Ah yes. The dreaded flop.
When our kids are toooooo exhausted to do a request or a chore.
What do we do?!?!
I’ll be answering one question every Friday in February.
Have a question? Leave me a voice message over at https://robyngobbel.com/podcast
Look for the box that says “Send me a question!”
Hit the button and record your question right on my website. Easy peasy!
See you next week!
Every day, I connect with parents in my inbox, in social media, in The Club who are struggling and confused by conflicting parenting advice.
One expert says name your kid’s feelings for them.
Another says don’t.
One expert says eye contact is super important.
Another says don’t force it. (By the way, don’t force eye contact).
One expert says never ever change your expectations for your child- be predictable!
Another says don’t hesitate to change your expectations to match your child’s capabilities.
Parenting kids with big baffling behaviors is nothing if it’s not extremely confusing.
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You go searching for help. And you find it! Then you find more help- but it contradicts the first help.
Then your neighbor shares a podcast that recommends something different.
Oh yeah, and then grandma sends an article that’s different yet again.
I know that when it feels like everything is crumbling down around you, finding an expert who says that they have a fool-proof answer is relieving. It’s regulating! It helps you feel less alone and less hopeless.
Those are super important feelings.
Almost always though, it backfires.
It’s kinda like how behavior charts can work in the short term for our kids- but then ultimately they backfire.
They backfire for the same reason.
Behavior charts don’t solve the real problem.
Parent experts who only teach “what to do” don’t solve the real problem.
I know it might sound exhausting but the only person who can become an expert at your kid is you.
Well, and your child of course. Hopefully, that goes without saying.
Having a tool-box full of parenting tools, scripts to say when faced with disrespect or lying, or even a sensory strategy like offering a drink or a snack to a child who is being sassy is really important.
Parents aren’t experts in the sensory system. You need people to give you those ideas.
Having a script to respond to a problem when you otherwise don’t know how to respond is great.
Sometimes they’ll work!
They’ll help you feel more regulated and grounded and less helpless. That’s very important in parenting!
Sometimes they won’t work.
Sometimes your sassy child who previously loved the smoothie you offered will scream NO back in your face.
The “try that again with respect” script will be met with a sneer.
Not because these are bad strategies. Nope. These are strategies that make sense.
Sometimes.
I mean it all really just depends.
On your child.
Your history.
Their history.
How dysregulated they are.
What happened in the moments previous.
There are just so many variables!!!
Offering a drink to a sassy kid is potentially regulating because offering drinks is a nurturing gesture. There’s a sensory component to drinking. Does you kid like hot or cold drinks? Thick, smoothie like drinks? With a straw?
Well, sucking can be regulating so thick and through a straw might be a great idea.
But if your kid is tooooo dysregulated- like a barking growling watchdog that I’d say is on the ‘terror’ level of Dr. Perry’s arousal continuum and the most likely thing that will happen when you offer a drink is that it gets chucked back at you.
It’s not that drinks aren’t regulating. It’s that it wasn’t the right tool for the right moment.
“Try that again with respect” can be a great option for a child who is mildly dysregulated.
This means there’s still enough connection that the child is interested in preserving that connection.
This means that the level of dysregulation is mild enough that language can still be processed – they understand YOUR words- and language can still be accessed – they can form words!
But when your child responds with a curse word and a shocking gesture, it’s not that it’s a tool that doesn’t work.
It’s that they were too dysregulated.
Almost always when folks ask me how to address a specific moment in parenting- usually a specific behavior that they find problematic- my answer is “well that depends.”
What’s the child’s level of dysregulation? What’s happening in their body? Let’s check out felt safety and remember felt-safety isn’t just about relationship. Felt-safety is about the environment, the child’s inner world, and allllll their previous experiences matter, too.
Oh and…kids only come into regulation, connection, and felt-safety if WE are regulated, connected, and our nervous system is able to offer safety.
Which doesn’t mean that our kids’ behavior problems are necessarily our fault, but it does mean that our first priority is always to attune to and check ourselves.
If we’re dysregulated, and sometimes rightfully so, how can we expect our kids to become more regulated?
And more regulated is indeed what we are going for if we are going for improved behavior.
Parenting experts – and I recognize you might consider me one but actually, I don’t – can easily run the risk of disempowering parents.
I don’t consider myself a parenting expert.
You know what I know a lot about?
The nervous system. The science of safety. How behaviors emerge from our autonomic state.
I know a lot about attachment. I understand the neurobiology of disorganized attachment and how this translates to behaviors.
I teach about that.
I want you to become your child’s expert (well as much as you can. Your child is their own expert, actually). I want you to understand the science of safety and what behavior really is.
I also want you to apply alllllll the information to yourself, so you can have compassion for yourself.
With a few tools in your pocket, an understanding of why those tools work, and some compassion for yourself so you can stay regulated, too, YOU become your child’s expert.
It’s great to get ideas from others. I get a LOT of ideas from other people. About parenting. Growing a business. Being a good partner. Friendship. Being an aerialist!
But ultimately, they are ideas. I can combine those ideas with what I know about my child, my business, my clients, my partner, my friends, and my body and then the magic can really happen.
Then I can use my regulation, my embodied attunement to myself and to others, and allow my quiet wisdom to guide my next step.
I still get a lot of things wrong. Parenting, partnering, in business, as a helper…
But because I’m in the relationship as my full self and not just as someone using tools, I can use the mistake to help me know what to do next.
Keep learning about the science of behavior. Make sense of what feels impossible to make sense of- your kids behavior!!!
Grow your own window of tolerance. Be your child’s expert. Yet stay curious and humble enough to know that actually your child is their own expert.
Learn from the experts. But learn the science. Learn the why.
When you know the why, when you understand what behavior really is and the science of safety, you’ll be able to figure out how to approach any behavior.
Or at least a lot of them. And you’ll feel a lot more confident admitting when you have no idea what to do next. Because neither do the experts.
Sarah Bren, PhD is a clinical psychologist and mom to two little ones in upstate New York where she loves to work with new parents, especially parents who want to parent differently than they were parented.
Dr. Bren developed an interest in working with parents when she became a parent herself. She was learning about parenting and parenting models and realized that so much of what she was reading directly related to the work she was doing with adult clients.
This insight sparked Dr. Bren’s interest in working with parents with the goal of helping parents break generational patterns and hopefully reduce the number of adults who have to heal from their childhoods.
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I remember when I first learned about attachment parenting, I really wanted a better checklist. I wanted the parenting experts to just tell me what to do to raise a kid with secure attachment.
Regretfully, I didn’t find exactly the checklist I was looking for. Yet Dr. Bren reminded me that in a way, there is a checklist. It just doesn’t contain things like “babywear” or “cosleep.”
Dr. Bren looks at attachment theory as an umbrella. Under the umbrella there are lots of different ways of parenting that are supported by attachment theory. For some families, that’s attachment parenting. For some families, it’s not.
Dr. Bren reminds us that secure attachment emerges from secure attachment to ourselves. Secure attachment to ourselves involves being attuned to ourselves, noticing our own needs and feelings, and responding to our own needs while negotiating how to respond to our child’s needs.
When we lose ourselves in the parenting relationship and focus only on our children’s needs and never on our own, we can unintentionally foster a relationship that looks more like co-dependence.
Our children can struggle to feel like separate individuals. This ultimately leads to a lot of anxiety when children and parents aren’t together.
Secure attachment leads to feelings of both connection and autonomy. Togetherness and separateness.
When babies are born, they are merged with their caregiver. This is by design!
As babies grow and get older, it’s inevitable that their caregiver will misattune to them.
Not only is this inevitable but it’s good. It allows our children to develop their sense of separateness.
“I’m different from my caregiver. We aren’t the same person. I am me and you are you.” ~Babies developing secure attachment.
This separateness is actually the very foundation for secure attachment.
It’s impossible to attune to someone else if you aren’t first attuned to ourselves.
As a parent, this can be so hard! We are working so hard to be tuned in to our kids that we can lose our attunement to ourselves.
You might be reading this and reflecting on attachment with your older child- maybe even with your adult children.
Sometimes learning about attachment when our children are older can evoke a feeling of hopelessness. It can feel like it’s too late to make any changes.
It’s never too late and there is so much hope!
When we are motivated to shift our relationship with our older or adult children, we often want to know what to do.
The first step, though, is getting quiet with ourselves. The first step is determining where your own safety is. How do you feel safe? What is the safest relationship you have ever had?
If we want our children to feel safe in their relationship with us, we have to feel safe in our relationship with ourselves.
The second step is often to explore our own attachment relationships. How were we parented? And how did that impact us? Why are my triggers?
The third step, and only after we explore steps one and two, is to ask ourselves the question “And now what do I do differently?”
Exploring these types of questions with ourselves is a step toward more security with ourselves! Curiosity both leads to and emerges from secure attachment.
If we had caregivers who were with us with curiosity, that curiosity becomes our narrative. If we had caregivers who were harsh or critical, that criticism becomes our narrative.
As an adult working toward secure attachment, we can develop relationships with curious people and can become our own curious voice.
Instead of asking ourselves “What is wrong with you?” we can shift to asking ourselves “That’s interesting- I wonder what’s happening right now?”
It’s possible to internalize the curious voice of a friend, a partner, or a therapist. It’s also possible to internalize the curious voice of a fictional character.
One of my internalized fictional characters is Anne from Anne of Green Gables. Her curiosity for life, her delight, her ease in finding the goodness in everyone is a way of being I’ve deliberately internalized.
Dr. Bren and I agree that we both think therapy is a wonderful way to develop a new way of being with ourselves, but it’s not the only way. So many people don’t have access to therapy, and so many people have found healing without therapy.
So many of us want to parent our kids differently than we were parented. It’s important to take one step back from that question and ask ourselves “How can we parent ourselves differently?”
If we can do that with ourselves, we’ll be more successful at doing this with our children.
The curious, compassionate, “all parts of you are welcome” way of being is the path to secure attachment with our children. ~Robyn Gobbel
Follow Dr. Bren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsarahbren/
Listen to Dr. Bren’s podcast: https://drsarahbren.com/category/podcast/
Listen to when I was a guest on Dr. Bren’s podcast: https://drsarahbren.com/26-redefining-trauma-informed-parenting-how-parents-can-utilize-this-framework-for-all-children/
Check our Dr. Bren’s parent course: https://drsarahbren.com/tap
Early in this episode, Dr. Bren and I briefly discussed my free downloadable eBook all about The Brilliance of Attachment. Download that free eBook here: https://robyngobbel.com/ebook
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. ~Carl Rogers
You know, one of my favorite things about studying relational neuroscience is discovering the science that proves things we’ve known all along.
Not everyone needs the science, and I know some think the science destracts from the powerful truths that people have been brave enough to say and believe without having science to back it up.
I think both approaches are fine. I just happen to like the science.
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Y’all I remember being pretty pissed about this sentiment by Carl Rogers.
How could I accept parts of myself? How could I do that with the explicit purpose of wanting to change because frankly that seemed to contradict itself. And I wanted to follow the instructions correctly because yeah I really wanted to change. I’m very good at following instructions to eventually obtain the end result.
But that didn’t seem exactly what Carl Rogers had in mind.
I also wanted to understand why. WHY did acceptance lead to the possibility of change?
You know, I needed to make sure Carl Rogers wasn’t tricking me. And if I could understand the mechanics of this phenomenon I could perhaps risk accepting the parts of me I was pretty desperate to change.
First I had to understand the mechanisms behind change.
Change that wasn’t just about developing a new behavior that was stronger than the one I wanted to change but real true change. Change that reached the depths of whatever was driving that behavior.
The field of interpersonal neurobiology tells us that the characteristics of integration are Flexibility, Adaptability, Coherence, Energetic, and Stable.
That seemed like a good place for me to start because yeah, the parts of myself I was pretty desperate to change aren’t flexible, adaptive, coherent, energetic or stable.
But here’s something interesting…desperation isn’t flexible, adaptive, coherent, energetic or stable either. Desperation is the opposite of flexible, that’s for sure. Desperation, for me, is quite rigid and actually pretty stagnant, not energetic.
I pondered this- I was seeking integration for sure, but taking a path that wasn’t integrated at all.
I suspected that was something worth looking into.
The idea of integration intrigued me, though it did perplex me a little. It felt slippery- I couldn’t quite hold on to the definition and wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. But I was intrigued.
Interpersonal Neurobiology also tells us that an integrated mind leads to response flexibility, regulation, the ability to participate in attuned communication, empathy, insight.
Cool. I wanted those things.
The parts of me I was desperate to change weren’t those things.
But then I learned something else that really actually changed my whole life.
We are all always seeking connection, and my mentor Bonnie Badenoch says the most nourishing connections we can imagine.
That one gave me pause.
How could this make sense? How could I bring together some of these behaviors I was desperate to change with the idea that my system was always seeking connection?
Because just take my word for it- these weren’t behaviors there were exactly inviting connection.
They weren’t behaviors that were inviting connection with others and definitely not with myself- given that I was desperate to banish them.
Could both be true? Could there be a part of me that has behaviors that I want to change while another part of me that’s always seeking nourishing connections?
I suddenly had to consider the possibility that the part of me I wanted to change was indeed- just a part.
It wasn’t all of me.
It wasn’t who I was at my core.
Who I am at my core is the same as who everyone else is at their core.
Precious. Good. Full of infinite worth. Longing for connection. Deserving of connection.
I’m telling this story a little bit backwards actually because for me, it was easier to believe these ideas first about everyone else.
I embraced this theory as a professional first.
I embraced this theory as a professional who loved to work with kids who’d experienced attachment trauma.
Who had very real, troubling, and even dangerous behaviors that certainly did not invite connection.
They were kids who seemed as though the last thing they ever would want is connection and they worked quite hard to make sure we all knew that.
I embraced this theory during a time period when the popular belief about kids with a history of attachment trauma was basically the opposite of “we are all longing for connection.”
I felt like I had to.
I didn’t know how else to keep showing up to work to welcome these kids – and adults too – who had very intense push away behaviors if I didn’t believe that somewhere underneath all of it they were – like everyone else- seeking connection.
OK back to the idea that it’s only when we can accept something as it is that change becomes possible.
There was a part of me that thought accepting meant excusing, allowing, or inviting.
If I accepted this part of me- if I accepted these parts of my clients- it meant I was giving up.
But how could it possibly mean that if I knew in my core that we are all always seeking connection.
What if I could really truly trust that truth?
What if I didn’t need to try to change anyone- including myself- because we are all always trying to move toward integration?
What if acceptance absolutely positively did not mean the behavior that was emerging from that part of self was OK?
What if acceptance simply means that I am connecting to reality in this moment.
Acceptance means getting very curious and compassionate about what is happening inside that person- or myself- that is more powerful than our inherent drive for connection.
It’s not that our inherent drive for connection- and therefore for behaviors that are inviting of connection- disappears. It’s that something else becomes more powerful.
We are all driven for connection, yet, but we are all also driven for survival.
Can you imagine anything more tragic than the felt sense that connection – to ourselves or to others- is so terrifying that protection based behaviors emerge instead?
OK OK OK I’m veering off track again from the premise here- that only when we accept something as it is is change possible.
I mean, I’m kinda veering off track. I’m really showing you all the tracks I took to finally be willing to believe that.
If I want something in myself to change- or something in someone else to change- I have to find a way to be with that something with an integrated presence.
What the heck is an integrated presence!?
Well I won’t bore you will alllll the science but we can be certain than an integrated presence has characteristics like curiosity and compassion. An integrated presence feels open, not constricted, and definitely not desperate.
I’m a therapist so I worked my tail off cultivating the ability to sit with folks – some of who had extremely challenging behaviors not just outside my office but inside my office- with curiosity and compassion.
Notice, I never said CALM.
Eventually I had to have a real heart to heart with myself as I wondered why I continued to consider myself the one outlying variable here.
Why wasn’t I worthy of this approach?
Could I connect with the parts of myself that I was desperate to change with curiosity and compassion??
Turns out, I can.
Yup, it’s reallllllly hard work. It’s so counterintuitive. It almost feels even absurd at times.
But I can and I must and I do and it’s exactly what the hurting parts of me need.
It’s also exactly what the hurting parts of our kids need.
We have to stay grounded in the truth that these behaviors that we realllllly want to change are indeed grounded in hurt and fear.
They must be. If there was no hurt and fear, connection based behaviors would emerge.
There is no formula I can give you, no step by step instructions on how to practice this place of acceptance while also still honoring your own truth which is that you realllllly want a certain behavior to change.
Maybe, in your quietest moments, you connect with the parts of you that want a behavior to change – in yourself or in others- and you experiment with curiosity.
Why would someone who is biologically driven for connection have a behavior that is pushing away connection?
I promise promise promise that we can find moments of acceptance that aren’t about giving up, or allowing bad behavior, or no longer hoping something changes.
Acceptance is about a moment. In this moment, my child or me or my partner or my client, has something happening for them that is leading them to believe they need to prioritize behaviors of protection over behaviors of connection.
Sometimes- certainly not ALL the times but sometimes- that may just inspire us to lean in and offer safety. Or connection.
A gesture that makes sense when our belief is “you’re hurting” instead of a belief of “I need your behavior to change.”
Always. Your desperation to get a behavior to change is emerging from your own fear. Your fear deserves to be met with compassion.
Maybe that’s why you come here. So I can give you heaps of compassion.
Until one day you’ll notice that you hear my compassionate voice in your head even when you aren’t listening to this podcast.
And then one day you’ll notice that the compassionate voice in your head is yours.
You know what’s super cool? What I’m doing for you is what you are doing for your child. They’ll eventually internalize your compassion and eventually they’ll have compassion for themselves.
I can’t think of anything more amazing.
As I sat down to prep this final podcast episode of 2021- I really paused and reflected on the question- what do you need?
What do you need in December? In a time of year that often involves increased dysregulation and chaos. There are more responsibilities this time of year. You might feel more pressure to have a family that looks or acts a certain way.
There are definitely more opportunities to enforce our own boundaries.
And almost certainly more opportunities to grieve that this isn’t life you imagined.
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Maybe you’re realizing for the first time that you can grieve that truth while also being OK.
I remember the first time I consciously realized that I was sitting squarely in ‘wow everything is awful right now’ while at the same time still being so content and even grateful for the different layers of goodness in my life.
Maybe you cannot even imagine that being true.
Both places are OK.
Maybe this is the year you’ve come into connection with the truth that you are not alone.
You may indeed be extremely lonely- parenting kids with big behaviors can be traumatically lonely- but you are not alone.
Maybe this is the year you’ve come into connection to the truth that there is nothing wrong with you. Or your child.
Maybe this is the year you’ve come into connection with that the truth that there is nothing wrong with you and there are always things we could work on to do better.
I know that’s true for me.
I really believe, finally, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me.
I also know that there are still many, many moments when I get dysregulated, when my hurting inner parts get touched, awakened, and overwhelmed.
When this happens, I sometimes behave in a way that hurts me or the people I love.
There’s nothing wrong with me and I can keep fiercely working to care for my own inner world so that I don’t hurt the people I love.
That is my wish for you, too.
There’s very little I can do to change what’s hard in your life. You know that. I know that.
What I can do, what I strive to do every day, is to show up in your life- whether that’s in your earbuds on this podcast- in your inbox, in The Club where we are getting to know each other so well, or maybe you’re even someone I know really really well.
Regardless of how we are connected, me and you- we are connected.
Every day I strive to show up in your life and remind you of your infinite worth.
I strive to remind you that you are worthy of compassion.
I strive to remind you that you are a perfectly imperfect human doing their absolute very best. And so are your kids.
Helping you see your own infinite worth and how you are deserving of self-compassion doesn’t change anything about what’s hard in your life.
But over time, it will help you ride the rollercoaster of hard a little more smoothly.
So that’s what I do. I try to show up and tenaciously prove up to you that you are good and worth of self-compassion. That all behavior makes sense- yours and your child’s and really, everyone else’s.
Obviously, as I sat down to ponder what do you need from this final episode of 2021, I ended up realizing I really have no idea what you need!
This reflection actually turned out to be more of what I needed. Perhaps it ended up being what you needed, too.
The podcast will be back in January. I’m not going to promise you when in January because I’m just not sure yet! In the next few weeks, I’m focusing on my family, my incoming cohort of Being With, and all the parents in The Club. I’m focusing on play and rest and the Nutcracker and spending days in my pjs and maybe even going downhill skiing if we get any good snow.
Y’all I really seriously started this podcast on a whim. I was going to do Facebook lives and I thought I’d throw the audios into a podcast feed and wha-la. Podcast.
I did that. For four or five episodes.
Then I realized I kinda hated those Facebook Lives but I loved podcasting.
This makes sense because I love listening to podcasts and delight in feeling as though total strangers are my friends because I hear them so often in my ear buds.
I delight in the idea that maybe you feel like we know each other.
For a podcast on a whim, I’m pretty darn proud of what we’ve created here. The guests I’ve been lucky to host, the new friends I’ve made, the laughter, and the emails I get from you.
Thank you for bringing me on your journey and thank you for being a part of mine. I’ll see you back here in 2022!!!
Lori Desautels is an assistant professor in the College of Education at Butler University in Indianapolis. Dr. Desautels is especially interested in applying the social and affective neurosciences, including polyvagal theory, into the education setting. Dr. Desautels also spends two days a week in the classroom, currently with 7th graders, where she has the opportunity to be applying the concepts she is teaching to other educators.
Dr. Desautels remembers that even before she moved into academia or had the opportunity to be exposed to social neuroscience she had a lot of curiosity about what behavior really is. She’s always been on a quest to find out what is driving behavior (sound familiar?!).
Now equipped with the science of behavior, including the autonomic nervous system, she is tenaciously working to bring this science to classroom educations.
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The brainstem, Dr. Desautels described, speaks the language of sensation. Children who in a state of arousal or not experiencing felt-safety, will respond to sensation or sensation-based language to help bring safety and soothing into their nervous system.
If we want children’s higher brains to work- where memory, language, and facts are all located- they have to have safe and soothed brainstems.
Children, and of course educators too, are stressed. Their brainstems need safety and soothing first so that they can learn at school.
Disruptive behaviors- opposition, defiance, refusal to participate- are behaviors that fall somewhere on the fight/flight/collapse continuums. These are behaviors that are emerging from a state of survival.
When we discipline survival based behaviors, that discipline backfires because we are adding to stress instead of decreasing stress.
Behavior management is not about children- it’s about the adults! It’s about being attuned to, soothing, and regulating our own nervous system. If we want to change the behavior of children, we have to bring safety and soothing to the adult’s nervous system!
The subtitle of Dr. Desautels’ book is Rewiring of Perceptions of Discipline. In her book, Dr. Desautels provides the research that backs up the assertion that a dysregulated adult cannot help to regulate a dysregulated child. For the majority of adults, this is a new look at what discipline really is.
Dr. Desautels shared that she has spent years practicing awareness of her own physiological cues- tone of voice, tightness in her muscles and other indicators of stress in her own nervous system. As she grows in awareness by intentionally noticing, she is better able to regulate her own stress and then co-regulate her students.
Dr. Desautels emphasizes that there isn’t a better or right state of the nervous system. It’s OK not to be OK! The important piece isn’t being in a certain state of the nervous system it’s about developing the capacity to notice the ebbs and flows in our own nervous system.
With increased awareness, we can increase our ability to be present with ourselves and offer ourselves self-compassion. Presence and self-compassion begin to bring our own nervous system more into a state of safety.
Dr. Desautels reminded us that movement, rhythm, and sensory experiences can all offer experiences of safety to our nervous system.
Practices of focused attention- training our brain to be present in the here and now and notice what’s actually happening- have the potential to create significant change in our nervous system. Dr. Desautels’ work with schools and educators is helping them bring these practices into their classrooms.
I asked Dr. Desautels how she is bringing these ideas to educators who are stressed and overwhelmed. How is she helping educators see the benefits of tending to the nervous system without them feeling like it’s one more thing to do.
Dr. Desautels stated that she teachers educators that she isn’t adding anything more to their plate. Their nervous system- whether they are paying attention to it or not- is their plate. She is teaching educators to be more connected to what already exists.
She is also teaching educators to look at discipline as something that is always happening, it’s happening naturally. Discipline is noticing a student’s nervous system, and discipline is prompting three deep breaths. She is teaching educators how to look at behaviors differently and that’s discipline.
Discipline isn’t only responsive (occurring after a child’s negative behavior) and it’s definitely not punishment. Discipline is developing proactive practices to help children become more connected to themselves, each other, and to the adults.
Dr. Desautels and I have similar experiences that when we teach the science of nervous system and the science of behavior it doesn’t feel like we are stressing out our already stressed nervous system by adding ‘one more thing’ to our plates. Understanding the science of behavior feels relieving. It brings attunement and resonance to our own nervous systems and decreases- not increases- our stress.
Dr. Desautels’ website: Revelations in Education
Her book: Connection over Compliance: Rewiring our Perceptions of Discipline can be ordered HERE on Amazon. The audio book is coming soon!
You might have met Jim Sporleder in the groundbreaking documentary Paper Tigers. Jim is the former principal of Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, Washington, where he led his team and ultimately his students on the journey of becoming a trauma-informed school.
The work Jim, his team, and his students did was so phenomenal that it inspired the documentary Paper Tigers. If you haven’t seen Paper Tigers, I highly recommend it. It is absolutely worth your time!
Keep reading or listen on the podcast!
Jim was inspired to shift toward a trauma-informed lens because he knew his school and his students needed something different. He attended a trauma and toxic stress conference in 2010 where he was exposed to a completely new paradigm on behavior.
“I always believed behavior was a choice,” Jim said.
He left that conference in 2010 with a new – and radically different – understanding of behavior. He said it felt like he was hit by a bolt of lightning; he knew immediately that his approach to discipline needed to change.
When Jim got back to his school after the conference, he made the announcement that the school would be taking a new approach and he set out to get his staff trained in a trauma-informed approach.
Jim remembers the first student he approached in a new way- a student who had cussed out a teacher. Instead of laying into the student with a lecture and assigning the automatic three-day suspension, Jim asked the student “Hey, what’s going on?”
This simple question invited the student into connection. The student- without any prompting- ultimately took responsibility for his behavior and offered to apologize to the teacher. The student left the interaction with Jim by saying, “Thanks for talking. It really helped.”
If we seek the voice, validate the feelings, we give self-worth to the kids we are working with.” ~Jim Sporleder
This wasn’t a unique experience! Jim found that this was the common way this new approach to discipline challenges went. This immediate and dramatic shift really “lit a fire” in Jim and his staff.
One of the most remarkable pieces of Jim’s story is how quickly he was able to shift his paradigm and step out of taking behaviors personally.
Jim stated that his staff worked together as a team to continually support and remind each other not to take behavior personally. They held each other accountable for staying curious and able to provide each other, and their students, with co-regulation.
My favorite scene from Paper Tigers is when one of the teachers wrapped up a lesson by saying “I love you guys.”
In that moment, professionals who work with kids were given permission to do what’s in their heart- express to their students that they love them.
It isn’t weird or creepy or inappropriate.
It’s just true. And needed.
Did this new approach always work immediately?
No.
Did it always change the student’s life outside of school?
No. Some kids still struggled with gang involvement or drug abuse.
But it never didn’t work.
If we are measuring our impact on changed behavior, we aren’t going to always see concrete indicators of change.
We are always hoping that kids can find safer ways to be in the world.
But simply because we don’t see clear behavior change doesn’t mean the approach isn’t working.
Maybe the student’s behavior will change in five years. Maybe as a professional, we’ll be lucky enough to know about it. Maybe we won’t.
But the brain can’t not change.
This approach can’t not work.
We’ll never be able to reach 100% of the kids. But there’s no reason we can’t love 100% of the kids.” ~Jim Sporleder
It’s not a budget item. We don’t need to worry about funding to love kids.
I resonated so strongly with how Jim described how this trauma-responsive approach has change who he is as person, not just what he does in his job.
It’s changed every cell of who I am.” ~ Robyn Gobbel
We are in our third school-year of pandemic schooling.
Kids have gone through, and continue to go through, extreme stress.
Teachers has gone through, and continue to go through, extreme stress.
If ever we need a new approach, it’s now.” ~ Jim Sporleder
Unfortunately, it’s hard to shift to a new approach when we are under the extreme stress our educators are experiencing.
Curiosity emerges from a nervous system that is regulated and safe, and curiosity is needed to be open to considering and then trying a new approach.
Our educators need exactly what our kids need.
They need to be safe, seen, soothed, and secure (Dr. Daniel Siegel).
Some of our educators are in literal danger at school. They’ve been assaulted by parents. They are facing COVID exposure. They can’t take a day off because there aren’t any substitutes.
Thank you for still doing your job. Thank you for not quitting. For continuing to show up every day and trying to bring safety to our students.
We must see our educator’s humanity, first. This will relieve our stress and their’s.
Connect with Jim
Watch Paper Tigers on iTunes by CLICKING HERE.
Watch Paper Tigers on Amazon by CLICKING HERE.
Watch Paper Tigers on You Tube by CLICKING HERE.
Find Jim’s consulting services by CLICKING HERE.
Jim is the co-author (with Heather Forbes) of The Trauma Informed School. You can find that by CLICKING HERE.
Greg Santucci is an Occupational Therapist who has taken Facebook by storm with his bold, playful, and useful posts about working with kids- especially kids with regulation challenges. He currently works both in a hospital clinic and in the schools. Greg also has a consultation and training business where he gets to travel the country, training schools and occupational clinics in his ground-making model of working with kids through the lens of regulation and the neuroscience of behavior (sound familiar?!).
Greg has years of experience as a school-based occupational therapist and advocating for the respectful treatment of students.
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Greg is vocal voice in the movement away from behavioral therapy, especially ABA. He is emphatically opposed to behavioral methodology and practices while at the same time, he never criticized the professionals who have worked from a behavioral model.
We know more now and we have to be brave enough to move past what we thought we knew.
Greg Santucci
One of my favorite moments in this interview was when Greg talked about how he is more fired up now in his work than ever before. He’s feeling inspired, energized, and loves the work he is doing.
And this is during a time when so many of our colleagues are feeling burned out!
I feel the same way. In addition to how the pandemic has impacted the mental health field and the families I work with, my own life has been more stressful than ever before.
Despite this, I feel the same way Greg does (mostly!).
Fired up! Energetic. Passionate. Not burned out.
I’ve reflected on this before and I think this has everything to do with working within a framework that is in attunement with the way our bodies and nervous systems actually work.
I can see, conceptualize, and be with very challenging behaviors without taxing my own nervous system because I’m in energetic attunement and connection with what behavior really is– an expression of the autonomic nervous system.
I’m not making judgments about anyone’s character, or shifting into righteous indignation, or trying to control their behavior (mostly!).
This has positively impacted my personal life too.
I have reflected more than once than I have no idea how I would have made it through the pandemic, the election season, and the significant challenges in my own family is if I wasn’t solidly grounded in the relational neuroscience of behavior.
We have to get back to the humanity of our work and away from getting kids to doing what we want by giving them something they want.
Greg Santucci
When we are focused on manipulatively changing someone else’s behavior, we are working in direct contradiction of their nervous system.
And our’s too.
The image that comes to mind for me is climbing up the downshoot of a slide. We’re going against what is supposed to be happening. There is a lot of friction and a lot of hard work.
When you go with the slide- the way it’s designed- it’s so much easier. There’s a breath of relief that happens even as I type this.
Using coercive, manipulative interventions with anyone is so out of attunement with our own nervous systems that we have no choice but to disembody ourselves from the intuitive sensations that arise in our body that tells us we are doing something that is out of alignment.
This is so taxing on our nervous systems and I might even be bold enough to say that I think this underlies many (most) of the way we culturally and politically dehumanize anyone who is ‘not the same’ as us.
But that’s another podcast for another day.
So often, I hear the question- “Is this sensory or is this behavioral?” And I’m not even an OT!
Or the other question I get is “Is this a trauma behavior? Or just a regular acting out behavior?” (I answer that question HERE.)
There is no such thing as just behavioral. It’s not even possible.
All behavior is sensory. It can’t not be. Everything is sensory.
CLICK HERE for a great article written by my friend and colleague Amy Lewis: “Is it Sensory or Is It Behavior?”
Preferred Vs Non-Preferred
Greg and I had a lovely discussion about preferred versus non-preferred activities.
We all have non-preferred activities! In fact- probably most of what most of us do all day long is non-preferred. Hello, laundry?
With a relatively strong prefrontal cortex, I have the frustration tolerance to navigate through tasks I don’t really feel like doing.
I also find it so fascinating to consider that the idea of work avoidance overlooks some of the most core aspects of being human.
We are motivated to grow, be curious, and explore. When we are regulated.
Connection is a biological imperative. We are motivated to be cooperative while still staying true to ourselves. When we are regulated.
Uncooperative, ‘work avoidant’ behavior is an invitation to ask “But why?”
I can guarantee you- the answer to why is about regulation, connection, and/or felt-safety.
OOOOH I was super excited when Greg’s concept of “Change the Sensory Channel” came up in our conversation. He posted about this on Facebook once (find that post HERE) and it was brilliant.
For example:
When kids are struggling to follow direction, Greg suggests trying to ‘change the sensory channel.’ If you words- the auditory channel- isn’t working (um, your child is ignoring you) try a new sensory channel.
When we change the sensory channel, we aren’t yelling!
We aren’t dysregulated!
There’s a breath in our body because we’ve connected with our kids and kept the ‘train on the track’ without anger, irritation, or frustration.
Greg and I talked about how this one simple step- changing how we see behavior – changes US, the grown-ups.
We feel better.
We are less triggered, less angry, less overwhelmed, less stressed.
Even if nothing around us ever changes. And let’s face it, it might not.
Find more Greg
Facebook: GregSantucciOT
Julie Beem is the Executive Director of the Attachment and Trauma Network, a non-profit organization the supports the families of children who have experienced attachment trauma. Julie first found the Attachment and Trauma Network when she was looking for support for her own family. She described the Attachment and Trauma Network (ATN) as her family’s “lifeline” for many years. Eventually, Julie reached a place where she was drawn to give back to ATN. She started volunteering and now serves as the Executive Director.
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Approximately six years ago, a group of parents with ATN who were also educators began talking with one another about how everything they were talking about in ATN was information that educators needed, too. The Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools Annual Conference was born from those conversations and is now an annual event that serves over 1400 attendees every year.
In 2021, The Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools conference was offered virtually due to COVID. The 2022 conference will be offered as a hybrid experience. Participants can attend live in Houston on February 20-22, 2022 as well as attend virtual offerings on February 24-25, 2022.
ATN has recognized that educators and parents both need access to the information that is shared during the Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools conference. They also recognized that both groups need the information offered in a slightly different way that honors their unique needs.
ATN meets the needs of parents with regard to their child’s difficulties at school by creating a separate event, Standing Strong, which was offered virtually in the fall of 2021. Standing Strong focused on helping parents advocate for the children and knowing what types of services they can ask for. Although that event has passed, ATN is looking at ways to make some of the content available for parents in an on-demand format. If you sign up for ATNs email newsletter, you’ll be able to stay informed of all the resources they are continually releasing for parents and educators alike.
When beginning to seek services for your child at school, your first question is “Does my child qualify for services?” If your child already receives an IEP or 504 services, that will dictate the path you take to get the services your child needs.
The next question is “Should my child qualify for services?” That means asking your school what steps you need to take to get your child evaluated for special education services- an IEP or 504.
If your child doesn’t meet the diagnostic criteria to receive services, then as parents you’ll want to focus on developing a relationship with your child teacher or teachers. Through a supportive relationship, you may be able to help your child’s teacher be willing to learn about trauma-responsive classroom practices.
For some guidance on how to first approach your child’s teacher, check out my previous podcast on School Advocacy by CLICKING HERE. It includes a sample email script that can begin the conversation.
Some teachers, administrators, and school systems are so stressed, and so traumatized themselves that they appear unwilling to shift their paradigm and consider a trauma-informed paradigm.
Then what?
Julie and I talked about how to acknowledge common educator fears, including:
When you approach the school, be clear that you want to make their job easier. Be clear that the things you would suggest are not big things- they are simple things that will ultimately take them less time, not more. Be clear that these practices- movement breaks, for example- are good for all kids; they won’t have to do something different or special for just one child.
Without a doubt, sometimes it’s just not possible to convince a school to respond to your child’s needs in a different, trauma-responsive way. Some families do have to make very hard choices, such as moving their child to a different school or look at other alternative solutions, including home-schooling.
Julie acknowledged that there is a lot of privilege involved in homeschool or seeking alternative schooling solutions besides your public school. Some families do not have this privilege.
Sometimes, though, we are so overwhelmed, so stressed, and feeling so hopeless that we have a very hard time seeing any creative solutions. I have known many families who really do not have any other option than their public school. I also know many families who when they get the co-regulation they need, their brain can calm down enough that they become able to see alternative solutions.
It isn’t fair that our kids aren’t getting what they need from the public schools. It isn’t fair that we have to make hard choices. That we have to rework how we expected our family to be by homeschooling, or driving far, or figuring out a virtual school option.
It isn’t fair. Our kids already face so many hardships and they should be able to access what they need at school.
There is grief there and our grief deserves to be seen, known, and validated.
Ultimately, this is so much bigger than one family advocating for one child with one teacher. We continue to need broad, systemic change in our school systems and in our cultural understanding of what behavior really it.
Parents and educators can join ATN for free. CLICK HERE to see what ATN offers.
ATN also offers a podcast- Regulated and Relational– that Julie co-hosts with Ginger Healy.
The 2022 Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools Conference is open for registration and you can see all the details and register by CLICKING HERE.
Emily Daniels, MEd., MBA, NCC, SEP in Training is the founder of HERE this NOW, a trauma-informed education and consulting firm dedicated to bringing trauma-informed education into schools. She is the author of The Regulated Classroom, a guidebook for teachers to help them bring the science of regulation and the autonomic nervous system into their classroom, as well as the creator of the Educator Self-Care Toolkit, a collection of regulation hacks and sensory tools for educators.
I met Emily earlier this year, serendipitously in an online community that had nothing to do with trauma or mental health. When I peeked a little further at who Emily is and what she is doing, I messaged and said “Hey- we should know each other!”
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I was right! Emily has combined her history as a school counselor, intimate knowledge of our education system, as well as her understanding of the body, nervous system, and Polyvagal Theory to develop training for schools.
Like so many of us, Emily remembers attending a conference where she was introduced to the relationship between the trauma, autonomic nervous system, and behaviors and had the trajectory of career dramatically changed.
Emily remembers being so emotionally impacted by Dr. Peter Levine’s presentation in a conference that she was brought to intense tears. The conference led Emily to become trained in Somatic Experiencing (Dr. Levine’s model of somatic trauma healing) and ultimately to create her consulting firm, HERE this NOW as a way to bring trauma-informed classroom practices into the schools.
HERE the NOW began by brining basic trauma-informed information to schools and educators. Emily loved this work but was, of course, consistently asked by the educators in the audience, “Well, what do we do with this information?”
Emily knew that educators need tools and practical strategies to implement in their classrooms but she also knew that tools and strategies weren’t really the most important part of the solution. Determined to blend tools and strategies with educator self-awareness led Emily to develop The Regulated Classroom.
The Regulated Classroom is a “somatosensory and polyvagal informed” approach to social-emotional learning in the classroom. Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, helps us understand the actual origin of behaviors and brings compassion to ourselves, and to others. It also explains why simply learning coping skills and different behavioral choices doesn’t always lead to the actual behavior change.
Polyvagal Theory can easily be experienced as overwhelming. It’s dense science with many layers of complexity. Emily has taken the most important components of Polyvagal Theory and distilled it into a paradigm that is understandable and practical for educators.
The Regulated Classroom is organized into four classroom practices:
Emily offers training in multiple formats, including short workshops or daylong trainings (live and virtual) as well as ongoing consultation with schools to deepen their understanding and implementation of the practices. The embodiment of Polyvagal Theory and regulation theory simply takes time and practice.
Emily and I don’t go into the underlying science or even explain Polyvagal Theory much at all in this episode. You’ll have to tune in to future episodes for a quick summary of Polyvagal Theory.
For today, I invite you to connect with this one core truth about Polyvagal Theory.
Polyvagal Theory offers an explanation for why we do the things that we do- especially the things that are easy to judge and criticize. Through this, Polyvagal Theory provides uswith a sense of being seen and then an accompanying deep sense of compassion.
It provides the science for the truth that all behaviors make sense.
This doesn’t mean all behaviors are OK. But they all make sense and that changes how we approach and view behaviors.
It allows us to approach one another (and ourselves) with compassion and we know that Compassion is the Neurobiology of Change (Robyn Gobbel).
“I have a lot more suspicion about the meaning I make from the physiological experiences I encounter.” Emily Daniels
Polyvagal theory has taught us we are often creating meaning and writing a story about what is happening- or even someone else’s behaviors – that is based on our own physiological state.
We have a sensation in our bodies and we quickly make meaning out of it.
Polyvagal Theory has taught us that we can be suspicious (curious!) of the story.
Is it possible to consider that the voice in our ear is just a story. And if that’s possible, does that mean that it’s possible for it to shift?
Instead of focusing on the story, what if we remained open to the possibility that what feels like a truth is actually just a story?
Then our story can change.
Polyvagal Theory invites us to change our perception of other’s behavior, too.
When we allow ourselves to stay curious about someone else’s behaviors without quickly making meaning out of them, it is easier to remember that this other person’s behavior has nothing to do with us.
It’s simply information about the state of their autonomic nervous system.
As Emily and I wrap up this episode, we explore the different ways Emily’s resources could support you or your child’s teacher even if you aren’t in a position to ask your administration to bring Emily in to train your school (though, it never hurts to try!)
The guidebook is strategically laid out to walk an educator through the four key points listed above in the 4 Classroom Practices. The guidebook is available for individual purchase at The Regulated Classroom and can stand alone without participating in one of Emily’s trainings.
Recently introduced to the world, the toolkit is specifically designed to help educators pay attention to and bring regulation to their own nervous system. Emily has received feedback from educators that it’s the first thing they have ever received that is specific for them- not for their students. The self-care tool kit is available for purchase HERE and includes:
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