“Fix” Behaviors by Growing the Owl Brain {EP 148}

Robyn: On last week's podcast, we talked about how woven into all of the work. So in the club, which is the virtual community I have for parents, in Being With, which is my professional training program for parent professionals, of course, on the podcast, and then now in this book that's coming out soon. There's one big overarching like framework– there's like this map, like I really see it as a map, like a really big picture in my mind, like opening up– you know, back in the day, where we used to unfold, and open up maps and like, hold them in front of our faces or put them on the hood of our car, right? I see this map that has emerged from these three core pieces, the neuroscience of behavior; understanding the neuroscience of behavior, and specifically how it relates to kids with baffling behaviors. That's one piece. And then there's having actual concrete tools and strategies but not just a toolbox full of random tools and strategies, but tools and strategies that are actually focused on targeting the real problem. Okay, so that's kind of the second piece of this framework. And then the third piece is having the space and the safety to pay attention to ourselves, to our own regulation to our own triggers. The tagline for my book is; Brain-body-sensory Strategies That Really Work. And I'll be honest with y'all, I did not love that at first. I really wanted to stay away from the kind of like shticky promises, you know like, ‘The only book you'll ever need to read!” or, “A roadmap to solve all your child's behavior problems.” I really did not want a title or subtitle that made promises like that. And the phrase like quote-unquote, ‘that really work’ at first felt uncomfortable to me. I just did not want to be another person– who doesn't know your kid at all, like, telling you that I've come up with some magical tools that really work, right? Like, how eye-rolling? Honestly, how insulting. Unfortunately, there are just a few things that authors don't really have too much of a say in. And the truth is, is that overall, in publishing this book, I could not have been luckier, I could not have chosen to work with a better team. And a better mission-driven publisher who's been really committed to maintaining my ability to stay in authenticity with my values and with my work. They really have essentially let me do, basically, whatever I want, but the subtitle, ‘strategies that really work’.. that stuck. And actually, over the past couple months, the subtitle has settled with me, it's almost grown on me. And I have– I think I have a new relationship with those words than I did when the title was first suggested. You know, by saying strategies that really work, I'm not promising that one specific tool will be the final breakthrough that solves all of your problems, absolutely not. But what I am aiming to offer you all in my work, is that if you pay attention to all three pieces, all three categories, right, the neuroscience of behavior, tools and strategies to solve the real problem– which the real problem is always regulation, connection, or felt safety, okay. And then as well as the state of your own nervous system. So okay, maybe that's a little confusing because I gave a lot of interrupting comments in the middle of that. So the three pieces are the neuroscience of behavior, tools and strategies that really work and solve the real problem, and then the state of your own nervous system, if you pay attention to all three, you actually do end up discovering strategies that really work. And they really work because they're not just a word bank of random strategies that you're pulling out based on your own dysregulation, based on your own desperation, without really understanding what the tool is designed to do– what the strategy is designed to do. As well as what does your child need in that moment? And do they need help with regulation? Do they need help with connection? And or do they need help with felt safety? 

Robyn: So when all of these three pieces come together, the neuroscience, the tools and strategies, and being present with ourselves, the tools, the strategies really do become strategies that really work. Because ultimately, they emerge from you, the caregiver, from a place of being instead of a place of doing. And what I mean is, again, when you really are understanding the neuroscience of behavior, the neuroscience of being human, you start to see your kid’s behavior through a new lens. So you start to see them for indications of what the real problem really is. And if you can understand what their real problem is, and what they're trying to solve in their nervous system with this behavior that they're doing, we get much closer to coming up with a strategy that might really work. And if we can be present with our dysregulated kids, and not in a calm way but in a mostly regulated way, we stay present and connected with ourselves. We reach a point where the tools don't feel like we're just plucking them one by one out of this like metaphorical toolbox. The tools start to feel like they just come to us, they just emerge, we're not really even having to stop and think. Now it takes a lot of practice to get to this. So without question, we have to you know, practice using the tools in a very like thoughtful, deliberate like plucking a tool from a toolbox kind of way for a long time. But eventually, as these three pieces come together, understanding the neuroscience of behavior, having a lot of tools, and being regulated ourselves staying in our Owl brain, the tools do really start to become tools and strategies that really work. I mean, the reason you find yourself stuck in like this endless game of behavior whack-a-mole with a toolbox full of tools isn't necessarily because they are bad tools or the wrong tools. But without understanding the neuroscience of behavior, right, like the neuroscience of being human, the idea that connections are biological imperative, and the idea that regulated connected kids who feel safe do well, without understanding the neuroscience of behavior, the tools aren't super useful because you don't really know when to use them or why you're using them. But when you understand the neuroscience of behavior, even just a little, I'm not asking you to become like a neuroscientist by any means. You don't need to be, that would just flood your brain with useless information. But when you understand the neuroscience of behavior, even just a little, the tools get to become useful and intuitive. You don't have to pause and reach into that proverbial tool Rolodex, right, but a strategy that could offer some regulation or some connection or felt safety will intuitively emerge because you understand what the real problem here; is it regulation, is it connection, is it felt safety? And what kinds of things invite connection or regulation and felt safety in my unique child. Then when you have the ability to stay regulated in your own Owl brain, even in the face of super dysregulated behavior, the strategies again come from, like this place of being not doing. And it is in the being that is actually how the brain     changes. It isn't the specific tools and strategies but it's the being, the presence, and the attunement, and the co-regulation. That's how the brain changes! The strategies are important. But what they are are like vehicles that offer presence, attunements, co-regulation, connection and safety. 

Robyn: When I'm thinking about behavior change, I'm thinking about either growing the Owl brain or calming the Watchdog or the Possum brain. Growing the Owl brain. Really strengthening and widening that window of stress tolerance and really supporting that very sensitive stress response system. Increasing overall regulation, increasing overall connection, increasing overall felt safety. All of those things are growing the Owl brain, if you want to get super sciency, growing the Owl brain is strengthening and myelinating the ventral vagus. So growing that Owl brain means that the Watchdog or the Possum brain are going to react less frequently and with less intensity. So the focus in this stage, the growing the Owl brain stage is not on responding or reacting to difficult behaviors, but I know without question you need those strategies too, they're just in a different section. [Laughs] So this focus is on not reacting to behavior. The focus here is on increasing regulation, connection, and felt safety so that the behaviors are less likely to happen. So I think of growing the Owl brain strategies as ways of being with our kids, like all the time, not just when we're responding to or reacting to negative behavior, but ways of being with our kids all the time so that their Owl brain can grow big and strong. And the stronger their Owl brain is, the longer it will stick around. The less likely the Owl brain is to get scared of the Watchdog and Possum brain and fly away. So while I know that in parenting it feels like the most important thing is to figure out how to respond and react to these out-of-control negative behaviors. And I know for some of you listening, it feels like that's 100% of your parenting, like responding or reacting to negative behavior. I totally get that. And even inside that situation, we want to try to stay, like as open and curious to the idea of ‘How can I strengthen the Owl brain outside moments of negative behavior? How can I increase my child's regulation through co-regulation-based parenting?’ Things like scaffolding, right? Attunement. ‘How can I increase my child's sense of connection to me, but also do it in a way that doesn't flood or overwhelm, you know, their connection system because so many of us have kids who are actually threatened by connection instead of regulated by connection? How can I think about felt safety in a way that bolsters my child's overall sense of felt safety.’ We've talked about felt safety over and over and over again, on the podcast. I have episodes, specifically devoted to the concept of felt safety, from when the podcast first came out and I was really focused on teaching these very specific concepts. But the idea of felt safety is woven into really everything that we talk about here on the Baffling Behavior Show. And if you've listened to that episode, or if you've caught the episode that's on Connection or Protection, you might know that there are these three places that all of our brains– not just our kids and not just kids with vulnerable nervous systems, there are three places we're all always searching for cues and clues to determine if we're safe or not. And that's inside our own bodies, and that's outside in the environment, and then that's also in the relationship. And so, when I'm working with families we're looking at, are there– is there any one category of felt safety that one, might seem obvious, like, oh, yeah, we could really bolster that, or two, feels like the lowest hanging fruit like feels like the easiest to tackle because that's really important, right? That y'all really, really stressed out overwhelmed parents start with the things that feel the easiest and feel like the easiest to tackle. 

Robyn: So we'll look at those, you know, again, like different categories of felt safety inside the body, outside in the environment, and then in the relational experience that your child is having with you or with other adults in their life. Where are things that we could kind of tweak or bolster their felt safety. And so there's a large portion of the book Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, that we're looking at some of the specifics and give you lots of specific ideas about common places to look to that we can increase felt safety. And then connection, right, growing the Owl brain by increasing the connection that you're offering your child. That can be really tricky for families of kids with attachment trauma, and so many parenting interventions talk about connection first, overcorrection, how our kids are much more likely to have pro-social behaviors if they're feeling connected to us and connected to themselves, and that is 100% true. It's just really, really tricky if your kid has experiences where connection hasn't been regulating and safe, but connection has been terrifying and dangerous. So this is a place where I really lean into that pillar where parents had to really get to know themselves because it's through knowing ourselves that we can then increase our attunement to someone else. So like, for example, when I teach therapists I really lean into therapists getting to know themselves, right, being in attunement with themselves because it's only through attunement to ourselves, that we can attune to someone else. And the same is true for parents. The more relationship we have with ourselves, the more connected we are to ourselves, the bigger our Owl brain grows, the more capacity we have to be in attunement with our children and then it's this attunement that helps us discern how to titrate connection, and where the line is for our unique child, for where connection moves from offering safety and regulation, to being dangerous and terrifying. Now, that's really hard for anybody outside your family to discern, I mean if you're lucky enough to have an excellent therapist who knows your child well and knows your family well, they're likely a really big asset to your team here and a really big asset in helping your child untangle that part where connection is tied up with danger. 

Robyn: But I know most of you listening aren't that lucky, like you don't have those people on your team. That's why you're listening. That's why you're coming to the club that you know, all those kinds of things. So what I love to help parents do then is to increase their connection and attunement to themselves, so that they then can be more in attunement with their kid and see how to titrate the different ways we can offer connection. And again, in the book I talk about some really concrete strategies that we can do to offer connection. But yeah, we have to pay attention to that piece like, but for some kids, it's just too much. So for example, in the book I talk about really paying attention to our reunions with our kids, the moments where we get to welcome them. And that could be they've come home from school, or they've woken up in the morning, or they simply were in another room and now we've reconnected again, right, there's this moment where we can welcome them. And it's a lovely moment to pay attention to and to see if we can really enhance the connection in those moments. And for some kids, it's too vulnerable. I have a very clear memory of a kiddo that I used to know where that moment of “Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to see you.” Right? It was just too much for that kid. It would totally toss them outside their window of tolerance, it was too dangerous and threatening feeling. And so I had to learn how to really titrate the way I expressed the connection, the way I expressed the welcome, the way I expressed the, ‘I'm so glad you're here.’ I had to find a way where I could still offer that really authentically because it's really important to feel like people are happy to see you. But to do it in a way that works for that specific child and in the way that they felt threatened by connection. 

Robyn: So regulation then, that's a third one that I haven't touched on specifically, we've talked about felt safety, we talked about connection. Regulation. I love talking about regulation. I love experimenting with the different ways to support a child's attempts at regulation and a lot of times those attempts are well-meaning, they're trying to help the child find regulation, but they're not working. Right. The body is always seeking regulation. So when I’m with a child, I'm always trying to stay open and curious about like, what's happening here? What do I see your body doing? And if I assumed that there's some portion of that, that is brilliantly attuned to self and trying to find regulation in the way that this child needs, but maybe they just need a little help organizing that. Right, that helps me come up with some ideas in the moment that might be helpful for this child's regulation needs. Right? So think about like a kiddo who's hiding under a blanket or turning away or having like a really wiggly body that just can't sit still. All of those behaviors help us know what this child needs for regulation, the hiding of the turning away child is a child who needs some of that intensity of intimacy decrease. So give them that. If we want to celebrate their connection to themselves, and their very wide system that's guiding them towards regulation. Like if you have a really wiggly little real wiggly one, that you're with, one who's got a lot of movement going on in their body, maybe take a break for like a somersault contest or jump on the trampoline. I couldn't tell you how many sessions I've done with kids with them jumping on the trampoline or jumping on the pogo stick, or doing something that's getting some regulation-based movement to support their body. Maybe some kids would increase their connection to their body by snuggling underneath a weighted blanket. Every child's body needs something different but if we really get to know yourself, then you can really get to know your child and really see the story that they're telling you. And then you can discover new ways to lean in. I also love my friend Marti Smith's book for ideas for connecting with our child's sensory system to support safety, connection, and regulation. Marti's book is called The Connected Therapist. 

Robyn: So in raising kids with big baffling behaviors, I give you lots of brain-body-sensory strategies that really work. And they really work not because I have some brilliance that you don't have or other people don't have, that’s not it at all, they really work because they're then combined with your understanding of what your child needs, and why they need those things, along with your connection, and attunements yourself. So then you can offer all those strategies as invitations, instead of demands or from a place of feeling really desperate, right? You can offer these strategies from a place of being and not just doing because you've really grown your own Owl brain. If you remember at the beginning of this episode, I said like the tools and the strategies, the ways we quote-unquote fix behaviors fall into these two categories. One is growing the Owl brain and one is responding to the Watchdog and the Possum brain. So that's what we're going to talk about next week, tools and strategies to calm the Watchdog and the Possum brain. We're taking the overall arc of raising kids with big baffling behaviors where we go through the neuroscience of the neurobiology of behavior and then we– well first we get to know the Owl, Watchdog, and Possum brain because you can't do anything to help them if you don't know them. So we do that in the book. Then we grow the Owl brain, then we respond and calm the Owl and Watchdog brain, and then we arrive at the section of like, well, what do we do when the Owl brain returns, which is usually what people are asking when they say something like, “But what about a consequence.” Then in the book, we move into connecting and being with ourselves, like growing our own regulation, connection to ourselves, our own ability to offer safety, and connection to our kids. So that's the arc of the book. That's the Arc of this little podcast series we're doing now as we prepare for the book to come out on September 21. 

Robyn: Now, a lot of you have reached out and asked about an audiobook, I am working really hard with my publisher, my publisher is equally as committed as I am to get this book turned into an audiobook. We know that there are so many of you, and a lot of you I'm sure who listen to podcasts, would really benefit from the book being audio. That your life is too busy, too chaotic, to sit down and read a book. And when you're stressed out as y'all are taking in information in written word can sometimes be pretty challenging. And so just know that yes, we are working really hard to convince the people in charge that this would be a great audiobook. One of the ways of course, the people in charge are making this decision is based on how well they think an audiobook would sell. And one of the ways they're making that decision is based on you know, the pre-orders from the paperback or the Kindle version of Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors. So if it is possible for you to preorder Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, and even if you don't like to read books, it could be a donation to your library, a donation to your kid's school, you know, a donation to the local child therapy office. You can actually get the book through my publisher for 20% off right now. So if you just go to robyngobbel.com/book you'll find different preorder options. One option is to get a signed copy, but a different option is to get that discount. And that really is the best way to increase the likelihood that the book gets made into an audiobook. Okay, so next week, come back, and we'll talk about strategies to connect with and calm the Watchdog and the Possum brain. Thank you all so much for tuning in one more time! Thank you all so much for showing up for yourself! Showing up for your kids! And I'll be back with you again next week! Bye bye.