Rose LaPiere LPC, RPT-S, and ACS invites into a space of safety and connection so we can make room for grief. Rose brings her own experiences of grief to her work as a play therapist (and co-leader in Robyn’s immersive training program for parenting professionals, the Professional Immersion Program {formerly Being With}) so she can bravely welcome in, and be with, her client’s big, at times overwhelming, feelings. 

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • The importance of authenticity, naming, and acknowledge even really really hard feelings
  • The role of playfulness is processing grief
  • The importance of self compassion for the grown-ups and therapists supporting kids and families in their grief

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

You’ve lowered stress and demands. You’ve reframed your child’s behavior as a response from their autonomic nervous system. You’ve worked hard to help your child’s stress response system rest and begin to heal

Now what?

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • How rest is only one part of the healing process
  • The importance of reintroducing stress
  • The difference between stress that prompts growth and stress that leads to injury and burn-out

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Jon Fogel is a dad who combined his passions for parenting, neuroscience, and impacting the world to create a viral social media account (@wholeparent) and then publish his book, Punishment-Free Parenting. 

Jon and I get lost in some pretty deep topics together, including 

  • How he helps parents make huge parenting shifts
  • How parenting with punishment relies on a pretty pessimistic view of humanity
  • Boundaries vs. Consequences vs. Punishments

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

  • Punishment Free Parenting by Jon Fogel
  • Jon’s Instagram: Whole Parent

Dive into these topics further on past Baffling Behavior Show episodes

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

How do we help kids feel safe when they are safe? How do we help them take in the safety that exists in their life when their life experiences seem to have convinced them that nothing is safe. 

Scaffolding. Yes, we can scaffold felt safety.

My recovery from a very serious back injury left me pondering the importance of felt safety in taking risks and the necessity of scaffolding felt safety. 

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • The importance of relationship in felt safety
  • How even felt safety must be scaffolded for folx who don’t have a lot of experience being safe in relationship
  • How amazing it is that our hurt kids risk relationship at all, and how it makes sense that sometimes they won’t

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Play makes kids stronger. It’s necessary for their physical and emotional development, and even their academic development. Play helps kids work through and make sense of hard things. 

A few months ago I went searching for a resource that teaches parents some of skills I used as a play therapist because I am passionate about breaking down barriers and teaching these skills to as many adults as possible- not just therapists. 

Tina Payne Bryson’s newest book (co-authored with Georgie Wisen-Vincent), The Way of Play, is exactly this resource. 

It was a delight to connect with Dr. Payne Bryson and get a sneak peek into her new book, The Way of Play.

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • Why play is so important
  • The 7 strategies in PlayStrong Parenting
  • How to Bring Emotions to Life
  • How to Make Yourself a Mirror

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

To be 100% honest, we forgot to record a podcast for this week. Luckily, I have stepped in to fill the podcast void and to make my grand reveal!

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • What my voice sounds like!
  • Why we didn’t get a new episode out for y’all.

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

We think a lot about how to lower demands for our kids, but in this episode we’re going to talk about how we can lower demands for ourselves, specifically during the holiday season.

Regardless of where you live in the world and what holidays you do or don’t celebrate, it’s hard to avoid the extra stress that comes in December.

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • How to look at traditions or expectations and consider which ones to prioritize
  • How to increase felt safety- for you and your kids- at holiday events, travel, or expectations
  • How to set boundaries 
  • How to offer yourself compassion if setting boundaries feels really hard

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Living with someone with a vulnerable nervous system almost certainly leaves you feeling like you are walking on eggshells.

It’s that sense of not knowing what’s going to happen next, having to tread lightly, and being constantly at risk of making a misstep that will trigger the other person. 

In today’s episode, we are going to break down the neurobiology of walking on eggshells and talk about what you can do to shift out of this pattern- even if you can’t change the other person’s behavior.

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • The neurobiology of that ‘walking on eggshells’ feeling
  • How to consider the possibility of feeling safe when you are safe
  • The impossible set-up our brain puts us in that leaves us stuck feeling like we are walking on eggshells- and what to do about it

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

In this special 200th episode, we’re exploring how to bring compassion, curiosity, and gratitude to our kids’ (and our own) “Watchdog” and “Possum” parts as overworked companions trying their best to help us survive. With acceptance and understanding, we can help these parts rest and integrate, creating space for true change.

We also look at the unique challenges parents face, especially when dealing with intense behaviors, and how building compassion for these protective parts—not the behaviors themselves—can help us navigate parenting with more calm, empathy, and hope. 

Believe it or not- over time, this practice of seeing our inner worlds differently can transform not only our lives but the lives of our children and our communities.

Main Takeaways:

  • Recognize Protective Parts with Compassion: Our “Watchdog” and “Possum” parts, which are defensive instincts, need compassion and gratitude, not elimination. Understanding these parts as overworked rather than problematic can lead to healthier integration and self-acceptance.
  • Parenting from Compassionate Curiosity: Challenging behaviors in children can often lead to frustration. By developing curiosity and compassion for our kids’ protective parts, parents can respond with empathy and help these parts feel safe, which reduces the intensity of the behaviors over time.
  • The Power of Community and Practice: Change takes time and commitment, and practicing compassion and gratitude—even in small amounts—can lead to significant transformations in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. The journey is gradual, but even small shifts create powerful results.

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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


Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

The brain is the brain is the brain. All behaviors have their origin in the brain. But for some behaviors, it is easy to lose sight of this important truth.

Behaviors that would be easy to label as manipulative or controlling or selfish just feel so personal! But if we can remember that even relational skills are brain based skills, we can reclaim our empathy, set boundaries, and offer the scaffolding or accommodations necessary to help our child be successful.

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • How to break down relational skills as brain-based skills
  • How to scaffold or accommodate relational brain-based skills

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

Listen on the Podcast

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

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

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

Robyn

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