A Brain-Based Way to Understand Baffling Behavior {EP 221}

Robyn: So that's what we do here on The Baffling Behavior Show we take the science of being relationally, socially and behaviorally human, look at the field of relational neuroscience and and use it to help us make sense of the most baffling behaviors, regardless of the why we are taking a little detour from our typical episodes and today's Episode I wrote and created very specifically, to be short, succinct and to the point, I want to give us a quick overview of a brain-based way to understand baffling behavior. And I'm hoping that this episode is something that you can maybe one, return to yourself if you're feeling like you need a little bit of regrounding in the why? I know sometimes I do. Sometimes I- even though I study this every day my whole life is about the science of heavenly behaviors. But even I sometimes need, like, a short, succinct way to reground back into the theory. As I, you know, move further and further into protection mode. Sometimes myself, right? And so having a place to come back to that short, succinct that I can reground in is super helpful. And I thought that might be helpful to you as well. But I also know that there's people in your lives who are open and interested in hearing about a different way to understand or conceptualize or be with or respond to your child's baffling behaviors, but also that these people are busy and they don't maybe have time for my 45 minute podcast episode about focusing on the nervous system to change behavior, which is a true like summary overview, they maybe don't have time to do my focus on the nervous system webinar, which is over an hour long, comes with an ebook, but but still, that's a lot of time to invest.    

Robyn: You know, my start here, podcast series has 10 episodes, so that's probably seven hours of content, if I had to guess. And of course, raising kids with big, baffling behaviors is an even bigger time commitment, so I'm going to work my hardest to keep this episode under 20 minutes. I've already passed the four-minute mark, y'all so we've got to go. Let's get going. So this way of understanding behaviors, thinking about behaviors through the lens of the autonomic nervous system is really dependent upon a complete philosophical paradigm shift about what we believe about behaviors in general, and for most folks who are now of the age of parenting or supporting other folks who are parenting we're adults and how we were raised and parented. It generally speaking, of course, not across the board, but generally speaking, is pretty contradictory to this nervous system understanding of behaviors, and it's not because the people who were grown-ups when we were kids were wrong. It's because they were working out of information that was available at that time, and now we have new and more information, and so our understanding of what behavior really is, and therefore how to support kids whose behaviors are challenging, it's changed, and that's wonderful. That's great again. That doesn't mean we were wrong previously. It's that we know more things now, and so we get to expand our understanding and expand our capacity to help so, very, very quickly. And then I'm going to shift into the model, I have found that really embracing these three core tenets is crucial for then shifting the model for that to actually work.    

Robyn: So my three core tenants, and I'm going to go through them quickly. There's other places you can dive much deeper into them, but my three core tenants are number one. Behavior is just what we see on the outside gives us some information about what's happening on the inside, behavior is neutral. Now that doesn't mean the impact of the behavior is neutral, right? Obviously, the impact of the behavior that's brought you to listening to this podcast is not neutral. It's bad. But the the impulse, the neuronal firing that starts that behavior. It's neutral. What we see on the outside just gives us some information about what's happening on the inside. Number two, connection is a biological imperative, which I learned from Dr Steve Porges and my mentor, Bonnie Badenoch. Connection is a biological imperative. Human beings, our brains develop inside connection. We need connection to survive. This is a core tenet of mine, because so many of these kids with baffling behaviors have behaviors that are essentially pushing away connection. I mean, we don't want to be in connection with people when they're acting this way. And so if connection is a biological imperative, and I'm in relationship with somebody who is very often pushing away connection, that's an invitation to take a pause and ask myself, like, Huh, that's odd. What's up with that? And then my third core tenant is that regulated, connected kids who feel safe and also do know what to do. They're doing well. They're behaving well.    

Robyn: Now what behave well means, you know, we could have a whole podcast episode about that. Maybe we should. But for today, let's just say behave well means that their caregivers aren't spending their free time listening to podcasts about how to change their behavior because they're doing, they're doing okay. They're they're just behaving the way, you know, average kids do, which is certainly not perfect, but it's also not challenging enough, baffling enough, or hurting other people or themselves, enough to send their caregivers, you know, to parenting podcast, parenting books and really, you know, investigating. Okay, parenting, okay, regulated, connected kids who feel safe and know to do are doing well. Now that's not a checklist, but an invitation to be curious. So when folks are struggling, we can ask ourselves, does this person need some support with regulation, with connection to themselves or others, or with felt safety? You know, when people have what they need, when they feel safe, when they feel connected to themselves and to others, their behaviors invite connection and relationship. Humans are good with the capacity to be bad, not the other way around. We don't need to make people act good. We need to give them optimal conditions so that their true selves can emerge, and that true self is good and cooperative and values relationships and doesn't objectify or hurt other people.   

Robyn: Behavioral impulses, the firing in the brain that kicks off the behavior we eventually see on the outside. And I say eventually, because in brain terms, there is quite a time lag between the behavioral impulse and what we see on the outside. Now in human terms, it appears instantaneous, right? The time lag is microseconds, and so it appears instantaneous, but in brain terms, actually quite a long time. So behavioral impulses, the thing that starts with behavior, emerges from the autonomic nervous system. Connection based behaviors emerge from a nervous system in connection mode. Those are behaviors, generally speaking, that we like we feel good when we're with someone in connection mode, protection mode behaviors emerge from a behavior in protection mode. Generally speaking, those are the behaviors that have us listening to behavior-based podcasts and reading parenting books. Baffling behaviors certainly emerge from protection mode, but so do other behaviors that are less baffling, but we just don't really like like, oppositionality, back talk, sassiness, lying, stealing, ignoring, shutting down. I have episodes about all these specific behaviors.    

Robyn: So to understand these different brain and nervous system states, the place where behavioral impulses emerge from, to understand these different brain and nervous system states, the kids that I've worked with over the years, I spent 15 years in the therapy office with kids with exceptionally baffling behaviors, and those kids helped me develop a metaphor, and I really feel like we developed it together, this metaphor, this playful metaphor of the Owl and the Watchdog and the Possum. And when we look at behavior through the lens of the Owl, Watchdog and the Possum, it gets easier to remember that it's not about behavior being good or bad. It's about what brain state is in charge. Where is the behavioral impulse emerging from the Owl, the Watchdog, the Possum, from connection mode or protection mode? Okay, so when a nervous system is in connection mode, and the Owl is in charge, the behavior is almost certainly what you want to be happening when the Owl flies away. And sometimes it flies away for a great reason, but those of you listening to this podcast are likely parenting kids whose Owls brains fly away really easily, right? Their Owl is very sensitive and gets, you know, overwhelmed and freaked out super quickly, and flies away really, really, really quickly.   

Robyn: So tiny, little stressors can leave your child's Watchdog or Possum brain in charge, and that discrepancy, right? You're like, do you need to any stressor? Huge, huge, huge response that is super baffling. Okay, so let's go over the Owl and the Watchdog and the Possum, my metaphor of the Owl or the Owl pathway, or the Owl brain, brings together both Dr. Porges's ideas of the eventual vagus as well as Dr. Bruce Perry's theory of neurosequential development. So the Owl and represents the highest brain region available. So the Owl is usually considered like our cortex, our thinking brain, but also, if we pull in Dr. Porges's work, we're reminded that the Owl isn't just the thinking brain. The Owl is safe and connected, safe and connected. So the Owl has behaviors of things like logic and language and being quote-unquote reasonable, having some awareness of cause and effect, but but with the Owls also has empathy, connection and cooperation.    

Robyn: Now, the Owl is in charge. When the nervous system is experiencing felt safety, when there's a neuroception of safety, the Owl gets to be in charge. The Owl wants to be in charge. From a nervous system perspective, the ventral vagus is longing to be engaged. The ventral vagus is the Owl. The ventral vagus is really the default. It's longing to be engaged as long as there's felt safety. Okay, and so the Owl emerges in safety and connection. And again, generally speaking, when I'm with families who are experiencing some problematic behavior, if I ask them, What kind of behaviors would they like to see from their kids, the behaviors that they describe our Owl brain behaviors. So that helps us shift away from changing behaviors to changing the brain and nervous system state. When the Owl is in charge, we have the capacity for logical reasoning. There's a pause before reacting. We can ask for help and be cooperative. We understand how our behaviors impact other people, and we care about it. So when we're thinking about trying to make sense of our kids behaviors, one question that could be helpful to ask is, Does this behavior make me want to move closer to my child, or is it a behavior for my child that's inviting me to be closer to them? Now, to be clear, Owls aren't extroverted, and Owls aren't desiring connection all the time with other people. Owls have connection to themselves as well, and aren't always, you know, out there looking to be connected with each other. So when people want to, like, be alone or read quietly or, you know, just have some time to themselves, that doesn't mean they're Owls not in charge.    

Robyn: Okay, Owls are about safety and connection. And connection to ourselves is an exceptionally valid way of being in connection and when the nervous system experiences more cues of danger than cues of safety. And this isn't only about what's happening in present time reality. Okay, we make sense of present time reality by remembering all the things that have happened to us prior to this moment. And remembering isn't a conscious process, you know, like our bodies are always making meaning out of what's happening now based on all the things that have happened to us before. Now. Okay, so when we look kind of at the tipping point of cues of safety and cues of danger. A lot of kids with baffling behaviors are getting overwhelming amounts of cues of danger from their memories, from their pasts, and it's like flooding them in the here and now, and it's causing their system to shift into protection mode, or maybe even live in protection mode. Okay? Even though, objectively speaking, the here and now is safe, and so when neuroception identifies more cues of danger than safety, the Watchdog takes over. Okay, we initiate the Watchdog pathway, and behaviors emerge from protection mode and from the Watchdog pathway. The Watchdog pathway is a pathway of energy. It's an accelerator. We would probably use language like fight or flight. It's a little more complicated than that, but for the purposes of this podcast, we can go with that. Okay, the Watchdog pathway is an increase in energy and in protection mode has fight-flight behavior, okay? So that also, though, is rude, sassiness, back talk, okay? Oppositionality, defiance, yelling, screaming, running, threatening to run, using aggressive words, like, I hate you, right? And then, of course, physically aggressive behavior. All those behaviors from the most mild right of like the defiant ignoring or refusing to cooperate, to physical aggression, those are Watchdog behaviors, and if we want them to change, we want to focus on changing the nervous system so that the behavioral impulse comes from connection mode instead of protection mode. Behavioral impulses from connection mode are not oppositional, defined or aggressive.   

Robyn: Now, if the neuro nervous system is neuroceiving Life threats, so even more accused of danger than just danger, it initiates the Possum pathway. And the Possum pathway is, in some ways, the opposite of the Watchdog pathway. Instead of a pathway of energy inactivation, it's a pathway that conserves energy, significantly decreases energy. It's the pathway of collapse, shut down and dissociation. And just like the Watchdog pathway, can have a pretty wide range of behaviors. We see from it depending how far down the pathway they are, so does the Possum. It can vary from like, just kind of spaced out, checked out in la la land, behavior all the way to complete collapse, shut down, dissociation. And then somewhere in the middle, there's our kids that are super sluggish, really disconnected. They're hard to even get out of bed. They're really reluctant to engage with others or even with themselves. And again, that's not about temperament. All temperament differences are valid and wonderful. Some folks are more engaged in social connection than others. So this isn't about temperament. This is about a lack of safety causing the nervous system to come into itself and disengage. Possum kids can really fly under the radar. One maybe we don't even notice, because they're just kind of easy to deal with, especially if we're dealing with a lot of Watchdogs. But also sometimes, because the behavior doesn't look overtly dysregulated, it's just really easy to kind of label their behaviors as more like characterological behaviors, like, Oh, they're just lazy.    

Robyn: Now I'm not saying the way that we describe behaviors is even wrong. Behaviors are things like controlling, manipulative, shutdown, attention seeking, work avoidant like, those are accurate labels for behavior. But that's just the beginning of the conversation. We have to get way more curious than that. Like, why lazy? Why oppositional? Why work avoidant? What pathway is this coming from? And why is this child objectively safe? Why then are they neuro seeming a lack of safety, and how do we support that, which is a really big question when we're not answering in this episode, okay, but there are ways to do that. I have a whole model of ways to do that. But what I want to emphasize with today's short overview episode is that we want to shift out of feeling like we want to stop Watchdog or Possum behaviors. What we want to do is strengthen the Owl brain, help the Owl feel safe enough to return and only fly away when it really, really needs to, because the behaviors we want are behaviors from the Owl and the Owl gets stronger with connection co regulation and felt safety. And so that's why we have such an emphasis on seeing behavior through the lens of the nervous system, and when possible, responding with connection co regulation and felt safety, because I don't want to just stop the behavior. I want to do what we can do to one, stop the behavior, by helping the nervous system shift into connection mode, and then, two, grow the Owl brain, so this behavior happens less in the future, all behavior makes sense when we understand the brain state behind the behavior and the nervous system state, we get way better ideas about how to respond.    

Robyn: I do have a couple downloads that can support you along with this episode. One is a one pager that kind of pulls together the all behavior makes sense concepts with neuroception and the state of the nervous system and things like that. It's just a one pager. And then I have a multi page packet that really goes through Owl, Watchdog, Possum states. So if you look down in the show notes, you'll see links where you can go and download those resources. So in addition to downloading those resources, here's what I want you to do next, spend some time, maybe give yourself a goal like over the next week, I am going to work really hard to notice my own I will Watchdog and Possum states as well as look at behaviors that my kids are demonstrating, and ask myself, hmm, is that Owl, Watchdog or Possum behavior? And then, if you want to, you can go one step further and get curious about what kinds of things help me return to safety, so that my Owl brain can be in charge, and what kinds of things seem to help my kids return to safety, so that there I will brain in charge.   

Robyn: All right, y'all, I did pretty good. I'm a pretty long winded individual, as you've maybe noticed, and so here we are. I'm at 23 minutes, which doesn't include any kind of intro that gets added on to some of my podcast episodes, 23 minutes of actual podcast episode, and I gave you the summary that I was hoping for at the beginning, I mentioned other resources that are ways to explore the model slightly more in depth. So there's a longer podcast episode, there's a longer webinar, there's the book, which is, of course, even longer. I'll make sure all of those resources get down in the show notes, if you are listening to this episode, because somebody asked you to somebody said, please listen to this to better understand how I see my kids behaviors, and to consider if you are willing to help me be with my kid in this way, to strengthen their own nervous system, To strengthen their Owl brain. If you're listening because someone asks you for help, thank you. Even if you're ending going like, no, I don't believe in this and nah, I get it. I get it. But you listened, you demonstrated your care and support and connection for that person who asked by listening. So thank you very much. If you are curious and your interest is piqued, subscribe to the podcast. Scroll back. There's a lot of episodes you can choose from, and a new episode is released every week. So regardless of who you are and why you're listening, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing to support kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big, baffling behaviors. I'll be back with you all again next week.