Connection or Protection??? {EP 7}

Science changes y'all. So I want to keep things fresh and up to date, this episode is going to just hang out in the episode seven slot, so you'll always be able to find it here at Robyn gobbel.com/connectionor protection. And we're also going to publish it in February of 2026 as a re record bonus episode now, connection or protection in these two different states of the nervous system, y'all. 

This is the very, very foundation of this work that we're doing here on the baffling behavior show. It is the core, foundational message of raising kids with big, baffling behaviors. And ultimately, we can always go back to the question, what are these two different nervous state systems, and how are they related to? What is their role in understanding and making sense of these big, baffling behaviors. And then, of course, making sense is a crucial piece of the puzzle, but it's not the final step. Right after we make sense of now, we start to have some better ideas about what we need to do to be able to support our kids so that their behaviors can work out better for them. Behaviors are what we can see on the outside is what we can observe in someone else. That initiate. They originate, originate. They start as a neural impulse in the nervous system. And the nervous system has two states, connection mode or protection mode, and the behaviors that initiate from connection mode are different than the behaviors that initiate from protection mode. 

These two different states are binary states in the nervous system. You're either in connection mode or you're in protection mode when the nervous system is neuroceiving More cues of safety than danger, the nervous system will rest into connection mode, and connection mode is the default of our nervous system. We're really longing to truly rest into connection mode when the nervous system detects more cues of danger or life threat, then safety, then the nervous system is going to shift into protection mode. It releases the vagal brake. It releases the part of the nervous system that keeps us anchored in connection mode and allows protection mode to move forward. Now, again, these are, this is a binary system connection or protection. It's kind of like a light switch. Like a light switch is either on or off, but once it switches on, you might have a dimmer switch, and it can be a little bit on, or it can be a lot on and that is true for protection mode. You can be a little bit in protection mode, or you can be a lot in protection mode when the nervous system is is neuroceiving, noticing more cues of danger than safety, but, but let's just say. Kind of metaphorically, it's just a little bit more then it's gonna flip into protection mode, but it's gonna be just kind of in protection mode, like just barely in protection mode, barely in protection mode, to the point of that part of the nervous system sort of activates and goes, Hey, wait, something might not be right here. Let me check out and get more information, right? There's maybe an increase in some vigilance, an increase in a slight increase in defensiveness, and the point is to check out and see like is something unsafe actually happening here? So that's just like a little bit in protection mode. 

And then when cues of danger or life threat are severe, significant, we might go all the way down the pathway of protection mode into a full on, like fight, flight, flee, collapse, reaction. So again, this, the point I'm wanting to make here really clearly, is that connection and protection are one or the other. Once you switch into protection mode, you can be a little in protection mode, or you can be a lot in protection mode. 

Now, what kind of behaviors do we see in protection mode? Well, this is an oversimplification, but generally I say the behaviors that we wish would change in our kids, the behaviors that are irritating us, the behaviors that are leading us to listen to podcasts, read parenting books, seek parenting help or support. Those are almost always behaviors of protection mode. They can be again, mild behaviors of protection mode, like opposition, irritation, sassiness, right? These can be relatively mild behaviors that aren't overtly harming someone else. The point of these behaviors is to help the person experiencing some danger and some protection mode stay safe. That's actually a crucial and often overlooked component of protection mode, that the point of protection mode is not to just hang out in protection mode forever. 

The point of protection mode is to protect oneself and then return to safety. Now there's kind of a continuum of protection mode that goes from like opposition to defiance to verbal aggression to physical aggression. Right as that dimmer switch gets turned more and more on, the protection mode behaviors increase. Now if you're experiencing or noticing protection mode behaviors in your child, but they tend to be more on the collapse side of things, then the continuum shifts from like La La Land to being shut down to dissociation to like a full on collapse. Ideally, we want to help increase the part of our nervous system where our kids are flipping into protection mode, but being in protection mode in a mild way when you're just barely in protection mode, that's where we can use interventions. We can help our kids use calm down skills. That's when the nervous system is still assessing, Oh, am I really safe or not, there is still a bit of a pause there. 

And if you're listening to this podcast, you almost certainly have a child, or maybe even yourself, who goes lightning speed through these different levels of protection mode to the point where you probably don't even notice this very low level of protection mode. It is there. They are going through it down. As they go down the continuum, as their dimmer switch right shifts, they are going through it, but they're going through it so quickly that it's not noticeable. One of the biggest goals of working with kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big baffling behaviors is increasing the amount of time that they can spend in this mild state of protection mode. We want to widen that place by strengthening their stress response system, and we will talk about the stress response system in future episodes. 

So think of these mild protection mode behaviors like opposition or sassiness, for example, kind of mouthiness Talking back. Maybe think about those behaviors as an opportunity. Opportunity for your child's nervous system to pause before having, like, a big fight flight reaction, right? It's an opportunity for the nervous system to pause, get a little defensiveness in, right? Like, I think something might not be safe here, I'm gonna kind of like, raise up my protective system, but I'm going to raise it just a little bit so that I can still use my thinking brain to assess and take in all the information and decide, do I need to be fully in protection mode, or can I shift back into connection mode? 

Now, y'all connection is what we know to be, what we would call a biological imperative. We need connection to grow to develop. Human beings require spending time in being, in connection, both literally in connection with others, but also in connection with ourselves, and then just basically in connection mode. We really need to rest into that safety side of the nervous system, our ventral vagus, if you know some of that language, we need that for health wellness. Also the human brain develops inside connection when we know research is very clear that when babies are given what they need to survive physically, but aren't receiving the emotional connections that they're craving, that that impacts not just the development of like their attachment and their emotion system, But it actually impacts the development of their brain. It impacts their physical health. Connection is a biological imperative now at the same time, of course, so is simply just staying alive, right? Humans are wired for connection, and they're wired to stay alive and do anything possible to stay alive. That is ultimately the top priority. So what this means is that the nervous system is continually scanning four cues of safety, danger or life threat. It's doing this very, very quickly, multiple times per second. It's continually asking the question, Am I safe or am I not safe? And one of the cues of danger is when the nervous system cannot find connection. And in a nervous system that has experienced connection in a safe way. 

Connection helps bring cues of safety on board. Connection helps shift the nervous system back into connection mode. So when I'm navigating behaviors that I don't like I wish would change. They're irritating with me. They're they're irritating me. They're frustrating. I'm going to ask myself, Is this a behavior of protection or connection? It's probably protection. And I want to remind myself that even if this person isn't demonstrating it in this moment, I know that underneath all of this is a deep, deep, deep desire to find safety and rest into connection, and kind of holding that as my North Star. One helps me stay more regulated, but it also helps me make better choices about what to do next. How do I set a boundary? And then, how do I start to find ways to invite my child's nervous system into safety? Now, you have probably noticed that when you are with somebody who is in protection mode, it is very tempting to also fall into protection mode ourselves, right? I mean, nervous systems are quite literally contagious. When I'm with somebody in protection mode, my nervous system registers that as cues of danger, and I am much more likely to then also shift into protection mode. 

So when I'm parenting, even if I have this like really wide stress tolerance and I can navigate a whole lot of hardship, which probably most of you listening. That might have been true about you at one point, but maybe isn't so true about you now, after the fatigue of parenting a child with such intense behavior problems, right? But let's just say you do have this really wide window of stress tolerance, and you can navigate a whole lot of whole lot of difficulty, even then being in relationship with somebody in protection mode is going to initially invite you into or maybe even full on shift you into protection mode. Now, when I have a nice. Wide window of stress tolerance. When my nervous system is resilient, I'm going to be just mildly drawn into protection mode, and then I'll be able to take a breath and go let me shift back into connection mode so that I can offer my child's nervous system what they need, which is safety and connection. But for so many of us, our nervous systems aren't very resilient, and maybe that's because of parenting. Maybe that's because of our history and we came to parenting in that way. Maybe it's because, you know, life is just really, really, really hard right now, and we are running on empty, so we're very vulnerable to shifting quickly into protection mode and getting stuck there. So then what that means is we respond to our child's protection mode with our own protection mode behaviors, right? We are irritable, we maybe even yell. We say something that's not very kind. These are very normal human behaviors. I'm not judging or shaming anyone. This what happens when we shift into protection mode? And if we shift into protection mode and lose our awareness of the state of our nervous system, and therefore lose our ability to shift back into connection mode. We're now meeting our child's protection mode with our protection mode, and you can probably guess how that works out. You can guess because you live that right, just like I do, if I meet someone's protection mode with my own protection mode, we end up in like this protection mode dance, and it just escalates and escalates and escalates and escalates in so many ways. This is what makes our nervous system both unbelievably brilliant and also unbelievably hard, right? The nervous system contagion is real and at the same time for our kids to be invited back into connection mode, we have to try to keep our own nervous system in connection mode. We have to kind of try to keep a foot in connection mode ourselves and y'all. This is really hard. 

If this was easy, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. You would have already figured this out by now. This is so, so so hard. A lot of you are listening because your child has what I would call a vulnerable nervous system, what the literature calls a sensitized stress response system. And what that means simply, and again, there'll be a whole episode on the stress response system in the future. But what that means simply, is that the stress the stress response system, which is, here's a brilliant definition, y'all, the system that helps our body respond to stress, right? The stress response system is designed to activate in the face of stress and a resilient stress response system has a stress response that matches the intensity of the stressor. It's the stress response is useful, right? It does something to help the person deal with or navigate or escape that stressor. And then the stress response system deactivates, and the nervous system, with ease, shifts back into connection mode. Now, if that described you or your child's stress response system, again, you probably wouldn't have pressed play on this particular podcast. Right? You would be off listening to other kinds of podcast episodes and reading other kinds of books, but your child, and probably you too, has a vulnerable nervous system, a sensitized stress response system. And so what's happened is that over time, as y'all, stress response system has experienced stressors that are too frequent, too intense and not followed by enough CO regulation, the stress response system becomes sensitized, and we get big, big, big responses to teeny, tiny, little stressors. That dimmer switch, it's, it's, it doesn't work as a dimmer switch, right? It just, it feels like it's just on off. It's like, as soon as you flick it to on, it's just all the way on. And it kind of misses that nuances of all the different levels in the middle that's a sensitized stress response system, small stressors, huge response kind of that like mountain knot of a mole hill phenomenon. 

The other thing that happens in a sensitized stress response system is that neutral cues, things that aren't necessarily positive or negative, safe or unsafe, they can get read by the nervous system as unsafe, and can either. Shift more easily into protection mode, or, in a way, get stuck in protection mode. And when you're stuck in protection mode, you're interpreting everything around you as dangerous, right? So maybe that feels true about your kid or someone else you know, right? They're always assuming the worst. They're always assuming you're being mean to them, always assuming you're picking on them. Always, always, always, always on the defense. Well, that's a nervous system that is either stuck in protection mode or shifting very, very, very quickly into protection mode. And then from there we have protection mode behaviors. And I get it, we don't like those behaviors. They're making our life hard. They feel really unnecessary. They're not very relational. We are like aching and longing to be in a more easeful, connected relationship with our kids. And so shifting into protection mode too fast and staying there for too long is really hard. It's hard on you and it's hard on your kid, and the behaviors that come from protection mode are made they make perfect sense. 

It makes perfect sense that you're seeing opposition, defiance, aggression, shut down behavior. And so we can shift away from a model of quote, unquote misbehavior, and instead shift toward a model of, oh, this behavior matches the nervous system that doesn't make it okay. But instead of focusing on how we change the behavior, we're going to recognize that the nervous system is doing exactly what it believes it needs to. It's working too hard. We want to find ways to help the nervous system rest so that it can spend more time in connection mode. We're going to shift our focus away from behaviors and towards nervous system state connection or protection. When the nervous system senses threat right, it's neuroceiving some danger. 

There's some cues of danger when the nervous system is sensing that threat, yes, protection mode, pathway activates right, and we go down the protection mode pathway, and there's these behaviors that are designed to get the get the other person to essentially, like, back off right at the same time, though, the attachment circuitry activates in a way that draws the person who's experiencing danger toward their attachments, towards their connected figure, towards safety, because attachment and connection is supposed to be safe, so when protection mode activates, yes, there are protection behaviors while we simultaneously activate the attachment circuitry that draws us toward our attachment figure humans seek out connection and regulation for safety, right? When we have a history of being hurt in connection, and that means then that the connection circuits have been kind of like tangled up with protection circuits, right? 

So for example, this nervous system is noticing danger right protection mode. It shifts into protection mode and simultaneously moves towards the connected figure right where they can seek connection from. But that place, the place where the nervous system is turning to get connection from what if that's the place that was causing the danger? That was what was shifting the nervous system into protection mode. So now the nervous system is going, Uh oh, danger, danger. Get away, go towards connection, but then the nervous system goes, oh no, oh no, I went towards connection, but that's where the danger is, so I've got to get away and go towards connection, but oh no, oh no, that's where connect. You know, that's where the danger was. I've got to get away and go towards connection. So it becomes this, what the attachment researchers call, this unsolvable dilemma. Child wants connection, but the connection feels unsafe. So there is this never ending loop of, you know, experiencing danger, shifting into protection mode, seeking out connection, but then finding that to be the danger. Right? 

It's this loop that becomes unsolved. Available there is, there's no way out. And because this is a very early, early podcast episode, but I'm re recording it very far into the future, I know that I have podcast episodes about when connection and protection get tied together, and what to do about that. So I will make sure that those episodes and the numbers, the number of those episodes, the episode number, gets into the show notes, so that you can find those episodes really easily. So if this idea of connection and protection has been tied together, feels true for you and your child, I want you to know there's a lot of hope. It's very, very hard. It's very hard. It's very hard. And you're not imagining how completely bizarre, how completely baffling the behaviors are that that come from that place of connection and protection being tied together, not imagining that. And there, actually, there is hope. And I do have a few episodes about that as well as I think we explore that even more in depth, in raising kids with big, baffling behaviors. 

So y'all the science and recognizing the science and understanding the nervous system states and the behaviors that emerge from that, that actually really is kind of our first quote, unquote tool. It helps us really depersonalize the behavior. It helps us stay out of like, characterological judgments about our kids, like they're just bad, or they're just liars, or they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just right. It helps increase our compassion. And why this is good is because, actually, compassion helps us set much, much, much better boundaries. The behavior still needs to be boundaried. Of course, compassion helps us set better boundaries, but compassion also helps us stay into connection. Us stay in connection mode. That's good for us. It's good for our nervous system health, but it's also good for our kids. 

I mean, that's what our kids really need, is for a grown up to respond with an matched energetic response. So it's not it's not just a free for all. It's like, oh well, they're in protection, but they can't help it. No, no, no, no. There's a matched energetic response where that is still regulated, can set a boundary and then stay focused on the real problem, which is safety, helping the nervous system shift back into connection mode. So how do we do that? How do we help the nervous system, shift back in to connection mode. I'm going to offer up some basic strategies and then also direct you to where you can go to dive more in depth into some of these things. Now, you heard me say we're going to kind of match the energetic intensity. We're going to match the energy without the dysregulation. I have a episode all about that, so I'm not going to go off on a side tangent about matching the energy, but I'll, I'll put the episode number down in the show notes. 

We're going to use very explicit cues of safety and say things like, you're not in trouble. I had a colleague who would say to their child, we don't do trouble in this family. In this family, we solve we solve problems. This is a problem, and we need to address it, because this isn't okay. This isn't working out for us. But you're not in trouble. I'm not a threat to you, and there is no danger here. You can pair that those verbal statements with some nonverbal cues of safety, which can include things like kneeling down, sitting down, getting your eyes lower than their eyes. That's a cue of safety you can think about like relaxing your shoulders, softening your voice, changing your tone and your pacing, so you don't want to get all Zen, because that's a total mismatch. If you have a child who is, you know, far down what we would call the watchdog pathway, if you get too calm and too Zen, that's weird, and that doesn't help to offer co regulation to the nervous system. That's where the match the energy part comes in, but you can match the energy while staying regulated and being mindful of your tone and your pacing, so that you can be deliberate and thoughtful about how you use your words and your nonverbal cues to send very deliberate cues of safety.

I always like to think about how I can offer cues of safety in a practical way, as opposed to in an overly relational way. Think it takes a little bit of the pressure off of everyone. So I always some of my go to offerings of safety. Are things like, Do you need a drink or a snack? Do you need to go outside? Do you need you move your body? Are you warm enough, right? Are you too warm? Is the music too loud? Are the lights too bright? And I like to put some energy into focusing on some of those very, very practical things that are certainly still relational, but they don't have an overly relational component to them. Again, I think that takes the pressure off of you. I also actually think that takes the pressure off of your child. I have a lot of information about how to support the body with cues of safety in my book raising kids with big, baffling behaviors. I also have a really lovely regulating the body infographic that's stored over in the free resource hub. So if you're not already a member of the free resource hub, you'll definitely want to go sign up for the free resource hub. You'll get the supporting the body, regulating the body infographic, as well as about 20, other free resources. 

You might need to ask yourself, Do I need to lower the stressor? Do I need to remove the expectation I'm holding here, or do I need to reduce the expectation I'm holding here temporarily? Right? Our kids capacity to tolerate stress and demands and do things they don't want to do. Y'all our capacity to do things we don't want to do, which, frankly, if you look around life, it's a lot of things we are regularly asking ourselves and our kids to do things we just frankly, really don't want to do, and we need to have some stress resilience to navigate that and to deal with the stressors without becoming completely out of control, just regulated. One of the way to strengthen that stress response system is to initially lower the stressor. Again, I have another episode on the stress response system. I will link to that, and that looks in depth at how we well what the stress response system is, why we might need to lower the stressors, but then the very crucial part, y'all, is eventually starting to strengthen the stress response system. And I also have an episode about how to know when it's time to start strengthening the stress response system, actually also have a webinar, a masterclass on strengthening the stress response system that's stored over in the club. 

And so if you're sort of been kind of feeling that lately, like, well, we have reduced a lot of the stressors for our child, and that's feeling unsustainable, like, eventually you're going to have to start to have expectations for your child again. That's where the masterclass on how to strengthen the stress response system can come into play, because it gets a little scary, right? If you've had a child who's in chronic protection mode, you have found ways to help them spend more time in connection mode, but now you're starting to think, hmm, maybe it's time to start to strengthen their stress response system so they can handle more stressors. But oh my gosh, I don't want to, like, injure their stress response system again, or invite back all of those really hard behaviors we were dealing with. I get that y'all and so approaching strengthening the stress response system strategically is really important, again, of a master class on that over in the club and in relation to strengthening the stress response system, the other aspect to hold in mind is this isn't free for all parenting. 

We can still set solid, compassionate boundaries. We can set a boundary without it coming from protection mode, we can set a boundary from connection mode. It might have intensity. Connection mode can have intensity, but connection mode has thoughtfulness. Connection mode has deliberateness. Connection mode means I'm setting this boundary with intentionality, and not because I just got so dysregulated that this boundary is what I ended up just sort of yelling, right? And yes, I know boundaries from connection mode can feel really elusive. A lot of us weren't taught how to do that. So big surprise here, I have an episode, actually a whole podcast series, about boundaries with connection. And then I have a lot of ways to support you with that. If you wanted to come and join us in the club, like a master class, a lot of things around helping support parents set boundaries with connection. And frankly, what boundaries even are, because we have a lot of misconceptions about what the word boundary really even means. All right, so let's walk you through a quick example before we bring this episode to a close. And also, I want to do an example with an older child. I know it's easy to talk more about younger children, but actually, I have an older child. He's a young adult now, so those teen years aren't very far, are very far in my rear view. 

So imagine this. It's a stressful week for who knows what reason. Let's say it's exam week, okay, it's exam week. It's stressful, and you're noticing that your teen is being not very nice. Like, they're snippy, they're rude, they're like, jumping to conclusions, being really snotty, right? And I know for me, when that starts to happen in my teen, I can start to get a little like, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. We don't talk to each other like that. Now, I'm not actually saying that that's not a reasonable boundary to set, although I want to set it from a compassionate connection mode place, and not from a judgment place of like, gosh, my teen is just being a jerk, right? Like, I want to set that boundary with some curiosity of like, Huh? Well, we don't talk to each other like that, so I want to address that. But also I wonder why I wonder why? I wonder what's going on? I want to think about, are there some things I can do to support my teens nervous system? Well, what my teen often needs is a decrease in sensory input, and so one of the things I want to do, actually, is talk less. I also want to make sure that his physical needs are met, that he has, you know, a good meal, a good snack, that he's hydrated, and y'all, these things might seem kind of silly, but they're really, really important. 

So actually, this takes me off track a little bit here. But you know, my teen is is done essentially with exam weeks. He's a young adult now, and he works a very, very, very physical labor job part time, and when he gets home, it's it's late, like he's probably gone to work at 7am and he sometimes is home until 7pm and on those days where we know he's been working physically hard all day long, we work really hard to give him a good, healthy, like robust meal, and we also work hard to have no expectations for how he kind of comes in the door and sits down at the table. And it's pretty typical for him to come in the door in a pretty crummy mood and not be very talkative. And actually, if he does talk, it's oftentimes not super kind now, sometimes he can actually say, Please don't talk to me yet. Awesome. Sometimes he can't say that. And so it's my job to kind of remember, like we just need to get passed through this enormous stress response. Let's, you know, let him come in kind of stress from his day and get some really good food in his body without having any new expectations. He doesn't have to be kind, he doesn't have to talk to us, he doesn't have to tell us about his day. He really just needs to, like kind of rest and get some good food into his body. And almost always, probably 95% of the time, within 10 or 15 minutes, we are seeing the nervous system shift more and more and more into connection mode. 

We are seeing more capacity for relational engagement and eventually even like friendly bantering. It just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of patience and trust. It takes trust on my part that as his nervous system regulates these behaviors that I definitely do not like, those behaviors will shift on their own. I don't need to say, hey, we don't talk to each other like that. He knows that. I just need to pause and be patient while the nervous system shifts. Now, my kid is an adult now, and so I don't have to do a lot of kind of circling back later and reminding about like family rules and family values. These things are are clear,but when he was younger, we would certainly have to do that, right and so, you know, maybe if the scenario I just described happened five years ago, it was exam week, he came home, he was in a really grumpy mood, blah, blah, blah, you know, we fed him, we sort of just ignored the grouchiness. Later, we would circle back to that and talk about. Like, hey, that was hard. Hey, we know your nervous system was really in protection mode. And we get that, like, our nervous system falls into protection mode too. And, yeah, when you're in protection mode, it's hard to be nice to people. We get that. What are some ways we can do to make this transition a little easier for one another. And the reality is, is one of the things we've done as a family to help the transition be easier, is to just have zero expectations for engagement at all, like you don't have to talk to me. Let's just get your body fed. Let's just get you hydrated. Let's just get you some rest. And if you do say something snippy, I'm mostly just gonna ignore it and wait for your nervous system to come back around. 

Now, sometimes y'all this doesn't, quote, unquote work, meaning we have a lot of patients we've given great healthy food, and the nervous system still really doesn't shift. Okay, well, then my next job, and I do this well, maybe 40% of the time. My next job is to just continue to, like, not take it personally, and continue to give some time and space for re, you know, for regulation. So that might just look like having a pretty quiet dinner where we're not really relationally engaged with another and having no expectations, really for him to be kind. I would like him to at least, maybe not say very much, and like, maybe not at least be unkind, right? But I really reduce my expectations, and then we all just kind of keep moving on with our day, like he goes, maybe to shower. And I may even say like, yeah, there's so much there's so much dysregulation, we all just kind of need time away from each other to let our bodies re regulate. Why don't you go take a shower? I might not actually have to say that at this stage in my parenting, but if this was years ago, I might want to, you know, kind of narrate that, or, you know, offer that as a way to unders for him to understand what's happening in his nervous system. And then I might even check in with him later and be like, Hey, do you need anything? Can I bring you anything, you know, just something that's a little bit of a check in, a little bit of a nurturing, a little bit of an offering of connection, right? Of course, y'all, I know that sometimes in the moment, like situational strategies, they're not enough. You have a child in chronic protection mode and waiting a little bit and offering a drink or a snack or a nice hearty meal or a shower, it's not enough. Like the chronicity of the protection mode is much more intense, right? The child, your child is living always in protection mode, and your child and your family needs more ongoing support. We're going to still think about increasing cues of safety over time, but we're going to think about that from a bigger picture perspective, as opposed to, I want to, you know, offer this cue of safety so that the nervous system shifts and we can go back into connection mode. It's just not going to have that quick of results, right? We're going to have to be offering felt safety over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, over again and maybe for honestly, years and years and years and y'all, I have so many resources and episodes to support all the things that we like. Just barely gave a nod to in this episode, but didn't actually like explore again. 

Hindsight is 2020, when I first recorded this episode is my seventh one. I'm re recording it now, after 250, so many episodes, where you can go and look at what to do if your child's already, you know, chronically dysregulated, I have a three part series on felt safety. I have that match the energy, not the dysregulation episode. I've got a series on boundaries. I have so many resources and supports for you, the easiest thing for you to do would be to go to RobynGobbel.com/freeresourcehub. All the free resources I give away are there all in one place, felt safety, infographics, all sorts of all sorts of things like this, also over on my podcast website, RobynGobbel.com/podcast there is a search bar. You can put anything you're looking for into that search bar. So I'll try to catch all the things I recommended in this episode and put them down in the show notes. But if I missed anything again, just go to the podcast website. Use. That search bar. 

We're always, always, always thinking about how regulated connected kids who feel safe do well, and if we can keep our sights set on what's happening in the nervous system, connection mode versus protection mode, how can I frame the behavior like that so I can stay regulated, stay out of judgment. Offer safety to my kid, and if it's not enough and their nervous system stays stuck in protection mode, I can, I can conceptualize that accurately as they're not a bad kid. They're a kid whose nervous system is still really flooded with cues of danger. Now you may be saying like but my kid's life is safe. Why are they stuck in protection mode? And for that, what I want you to do next is go and find my episode. All behavior makes sense, because that episode takes you through the science of how it's not only about what's literally happening in the here and now that causes us to shift from connection to production and vice versa. So that episode will help that question get answered. And again, give you some more thoughts about Okay, so what do we do about this? Phew, y'all, this was long. This was a longer episode than I expected, although if you've listened to my podcast before, you knew they say that a lot. It's interesting to record, re record an episode that I recorded five years ago, because I just have so much more to say now that it's more examples. I have more ways of explaining it because I've been practicing it for so long. I've worked with 1000s of families, and I have better ideas about how to convey this information, and it just means I'm talking more and more and more. So I'm so thrilled that you have found us here at the baffling behavior show. I hope that this episode kind of piques your interest into continuing to explore more this nervous system approach, you can, of course, always check out my free webinar focus on the nervous system to change behavior, and I will get down in the show notes, the additional resources that you can start to plug into next that can help you on this journey. Of course, if you just want everything in one place, and you don't want to go resource searching, I would recommend one of two things. One, checking out my book, raising kids with big, baffling behaviors. It's in paperback, audio and ebook, or coming to join us over in the club. If you're in the club and you have a question, we'll just tell you, we'll just give you the answer or direct you to the resource so you won't have to do a lot of resource searching yourself. Goodness. So, so, so glad you have found the podcast. Looking so forward to continuing to connect with you, support, you, help you shift your paradigm on not just your kids behaviors, but all people's behaviors, including yourself. And I will be back with you again next week on another episode of The baffling behavior show, bye. Bye.