Oppositional And Defiant Behavior- Part 1 {EP 156}

Robyn: Interestingly enough, today's podcast is on a topic that I talk about with a lot of frequency. And if you type the word opposition into my podcast toolbar, you're not going to find an episode that has the word opposition or oppositional defiance disorder. In the search results. I've never done an episode where it was very specifically, very deliberately about oppositional behavior or oppositional defiance disorder, which is pretty wild. So that's what we're doing today and in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to do a short little series here on the behavior of opposition, the nervous system state of opposition. And yes, we'll talk a little bit about the diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Here's sort of how I'm mapping out the series in my mind; today we're going to talk about the nervous system experience that leads to oppositional behavior, we're really going to think about the behavior of opposition from a nervous system perspective. If you're new here, you might not yet know this about me, but I am a huge believer in understanding why behaviors are emerging the way that they are. And that understanding behavior actually is a tool or a technique or a strategy or whatever you want to call it, because changing how we see people, including our kids, changes them. It's an actual strategy, but also it changes us. And when we can bring what's called coherence and understanding to a behavior that seems really baffling. That shifts our nervous system into what I call connection mode. It brings our Owl brain back. And number one, that's just good for us, especially if we live with kids with pretty chronically baffling behaviors, our Owl brain is getting the opportunity to fly away a lot, right? So– and that actually is not good for us. Spending a lot of time in protection mode is really hard on the body. So if we can stay more in connection mode, if we can stay more connected to our Owl brain, that plain and simple is just good for us. But ultimately, it's also really good for our kids. It's not actually just really good for our kids, it's relatively non-negotiable. And you're gonna see the reasons for that as this podcast unfolds because the state of our nervous system is one of the most important, quote-unquote, tools when helping our kids shift the state of their nervous system. Now, I want that to feel hopeful, not hopeless, right? Ultimately, we have no control over anyone else, the only person that we can impact is ourselves. And a very, very powerful way that we can help our kids feel more safe, more regulated, have behaviors that are more conducive to relationship is to help shift the state of their nervous system.

Robyn: And to do that, we have to be able to shift the state of our nervous system, if that feels like an impossible goal, I want to just send you so much compassion, that that's a really hard place to be. To be in a place where it feels impossible to switch the state of your own nervous system is a really, really hard place to be. So much compassion for you. And actually, my recommendation for you is to just keep listening, don't really even try to change anything or do anything different. Just keep listening. And over time, my hope would be that you can really absorb the compassion that I offer you in this podcast, the connection, the co-regulation. And over time, that compassion, that connection, that co-regulation, will start to build some resilience into your nervous system, it's probably not enough. There are other things you can do, you can head to my podcast episode called ‘When Your Nervous System Is Fried’ and get some ideas from there. But really, my point at this moment, is that you're going to hear over the next couple of episodes an emphasis on how one of the primary ways that we can support our kids who have oppositional behaviors is for our own nervous system to be in connection mode. And I know that for some or maybe even many of you listening, that's going to feel like a really big ask. And so I want to just mention that upfront. And I want to reassure you that ultimately, that truth can actually bring us a whole lot of hope, not increase our hopelessness, and I want you to just hang on. If that's how you're feeling, I want you to just keep listening, keep giving yourself compassion, and keep coming back. 

Robyn: So again, today is going to be what I think is I'm gonna give myself the opportunity to shift this as, as I record this series, I'm a little behind on recording because of the book coming out. But I'm anticipating this is going to be a three-part series. And today we're going to talk about how we conceptualize and make sense of oppositional behavior from a nervous system perspective. Next week, I'm going to talk about, ‘Okay, so what do we do about that?’ And then the third week, I'm going to talk specifically about kids who don't experience connection as regulating. So connecting with them doesn't decrease oppositional behavior, it seems to increase oppositional behavior. And also, you may even have a kid whose oppositional behavior seems to be very deliberately being used to keep you out of connection. So if that resonates with you at all, we're going to talk about that. And what I'm anticipating is going to be the third episode of this series. Simply put, okay– so if we're going to think about how to make sense of oppositional behavior, there are a few things that we have to agree on first, number one, that all behavior makes sense, right? That there's no such thing as in-the-moment maladaptive behavior, all behavior makes sense. Okay, so that's the first thing we have to remember. The second thing that I think is helpful to remember is that truly for the human brain, for the human nervous system, connection is our baseline, it's our expectation. Even the child that seems most committed to staying out of connection, there is some place of their nervous system that truly is longing to be in connection. It's our baseline. It's our expectation. So when I'm in relationship with somebody who seems let's just say real committed to oppositional behavior, I do try to hold that truth in my mind, somewhere underneath this is a longing for connection. When we feel safe, we are in a nervous system state of connection. I call it connection mode. Safety– felt safety equals connection mode. When we are experiencing a lack of safety, when we're receiving more cues of danger than cues of safety, our nervous system flips into protection mode. And oppositional behavior emerges from protection mode, right? Oppositional behavior is not a behavior that suggests that person wants to be in connection and it doesn't make us want to be in connection with them. That's how we know it's emerging from a nervous system state of protection mode. So simply put, oppositional behavior indicates a nervous system in protection mode, it has gone down the protection mode pathway, and it's usually emerging as like a ‘What’s up?’ or a, ‘Ready For Action,” Watchdog level. 

Robyn: If you aren't yet familiar with the Watchdog or Possum levels, you can go to the podcast episode about how to, ‘Focus On The Nervous System To Change Behavior’. I have a free webinar and ebook. That is it has the same title and that's at robyngobbel.com/webinar. And then of course, I have my new book Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, which is going to be the most comprehensive resource to help you really understand connection mode, protection mode, the Owl, Watchdog, and Possum brain, and the different stages of the Watchdog and the Possum brain. 

Robyn: So oppositional behavior is typically emerging from a nervous system that's in the ‘What’s up?’ or the, ‘Ready For Action,’ Watchdog level of arousal. And now, certainly, oppositionality is a feature of like the ‘Back Off’ or the attack level Watchdog. It's just not usually the predominant feature. Usually, the behaviors that are emerging from that activated Watchdog are more intense than simply oppositionality. So it's not typically the behavior that parents or therapists or caregivers are describing as the behavioral feature, right? They're usually talking about the verbal aggression or the physical aggression or other kind of bigger behaviors that are indeed oppositional. But they aren't being described with the language of oppositionality. Typically when people are telling me that this particular child is being oppositional, or looking at a kid who's in the ‘What’s up?’ or the, ‘Ready For Action,’ level of activation, the number one thing we've got to do with the behavior of oppositionality is to remember or even to think about maybe for the first time ever, when oppositional behavior is good, right? So oppositional behavior is good, and very important when the individual is actually in danger. Makes sense, right? If I'm in danger, my primary objective is protection, not connection. Oppositional behavior is also good. If our kids are being asked to do something by an untrustworthy adult, we want our kids to respond oppositionally if the person asking them to do something is not somebody who is in a place of asking our kids to do something. And especially if our kids feel that that adult is untrustworthy, right, because it's dangerous to do things that untrustworthy people tell you to do. Okay. And then another reason when another time when oppositional behavior would be considered good is if somebody's asking us to do something that goes against the rules or goes against our own values. So I think in those circumstances, It's really clear that the oppositional behavior is protection mode. And it's not bad, right? We are not trying to get our Watchdog or our Possum brains to go away. We are trying to get our Watchdog and Possum brains to rest so that they only swing into action when they're needed. And we need a Watchdog brain reaction when somebody is asking us to do something dangerous or goes against our values, or the person asking us to do something is not a trustworthy individual, okay? So that's when opposition is good. Let's also look at when opposition, we might not call it good, but it's just simply normal. Opposition is normal when somebody is being asked or expected to do something they don't want to do. This is normal and you probably do it too. If you don't do it, you might want to get curious about that. Generally speaking, when humans are faced with doing something we don't want to do, we have at least a moment of switching into protection mode. This is simply how humans work, it's part of our physiology. So think about it like this for a second, when you have some sort of expectation placed upon you, right, if you're we're being requested to do something, and it requires a little bit of energy because it always does. Having an expectation, being required to do something would require you to have a little bit of energy to do that thing, right? When I want to do something, and I'm motivated by the outcome, by the end results, I'm gonna have like a neurochemical dump that like gives me some extra energy, and allows me to kind of move toward that thing that needs to get done. A super simple example is me recording this podcast. Number one, I really enjoy recording the podcast. And number two, I can keep in mind the end result is which is that you know, 1000s of people all over the world are getting a useful free resource. And also, I want to avoid not getting it done, right, like meeting my deadline, staying on track, all of those things are motivating to me, they're giving me the like extra energy and power to do something. 

Robyn: Now, if I am being expected to do something by myself or by someone else, and I'm not motivated by the end result, I'm not really going to have any extra like power or motivation, you know, neuro chemically dumped into my body that's going to help propel me into action. So an aspect of this y'all is simple physics, an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force, right? I mean, I just took us way back, when was the last time you heard about how an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force? So being asked to do something, whether it's an internal request,  like we just are expecting ourselves to do it, or an external request, allows us to shift our state. And that's hard. Always, it's hard, it requires energy is way easier to just keep doing what you're doing. Okay? So shifting requires energy. And if I want to do the thing, it makes it much easier to conjure up that energy. If I don't want to do that thing, or I don't really care, I'm not motivated. It's a lot harder to conjure up that energy, simply because of physics. Okay, so what about not being allowed to do something we want to do, right? Like, sure, sometimes your kids are oppositional when you ask them to do something, sometimes they're oppositional when they're not allowed to do something that they really want to do. So again, this is normal, human physiology, for us to flip into protection mode, when we have some sort of desire, hope, or expectation that we don't get to meet. Okay? When there's a desire or hope or an expectation in our nervous system, there is like– what I just think about as being like this energetic reach, like I'm moving toward it, maybe physically, but also sometimes just like this energetic move toward, right? It's propelling us towards this thing that we wanted and prompting us to fill that desire for all sorts of reasons, but not the least of which is because it feels satisfying, and good. So when that is thwarted, when that reach for something– even if it's just an energetic reach is thwarted, and some sort of boundary or barrier goes up, you know, a parent jumps in and says, ‘No, you can't do that,’ ‘No, we're not doing that,’ or ‘We're doing this instead.’ And you might have really fantastic reasons for why they can't do that thing. Right? But when a boundary or barrier goes up instead, the nervous systems gonna flip into protection mode. Okay? That's just simple, basic, human physiology. Now, the intensity of that protection mode is going to depend on a lot of things. Number one, our kind of felt safety baseline prior to that, some folks are more, let's say, like, strongly anchored to felt safety than others, they are experiencing more cues of safety than other folks. Having a bigger bucket of felt safety is going to decrease the intensity of that protection mode response because there's like more bandwidth to kind of absorb that protection mode response. The second thing that's going to impact the intensity of our protection mode response is going to be like how regulated were we before that thing happened that flipped us into protection mode. And I think we all have experienced with that, right? Like, when my nervous systems feeling a little stronger, I'm a little more regulated, I'm well rested, I'm getting good nutrition, I'm getting good exercise, my stress level overall is, you know, at a place that I can manage. Alright, when my regulation is nice and strong, I flip less intensely into protection mode, I mean, I get less triggered, right? Okay, then the third reason that impacts the intensity of flipping into protection mode is how connected am I to the person that's asking me to do this thing? Right? How much is that relationship providing a bit of buffer for the feelings that arise as I should be as I shift into protection mode, because I'm being asked to do something I don't necessarily want to do, right? And then of course, that's also going to take into account our previous experiences with what it means to not get what I want. Like how devastating in the past has it been to not get what I want, meaning have I ever not gotten things that I needed to survive? Like, safety, protection from dangerous adults? Food, right? Have I ever not gotten things I wanted, that's going to impact the intensity to which I feel; not being able to get something I want or do something I want. And then of course, each of us have our own individual, unique, wonderful neurotype, right? How does my unique nervous system respond to expectations, demands, or not being allowed to do what I want? Okay? 

Robyn: Now, as an adult, I can mostly regulate through not getting to do what I want, or doing things that I don't want to do. I mean, life is kind of about doing things you don't really want to do. It's a large portion of our day, frankly, and I have a relatively wide window of tolerance. I have a lot of frustration tolerance. I am really growing in my tolerance for feeling disappointed, though. Disappointment used to be very triggering for me. I have a pretty strong Owl brain. I've developed a lot of coping skills over the years, like, on chore day I watch a show I like on my phone or my tablet, and I can walk around with it. And I have headphones in, right? So I intentionally bolster my nervous system so I can get more cues of safety by doing something fun while doing something I don't really want to do. My adult brain is also way better at thinking into the future. I know that if I don't do the laundry in a couple of days, we're going to have a big problem. Kid's brains don't work like that. Their ability to predict or care about the future increases as their brain develops. So you know how four-year-olds care about, you know the future and how they need to be cooperative now because this other thing will happen in the future is wildly different than a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old, or even a 25-year-old, okay? I can predict the future or care about the future. And that helps me, like regulate through doing tasks I don't really want to do because I can see the impact that they're gonna have. Right? Also, as an adult, I have the power to set up my life in a way, where I don't have as many experiences, as maybe other people do, of not getting what I want. Y'all I don't like being told what to do. Especially if I perceive that person as not being out for my best interests, or honestly, not knowing as much about the situation or the long-term needs as I know, and as an adult, I set my world up in a way that that works for me. I'm self-employed, I don't have a boss, right? 

Robyn: When I was a kid, I might have been labeled oppositional, I don't know, I'll have to go ask some people I knew when I was a kid, I didn't like being told what to do. And you knew it, you know, teachers, other adults, people knew if I didn't want to do what they told me to do. Okay, so what causes the nervous system to flip into protection mode? And then oppositionality is a normal behavioral response to being in protection mode, we flip into protection mode when our nervous system is experiencing more cues of danger than cues of safety, and when we aren't experiencing felt safety is when we flip into protection mode and we are taking cues from three primary places, the environment, our inner world, and the relational space. And there are approximately 11 million different bits of data. 11 million places we're getting cues of safety or danger from just in the present moment. And then our minds are also taking what's happening in the here and now and kind of combining it with all the things that have happened in our past to determine if what's happening in the here and now is safe or not. And all of us have a large stream of the past, all of us are actually making assessments about our current reality, predominantly based on memory, not so much based on what's actually happening in the here and now. For folks with histories of trauma or toxic stress, or other unique nervous system vulnerabilities, their kind of stream of the past is more like a tsunami of the past. It's being preferenced even more. And so when you're looking at your kid and you're like, but there's nothing unsafe happening right now, that might be true. There might be nothing unsafe happening right now. But actually, the way our minds construct reality, we are significantly less focused on what's actually happening right now, and more on what has happened in the past that's helping us interpret what's happening right now. 

Robyn: If we take all that information inside, outside in between 11 million bits of data, and we combine it, everything that's happening right now with everything that's happening in the past. And if we combine all those things, and we determine that we're safe, the Owl brain emerges, that ventral vagal brake engages, for those of you who speak polyvagal. Right, this is our social engagement system. Our connection to ourselves and to others is simply a feature of this system; safe, equals social engagement, equals connection to self or others. If we are not safe, the nervous system will flip into protection mode and activate one of two protection pathways, the Watchdog pathway or the Possum pathway. The ympathetic nervous system or the dorsal vagal brake, okay? Connection to ourselves and others becomes secondary. It becomes what we're trying to return to once we've established safety, but connection and cooperation become secondary, not safe, equals protection mode, equals protection being the priority with connection being the goal. Now some kids have very sensitive stress response systems and quickly tip to the negative. Some kids are kind of always in protection mode, right? Do you have a kid who seems like always oppositional, yeah, they always kind of tip towards danger-danger, towards protection mode. Some kids interpret things like a loss of autonomy, as a cue of danger and actually, we all experience a loss of autonomy as a cue of danger. But for some kids, the intensity, with which this is experienced as a cue of danger, outweighs everything else. And then, of course, some of you have kids, you aren't soothed by connection, or the connection isn't the glue that supports regulation to get through the hard stuff. Some kids are actually triggered by connection, are more motivated to stay out of connection, then return to connection. So of course, those kids have more oppositional behaviors. All of this comes down to these kids having very sensitive Owl brains that fly away very, very quickly, or they have Owl brains that almost never will never return. So they are stuck in kind of low-grade protection mode. 

Robyn: The antidote for oppositional behavior and that includes a child who has a diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, the antidote is two primary things. Number one, we frame it. First of all, maybe their oppositional behavior isn't something that can be fixed or should be fixed. But I also realized that for the majority of you listening, the intensity of the oppositionality is probably beyond a simple hey, let's just reframe this, right? It's a level of oppositionality that is maybe dangerous, or it's causing real serious disruption for your child and for your family. Even still, though, reframing it is crucial. Reframing it away from bad behavior and instead as a protective response, it's a response from a nervous system that is not feeling safe. Then the second antidote, after we reframe the behavior and see it for what it really is, is always increased cues of safety, increased regulation supports, and increased connection and co-regulation of connection is something that your child experiences as a cue of safety. Okay, so the goal actually isn't even for your kids to become less oppositional. The goal is to increase the amount of time they spend feeling safe, we want to grow their Owl brain because this is better for their health and for the way they move in the world. It's just better to spend more time in connection mode. If we stay focused on this, we are less likely to try to change like maybe what's simply their unique temperament. We're not trying to change behavior, we're trying to help their nervous system rest more in connection mode because a nervous system in connection mode doesn't tend to be oppositional. Cooperation emerges from feeling safe and connected. We are a social species. And yes, this is going to vary based on unique temperament. Some of us have a higher drive for autonomy. We're motivated by connection to ourselves. And yeah, we like cooperation and harmony, but also being in charge feels safest. 

Robyn: Okay, so, next week's episode, we're going to talk more about the strategies of how to be in relationship with a child who is exceptionally oppositional and maybe even has that diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. So we're going to talk about strategies. But I do want to warn you, it's not going to be an episode about getting kids to do what we want. It's going to be an episode on helping kids feel safer in the world, and increase their frustration tolerance for doing things they don't really want to do or not getting to do the things that they want to do. Then the third episode, in this series is going to be about those of you listening who have kids who seem to be oppositional to connection, how do we bring felt safety when a huge kind of vehicle for felt safety is connection if connection is the actual thing that's triggering the nervous system into protection mode? I know a lot of you listening really resonate with that. Okay, so before I sign off for today, a really quick note about the diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or ODD is a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (DSM- 5) I'm not super interested in getting into a debate about whether this diagnosis exists or not. There is no real agreed-upon definition of what it means for a diagnosis to exist or not. Do some kids have such an intensity of oppositional and defiant behavior that it's impacting their lives, it's impacting their relationships, it's impacting their health even? And the answer to that is yes, of course, that is true. That exists. The challenge with DSM diagnoses and the challenge with giving a child this diagnosis of ODD is that sometimes I'm gonna maybe even say a lot of the times, giving a diagnosis seems to accompany an end in our curiosity. And it really should be just the beginning. If I am working with a child, if I'm parenting a child, who meets criteria for something like Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or even anxiety or depression, nobody's saying anxiety or depression don't exist. But giving a diagnosis based on observable behaviors, again, whether it's ODD, anxiety, depression, or any other diagnosis in the DSM. When we give a diagnosis based on observable behaviors, that needs to be the beginning of our curiosity, curiosity of why, and what's driving this oppositional behavior? What's underneath these anxiety symptoms? What's causing this depression? Right? Sometimes we don't know the answer. But it's super important. We always stay curious. The diagnosis itself doesn't tell us what to do. And it doesn't tell us why. And in the DSM, in particular, we can find one diagnosis with a multiple, multiple, multiple causes. And those different causes may require slightly different approaches. 

Robyn: Okay, so with the diagnosis specifically, of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or ODD. What I want us to do is not debate whether this is a diagnosis that exists or not, I mean, it exists in the DSM, okay, it exists. What I want us to do is say, what is it telling us about what's happening for this child? It's telling us that their nervous system is spending too much time in protection mode. The treatment, then is, how do I help this child spend more time in connection mode? And the truth is, is that a lot of the agreed-upon treatments for ODD aren't actually things that are going to help a child shift more into connection mode, that's where diagnosis gets sticky. So if you have a child who's diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and it feels like that accurately represents them, I believe you. What I want us to be really curious about is the why. Okay, that the diagnosis, the label is just helping us identify the potential beginnings of a pathway towards what's causing these observable symptoms and how do I address that? If you're listening as a clinician and you are working with a child who has come to you with a previous diagnosis of ODD, and you're bristling at that, notice that what you're bristling at isn't exactly that this child's behaviors have been accurately characterized. What you're bristling at is how that becomes the end of the discussion, instead of the beginning of the discussion. So you have this beautiful opportunity to begin a discussion, a discussion about what does this label really mean for the state of this child's nervous system and then what does that mean with regards to how do we help? 

Robyn: Okay, so finally, if you go to my website, and you put the word opposition into the search bar, an episode will come up that actually has the word opposition in the title, it will be so clear this episode about oppositional behavior prior to today. There are lots and loads of episodes that discuss oppositionality, but none of them have been really clear that it's about oppositional behavior and the title and I really wanted to fix that to make these resources more accessible to those of you who are searching. I'll see you back here next week for episode two! And then the week after, we will do episode three, all about what to do if what your child seems oppositional to is connection. As always, thank you, thank you, thank you, for tuning in, for caring about kids for caring about yourself for being a part of this movement, this global movement of reframing behaviors so that we can still set really compassionate boundaries. But see people for who they really are precious, amazing, overflowing with infinite worth. Because you know what, then we get to also believe that about ourselves. And that's pretty cool. If you need more support, and more places to go, you can go to the Start Here podcast at robyngobbel.com/starthere, you can grab my book wherever books are sold, Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, you can subscribe to my email list. People tell me they get so much help just by receiving my emails, or even just following me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, where I'm Robyn Gobbel MSW on Instagram at Robyn.Gobbel. I also have a free resources page on my website, which is overflowing with free resources, videos, ebooks, infographics, all sorts of free things robyngobbel.com/freeresources and if you're listening as a clinician, these are excellent free resources you can give to families that you work with. It's kind of my way of supporting this really, really, really intense work that you do. Alright, y'all, thank you so much. I'll see you back here next week!