There are parts of parenting that do not match the story we have in our heads.

The days when we can’t find joy in the chaos. When we are trying our best but still wondering what we are doing wrong. When so many things feel much harder than they should, and we wonder why no one else seems to be struggling as hard as we are.

If you have ever felt this way, you are not alone. Here’s a story from a parent who had to sit with that tension.

These stories are shared anonymously and edited to protect privacy, so people can speak openly.

Subscribe now

Mom of a ‘mean girl’

“My daughter was about seven when we went through a few big changes. Her grandmother, whom she was very close to, passed away. We moved to a different city, and she had to start in a new school. It was a lot for her to process in a short time, so we made sure we were there whenever she wanted to talk.

She used to be very happy and bubbly. But she soon became angry, difficult and defiant.

That was also when she started getting into trouble in school. She would call people names, say mean things, and couldn’t seem to keep her friends. It’s like the movie Mean Girls, but a little girl version. It felt like she had suddenly turned into a teenager, and we were not ready for it.

We figured the changes had affected her more than she talks about them. But whenever we tried to talk about it, she didn’t seem to be upset or show that it had affected her deeply. So we assumed things would get better once she settled in. But they didn’t. It became very stressful for everyone.

I was also afraid of how other parents might judge her, especially when she was with me. Sometimes she would kick or speak very rudely to me in front of others, and I never knew what might happen. I also didn’t want people to think I was just allowing her to be disrespectful.

We eventually brought her to therapy. Even then, it wasn’t clear what was really going on. So we focused on correcting her behaviour. We rewarded good behaviour, set clear boundaries, and tried to stay calm even when she showed a big attitude. But nothing seemed to work for more than a few weeks.

As a parent, the constant cycle of complaints about my child was excruciating.

I understood that the loss and the changes were difficult for her. But her mean behaviour, especially to the other kids in school, was hard for us to accept. Pain should never be an excuse to hurt others.

I was reading a lot of parenting books, hoping to find answers. But instead, I ended up questioning everything we did. Did we not prepare her enough for the transition? Are we not helping her process her grief? Were we too strict? Too lenient?

Over time, we learned that her hypersensitivity, together with asynchronous development, were likely contributing factors. Just knowing that helped me shift my focus. I stopped trying to fix her behaviour, and started helping her build the skills she needed.

Now, when she acts out, we remind ourselves, ‘If she could, she would.’
And that she is not behaving this way because she chose to.

Looking back, she could probably sense how desperate we were to fix things. And that probably made her feel worse about herself.

At that time, it was really horrible. I was lucky to have friends who made it safe for me to open up, but it somehow still felt very lonely because I felt no one could fully understand what I was going through inside.

We’re doing much better now. I’m so glad we didn’t stop trying. I might even say that I am grateful for that difficult period, because we’ve never been closer as a family, and I’ve also learned to be kinder to myself since.

Stories like these are not easy to tell. But they exist in more homes than we realise.

How do you relate to this story? I’d love to hear.

Leave a comment

If you’re a parent with a story to share, I’d love to hear from you. This is a space for honest stories, even the ones we don’t usually say out loud.

Systems Mapping is a simple way of visualising how different parts of a situation are connected. Instead of looking at one issue in isolation, you map out the big picture view of the interactions between

• people

• environments

• behaviours

• influences

• tensions/delights

In design, this is often used to make sense of complex situations where there is no one clear cause. By seeing the relationships between different elements, we collectively gain a clearer view of our current state and can more easily identify where we might want to focus our attention on.

Why this matters at home

At home, parents are often trying to fix different behavioural challenges without first understanding the specific system that has influence on our behaviours. Our behaviours are often shaped by what happened earlier, how people are feeling and the environment around them.

When we take a little time to map out the system that influences us, we start to see the bigger picture of how things connect. This helps us see where we might want to work further on or change.

I understand that some of you may not need a map to realise, for example, that your family needs less individual screen time and more family time together. But the act of mapping it out together is where much of the value lies.

Mapping things out together creates a shared, objective view. It shifts the dynamic from one person directing to everyone understanding and contributing to the solution.

This is a flexible tool that can be customised for your specific needs. Below are two examples of how we can use them at home.

Example 1: Designing family culture

When we begin working on our family culture, it helps to start with a connected view of your current system. For example, you might map out how your family spends time, and how each person relates to those activities. This brings clarity to your current priorities, understanding each other’s experience, identify what works and areas that you might want to adjust.

Key steps based on this example:

1. Identify the key people in your family

2. Identify key elements.
   In this case, it’s activities. If the list gets too long, group similar ones together. You can use affinity clustering to help with this.

3. Connect people and activities.
   Talk through the experience and relationship as you map them.

4. Discuss what stands out.
   What’s working? What’s not? What might you want to improve?

Example 2: Understanding our relationship with screens

Our relationship with technology and our increasing reliance on it is a common challenge for many families.

One way to have a more objective conversation about healthier screen habits is to first map your current relationships with screens and then discuss what you might want to shift.

The examples below show how different family members may have very different relationships with screens and some reasons why.

From these, you can discuss which types of screen use feel useful or meaningful, which are less healthy, what changes can be improved in the home, and what are some of the small changes each one can make.

Key steps based on this example:

1. Identify the different ways screens are currently used.
   For example: delivery, minecraft, emails

2. Cluster them based on the purpose they serve.
   For example: entertainment, convenience, work/school, etc

3. Identify any deeper reasons behind the behaviour.
   Or simply be more specific about why screens are used.
   For example: habit, boredom, lack of time, escape, etc

4. Each family member to identify their interactions and connect to the different reasons.
   Add specific reasons or interaction if needed.

5. Discuss what stands out.
   What feels healthy? What’s working? What’s not? What might you want to improve together?

Mapping out connections at home helps us see the relationships with more clarity. That visibility helps us move forward more effectively, dig deeper into what might really be shaping the situation, and open up more thoughtful conversations.

Related Posts:
See all Tools & Methods

Subscribe now

I remember asking a lot of questions. Very specific ones about steps and timing. I wanted everything broken down clearly so I could get it right. At first, he tried to explain patiently. But after a few times, he’d shake his head and laugh, “You are a little crazy. No one asks so many questions. Just follow my instructions and do it.”

Now that I can drive, those questions probably sound ridiculous. Driving is often about feel and intuition. But at that time, I wanted real-time instructions and real-time feedback, so I could make sure I was doing it right.

There was one moment that stuck with me.

My instructor barked at me when I made a mistake, and I snapped back. “I know I am supposed to do that. But I don’t know why I am not doing it, ok!”

Later that day, I sat with my eight-year-old, trying to teach him something. And I realised something uncomfortable.

We sounded the same. The same frustration, same resistance, and the same tone I had earlier labelled as unmotivated, disrespectful, and defiant.

Learning is hard. And many of us forget that.

There was self-blame and self-doubt.
Why did I wait so long to learn this? Maybe I’m just too old to do this.

There were plenty of negative thoughts.
Why am I so slow? Why do I keep making the same mistakes? Am I just not good at this?

And there was also quite a good amount of pointless whining.
Why is driving a car so complicated? How are we expected to do so many things at once? Shouldn’t self-driving cars be more common by now?

It was a constant internal struggle.

Children are in some version of this state all the time. Hopefully with less negativity since they haven’t had as many years as I’ve had to get in their own way.

Adults, less so. Many of us are still learning, but in much smaller ways. They are more like add-ons, not entirely new skills from scratch. So we forget what learning actually feels like.

Since then, I’ve kept putting myself in that position. I’ve learned to cook, write, start a business, paint, do pottery, snowboard, knit, and crochet. All of them came with multiple phases of frustration. Wanting to give up, feeling like I wasn’t good at anything.

When our kids see us fail, try again, and move through the messy process of learning, they perceive it as a natural part of life. Something to work through, not avoid. Because there is no learning without struggle, no matter how smart or how capable we are.

I’m still not great at many of the things I’m learning. But I am now more aware of my own learning patterns. And that has helped me to be kinder to myself and more patient with others who are learning too.

When was the last time you learned something completely new? Not just to get good at it. But to remember what it feels like.

Leave a comment

Related Posts:
Parents are shaping the invisible every day
Reclaiming what makes us human starts at home

Subscribe now

Here’s a story from a mother I spoke to.

Subscribe now

“I manage most of the day-to-day things at home. I’m in charge of the schedules, drive my three kids around, and make sure they have what they need. My husband and I rarely fight or disagree, but when we do, it is usually about our middle child.

My middle child and I have a tricky relationship. Many people say we’re very much alike, but we do not get along as well as with the others. I’ve tried many ways to connect with him, but nothing seems to work. My husband thinks that I am too harsh with him, but I feel like he shuts me off for no good reason.

For a while, I thought it could be a gender thing, or maybe because he’s the middle child, or simply a personality clash. I really don’t know what the real problem is.

Things are not always bad with him, but it’s mainly his attitude that I struggle with. He does not like being told what to do. He often does the exact opposite. Sometimes it feels like he just wants to go against me.

I’m not a tiger mom. I’d like to think that I’m reasonable, firm, and fair. With three kids, I feel it is important that I have the same rules for all of them.

We’re both strong-headed and stubborn. Maybe that’s why it is so hard for us to get along. These days, I’ve stepped back a little, and I have my husband handle more of the conversations with him as he listens to his dad more. I think stepping back is the best thing I can do for our relationship.

I just hope that when he’s older, this will all make sense to him.”

Listening to her story made me reflect on my relationship with my ‘difficult’ child. In many ways, he is quite like me, but he is also very much his own person.

It took me a while to recognise our similarities. The parts I liked were easy for me to claim, while the harder parts, I was naturally quick to dismiss. ✨“This is definitely not from me. I was never like this.”✨

Both my boys are very sensitive, but they express it very differently. One hides behind a tough front, while the other expresses it openly, often in tears.

For a while, my husband and I struggled with how to be fair to two children who are so different. It was only when I looked beyond their behaviour, and into what they were feeling, that we found ways that felt fair in our family.

It was also through my experience with my ‘difficult’ child that I started to understand myself better, especially the parts that I had been avoiding. In many ways, both my kids have been mirrors I didn’t know I needed, which I am extremely grateful for.

Do you see yourself in this story? What stood out to you? I’d love to hear.

Leave a comment

If you’re a parent with a story to share, I’d love to hear from you. This is a space for honest stories, even the ones we don’t usually say out loud.

When my family lived in Singapore, most days were relatively frictionless by design. The system is built for speed and efficiency. Delicious food is affordable and everywhere. Domestic help is affordable. Deliveries arrive fast and often free. Public transport was safe and reliable. Services work as expected. Everything is optimised for convenience.

As a designer, I spend a large part of my time helping businesses create seamless experiences. The goal is often the same. Remove friction, make it fast and effortless.

Then we moved away.

A slower pace of life. Fewer options. Delivery fees that make you pause. More hands-on work with little to no help.

As someone who had spent years designing convenience, I found myself irrationally frustrated when basic things didn’t work as I expected. I also got frustrated with myself for not having what suddenly felt like very basic life skills.

Cooking. Driving. Walking on ice. Dressing according to the weather.

As I go through this midlife phase of learning the basics, my family had to unfortunately endure quite a few burnt meals. But somewhere along the way, we all decided that breakfast food for dinner is perfectly acceptable. Edible food is good enough. And imperfect effort still counts.

And honestly, I’m glad my kids get to see me fail often. They see me getting frustrated, bouncing back, having small wins, and occasional mini tantrums. The full spectrum. Sometimes I even hear them echo my own words back to me.

“It’s ok, mama. We’re all stupid at some things and smart at others.

We don’t have to be good at everything.”

Convenience takes real effort to resist

Humans are wired to take shortcuts. In Singapore, where many shortcuts are readily available, it was hard to resist. Most weekdays are filled with convenient options, while weekends are a little more intentional.

It was only after moving away, when I didn’t have the convenient option of fixing everyday problems with money or technology that my kids got to see more of the imperfect human that I really am. They see that learning is just as hard for adults as it is for them. That we all struggle, fail, and try again. And that it is never too late to learn something new. Somewhere inside those small shared struggles, we showed more of ourselves, and all grew closer.

Designers often remove friction to improve experiences. But they often leave some friction in too. Because effort increases value. So, not all friction is bad. And raising humans might require parents to intentionally design some friction in their everyday life.

Harmful friction like constant stress, chaotic environments or unrealistic expectations overwhelms people. That kind of friction is better removed whenever possible.

But there is also meaningful friction, like waiting, trying again, and adapting when things don’t go as planned. These are the friction that stretches us and helps us grow. It builds resilience, patience and creativity.

If our kids see us magically make things works instantly and perfectly, we could make them feel ‘lesser than’ and also significantly reduce their opportunities to practise these skills with us.

So yes, remove friction if life currently feels overwhelming.

But when you have the mental space and resources, consider taking the inconvenient route.

Take public transport instead of driving somewhere on a weekend.

Cook together instead of ordering in.

Go to the store instead of clicking “buy now”.

When faced with friction, instead of asking: “How can I fix this quickly?” we might sometimes first ask ourselves: “Is this harmful friction, or a potentially meaningful friction?”

If it’s meaningful, spend some time struggling with it together.

The truth is, many of us struggle with the uncomfortable feeling of struggle too. And that is the whole point. Our kids don’t need to see us solving problems with ease. They need to see us dealing with discomfort, so they don’t think it is just them.

What’s one piece of friction in your family’s life that turned out to be more valuable than you expected? I’d love to hear.

Leave a comment

Many couples find themselves arguing more after having children.

On the surface, it looks like it is about the kids. What they should do, how they should behave, what is best for them. But as I listened to them share their stories, I saw my own in them, and I found something deeper beneath the obvious.

These stories are shared anonymously and edited to protect privacy, so people can speak openly.

Subscribe now

Story 1: The small things that all add up

“These days, we mainly fight about the children.

My husband and I agree on the important values. We both care about things like sports and art, and we don’t put too much pressure on grades. As long as they try their best, we’ll be ok with the results.

We also want them to see the world. So we travel often. We have also lived in different cities, so the kids get to experience different ways of life.

When we disagree, it’s often about the approach.

For example, the other day, my husband wanted to walk the kids to school. It was very cold, and it takes about fifteen minutes to walk. I suggested taking the car, but he insisted that it was good for then to walk, even if it’s cold. We ended up arguing about it for 10 minutes, and it ruined my morning.

Very often, he leaves the small decisions to me. But when he steps in, he does things differently, and that is when we clash. It is always the small things that build up into a fight. And I’ll feel that I am not doing a good job, that’s why he has to step in. He’d also comment that the house is messy, how we are always rushing and every day is chaotic.

I really appreciate him doing so much to help. I also know that I can do more. But I am really trying to do my best. There is just so much to fix.”

Story 2: Time is the tension

“My husband and I run the house as efficiently as possible.

On weekdays, he is home with the kids in the evening. He has dinner with them, helps with homework and puts them to bed. I usually work late, so by the time I get home, it’s usually their bedtime.

Because of this, I keep my weekends free for family, taking the kids to their activities and spending time with extended family.

I also manage most of the planning because I know all the schedules and can organise our time efficiently. Most of the time, we just follow what I have planned, and it’s been working out fine.

My husband and I don’t disagree much, but when we do, it is usually about my work hours. He thinks I should be spending more time with the kids on weeknights but I find it hard to make that happen. His work is more flexible, so it is difficult for him to understand.

Other than that, I think we complement each other quite well. He is also happy to be home more with the kids, while he lets me have social nights out with my friends.

Story 3: Different ways of showing up

“My husband and I agreed that I would stay home full-time after our second child, so I could be more present while they are young. Now that they are older, I’ve been trying to find work again. But it has been harder than I expected. So much has changed, and I’m not quite sure what I can do anymore. As much as I loved being around for my family, I felt that I’ve also lost a big part of myself.

At home, I take the lead on most things. But now that the kids are getting more independent with a mind of their own, I sometimes feel that my husband does not really buy into my parenting style. I lean towards conscious and respectful parenting.

He is very practical and no-nonsense. I am softer and more emotionally tuned to the children. I have spent a lot of time reading about parenting and child development while I’m home. A lot of it makes sense to me, but I find it hard to get him to see things the same way.

As much as he thinks we should teach the kids to be kind, he also thinks that it is a good thing that the kids are afraid of him. So whenever they misbehave, he’d want them to be scared so they do not do it again. But it doesn’t always work. And it is also where we disagree most often.

The kids and him get into emotional battles, and I’m often the one left to pick up the pieces. I don’t know how to change his mind, and I’m not sure if it is also because he is slowly losing respect for me because I haven’t been working.”

As I was making sense of these stories, I found pieces of my own in them. And it helped me see what might be sitting beneath my own.

It became clear that the conflicts I have at home may not just be about the children, even though they sound like it. But they were revealing our fears, the gaps in how we see things, and the kind of parent we believe we should be.

And when these don’t match, they show up as disagreements that look like they’re about the children.

Do you see yourself in these stories? What stood out to you? I’d love to hear.

Leave a comment

If you’re a parent with a story to share, I’d love to hear from you. This is a space for honest stories, even the ones we don’t usually say out loud.

Good design starts with understanding the people you’re designing for. This series, What Do Humans Need To Thrive?, draws on research across diverse scientific and human practices. I’m a designer making my way through the research before building something real. Take what’s useful, and dig deeper into what you need.

In a previous post, we explored what the brain and nervous system need to thrive. We learned that safety, predictability, connection, emotional stability, and belonging are the conditions that allow the nervous system to function well.

Many families today live in environments that constantly challenge these conditions. When that happens, the nervous system shifts into protection mode. For families, this is often the moment when behaviour suddenly looks irrational. A small problem becomes a meltdown. A simple request turns into strong resistance. Adults experience this too.

To understand why this happens more often in modern life, we need to look at the environments we live in today and how they interact with the human nervous system.

Why modern life overwhelms the nervous system

Research across neuroscience, psychology, social sciences and studies on technology and culture points to a recurring pattern: many features of modern life place sustained pressure on the human nervous system.

Part of the challenge is that human biology evolves slowly, while our environments have changed rapidly. The nervous system developed in conditions that were generally slower, more predictable and socially grounded. Modern life often demands faster responses, constant attention and greater uncertainty.

It is also helpful to recognise that many parts of modern life are intentionally designed. Technology, services and workplaces are often built to make things faster, easier and more engaging. As our understanding of human behaviour grows, we are beginning to see how some of these systems can also place continuous demands on our attention, time and emotions.

When we look at modern life through this lens, these seven conditions appear repeatedly. Each of them places pressure on a basic need of the nervous system.

1. Uncertainty

The brain constantly tries to predict what will happen next. When outcomes are unclear, the nervous system stays alert.

Modern systems often try to reduce this uncertainty. Navigation apps show our exact route. Messaging apps show when a message has been read. Delivery services track a package in real time.

While these tools make life easier, constant reassurance can also reduce our everyday exposure to uncertainty, which may make uncertainty feel harder to tolerate.

2. Constant stimulation

Modern environments deliver a constant stream of input through screens, notifications, information and task switching. Many digital products are designed to capture attention and keep users engaged. Notifications, movement and personalised feeds help people notice updates quickly.

Over time, this level of stimulation can push the brain beyond its natural processing limits.

3. Reduced quality and quantity of connection

Humans regulate their emotions through connected relationships. Feeling seen, understood and emotionally attuned helps the nervous system settle during stress.

Modern life can fragment both the quality and quantity of connection. People move more often, work patterns have changed, and many interactions now happen digitally. Technology helps us stay in contact across distance, but many interactions are shorter and lack the non-verbal signals that support emotional regulation.

As a result, people may communicate often yet still experience less co-regulation and belonging.

4. Continuous productivity pressure

Humans handle stress in cycles. Effort is meant to be followed by recovery. Many modern systems are designed for efficiency and productivity. Tools that increase speed and output can blur the boundaries between work, school and rest. As a result, people often experience a sense of being constantly on.

5. Constant connectivity

Digital systems allow us to communicate and access information instantly from almost anywhere.

Many tools were designed to make collaboration faster and more efficient. This can create expectations of immediate responsiveness. Without boundaries, the nervous system struggles to fully disengage.

6. Social comparison

Humans are deeply sensitive to whether we belong. The brain processes social rejection and exclusion in ways similar to physical danger.

Social platforms were designed to help people share experiences and stay connected. Features such as likes, follower counts and comments provide feedback signals. But these same signals can also amplify comparison and evaluation. When attention, approval and popularity become visible metrics, people may experience stronger feelings of judgement or exclusion.

From the perspective of the nervous system, this creates social threat, which is the opposite of belonging.

7. Disrupted biological rhythms

Human biology runs on rhythms. Sleep cycles, light exposure, meals and activity patterns all influence regulation. When rhythms are disrupted, the nervous system has to work harder to stay balanced.

Modern schedules often fragment these rhythms through irregular sleep, late-night screen use and constantly shifting routines.

Many digital systems were not originally designed with circadian rhythms in mind because the technologies developed faster than research on their long-term effects.

Why this matters

Most of us cannot control the larger systems that shape modern life. But understanding these patterns helps us see why both adults and children can feel overwhelmed more easily today.

Across the research, several conditions consistently support a healthier nervous system and they can exist even within a fast-moving modern world:

• predictable rhythms

• supportive relationships and co-regulation

• space for rest and recovery

• boundaries with technology

• belonging signals

Many of these sound like common sense. The challenge is not a lack of knowledge, but the environments we live in. Modern systems often reward behaviours that work against what our nervous system needs. While most of us cannot redesign the larger systems around us, we can begin by shaping the environments closest to us. Small changes in the rhythms, relationships and boundaries within our homes can help restore the conditions humans need to thrive.

Related Posts: What do humans need to thrive?

Subscribe now

Many professions require a deep understanding of people. Doctors care for patients, teachers study how students learn, detectives read behaviours, lawyers analyse motives. In design, product, marketing and business innovation, this understanding is intentional and built into the process. We run research, map needs, test ideas, and design systems around human behaviour.

And yet, when we come home, the place where people matter most to us, we rarely apply the same deep intentional thinking.

At work, we design systems around people. At home, we mostly react to people.

I don’t even remember the first time I heard the term human-centred design. By the time I moved from advertising into corporate and consulting work, it was already a common language. In tech and innovation, designing around people is a basic expectation.

As my career progressed, part of my scope involved training colleagues and clients across different functions, designing and facilitating workshops to help teams think through problems together. Over time, my work was more about embedding design as a way of thinking within organisations.

I loved many aspects of the work, but something always felt slightly off.

Businesses and organisations put people in the centre, but it is often in the best interest of the business, not the people. That means, the human is carefully considered, but ultimately in service of the goal.

To be fair, it was less of a tension when I worked on public service clients, which was quite a large part of my work in Singapore. When the mission is to improve public services or citizens’ experiences, the intention genuinely leans more towards helping people.

I felt this tension for years, but for many different reasons, I never did much about it.

When work thinking accidentally showed up at home

After a few challenging seasons with my family, I remember one particular day, in a desperate attempt to get everyone on the same page, I pulled out blank sheets of paper, sticky notes, and a couple of sharpies.

I gathered my husband and two kids (5 & 9 years at that time), around the dining table to discuss what mattered to each of us. It was the first time I consciously stepped into my facilitator role instead of reacting as a frustrated parent.

Looking back, it was messy. I was both a facilitator and participant. And the kids had never talked about ‘serious’ topics in this way before. Plenty of facilitation rules were broken. But something shifted.

Instead of interrupting each other, we took turns to speak. Instead of dismissing ideas, we wrote them down and built on them together. In fifteen minutes, we moved from a state of frustration to shared understanding and a rough plan for how to move forward together.

For the first time, I wasn’t performing to meet a workshop objective. I was simply trying to get the people around me to listen and understand one another. It felt very different, and I wondered why it took me so long to do this at home.

Family life is human-centred work

Parents already do human-centred thinking. But many are doing it by instinct. When we start to see ourselves as designers of our culture at home, we become more conscious of the experience we create for one another. And the beauty of it is that it’s not another thing for busy parents to learn. It is one way of thinking that can simplify many parts of life.

I’m not suggesting that we all start running workshops at home, although it can be a surprisingly fun thing to do. What I mean is bringing some of the thinking behind human-centred work into family life, like:

• getting curious before assuming

• understanding before fixing

• experimenting instead of perfection

• collaborating instead of controlling

These are small shifts, but they change the atmosphere of how families learn and solve problems together.

What this might mean for work

These same mindsets are now common in organisational cultures, though often with varying levels of success because people can see when they are framed to serve the business. Perhaps that is why they rarely make it into our homes.

Maybe the flow should run both ways.

When we bring human-centred thinking and tools into our families, we practice them with the ones who matter most. Organisations will still need to serve the business. But when people have experienced what human-centred thinking actually feels like in their own lives, they may carry different instincts back into the larger cultures they help shape.

Subscribe now

Related Posts:
Design Thinking Framework
Experience Design for Families

Please share, like, and discuss if this resonates with you.

Leave a comment

Most of us are expected to figure things out as we go, especially the ones that are life- related. Relationships. Parenting. Big life changes. Problems, hurdles, roadblocks, whatever we call them, may be a normal part of life and often good for us in hindsight, but they are rarely greeted with much enthusiasm.

When I speak with parents about the challenges they are facing at home, I often sense overwhelm, helplessness, and frustration. “I know I need to spend more time with my kids, but I don’t even know where to start to find the time, or have the time to figure it out.”

Yet when I ask these same parents to walk me through how they solve a specific problem at home, many can describe their thoughts and actions, often with clarity after some nudging. But when I asked why they didn’t apply a similar method to their current challenge, the immediate response is usually…

“But it’s different!”

But is it really that different?

Know your Tools

Many of us are already very good at solving challenges, but often in contexts that are familiar to us.

Designers move between different problems every day. One day it might be improving customer experience at the airport. Another day it might be helping hospital staff deliver better patient care. Each project is different, yet designers return to a familiar way of thinking and adapt to the situation. The specific steps might differ, but the intention behind them stays the same. Over time, repeated use builds trust in the process, and new challenges feel less intimidating, and often pretty exciting.

This way of working is not exclusive to designers.

Most of us already have some version of a mental approach we rely on. We simply have not taken the time to translate it into the other parts of our lives. Without consciously adapting our process to different contexts, we default to “But this situation is different”. As a result, each new challenge feels like starting from scratch.

So we decided to give ourselves a new challenge.

This led us to a metaphor to help guide people:

Imagine our mind is a workshop filled with tools. As we move through life, we pick up many tools along the way. Some we use often, some are forgotten, and some no longer serve us.

Whenever we face a challenge, we step into our mental workshop.

And for many of us, it looks something like this.

When challenges are familiar, we can still function pretty well because the tools we need are upfront and accessible. But when we face something new, the same messy workshop can quickly make us feel overwhelmed.

If the space were clear and organised, things would feel very different. We would know what tools we have, how to use them and have the working space to create new ones when needed. Problem-solving then would feel less stressful and become something we could lean into, get curious and even excited about.

Just like a home edit, our mental workshop needs regular care. Take things out. Keep what serves us, and let go of what does not. The goal is to curate a space with tools that are reliable, versatile, and used often. Knowing how we approach challenges makes our mental space feel lighter, and we stay capable without feeling overwhelmed.

Begin with this thinking guide

When I asked people to describe how they approach challenges, most of what they shared followed a familiar rhythm of thinking and doing that aligns with the design thinking framework, they just didn’t have a name for it.

To help you start, I created a thinking guide based on the framework to help you surface your own way of working things through.

Organisingyourmentalworkshop Download

141KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Seeing the difference it makes

I learned the hard way that my proven methods for problem-solving that I’m very familiar with at work, do not naturally transfer to the rest of my life.

When my family moved halfway across the world, and the transition was hard on my children, I relied mostly on my instinct to optimise and fix quickly. The parts of my work that mattered way more at home, like collaboration, co creation, and being objectively curious, stayed tucked in my professional self. When I was dealing with a seemingly defiant, autonomy-seeking seven-year-old, the thought of facilitating a co creation session simply did not cross my mind!

It was only when I returned to my work that I realised how naturally the design approach fits at home. In fact it’s way better at home, because we genuinely care about the people and want them to thrive.

Now, my mind moves through the four steps whenever a challenge appears, and I guide my kids through the same flow. It does not mean everything has a perfect solution, or that things goes smoothly each time. But I always know where to begin, where I am in the process, and what I can do next.

Having a mental framework to work through helped me see that there are things I can do in the moment. And that alone made everything feel lighter.

Related post:

• Problem-solving framework that designers use for almost every project

• Simple tool for turning problems into possibilities

• Simple tool for breaking things down

Subscribe now

Good design starts with understanding the people you’re designing for. This series, What Do Humans Need To Thrive?, draws on research across diverse scientific and human practices. I’m a designer making my way through the research before building something real. Take what’s useful, and dig deeper into what you need.

We start with the brain and the nervous system as they set the tone for everything that happens inside us. They shape our thoughts, reactions, and the invisible climate we each carry. When we understand how this inner system works, it becomes easier for us to work with our biology rather than against it.

Five core human needs

For the nervous system to stay regulated and well, these five needs show up across neuroscience, psychology, emotional development:

1. Safety
   We need to feel safe from physical and emotional threat. Without this, the brain shifts into defence, and every other need becomes secondary.

2. Predictability

   The brain likes to ‘know’.
   Predictable rhythms, consistent responses, and clear expectations help the nervous system relax. Constant uncertainty is one of the strongest sources of stress.

3. Connection
   Humans are wired for closeness through warm relationships and shared emotional experiences.

4. Emotional Stability
   The brain needs access to calm. This includes co-regulation from others, safe space to process emotions (move the brain from protection mode to a safe space where we can think with more clarity) and opportunities for repair when things rupture.

5. Belonging
   We need to feel accepted as we are. We need to feel we matter, and without having to constantly earn our place.

   ---

Safety is the foundation of every other human need

Our brain’s top priority is to keep us alive.

Because of that, the nervous system reacts to anything that feels threatening. It doesn’t make a clear distinction between physical and emotional threat. That means, a harsh tone, rejection, or shame can activate the same survival pathways that physical danger does.

Many adults have the ability to pause before acting on their fight-flight-freeze impulses, even when their body is sounding the alarm. But under pressure, most of us still fall back on our older impulse system.

For me, those impulses show up as ‘loud thoughts’ that jump in before I can think clearly. I’ll tell myself something dramatic like “This is so embarrassing! I just want to disappear right now! After a brief pause, it’s as if another voice appears to say “It’s really not that bad because we’ll never see these people again.”

Children can’t override these impulses yet because their nervous system reacts instantly. The prefrontal cortex, which helps with impulse control and reasoning, is the slowest part of the brain to mature. It continues developing into the mid-twenties. This growth depends on safety, connection, co-regulation, predictable support, and modelling from caregivers. All of this slowly builds the inner narrator that helps them make sense of their impulses. And it is only between ages 7 to 12 when they can start using simple self-talk when they are calm.

For parents, this creates a layered challenge. Not only are we managing our own safety cues, but we also absorb the signals from our children, partner, and the family system as a whole. When our own nervous system is overwhelmed, it becomes much harder to create safety for others.

Just to be clear, this does not mean that safety must be present at all times. No human gets that. What we are aiming for is enough safety over time. A generally predictable emotional climate with natural moments of rupture and repair. When we understand how experiences shape the nervous system, safety becomes a key guiding principle for the culture we build at home.

Common Misconceptions

“I didn’t grow up in a safe environment as a child, and neither did many of my peers. We turned out fine and relatively happy. I know safety is important, but is it really that important?”

The truth is, the brain is brilliant at survival. When safety is missing, it adapts in creative ways to protect us. It might push us to be hyper-independent, overachieve, shut down our emotions, people-please or stay hyper vigilant. These patterns can look like strength and can even help us succeed in our world. But they often come with hidden costs in the form of chronic stress, anxiety, exhaustion, difficulty forming or maintaining close relationships, or a lifelong pattern of disconnecting from our own needs.

This is not thriving as humans.

This is surviving inside society’s impossible expectations.

“Doesn’t lack of safety build resilience?”

It can look that way from the outside. Many adults who grew up with little safety are hardworking, independent and resourceful. But according to science, the lack of safety does not build resilience, but survival mode.

Humans become resilient when they face stress with enough safety and support. Just enough predictability, connection and co-regulation for the nervous system to learn “Stress is part of life. But I’m not in danger.”

We do not withhold safety from our children so they can learn resilience. That would be like withholding food so they can learn to survive hunger. Survival should not be the lesson.

“I have been prioritising discipline and skills, not safety. I might have caused some damage along the way. How do I fix that?”

Humans can heal from experiences that were not safe. And many of us are doing that work as adults. That also means, parents can change course at any point. If you feel that they have not been prioritising safety at home, they can start now.

When we learn to give our child what we did not get, their energy can go into growing, learning and connecting instead of recovering from stress. What you offer now becomes the foundation their nervous system builds on. It is never too late to shift the climate at home. Small changes in safety and connection can make a meaningful difference.

Related Posts: What do humans need to thrive?

Subscribe now

In design, interviews help us understand the people we are designing for. They’re not always formal or structured. Often, they start from a simple “I don’t know, let’s just go talk to people and see what we find out.” When it’s done casually, it’s essentially a conversation.

At home, we already do this. We talk, ask questions, and try to understand. But our conversations often carry history, roles, expectations, and emotional patterns. Even the most skilled interviewers at work can struggle at home because being objective at home requires a different kind of effort when the stakes are personal.

Here, I have adapted some basic design interview principles into something we can use at home to help us understand one another more deeply and safely.

Always lead with the intent to understand

Having a holistic understanding of the context is critical in any design project. Designers use different methods because we know how easily our own assumptions, biases, and past experiences can cloud what we think we see. So we gather multiple inputs to help us see things as they actually are, not just as we interpret them.

To do this, we break down an experience into smaller pieces to understand them individually and as a whole.
- What did they see, hear, and experience?
- What were they thinking, feeling?
- What were they expecting?
This simple breakdown takes us from the outside (what happened) to the inside (why it happened).

Observation helps us understand what happens on the outside.
Conversation helps us understand what happens on the inside.
Together, they form a fuller picture.

When we start with a clear intention to understand the inner world beneath the behaviour, we naturally show up differently. We become more aware of our tone, choice of words, and how we show up to the other person to make it safe for them to share.

Read my earlier post on Building Blocks of an Experience.

At home, emotional safety is a foundation that requires continuous work.

This is the part that makes design interviews easier than family conversations. Designers often are not emotionally tied to the people they interview. But parents are.

At home, emotional safety takes time to build. The other person must genuinely feel that you are on the same team. That you are not judging, trying to fix them, or looking for a weak spot in their logic.

Many parents believe that they’re on the same team with their children, but intentionally send signals that feel conditional. without realising that they are sending out signals that says conditional than unconditional. People, especially children, feel this even if they can’t articulate it.

Safety is a long game at home.

Conversation skills to practice at home

• Maintain a neutral position

  Stay objectively curious throughout the conversation. Avoid assumptions and judgment. Your inner thoughts shape both your tone and your words.
  Lead with:
  - “Help me understand this...”
  - “I’m curious to find out what you were thinking when...”
  

• Break big conversations into smaller pieces
  Deep conversations take time. If you notice yourself losing neutrality, or the person shutting down, or having difficulty being honest, gently stop and come back later. Most of us open up better in small doses.

• Listen and reflect it back
  People need to feel seen and heard before they are willing to elaborate. When you notice an emotion, reflect it back with:
  - “It sounds like…”
  - “It looks like…”
  - “It seems like…”
  

• Listen for the feeling, not just the words
  Pauses, tone, repeated words, and body language are clues to what’s happening inside. Sometimes what is unsaid tells us more than what is said.
  

• Ask open questions as much as possible
  Short, open questions give the other person a chance to answer in their own words, without feeling judged. Try “What was the hardest part for you?” instead of “Is it because you are too lazy to check your work?” Sometimes these questions don’t get answered straight away. Leave the question with them, and return to it later.

• Look at the same thing together (when helpful)
  Sometimes talking alone isn’t enough to understand what the person means. Drawing, writing keywords, or mapping the sequence helps to make things clearer. Visuals also help to make the conversation feel less personal and more objective.
  

• Let them take you on a journey (when needed)
  When the person finds it hard to explain what’s going on, ask them to show it to you. Try:
  - “Can you teach me how you do it?”
  - “Show me what you saw, one thing at a time.”
  Together, you can explore further what was happening at each step.

There are many books on communication that we can learn from, and they need not be written for a home context. Pick the one with the most valuable context and apply the tools at home. Not to win. Not to negotiate. But to genuinely understand.

Pair that with consistent work on emotional safety, breaking down what you want to understand into smaller parts, and the basic conversation skills here, and we can all get to a deeper understanding on the people we care about.

Related Posts:
See all Tools & Methods families can use at home

Subscribe now

Belonging is the feeling of being accepted for who we are, and that it’s ok to be our flawed selves and not be penalised for it. It is knowing that the people around us believe in us, sometimes more than we believe in ourselves.

Psychologists and child development experts describe belonging as a basic human need. It shapes how safe we feel to be ourselves and how well we cope with stress. When people feel valued and included, the brain’s social systems activate, supporting learning, resilience, and connection.

Belonging and unconditional love are closely linked. Unconditional love lives on the inside. Belonging is how that love is experienced by the one receiving it.

It sounds like:

“I know I am wanted here, even when I’m not at my best.”

Without a sense of belonging, relationships often sit on a surface level. People stay in performance mode, only showing parts of themselves that feel acceptable.

Belonging often sits inside the tension of family life. We struggle between wanting to teach what’s right while still accepting the person, holding standards while still making it safe for people to unmask. But these tensions are exactly where belonging is built.

Belonging grows through the moments when people fail, disappoint, or fall apart. And through those hard moments, we choose to see beyond what is presented in front of us and believe in them anyway. These are the moments that say:

“Shit happened. I still choose to love you. Even when you feel you don’t deserve it.”

If belonging is only expressed in good times, but disappears in hard times, the message we send is that acceptance depends on performance. Real belonging is formed in the moments when things are hard, so we have to make good use of them.

This Famtone swatch is designed specifically to help us make the invisible emotional safety more visible, so that, if needed, we can move toward small, supportive shifts over time.

The Belonging Swatch

Use this to:

• Notice where you might be sitting right now and understand why.

• See how different people in the same home experience it

• Explore the similarities and the differences with curiosity

• And, if needed, gently decide which way you might want to move and how

This is a way to build shared awareness and understanding of how your home is experienced. Some places feel easier than others. That’s totally normal. This is not about right or wrong, but more about seeing what’s here now, so you can shape what comes next. Wherever you find yourself here, use it to notice what your home is asking for.

Related posts
More from the same series: Famtone

Support by subscribing or sharing if you find this helpful.

Subscribe now

In design, ‘fly-on-the-wall’ observation is an approach to field research. It helps us understand people and their behaviour as they are, not who they think they should be when someone is watching.

This method is exactly what it sounds like. You imagine yourself as a fly on the wall, taking in the surroundings, words, tone, actions, and the context they sit in. It helps you see what’s actually happening without your interpretations getting in the way. Observation alone is rarely the full story. It’s a clue-gathering tool that shows you where to look next.

Why this matters at home

At home, this tool is powerful when used with neutrality.

Many of us already observe our family, but many do so with a policing lens to prove a point or to validate what we already believe. If we catch ourselves thinking, “You see! You always…”. This becomes surveillance, and it kills safety.

Observing the people we love objectively can be hard. We carry history, biases, triggers, judgements, and strong opinions. That’s why the most important rule at home is to stay neutral and objectively curious.

When we practice objective observation, we start to see a fuller picture rather than the version shaped by our fears or stress. Conversations at home also become more grounded with facts and feelings more easily separated.

For example: “I notice that when game time ends, you often get rowdy and start throwing things. Do you notice that as well? What do you think we can do to prevent that from happening?”

And when safety grows, we can also help one another notice blind spots without them feeling attacked.

How to use this at home

• Prep a neutral version of yourself
  Think of the version of you who is most neutral. For many parents, this is your ‘work self’. Bring that version into the moment. Detach from being ‘the parent’ and notice things like a curious outsider.
  

• Watch without stepping in
  Pick moments connected to what you want to understand. Let it unfold without jumping in.
  

• Observe your own role too
  When you have to step into the moment, you are part of the environment too. Notice your own tone, reactions, timings, and triggers. Sometimes the biggest insight comes from observing ourselves.
  

• Notice patterns
  Look for repeated patterns across the person, the context, and the environment. Patterns direct us to the deeper story beneath the surface.
  

• Name the facts, not your interpretation
  Stick to what you see and hear, not what you think it means. E.g. Instead of “He is being defiant.” Try, “He resists when he feels forced to comply.” This shift forces us to slow down to look at the facts before jumping to conclusions.
  

• Keep a simple record
  This helps us stay objective. If it feels like the kids fight ten times a day, count it. Maybe it’s two. Maybe it’s twelve. Either way, you get clarity. Record the positive moments too. These are data points that help balance your view.

Objective observation is a powerful tool because it helps us see more clearly. And we can only make good decisions when we can first see what’s actually happening.

Related Posts:
See all Tools & Methods families can use at home

Subscribe now

Every design is the design of a human experience, no matter what form it takes.

Designers break experience into parts. What people see, hear, feel, expect, think. They then shape these parts to nudge them towards a desired response. Some elements are easier to influence, like visuals, messaging or sequence of steps. While others like a person’s mood or beliefs, require deeper understanding over time.

Design works because people are predictable in certain ways. We avoid friction, so designers remove it. We hate uncertainty, so they give us updates. We want to feel seen, so they mirror us. It meets our needs and aims to fill the tiny voids we carry.

Our steep behavioural shifts shaped by technology are living proof of the power of experience design. Copy from designers, so we can steer our home environment in a healthier direction.

What makes up an experience

An experience is made up of three key layers moving from superficial (1) to deeply personal (3). Each layer holds individual elements that contribute to the experience.

When we experience something, our journey is often not linear (1 > 2 > 3), instead it jumps between layers. Test this out by imagining how you would experience your favourite brand or product, or a house that has been designed specifically for you.

But when designing an experience, we’d typically start from broad psychological human needs, understand what the person is thinking, feeling, or expecting in context, and then decide what we want them to do. Once those are clear, we shape the superficial layers to achieve the goal. Because there is scale in business, we don’t always have to go deep into every layer or use every individual element in order to create an impact.

Experience in the home environment

At home, the principles of experience design are the same. But unlike businesses, families are not able to leverage scale. We are working with unique individuals, so there is a need to put more focus on layer three when designing family culture. Parents can use the experience building blocks to:

• Understand ourselves.
  Notice our triggers. Identify thoughts and emotions underneath. Rewrite the stories that don’t serve us. Then shape our environment to support the new narrative.

• Understand our family members.
  Listen to what they say. Discuss. Notice how they react. Observe patterns. Use the three experience layers to make sense of what they might need.

• Assess our current experiences & create intentional experiences.

  Look at the family experience on two levels. The overall climate of the home and our small daily interactions with one another. As much as possible, we want to work towards an alignment individually and across both. When there are too many contradictions, the experiences become confusing.

Design is effective because it meets people where they are. When we break down an experience, we are able to nudge each element towards the same direction so it feels good inside.

Parents are a critical part of the environment

“You do not get to design your child. Children are not blank slates on which we write outcomes. What we can do is shape the environment around them in ways that support their wellbeing, not engineer who they become.”

Dr. Russell Barkley, Clinical Psychologist

At home, the environment is most importantly, us, the people. Our tone, our choice of words, our body language, our moods, our triggers, our habits, our reactions.

As we all grow, our environment needs to shift to support who we all are becoming. That also means adjusting ourselves the same way we adjust our physical space from cot to toddler bed to full-size bed.

We will never get everything right. No family does.

But when we understand the small pieces that shape our daily experience, we can shift one experience at a time to create a home environment that feels a little kinder, a little calmer, and a little more us. No dashboards, no real-time updates on our messy inner world. Just by using the very human skills we already have.

The only real counterweight we have over the experiences technology provides is the quality of the human experiences we create, especially the ones at home.

When our children have strong, positive human experiences to anchor to, they will be able to tell the difference between experiences designed out of love and ones designed to keep them hooked. I think that clarity is possibly one of the best gifts we can give them as parents.

Related Posts: How Designers Think

Send your comments and questions on this topic. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Subscribe now

When I moved internationally with my family, I became deeply curious about how other families live. Everything was unfamiliar. A new country, and a new role as a stay home parent. I wanted to do more for them, now that I finally had the time. I was feeling excited, optimistic, and wanted to learn from others.

My curiosities started with practical house-related tasks. Back home, I had full-time help. Now that I had to manage everything on my own, there was a lot to figure out. But very quickly, my questions shifted to the kind Google couldn’t answer.

How long does it take for a six-year-old to feel settled after a big transition?
Is it normal for siblings to fight multiple times a day, every single day?
How much yelling is too much?

We were dealing with some very challenging behaviours with the kids. I was overwhelmed by the constant noise, the fights, the neediness, and the growing list of problems I felt responsible for solving. I had so many “Is it me? Are we too strict? Not strict enough? Is this normal?” moments that I desperately needed help with.

Apart from obsessively reading parenting books, I asked other parents.

I unloaded many of my “Is this normal?” questions onto a group of international mum friends. Most had moved multiple times, and while none had the same challenges with their kids, our worries, thoughts, and feelings often overlapped. That alone made me feel less crazy. We met often, and I never felt I needed to pretend that I had it all together. Our many moments of shared parenting chaos were the chill pill I needed.

At some point, we sought help from an educational psychologist as we needed an objective view. It took almost a year before the assessments gave us some clarity and direction. Even with data, we had so many questions. But we did feel a little lighter.

To get some space for myself, I joined a weekly pottery class. Every week, I sat with a group of ladies, many with grown children, some already grandmothers. I remember at some point thinking this group would be a goldmine for parenting wisdom. Our sessions were often filled with chats about family and life. One of them had gone through something similar with her son when he was young, and I held on to her words like clues in my puzzle.

“Just spend time with your kids and enjoy them.”
“Love them even when it’s hard. And they will be ok.”

At first, they sounded like cliché, generic advice. But as more stories surfaced through our weekly chats, those same words started to make sense. Their collective lived experience gave the generic advice the context it needed for me to make sense of it.

In my search for answers, I never found one story that felt close enough to mine. But I recognised fragments of myself and my kids across many different stories. Slowly, pieces started to line up to form a cohesive story that finally clicked.

There wasn’t just one thing that helped. It was all of it.

The honest stories from other parents gave me distance.
The different perspectives gave me clarity.
The books gave me knowledge and confidence.
The data gave me direction.
Being surrounded by stories made me more aware of my own.
And all the tiny actions helped us slowly move forward.

That season was hard, but I’m thankful for it now. I’m now better at seeing people beyond their behaviour and discovered a new kind of compassion along the way. I’m still a little crazy, definitely not normal, but a little kinder, I hope. All thanks to the people who listened to my stories, sat with them, and shared theirs with me.

Note: I’m working on sharing the raw, honest stories I’ve gathered over the years for parents who may not have the chance to build a village as quickly as I did. Some stories come from the families I meet through this work. Some come from friends. Some are mine. Details will be changed, but the feelings and truths behind them will stay intact. If you have a story from family life that you’d like to add to this growing body of insight, I’d love to hear from you.

When our design decisions affect other people, working with them becomes a non-negotiable.

To be clear, the collaboration I’m referring to here isn’t about teamwork in the corporate sense. Design is collaborative because it needs to be done with the people it impacts, not just for them.

Collaboration is a practical necessity.

No single human can fully understand another person’s needs, context, emotions or constraints without our personal assumptions and biases sneaking in. And in all honesty, we can barely understand our own motivations, let alone someone else’s.

Designing with people helps us see more clearly and get closer to objectivity. It brings different perspectives, strengths, and experiences to the same space, helps keep our blind spots in check, allows others to challenge our default thinking, and helps us get to a fuller understanding to get to more effective solutions.

What collaboration looks like

Depending on the context, sometimes we simply observe and listen to them. Sometimes we brainstorm and test ideas together. Sometimes we create the space for honest conversations on things that affect them.

Collaboration doesn’t mean everyone contributes equally or actively all the time. With younger children, it might just look like including them in discussions. What matters is that people feel included and know their presence is welcome.

In practice, it can look something like this:
One person brings structure.
One brings big feelings.
One challenges outdated thinking.
One invites imagination.
One helps everyone follow through.

Each person brings an incomplete view or strength to the table. Effective collaboration requires facilitation. To give each one the space to contribute at the right moment. It needs someone to hold the space, guide the conversation, and experiment with ways of working that fit the context. Many families give up early because collaboration often feels chaotic at the start, and they decide it’s impossible.

If we want collaboration to be part of our family culture, those skills need to be learned, modelled, and nurtured over time.

Many parents often mistake collaboration for compliance. Wanting their kids to do what they think is right for them, even with good intentions, is really not collaboration.

The intention matters, especially at home.

When we design family culture, collaboration is not optional. A family, by definition, includes more than one person. When a person designs alone, even with good intentions, it often stems from their need to be in control. Shaping culture from a single perspective puts strain on the relationships over time.

Designing with our family builds trust, shared ownership, and a sense of belonging. Over time, collaboration becomes second nature, and collective intelligence becomes a lived experience.

More We, Less I.

Collaboration is built into human-centred design because we are all made different. And if we want to create something that serves more than ourselves, we have to practice doing it together, starting at home.

Related Posts:
Design is always about the people
Design, Family and Culture

Subscribe now

The Five Whys is a simple questioning method that designers use during research interviews to gain a deeper understanding.

It is not about getting to the right answer quickly, but more about slowing down to understand what is really going on. This is why it fits naturally at home. When used well, it helps people feel heard and supported. It is also an effective way to get people to reflect on their own thoughts and beliefs without feeling corrected or challenged.

Why this matters

We naturally react to what we see. We correct behaviour, explain rules, and jump straight to solutions because it feels efficient. But behaviour is often a visible layer of something deeper.

The Five Whys helps us pause and get curious. With practice, it turns everyday conversations into opportunities for insight by helping us:

• notice and set aside our assumptions

• understand context, nuances

• focus on invisible human needs like motivations, fears, beliefs

• shift from judgment to curiosity

How it works

Start with a neutral observation or a broad why question. It is important to keep your tone genuinely curious, not accusatory or corrective. Each response opens the door to the next why question.

The question need not strictly start with a ‘why’, as long as it helps you to go deeper. Using ‘What’ questions can also help to draw out details needed to understand why. E.g. What did your sister do that made you so mad?

Notice your own assumptions appearing as you listen to the response. Acknowledge them silently and stay curious even though you may think the reason is obvious. You can always say, “I don’t want to assume, but why…” When we consciously stop assuming, new understanding appears.

It is also common to reach a point where the person may not have an answer, or give a response for the sake of it. That moment is just as valuable, give it space and return to the conversation later when there is more clarity.

Brief example:

“I’m done cleaning up after the kids. They can all live in their own mess.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happens! And that’s the problem. I keep tidying, and they keep making the mess. This never ends!”
“Why do you feel like you need to keep tidying up after them?”
“Because they don’t do it, so I have to.”
“Why is it hard for you to leave the mess, even for a while?”
“Because it feels chaotic. I can’t allow the kids to live like this.”
“Why does the chaos feel so unbearable for you?”
“When the house is a mess, I feel that I’m a mess too. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.”
“Why do you feel you can’t breathe until things are in order?”
“If I stop, nothing gets done. I feel like I’m the only one who is trying to get our act together.”

What initially seemed like a problem about mess and chores turned out to be about overwhelm, control, and feeling unseen.

With this understanding, the focus shifts from simply fixing mess and chores to emotional support, shared responsibility and redesigning how the family works together to contribute.

Related Posts:
See all Tools & Methods

Subscribe now

Emotional safety is a foundational layer of family life in every home and every relationship. Just as we naturally attend to physical safety with food, water, and shelter, we also need a baseline of emotional safety to function and connect. Without a sense of safety, many other emotional needs become more difficult to meet.

Across psychology and attachment research, emotional safety is consistently described as foundational for learning, resilience, and healthy relationships. There is no evidence that emotional safety itself becomes harmful through excess. What is often mistaken for “too much safety” is usually something else. Overprotection. Avoidance of discomfort. Fear of conflict. Or the urge to remove all challenges in the name of care.

True emotional safety does not remove difficulty. It makes difficulty manageable without the fear of breaking the connection. Yes, this means it’s ok to lose it sometimes, as long as we repair.

Emotional safety is something a family continue to build on over time. Like healthy eating, we aim for it as much as possible, whenever we can, without counting every single calorie. And when there is a clear lack, emotional safety naturally becomes a key focus. Not as a fix or a failure, but as a way to stabilise the ground first before anything else can grow.

Most families do not consciously decide their level of emotional safety. We live inside what has slowly formed over time through how conflict is naturally handled at home. And we feel it way before we can explain it, in how people speak, how emotions are expressed, and if the tone matches the words.

This Famtone swatch is designed specifically to help us make the invisible emotional safety more visible, so that, if needed, we can move toward small, supportive shifts over time.

The Emotional Safety Swatch

Use this to:

• Notice where you might be sitting right now and understand why.

• See how different people in the same home experience it

• Explore the similarities and the differences with curiosity

• And, if needed, gently decide which way you might want to move and how

This is a way to build shared awareness and understanding of how your home is experienced. Some places feel easier than others. That’s totally normal. This is not about right or wrong, but more about seeing what’s here now, so you can shape what comes next. Wherever you find yourself here, use it to notice what your home is asking for.

Related posts
More from the same series: Famtone

Support by subscribing or sharing if you find this helpful.

Subscribe now

Design is often mistaken as something closer to art than to science. But design has always lived between both. The artistic output is what we see and experience, but the real work is the interwoven thinking and decisions behind it.

Art and science once felt like opposite forces. One emotional and expressive, the other structured and precise. For a long time, schools, systems and even career paths kept them separate. But across many fields today, they are more integrated than ever. Modern science studies behaviour, emotion, story and human experience. Art relies on data, psychology and research. They are far more connected than many of us were conditioned to believe. Yet we still grow up thinking we are either “creative” or “logical”, as if we have to choose a side.

Society rewards speed, certainty, and output, so we practise those parts of ourselves more. Curiosity, imagination and experimentation fade because we stop using them. This conditioning makes using our whole brain feel uncomfortable. It asks us to slow down when we want quick answers, to sit with uncertainty when we want control, and to imagine and test ideas that may not work. It also ask us to trust our instinct while also questioning it.

This tension is exactly what design thinking evolved to help us navigate. It grew out of decades of work across design, psychology, engineering, and education, as people realised that neither pure logic nor pure creativity was enough to solve real human problems. The design thinking framework gives both sides of us space to breathe, and nudges us to toggle between divergent and convergent thinking. It brings imagination and structure, feeling and thinking, into the same room, and offers a simple way for them to work together rather than in competition.

Many of us try to find our own version of balance. Creativity lives in our hobbies. Logic lives in our everyday routines. They often sit far apart, and we rarely practise bringing both into the same moment. But when thinking and feeling meet in the same situation, something shifts.

Home is the easiest place to practise this. Family life naturally needs both structure and sensitivity, logic and creativity. Start with something simple, like getting your toddler to brush their teeth without a meltdown. Bring your logical and creative self into the moment. Notice everyone’s emotions, spot patterns, imagine new ideas, experiment, adjust, repeat.

Over time, this becomes a more natural way of thinking. You begin to feel both sides of yourself working together, and you carry that into the other parts of your life.

Subscribe now

Related posts:

• Make Sense of Messy Challenges with the Design Thinking Framework

• Design is always about the people

Design, as a practice, is highly visual. A large part of a designer’s role is to help clients imagine what the end result might look like, so the work never comes as a shock. We visualise early, often, and deliberately.

After my earlier post on how parents are designing the invisible every day, I asked myself a simple question. If parents are shaping culture at home, how might we help them actually see the emotional tone of their home? The feeling of safety. The trust between one another, or the lack of.

Most of us are not trained to design these invisible layers, yet we live inside them every day. Words like safety, trust, care, and connection may sound simple, but each carries a different weight and meaning for every person. What feels safe to one, might feel suffocating to another. What feels calm to one parent might feel distant to a child. When something goes wrong at home, it is rarely due to one moment or incident. It is often a buildup of all the different invisible things over time.

We must find ways to see them, be more aware of them, so we can talk about them and act with intention. Because we can’t design it, if we cannot see it.

That led me back to something very familiar in design. How we work with colour. When we say “blue”, we could each be imagining a completely different shade. That is why we use swatches. To give a shared form to something that would otherwise look very different in each of our minds.

Introducing Famtone

Famtone is the emotional palette of a family.
A visual language for the invisible parts of family culture.

In this series, I help families see the emotional tone of their home, notice patterns they normally only feel, and make small, intentional shifts over time. I explore one invisible aspect of family culture at a time, such as emotional safety, adaptability, curiosity, or trust, to offer a more holistic view of these invisible factors. You can use these to support conversations, as a shared understanding, or a tool to support working together towards a shared vision.

It offers a simple way to see, name, and talk about the invisible, as you shape the culture of your home.

Related posts
Series: Famtone

Support by subscribing or sharing if you find this helpful.

Subscribe now