4 Functions of Behavior, FBAs, and a Nervous System Approach {EP 271}


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For years, “the four functions of behavior” has been the go-to framework for understanding why kids do what they do: attention, escape, access to tangibles, sensory. It’s not wrong, but it’s not the whole story either. In this episode, we dig into where this model actually came from, what it leaves out, and what’s underneath it once we go looking with a relational neuroscience lens.

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

  • Where the four functions of behavior actually came from, and why this is relevant
  • Why naming a behavior’s “function” and saying it started in the nervous system aren’t competing ideas — they’re just two different layers of the same truth 
  • What’s actually underneath attention-seeking, escape, tangible-seeking, and sensory behavior – and how to start identifying the missing skill that can be scaffolded

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

  • The Club (membership community + troubleshooting worksheet)

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

What is Your Kid’s Nervous System Predicting? Part 3 of 3 {EP 270}


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We’ve been in a three-part series on sticky behaviors (behaviors that don’t seem to change, no matter WHAT you do!), and today we’re doing the detective work: what is your specific child’s nervous system actually predicting? 

In This Episode

  • Three detective questions to help you identify what prediction might be driving your child’s stickiest behaviors, and what those behaviors are actually protecting against
  • Why you don’t have to get the detective work exactly right, because the mismatched experience that changes the brain is almost always the same thing no matter what prediction is running
  • How your working theory about your child’s nervous system changes something in you first, and why this is so important (but also, no pressure. We’re all doing the best we can)

Resources Mentioned

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

What Actually Changes Sticky Behaviors (Part 2 of 3) {EP 269}


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Part 1 was about why sticky behaviors stay stuck. Part 2 is where the hope lives. We’re diving into the two mechanisms that actually change sticky behaviors at the neurological level. This is the episode that makes the hardest ask of Part – shifting away from ‘fix-it’ and ‘this has to change’ energy- make sense.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • Why your child’s dysregulation isn’t the obstacle to healing; it’s actually the doorway to it
  • The two mechanisms that change sticky behaviors at the neurological level, why one creates the conditions for the other, and why neither of them will look like anything is working for a long time
  • What it actually means to stay regulated during your child’s hardest moments 

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

Why Sticky Behaviors Stay Stuck (Part 1 of 3) {EP 268}


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If you’ve tried everything and a behavior just won’t stop…that’s a sticky behavior. Let’s dive deeeeeep into the neuroscience behind the behaviors that feel impossible to change. We’ll touch on how the brain stores predictions and how the most well-meaning response can actually, unintentionally, keep those predictions locked in place and perpetuate that sticky behavior. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series that brings new aha moments to your child’s most baffling behaviors.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • Why your child’s brain holds onto certain behaviors so tightly, and why it has nothing to do with defiance or choice
  • What neural glue is and why the behaviors encoded under overwhelm and aloneness are the stickiest of all
  • Why the urge to make a behavior stop can actually confirm the very prediction the behavior is protecting

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

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