Q&A! What do I do when my kid gets stuck and ends up flipping her lid? {EP 74}

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Anonymous Mom: Hi, Robyn, um, I have a six year old who has always had trouble. She gets stuck. And she will get stuck on an idea, like this is what should happen or this is what I want. And she just cannot let it go. And it escalates until it's a big, huge fit. And she's out of her thinking brain at that point, and just completely emotional. And sometimes it takes like a half hour to get her to come back down. So, any advice? I will take. Thank you.

Robyn: Oh, mama, I know so many listeners can relate to this question. So let's start the way I always like to start, right, by putting on those x-ray vision goggles. And get really curious about what might be underneath these bumps in the road. I think it can be really helpful to remember that, really more than anything, the brain is super interested in anticipating what's about to happen next. When what actually happens next doesn't match that anticipation, regardless of how reasonable we think that anticipation was. It can be really hard for some owl brains to be strong enough to tolerate that feeling. That feeling of that mismatch. Like this is what I anticipated, and this is what happened. And when they don't match, there's a feeling there and a hard feeling. Is it the feeling of disappointment? Perhaps that's a really common one. Is it simply just about expecting one thing and getting another, right? It's kind of like this surprise feeling. Like, “oh, that was unexpected”, right? And that’s a pretty uncomfortable feeling as well. And more uncomfortable for some brains than others. Tolerating distressing feelings is definitely an owl brain skill. And it's mostly built through co-regulation. So look around at other times in your daughter's life, or really just other people you know, or in your family. Look around and look at how does everybody experience or express disappointment? Or, you know, when things don't go quite right, you know? What's your family culture around disappointment? It's interesting, because in a way, we tend to think of disappointment as not a very big feeling, right? There's this sense, especially, I think, in Western culture, that disappointment is a mild feeling. It's not a big deal. And we really are supposed to just quote unquote, get over it. Right? Whatever it is, right? You know how, like, for some of our kids, they maybe went to preschools or elementary schools, where the grown ups taught them a saying, “you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit”. And so even if that's not a mantra that you use in your family, it's just an example of how like, pervasive anti-disappointment is in our culture. Right? It's like, there is a space in between ‘you get what you get’, and ‘it's okay to feel disappointed and have those feelings. And then it's okay to express those feelings in a way that works for the situation that we're in’. I mean, that doesn't make the cutest little, like, mantra ever. It's not very rhymey but that's what I would change it to. So want to make sure that we're looking for opportunities to be clear that disappointment is an okay feeling and you're going to help her through it. So I would start with times that aren't particularly you know, overwhelming or triggering to her or you know, notice like when does she do a better job with disappointment or things aren't going quite our way? And start verbalizing and talking about those kinds of things. So, thinking about snacks, activities, you know, her favorite cup, or wanting to have to go somewhere, or not go somewhere, right? And then use words like “Oh, it's so disappointing, I know disappointment is such a hard feeling”. And then you might want to go on to like, “I feel disappointed, I feel it in my tummy. I do not like feeling disappointed”. It's hard when things don't go as expected. Like it's really really important that we normalize these feelings to kids or they start to get all these other ideas about these feelings like I'm the only one who feels that this way. or feeling this way is really bad or things like that that just simply aren't true. Like everybody feels disappointment and- and honestly disappointment, a harder feeling and what we typically give it credit for.

Robyn: Make sure that you- aren't- like there's a culture in your family of just overall talking about feelings and that feelings aren't permanent, right? Feelings aren't these things that happen that never go away. And that can feel really obvious. But it's an important thing to talk about, or highlight, or notice. So you can say things like ‘feelings come and feelings go’. Noticing this truth in books and movies and TV shows, noticing how a character felt sad, but then after a while, they felt better again. Or they felt angry, and then later they felt better. Or they felt happy, but that happy didn't last forever. And that later they felt sad, right? It's important for kids to know that all feelings come and go, including happy, right? So we're not just going to focus on negative feelings. But all feelings come and go. This is just a part of being human, and we don't get stuck in feelings. And then making it clear that sometimes it feels like we get stuck in feelings. Like one time, I was so mad, and it felt like I was gonna be mad forever and ever and ever. But the truth is, is that even though it feels like I'm gonna get stuck in mad, I've never ever been stuck in mad. And sometimes we can ask your kid, what about you? Have you ever gotten stuck in your mad? And a lot of times kids will say “yes”. What they're really saying is, I have had a feeling that is so big, it felt stuck. But if they say yes, I did get stuck in mad, then we can playfully, if it's an attunement, right? If your child is open for some kind of playful interaction be like, Oh, you got stuck in your mad. So you're mad right now. Right? And you know, when we can kind of highlight Oh, it feels like you got stuck in that feeling. But do you still have that feeling right now? It usually is, “huh? No, actually not”. I mean, you got to be careful that they actually aren't feeling that feeling right now. But that can be a really helpful way to kind of playfully demonstrate, it can feel like we get stuck in feelings, but we don't get stuck in feelings. And the same is true for the feeling of disappointment, or just that yucky feeling. It can, you know, have this like kind of grindy uncomfortable feeling in our bodies when I thought X was going to happen. But Y happened instead, even if disappointment is not exactly the right word, it's more like it was unexpected. 

Robyn: When she is having a meltdown, you know, I think something that's important for us to remember to do as grownups is ask ourselves like, is it- Is it okay, or would it be okay for me to adjust my expectations here? Right? Like, even though I said, you know, it's time to start getting ready by putting our toys away. Do we have to do it the second, or is there another way that I could scaffold that request? Or could I join or co-regulate in some way? Just pause and say like, “Hmm, is there any way that I could adjust my expectations here to make this easier on her own physiology?” And if so, go ahead and do it. For some kids, though, having expectations adjusted can be really hard, it almost makes our brain get more stuck, because it's like this new, you know- new unpredictability. So you have to really experiment with what works best for your child. I will say, overall, I've known way more kids who do fine with having expectations adjusted, then I've known kids who, it's really hard for them to have expectations adjusted. Like it almost makes things worse. That's been a very small portion of the kids that I've worked with. That doesn't mean it's not going to be your kid. It absolutely could be. But just be open to the possibility of is it okay for me to adjust my expectation here. 

Robyn: It's really easy for the grownups, of course, to be feeling really frustrated by these like ways that our kids feel like they're being really unreasonable. And I don't blame you for that frustrated feeling at all. But make sure that as much as you can, you're staying in your own owl brain, you're staying as regulated as possible. And you're using lots of reflective and empathic statements like, “Oh, you don't want to” or “you wanted to have apples for a snack, but we're having pears. Super disappointing. It's so hard when we want something but get something else”. One tip I learned from Greg Santucci, who's an occupational therapist, I did a podcast interview with him back in- it was October or November. It was his- this technique that he uses he calls change the sensory channel. And so thinking about our senses, you know, sight, touch, taste, smell, right? Think about our five senses. And ask yourself what sensory channels did you use when you gave your daughter a request? Did you give your daughter a verbal request? If so, maybe change the sensory channel by making it visual or using touch. I'll put the link for Greg's episode that I did down on the show notes but also just Google like ‘Greg Santucci changes sensory channel’. Stuff will come up, it's pretty cool.

Robyn: If you can, look for patterns. Like patterns in her dysregulation, like when is it harder for her to be flexible, right? So that you can up the co-regulation through those times in the future. So you like, anticipate we- I know these things are hard for her. So I will increase my co-regulation. And you can do that by using- well one, just by being more present yourself and making sure you are, you know, really grounded and regulated yourself. But you can also increase co-regulation by using visual charts, by being intentionally playful in those moments before dysregulation is taken over, right? There's a sweet spot where playfulness can feel really bad if you are past, kind of the point of dysregulation. But if you- if you intervene with a dysregulation before we've kind of reached that point, playfulness can be a really great- really great tactic. And be thinking about do you need to increase structure in these moments? So one example of increasing structure might be something like instead of, “Okay, it's time to brush your teeth”. Instead saying something like, “let's take huge steps to get to the bathroom. How many huge steps do you count? I'll meet you there. And we'll take the to- the top off your toothpaste together”. So you hear how I increased the structure on the how to get to the bathroom. So instead of just ‘it's time to brush our teeth’, just- like being very specific, like, we're going to take huge steps to get to the bathroom. And then I- you know, assuring her that there's going to be some co-regulation and what's gonna happen next. Like next together, we'll take the top off the toothpaste, right? So that's an example of just really increasing the structure in a playful way, right? We have to make sure that we're regulated through all of this. Once a meltdown begins, again, just offer as much co-regulation as you can. Focus more on soothing the brain and the body and less on the actual problem. Right? So how do we calm the physiology, maybe rocking something rhythmic, or repetitive, or a drink, or a snack. Don't worry about accidentally rewarding a meltdown. This- This isn't about rewards, it's about helping to calm her physiology. Once that watchdog brain has totally taken over. Sometimes it can be helpful to do something really unexpected. With like the watchdog brain is really active, like blowing bubbles. Especially because kids are pretty shocked when people start blowing bubbles inside. And I just think that's a really easy one. Really, really easy one. Bubbles are like instantly delightful and very often pull the brain out of dysregulation. And then we may even be able to entice a kid into blowing a bubble and that breath- big breath in and that bring breath out can be really regulating as well. Just don't hand a dysregulated child a thing of bubbles because it will get dumped. Of course, of course. The most important thing to do is to help your own owl brain stay in charge of yourself. Though of course it makes really sense this is really hard to do. And we want to match our kids when they go into watchdog brain with our own watchdog brain. That's totally normal. 

Robyn: So there's a podcast that's called Not Flipping Your Kid When Your Kid Is Flipping Theirs and I will link to it in the show notes. And then I also have a much more extensive masterclass called How Do I Stay Calm?. It's stored in The Club on demand video library. So it's available to all members of The Club. Remember to be gentle and loving with yourself with lots of self compassion. And also remember that your daughter doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to feel this way. Like flipping your lid is a really really really crummy way to feel. And parenting with connection and co-regulation like you're learning to do like on this podcast and on the parenting course. Is what's going to really help to grow that owl brain. So she'll, over time, you know, take small baby steps towards increasing her ability to tolerate frustration or disappointment or just that feeling of ‘this was unexpected’. And that's going to grow slowly over time as we continue to parent in this connection and co-regulation way. Again, this is never about perfection. It's just about as often as possible, meeting our kids with a connection and co-regulation that they need when they flip their lids when their own watchdog brains have taken over. Thank you so much for calling in, for trusting me for sharing your story with my listeners. I know that there is other listeners who are gonna get a lot out of this Q&A. So thank you so much!