One Reason why Kids Melt Down after School {EP 257}

Robyn: They seem to have done well enough, right? They've been mostly regulated. They seem to have been, you know, hanging onto their owl brain. But then they come home, and it's just all meltdowns, or maybe not full on meltdowns, but protection mode behaviors, right? We see bad attitudes. We see sassiness, we see defiance. We see maybe some verbal aggression. And again, these behaviors can feel so personal and also so aggravating. You know, there can be this sense of like, oh my gosh, like, just pull us together for 10 minutes, get through this homework, and then we can be done with this, right? I really, really, totally get that and the brain and the body and the nervous system can only do what it can do. And if we could get super curious about what's been happening prior to these meltdowns or kind of chronic protection mode, we might be able to, one, support their nervous system better when they're at school. Two, help the nervous system transition a little better and provide some other kinds of supports when they are at home, so maybe their stress tolerance doesn't collapse so intensely. My guess is you are familiar with this dynamic in some way, right? Your kiddo comes in the door, and within minutes, and maybe it seems like within milliseconds, right, they are yelling at their siblings or you, right, they're refusing to I mean, not just like refusing to do tasks that are obviously stressful, like homework, but maybe refusing to even do what feel like the simplest or most basic tasks, like hang up their coat on the hook, and instead they just, like, drop it, you know, one inch from from the hook, right? We might see stomping around, slamming doors, being really rude, having. 

Robyn: Having huge meltdowns, or what, you know, over what feel like, tiny little stressors they feel like to us, tiny little stressors, right? And we can feel kind of whiplash like, whoa. Why do I have to be the one who deals with this intensity? You know? Why are they able to, like, hold this together when they're not with me, or hold it together at school, but they can't do it here, like, why am I the one who's getting like the brunt of all of the stress that they experienced at school? Now, a while ago, I recorded a podcast episode called something like, why kids act better for other people, or why kids act better at school. I'll find what it's actually called, actually, I just went and looked. It's episode 170 why kids act better for other people, and it talks a lot about this dynamic, and we talk about school specifically in that episode, but the dynamic of like, why kids can quote, unquote, hold it together and then come home and totally lose it. That feels a little contradictory to the whole idea of regulated, connected kids who feel safe do well, right? And so if kids are safer at home, they're more connected to us, or they're more regulated, why are they having more meltdowns or more episodes of dysregulation? That can feel super contradictory. I explore that really in depth in that episode, because it actually is pretty nuanced, all the pieces that come into that I'm not going to recap that episode, but I think the best way to kind of succinctly recap that episode is to think about how often that happens for us. How often are we able to kind of keep hold of our regulation in other circumstances, but then when we get around our safe people, we don't work is hard to hold on to that regulation anymore. And so maybe the stressors that have been accumulating, they kind of, you know, bleed out in a way, or we just don't have the capacity to navigate that stress in, you know, the closer, safer, more intimate relationship. 

Robyn: And again, that can feel really confusing, but think about it for yourself like it is perfectly normal, perfectly human, to struggle more at home. Like to act better, quote, unquote, better when you're not with your safest people, right that there. And I don't think it always has to do with masking outside the home, either. I think it certainly can. And masking takes a lot of energy, and so we get really depleted, and then we get home, we just don't have any energy left. I think it can be that, but I don't think it has to be that. The reality is that regulating through things that are hard. And life is hard. Being at school is hard, being at work is hard, being on the world is hard. Like regulating through all that stress is hard work, and sometimes we have to kind of consciously choose to like regulate through it. Sometimes we might not be consciously choosing it, but there's this way still, that our nervous system is evaluating all these cues of safety, danger and life threat, and there are some circumstances where we need to figure out a way to regulate through things that are hard. And then when we get home, or we get with our safe people, we don't, frankly, have to work as hard, because we have a lot more trust in those relationships, that those relationships can, one, like, tolerate a big rupture in the relationship. 

Robyn: Or two, we have more trust that the people that we're close with or safe with can hold the idea of, like, the multiplicity of our parts, right, that, like, I know when I'm home, I can be acting bad, and my family still knows that I'm a good person, and there's some safety in that, right that doesn't necessarily exist when we're out in the world. And when people, you know, when we're with people that feel like they can't hold that multiplicity of parts, we tend to work a little harder to stay regulated. Again, this is perfectly normal and doesn't always have to do with the idea of masking, and I agree that we should want to bring our best selves to the people that we love and care for the most. And as somebody who works in the field that I work in, and I'm talking about regulation, and I'm talking about connection, I'm talking about felt safety, right? And my whole life is about. You know, talking about relationships, and I work really hard to stay as regulated, connected and safe in my relationships at work, I sometimes have a lot of grief and sadness over the truth that my family doesn't always get those best parts of me and my family doesn't always benefit from how hard I'm working to stay regulated outside the family, and I do feel a lot of grief and sadness about that, and I do think about that as I try to be really regulated, you know, at home and with my family. But there's also the truth that we cannot check our humanity at the door. There's just a reality to that that goes along with being human. So anyway, go check out episode 170 and in the meantime, just kind of reflect on how, frankly, we can all really relate to the fact that we often, quote, unquote, act better, or can keep our regulation on board when we're in other kinds of circumstances, and we might be more likely to allow ourselves to get dysregulated when we are with our safe people. The purpose of today's episode and last week's too, was to look specifically at how the sensory stressors and the way that our bodies are processing the sensory world and the sensory data that's coming in, how that can contribute to protection mode to dysregulation. And it doesn't always look like it's clearly about sensory overwhelm, right? It can be sensory overwhelm, but what comes out is like mean words to somebody. 

Robyn: So it can feel really relational when we think about what our kids are navigating all day long at school from a sensory perspective, and this isn't even taught. I mean, they're navigating a lot relationally too, right? Like trying to figure out complex social dynamics and, you know, managing their peers who are unpredictable to them, and sometimes are nice to them and sometimes aren't nice to them. You know, navigating relationships with teachers, right? There's a lot of relational complexity that our kids are navigating at school as well. But in today's episode, I want to just think about the sensory pieces. So imagine for a second, or remember, I guess is a better, better prompt. Remember the last time you were in a school or you were in the place where your kid spends a lot of time without you, and think about what it looks like in those environments, right? Is there fluorescent lights? Is there a lot of visual clutter, or does it look really sterile and almost like a jail cell, right? Has there been? Is it been so stripped down of any sort of like color or personality that it feels the opposite of two of overwhelming and instead it feels kind of depressing, right? Think about the classroom noises that are being, you know, navigated and you know that our kids don't have a lot of control over, like, how loud the classroom is. I mean, think about like, chairs being moved around, like when you scoot your chair back, like the sound of that right, the sound of what's happening in the hallways or in the passing periods. Think about what it smells like at school, right? 

Robyn: Cleaning supplies, cafeteria. I mean, schools have a very unique smell for sure. Think about the movement they are or aren't getting right, how long they have to sit without movement, the kind of chairs that they have to sit in. How much is your kid being expected to sit like quote-unquote, crisscross applesauce on the ground? Because that's actually a really exhausting posture to sit in. How much are kids able to manage the way that like their clothes that they're wearing are impacting them, right? Like, if I'm at home and I have on clothes that are uncomfortable, I just take them off. But if I'm at school, I can't just take them off. And sometimes it builds all, you know, over the day. Like, for example, I am somebody who likes proprioception. I like a lot of proprioception, and I like to wear, like, spandex leggings for a very short period of time. I cannot wear them all day. I like to wear them long enough, maybe to work out, and maybe another hour. On top of that, I like. Love having the proprioception of leggings until I don't and if I'm not at home and I have to keep them on, I start to get really irritable about that. So it could be true that certain sensations your kids are okay with when they leave for school in the morning, as the day goes on, they lose their capacity to tolerate that, or they kind of reach their sensory thresholds for that perfect specific sensation, and it's just too much then, right? So I think you're getting my drift. I don't have to go through all the pieces of what can be overwhelming or underwhelming from a sensory perspective at school, or just the way that the school environment is too much or not enough, or not meeting our kids sensory needs and or the fact that they can't really control it right. A big part of feeling safe and good in our bodies is being able to make adjustments when things don't feel safe or good in our bodies. Like, if I'm getting hot, I want to be able to take off, like my outer layer, right? 

Robyn: Like maybe I wore as I wore a zip-up hoodie, so that when I got hot, I could easily take it off. So the being able to control my own experience is a really important part of feeling safe and being able to regulate through, you know, sensory stimuli. And these sensory experiences, they could seem kind of small, but they accumulate and add up all day long and again. Y'all, I talked about this a lot last week. This doesn't have to do with having a sensory processing disorder gear. Those of you listening, you might have a kid who meets criteria for a diagnosable sensory processing disorder, but a lot of you listening, your kids don't meet criteria for sensory processing disorder; they still have some sensory sensitivities. I mean, I sure do, and I don't meet criteria for sensory processing disorder, but I absolutely have sensory sensitivities, and do my best to, you know, pay attention to those and accommodate those. Here's another example for me. I really, really, really dislike being cold, and if I am cold for a long period, a long enough period of time, which for me is, frankly, not that long, and I can't do anything about it. My window of stress tolerance completely collapses. So as I've gotten older, and I'm very aware of this, when I know I'm going into a situation that's going to be cold or that I might I just might not be able to control so maybe, maybe it will be cold. I overprepare for that. I overprepare for that. A couple of years ago, I bought a fleece vest that has a battery pack in it so that I could wear clothing that gets hot, because I live in a cold climate, and I can't avoid being cold all the time. But also, sometimes you go to things outside, and the weather is colder than you expected. 

Robyn: Or, you know, sometimes I'll go to like, a professional development day, and those days are always completely unpredictable with regards to, like, the temperature management in the room, and I prepare appropriately for that. I bring extra clothes because I really, really, really hate to be cold, and I would actually prefer to be hot, like if I had to choose one way or the other. So that's a way that I'm aware of my own kind of sensory preferences, my sensory sensitivities, I'm aware of how much it dysregulates me to be cold and not be able to fix that. And so now I'm an adult, I have a lot of power. I have a lot of agency. I can prepare for that, right? And the being able to prepare for that, being able to be in charge of my own experience, is an enormous piece of being able to stay regulated, and it helps me stay more regulated through while, you know, while navigating the stressor, because I'm not sitting there going, oh my gosh, I can't solve this problem, right? But if I'm starting to get cold, I know I've got a solution. So having some agency or some capacity to change is a really important part of all this as well. So our kids don't have to have a sensory processing disorder to be really, you know, sensitive or have sensory experiences really impact them and their nervous system. But the truth is, is that if you're listening to this podcast, you you have a kid with a vulnerable nervous system, right? So they're they're more vulnerable to shifts and changes. They're more vulnerable to stress having a big impact on their. A system, right? They already have so much accumulated stress in their nervous system that, like one little stressor can really push them outside their window of tolerance. And our vulnerable kids, it's harder for them to kind of come back into regulation. So there's all sorts of reasons why, even if you have a kid who doesn't have a diagnosable sensory processing disorder, the sensory aspects and the way that they're kind of accumulating this sensory load throughout the day is having a big impact on their capacity to cope with not just sensory stressors, but all stressors, right? Like, if I'm maxed out with sensory stressors, and then maybe my teacher kind of fusses at me and tells me to stop talking, or I get a grade I wasn't expecting, or my the person sitting next to me is doing something that would get them into trouble, but my teacher thinks it's me, and so I'm the one who gets in trouble, right? Like, there's other stressors that aren't necessarily sensory stressors, that if I'm stressed, if I'm maxed out with stress capacity, these other stressors are going to push me, like, right over the edge.

Robyn: Also, just think about how hard we have to work to be able to hold it together, and I don't believe that all holding it together is masking. I think that an aspect of true self-regulation is that sometimes it takes work. Sometimes we're in environments where we have to work hard to stay regulated, and then, of course, sometimes we're in environments where we look regulated, but really that's a stress response that's accumulating, both in different kinds of ways, can certainly contribute to Our kids kind of reaching their max stress capacity, and then they transition home and they're just completely exhausted. They just can't navigate their dysregulation any longer, right? It just sort of explodes out of them. And so rarely do our kids come home and say I was so overwhelmed by how bright the lights were at school today, and then we had a fire drill, and then we had an extra recess today, and so it was so loud, and now my body and my nervous system are so stressed out, I just cannot handle any more stress. So when I come home from school, if everybody would just not talk to me. That would be great. It would be awesome if our kids could do that. It would be awesome if our kids could do that. But very rarely do they, at least at the stage you're at right now. It is possible, actually, my kid comes home and says, I've had a really bad day. Please don't talk to me. And then we don't right, that's wonderful, wonderful. It's not wonderful that a bad day, but it's wonderful that those needs were expressed and so we can, you know, care about him and accommodate that request, even if it wasn't said in the nicest way. Because how could it be if he's so stressed He doesn't want us to talk to him, then of course, maybe when he asks us not to talk to him. It's not going to come out in the nicest way, right? But those of you listening to this show, that's probably a future goal for you, that your kid can become that articulate. Now, they get home and they're so stressed and they're just mad, they just have some sort of attitude. They're being defiant. They hate all your snacks. They tell you that you smell bad. They right, like, they're like, kind of picking fights. 

Robyn: They're being really rude. And frankly, it feels really personal. And what's probably involved is that their nervous system is just completely maxed out, right? There are just out of capacity. And the thing that kind of was the tipping point. Isn't really even what the focus is. I mean, yeah, maybe we talked last week, right? Maybe you offered an after-school drink in the wrong color cup. But maybe what we don't have to focus on is how we make sure we always give the drink in the right color cup. I mean, maybe we should. Think about that. But what really we want to focus on is thinking about, how did the stress tolerance collapse so much that the wrong color cup for your 12-year-old, you know, created such an intense stress response, right? And how can we support the stress response system so that there's just more capacity there? Now I don't mean to insinuate that we should not pay attention to the tipping point, stressor, right? Like, if, if, homework. Is a tipping point stressor for your kid, probably, in the short term, the easiest thing to do would be to decrease homework expectations or put them at a different part of the evening, or something like that. That might be the easiest thing to tackle immediately. And then we can also look at, how do we strengthen their stress resilience so that they can be, you know, be able to kind of meet the expectations of their school, if those expectations are reasonable, right? So we might be adjusting the stressor that's causing kind of the tipping point, or is the tipping point into the stress response? But let's not do that in a vacuum, right? Let's not just eliminate homework without looking at well like what's happening that's leaving this kiddo so stressed that they cannot navigate a reasonable and the key word is reasonable amount of stressor after school. So we want to get really thoughtful and practical about like, what has this kid been navigating all day long? Like, what stressors have they been navigating all day long? And we can't rely on our kids to say, you know, the bright lights are really stressing me out. We have to just kind of look at what we know about humans and about, you know, how humans process the sensory world and consider like, well, for a lot of folks, you know, fluorescent lights are stressful. For a lot of folks, you know, having to sit in a chair for an hour without standing up is stressful for a lot, you know, like we just have to kind of look at what we know can be ways that stress accumulates, because so rarely are our kids able to really articulate it. 

Robyn: Now, sometimes they can, and certainly it's worth exploring. That's one of the reasons I created that all about me workbook that is over on my website, some of you probably have the all about me workbook, and one of the things that kids are prompted to do inside that workbook is to identify, like, what kinds of things make their owl brain want to fly away, what kinds of Things activate their watchdog brain, or activate their possum brain, so that we can know what those things are and make adjustments if possible. So over time, your kid can learn to identify these things, kind of like how I've learned I really hate to be cold, and so I do as much as I can to not get cold. So that's where I would suggest starting, is just start to, like, do some inventory, you know, maybe even take out a piece of paper and write down, you know, those five external senses. And then I would also think about proprioception and vestibular sense. If you're unfamiliar with what proprioception and the vestibular sense are, I'm not going to get into that now, but essentially they're related to movement and how our body's experiencing movement. It's much more complicated than that, but that's enough for this one little moment here in this episode. So I would think about those five external senses as well as my kids body senses, like how they're experiencing and are they getting enough movement or too much movement? You know, how are is their body being expected to kind of sit those kinds of things and just take some inventory of what you know, your kids experiencing all day long. What kinds of things do you suspect are stressing your child's nervous system? What types of things do you think are supporting your child's nervous system, and what types of things that maybe your child doesn't currently have access to, that you might be able to get kind of woven into their day, that could help keep their window of tolerance a little bit wider. So like, if you know, you have a kid who's really sensitive to sound,

Robyn: is there a way to work with the school that at you know, periodic times throughout the day, they have the opportunity to put headphones on or be in a quiet space, or maybe you know that immediately after lunchtime, and lunchtime recess is when your kid would really benefit from having a lot of quiet. So maybe you could build into the day. You know that when they come in from recess, they go and do work in a very quiet location, or that's when they get, like, their noise canceling headphones, things like that. Now I absolutely understand that if you have a kid who is mostly holding it together at school, that you might have a hard time asking for these accommodations, because your your child's school might be saying, well, they do fine here. They don't need these accommodations. So. So I really, really get that that can be a barrier. And this is very basic advice. I know that most of you have probably already tried what I'm about to say, but what I would suggest doing is really making, you know, documenting what is hard for your child after school, and specifically how that's related to their success at school, right? So if you know that your child is so stressed when they get home from school that they're not able to complete their homework, they're not doing their private reading time or independent reading time, it's especially helpful if you can track it to school and then help show the pattern that you know these stressors at school are leaving them you know, too stressed to be able to do this stuff outside of school, and then be really concrete and specific about what types of supports and interventions that we know, that you know could support your child's nervous system. 

Robyn: I would start there. If you are listening to this episode the week that it gets released, it's going to be released on the 17th. Yep, the 17th. If you are hearing this episode the week that it gets released, and it feels like you could use more support around this topic. I am teaching a webinar to the public. It's online. You can join it from anywhere in the world, and you don't have to attend live, because you'll get the recording. But I'm teaching a webinar called Sensory Strategies for dysregulated kids with baffling behaviors. Again, this is not about sensory processing disorder. I'm not an OT I don't treat sensory processing disorder. But because I've had, you know, decades of experience working with kids with really dysregulated nervous systems, I've had a lot of experience watching kids struggle because of the sensory world, and I've had a lot of experience supporting their families and making simple accommodations to help support their window of tolerance as much as possible. This is really a webinar that's for parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems, which is going to make your kids, you know, have a smaller window of stress tolerance, right, than other kids. And for parents of kids who have a sensory processing system, right, like have a body, and that's all of all of us, right, we all have kids who are all processing the sensory world. And then most of you listening, of course, have kids with vulnerable nervous systems, and so how they're processing the sensory world impacts their window of stress tolerance. So in this webinar that I'm going to teach, we're going to actually look at like the five core senses and then the body-based senses of proprioception, of vestibular and we're going to look at some really common things and both home and school, that can be contributing to some sensory stress. And then we're going to look at some simple enough ways of offering some accommodations for navigating those sensory stressors. 

Robyn: So this is a webinar that you should walk away with a ton of very practical ideas. Now you might not need a webinar, and you might not need that much you know, practical suggestions. This little two part, you know, this week's podcast and last week's podcast, and kind of looking at sensory stressors through this new lens could be absolutely enough for you. I also do have a regulating the body with sensory interventions infographic over in my free resource hub, so that might be enough for you. Go to RobynGobbel.com/freeresourcehub, and that might be exactly what you need. If it feels like you could use a little more support, a few more ideas, then the webinar might feel helpful to you. It's at Robyn gobbel.com/sensory webinar. It's just $19 you get the recording as well. And then, as always, with everything I offer, you always get, like, just tons and tons of resources so that you can actually take the information and implement it. Now, if you're hearing this podcast episode at some point in the future, just know that we I store all of the webinars that I teach. I store them all over in the club. RobynGobbel.com/theclub, if you are hoping to catch the webinar or other ones, you know the club has, like, I don't know, over 120 videos at this point. They're not all webinars or master classes, but we've got so much information over in the club. You could always hop into the club. You can even hop in for just one month. Or you don't have to make a long-term commitment to the club. You can hop in for one month. You know, get the information you wanted, download what you wanted, watch what you wanted, and that's it. So just know, even if you're listening to this in the future, you could still go and grab the full webinar. Of course, you can also check out my book, Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors. 

Robyn: There are some sensory ideas and strategies and supports in that book. And then I always direct folks to my colleague Marty Smith's book, The Connected Therapist, Marti Smiths, OT and she really breaks down all of these different sensory systems and gives you, I mean, Marty's like brilliance in the world. She has a lot of brilliance, but one of the big places that she shines is creatively thinking about supports and interventions that are very practical, very accessible, and just regular everyday life. So my book, Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors. Marty's book, The Connected Therapist, of course, if you're just finding the podcast now, subscribe to the podcast. You can get future episodes, and you can also go to RobynGobbel.com/podcast where you can use the search bar and you can find a topic you're looking for for it's hard to search for podcasts like right in the podcast app, which is why I put that search bar over at RobynGobbel.com I know for me, it's such a relief to look at somebody's behavior, somebody who's struggling, and even if it feels like they're kind of struggling at me, right, like maybe they're being rude or snippy at me, it's always helpful for me to pause and consider like, hey, this actually might have nothing to do with me, and it might have everything to do with what's happening in their body, or what's been happening in their body all day long. I know that helps me kind of take a breath, keep my owl brain on, and then respond in a way that hopefully doesn't kind of like escalate all of the dysregulation in them and in me. So hopefully, as you walk away from today's episode and last week's episode as well, that idea of kind of seeing other people's behaviors through the lens of like what might be happening in their body. I'm hoping that that feels helpful to you, brings you some more regulation, and helps your Owl brain stick around a little longer. All right, y'all are sending you oodles and oodles of compassion, connection, and co-regulation, and I will be back with you again next week. Bye-bye!