When Your Words and Feelings Don’t Match {EP 239}


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Have you ever smiled while you were seething inside? Or told your child “it’s fine” when it absolutely wasn’t? That mismatch (incongruent affect, we’re gonna talk psychology mumbo jumbo) isn’t just confusing. It’s a cue of danger- to your child’s nervous system AND to yours!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why kids are biologically wired to trust their caregivers and what happens when their neuroception contradicts the words they hear.
  • How “faking calm” backfires, and why matching energy without dysregulation is a more effective way to bring safety.
  • How growing your window of tolerance and strengthening your owl brain helps you stay regulated while feeling big, hard feelings.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on The Baffling Behavior Show podcast.

Find The Baffling Behavior Show podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.

Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Author of National Best Selling Book (including audiobook) Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work

/by

Happy Birthday RKBBB- and a gift for you! {EP 238}


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors turned TWO! 🥳

So, we’re having a party right here on the podcast.

Parties have gifts, so I’m offering three “gifts” for you- a little help around three behaviors that are still SO BAFFLING!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why regression (aka “acting like a toddler”) is actually a sign of your child’s nervous system falling down the protection mode pathway, and a few ideas of how to respond
  • What’s really happening when your child is inconsistent with their skills (sometimes they can, sometimes they can’t!) and why that doesn’t mean they’re being manipulative.
  • How to make sense of your own baffling behavior (like yelling or doing the things you swore you wouldn’t do)…and a couple thoughts on what you should do about it (you won’t be shocked by my recommendations)

We’ll also celebrate the community this book has created and how the ideas in it continue to ripple out through parents, professionals, and kids all over the world.

If you’ve found something helpful in Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors, I’d love for you to join the celebration by sharing your favorite takeaway, leaving a review, or gifting the book to a friend. 

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on The Baffling Behavior Show podcast.

Find The Baffling Behavior Show podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.

Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Author of National Best Selling Book (including audiobook) Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work

/by

Connection: A Biological Imperative (for parents) {EP 227}


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Parents aren’t the only ones providing co-regulation — we need it too. In fact, connection is a biological imperative for every nervous system, including yours. When you’re raising kids with big baffling behaviors, the imbalance in reciprocity can be exhausting, isolating, and even grief-inducing. But here’s the truth: you don’t have to do this alone, and there are real, meaningful ways to find the connection your nervous system longs for.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • Why co-regulation isn’t just for kids — it’s essential for parents too
  • How predictability and cues of safety help you know where to find connection
  • Why imbalance and grief in parenting make sense — and what to do with them
  • How communities (even online ones!) can be powerful sources of connection and safety

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on The Baffling Behavior Show podcast.

Find The Baffling Behavior Show podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.

Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Author of National Best Selling Book (including audiobook) Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work

/by

Rewriting the Nervous System Story {EP 236}


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Your child’s behavior isn’t telling you the whole story. Their behavior is telling you just the story their nervous system is writing in that moment.

This week, let’s continue my deep dive into my conversation with Deb Dana (episode 233), exploring how polyvagal theory offers us the hope of rewriting the nervous system story. 

We’re going to talk about the power of believing our children when they tell us the story of their nervous system and steps we can take to help them rewrite that story (if needed).

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why “story follows state” and how this helps us understand our children’s accusations, defensiveness, or “overreactions.”
  • How to resist getting swept into your child’s dysregulation tornado, so you can hold onto compassion (for them and yourself).
  • Practical ways to reframe behavior- like lying, defiance, and opposition- as nervous system responses instead of “badness,” and how that shift helps to rewrite their story…and why that matters. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on The Baffling Behavior Show podcast.

Find The Baffling Behavior Show podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.

Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Author of National Best Selling Book (including audiobook) Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work

/by

Ready to STOP playing behavior whack-a-mole?

I’ll send a free one-hour webinar & eBook

Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior 

Copyright © 2026 Robyn Gobbel. All rights reserved. Site by CurlyHost.