into a rage, which is why talking them down does not work. Tosha Schore puts it plainly: you can feel your way out of thinking, but you cannot think your way out of feeling, and in that moment there is nobody home to reason with anyway.

Tosha Schore is back on the show, and this conversation is about children who are not only emotionally aggressive but physically violent. She founded Parenting Boys Peacefully and co-authored Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges with her mentor Patty Wipfler. She has three sons, now grown, and describes the morning that started this work: reading the news, noticing that the violence in it was almost all committed by men, and deciding to find out what a parent can change while a boy is small.

Tosha and Lisa map the predictors first. Fear, in all its forms, and change a child had no say in, which is what a divorce is. Rigidity, and the child who cannot cope when today runs differently from yesterday. Then the difference between an outburst anyone might have and a pattern you can see coming, which is the sentence that starts with hoping he does not throw the remote again this week.

The tools follow. Keeping everyone safe, including the parent, and why she would rather your door got dented than your arm scratched. Saying almost nothing, because it lands on a brain that cannot use it. Not naming your child's feelings for them, which she says goes over like lighter fluid. Stay listening, meaning staying present without trying to fix anything, and the notes some parents pass under the door that turn into a written back and forth about things too hard to say aloud. Tosha also takes on disrespect, and what to do when the words coming out of your child sound exactly like your ex, and closes on connection between the hard moments: rough and tumble play, indoor snowballs, dragging a kid around the floor on a sheet, and a timed block where they lead and you follow.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What predicts aggression in a child, and why change they did not choose sets it off
• The difference between a one-off outburst and a pattern you can see coming
• How to keep everyone safe in the moment, including yourself
• Why you cannot talk a flooded child down, and the little you should say instead
• Why naming your child's emotions for them makes the outburst worse
• Stay listening: staying present without fixing, and the notes under the door
• What to do when your child's words sound like your ex coming out of their mouth
• Connection between the hard moments: rough and tumble play and letting them lead

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 How Tosha came to this work, and why she focused on boys
4:00 Predictors: fear, change nobody chose, and rigidity
6:00 A one-off outburst versus a pattern worth addressing
7:30 In the moment: keeping everyone safe, including you
9:00 Why you cannot talk a furious child out of a feeling
11:00 Nervous laughter, and the shame that follows hurting you
13:30 Stay listening, and the notes people slide under the door
16:30 Time-outs, and teaching a boy that asking for help is strong
19:00 When you hear your ex's voice coming out of your child
23:00 Rough and tumble play, and special time where they lead

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
🔗 Tosha Schore at Parenting Boys Peacefully: https://parentingboyspeacefully.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.