Parenting Through Transitions - Resilience & Relationships - Rebecca Saunders & Rana PishvaParenting Through Transitions - Resilience & Relationships - Rebecca Saunders & Rana Pishva
Resilience in Life and Leadership
Rebecca Saunders and Dr Rana Pishva talk about parenting as a series of constant transitions, especially in relationships with adult children. They discuss curiosity, humility, repair after hurt, and what a "healthy enough" family relationship might look like.
33:09•30 Sept 2026
Parenting Through Change: Building "Healthy Enough" Family Relationships
Episode Overview
- Life transitions in families are ongoing processes, not one-time events, and they can be both exciting and very hard at the same time.
- Curiosity about everyone’s experience in the family, including your own, helps relationships more than defensiveness or assumptions.
- Humility in parenting—accepting you will get it wrong and owning your impact—is key to repairing trust with children of any age.
- Healthy boundaries should protect you and the relationship rather than punish the other person, and you can adjust contact and closeness to what’s sustainable.
- A "healthy enough" relationship is imperfect but chosen, with realistic expectations instead of an idealised version of family life.
“Parenting is personal. It is part of your identity. And someone telling you, "You messed up or you hurt me," like it gets you deep.”
What drives someone to seek a healthier relationship with their parents or children? This conversation between host Rebecca Saunders and clinical psychologist Dr Rana Pishva digs into exactly that, focusing on parenting through constant life transitions. You'll hear Dr Pishva talk about parent–child relationships from postpartum years right through to adulthood, stressing that big changes aren’t single dates on a calendar but long processes made up of many small moments.
She points out that "parenting is constant transitions" and jokes that avoiding complacency should be printed on a mug. The chat will resonate if you've ever thought you’d finally figured out parenting, only to have everything change a few months later. The episode spends a lot of time on adult children and their parents, highlighting how those relationships become more optional over time and why curiosity and humility matter so much.
Dr Pishva explains how seeing parents as imperfect humans can create more compassion, but she also warns that asking someone who’s been hurt to quickly consider a parent’s perspective can feel invalidating. A key section tackles repair after mistakes: how to apologise in a way that names the impact, not just your intentions, and how to accept that your adult child might not be ready to forgive.
Dr Pishva introduces the idea of a "healthy enough" relationship, built on imperfect but sustainable contact, clear boundaries that protect you rather than punish the other person, and a conscious choice about how close you want to be. If you’re juggling your own healing while parenting, or working through tricky feelings about your mum or dad, this episode offers language and practical ideas to rethink what a workable, honest family bond might look like.
What might change for you if you saw curiosity and compassion as strength rather than a risk?
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