When Connection Isn’t Safe- Oppositional Series Part 3 {EP 158}

Robyn: Now I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons why kids and humans might not experience connection as safe or regulating. My specific area of expertise is with kids– and adults too, whose nervous systems have experienced connection as either dangerous or life threatening. Typically, that means they've experienced danger or life threat inside or from the early caregiver relationship. Now, although connection is a biological imperative and we're always driven to search for connection, we also know that when we feel connected to others, we actually use fewer internal resources to deal with navigating stress. And what we know from that research– what that implies, is that connection supports regulation. Developing babies learn that connection feels good and safe inside the attachment cycle, right? Babies cry and someone comes in soothes them and they feel better, they feel safe, their nervous system soothes, and they feel held and seen and known. They learn that when they feel bad, they'll feel better again, that feeling bad doesn't last forever. And they learn that people will help them. They learn that connection brings relief and safety. But of course, some babies don't get enough of those experiences and they learn that connection does not bring soothing or safety. In fact, sometimes connection actually makes them feel worse. And sometimes connection is what caused those scared or terrified feelings in the first place. I definitely want to recognize that some kids are born into the world with such sensitivities in their nervous system, that it's hard for their grownups to soothe them, even the most loving, attentive, and attuned grownups. So despite their grown-ups having the best of intentions, these very sensitive, very vulnerable babies might not get as many experiences of connection bringing safe and soothing as they really need. And that's nobody's fault. It's not the baby's fault. It's not the grown-up's fault, it's just kind of a thing that happens. Some babies have special medical needs and maybe spend some or a lot of their early life uncomfortable, or in pain, maybe ongoing medical procedures and being surrounded by bright lights and noisy environments. Again, despite their very best intentions, their caregivers struggle to soothe them or help their bodies feel better, because the medical support and the interventions that they're receiving that are causing such discomfort, are what's keeping them alive. Sometimes this can, unfortunately, even create an association between connection and pain. 

Robyn: So in all those circumstances I just talked about, and probably many more as well, what happens in the nervous system essentially, is that the connection side of the nervous system and the protection side of the nervous system get kind of tied together. Connection gets tagged as not safe in the nervous system and it becomes a barrier to connection, being safe, and regulating. These kids don't have their nervous system formed around connection and soothing, being associated with like all sorts of happy feel-good neurochemicals. They don't get to learn that connection feels good. And in fact, in many circumstances, they learn the opposite, that that connection feels bad, or at the very least doesn't relieve them from feeling bad. So how does this relate to your child who is maybe stuck in protection mode and has a lot of oppositional defiant and controlling behaviors? What this ultimately can lead to, is that as caregivers, we can't rely on using ourselves– our connection as the primary source of regulation. But even if that's true, we still do need to be regulated and in connection mode– we need to hang on to our Owl brains as much as possible. And this gets really tricky. So let's go back to some of the science we learned in part one, if you haven't listened to part one yet, when this episode is over just head back two episodes to Oppositional And Defiant Behavior- Part One. Our kids are neurocieving safety, from inside, outside, and between so one of the places their neurocieving safety is based on the nervous system of the person that they're with. And generally speaking, we're kind of thinking about ourselves in the situation, right? We’re the person they're with, right? So they're taking cues of safety or danger from all sorts of places one of those places is our own nervous system; Are we in connection mode? Or are we in protection mode? This little piece of science helps us understand why it's so important for us to stay in connection mode for us to stay regulated– Connected to our Owl brain though of course not unnecessarily calm. I mean, if you're hearing that language for the first time regulated but not calm, you can scroll very far back to an episode called Regulated Does Not Equal Calm with Lisa Dion. It's robyngobbel.com/lisadion or a much more recent episode that was called Match The Energy, NOT The Dysregulation. Okay, so two episodes that will help you understand that part about how regulation does not equal calm. We want to stay in connection mode with our kids, though, of course, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're calm. I mean, sometimes calm would be wildly inappropriate. 

Robyn: Okay, so this science helps us understand why we need to stay in connection mode. But this also helps us understand why this is so hard for us because we are neurocieving safety or not, too. And one of the places that we're getting our sense of safety from is the state of our kid's nervous system. And just like them, just like all humans, we are constantly scanning the people that we're with, to see if they're available for connection or not. And we, just like them, are really longing to rest in the connected space of our nervous system. When we can't find a connected space to sync up with– that feels scary to us. We need our kid's connection, just like they need ours, our nervous system is looking for connection. And when we don't get it, even if it's from our kids. That's a cue of danger. Now, what makes this exceptionally unfair, is that unfortunately, we just cannot expect our kids to regulate through our lack of connection. Yet somehow, we need to figure out how to regulate through their lack of connection. And y’all, I get it, it's super unfair. And, theoretically, we are the more regulated person in the relationship. I know, I know, I said theoretically. But theoretically, we're the more regulated person in the relationship. And so yeah, this burden of figuring out how to regulate through their lack of connection, this burden falls to us. And we don't have to do it perfectly. And frankly, we don't even have to do it terribly well. Which is good, because we can't, what we do have to do is just keep trying. And we can recognize our own experience of protests of anger, of grief and loss, when our offerings of connection to our children aren't met, or reciprocated. 

Robyn: Sometimes I hear professionals say things like, kids aren't supposed to meet the needs of the grownups. And of course, there's a lot of truth to that. It's the grown-up's job to meet the grown-up's needs, okay? giving our kids the responsibility of meeting our needs for connection for safety, for regulation for anything, it's just way too big of a burden for them. They need us to regulate through our own distress so that they can turn to us for co-regulation. And then this builds their own regulatory circuits. This builds their sense of safety. Eventually, this could start to untie how they've linked up connection and protection. And eventually, through a lot of patience and a lot of really slow titration. They'll be able to perhaps increase their tolerance for connection before it becomes dangerous. So yes, of course, it's not our kid's job or responsibility to meet our needs. It's our job to meet theirs. But that can be true, it can be true that it's not our kid's job to meet our needs, while also still recognizing that it's just a part of our inborn physiology, for our nervous system to shift into protection mode when we're seeking connection and we can't find it. Even if that's from our kids. It is very painful, to be seeking connection and not receive it. It's very, very sad. There is so much grief there. Think about the energetic serve-and-return of connection. And I like to think of this as an actual game of serve-and-return, like a ball, right? So when I offer up some connection to someone, let's say our child, when I offer connection to my child, I want to like gently toss the ball in their direction. And I am really longing for my child to participate in this game of catch of back and forth that I've just initiated, right? Because otherwise, it's no fun. So I gently toss this ball and I look to make some sort of eye contact with them so that we can kind of sync up our nervous systems and come into this game of back and forth together. 

Robyn: So what happens if my child doesn't catch that ball and then gently lob it back? What happens if they maybe, like, just watch the ball sail past their head? Like they don't even make an attempt to catch it? They just stand there frozen. What if, instead of catching it, they lob it back at us with intense energy and force said it's coming back at us in this scary, forceful way? Then we're scared. What if they catch the ball? And then chuck it on the ground as hard as possible? Or what if they catch it, and just hold on to it and run away? So all of this is a metaphor for how we want the serve-and-return of connection to go. We want to gently lob it to our children and have them catch it and gently lob it back. Because this is how we want connection to go with anyone. So when it doesn't get caught, and gently served back, it feels bad. It feels painful, we can feel angry, we can feel really sad, there can be tremendous, tremendous grief in that. Not only is there anger and sadness and grief and that experience, but then I'm going to tell you that you have to keep playing, you have to keep offering, I am going to tell you how we might be able to make this kind of metaphorical game of catch go a little bit better for your kid, and then ultimately, for you. But I am going to tell you, you have to try to keep playing. Y'all, parenting is hard. I mean, just being in relationship with anyone is really hard. There's a lot of vulnerability, there's a lot of commitment, there's a lot of being willing to regulate through the things that are hard, and make repairs and then reconnect, right? Parenting is so hard. And part of why we agree to this gig and part of why we agree to any relational experience– but especially parenting, we agree to being parents, evolutionarily speaking because it's also pretty darn rewarding. Or at least it's really, really supposed to be. Doing something really hard, like parenting, without a whole lot of reward can eventually start to feel really impossible. It's working completely against our own physiology. 

Robyn: So what are our options and what do we do, just give up? I mean, I tell you what, I really understand that urge. I understand that Possum response so intimately. And that Possum response– giving up, moving into helplessness and hopelessness. It makes so much sense in the face of perpetual challenge, and a perpetual challenge that seems never-ending like there's no way out. So what we have to do is first just notice this, we have to notice that this is hard. It's impossibly hard. Sending connection to somebody who never sends it back or who rarely sends it back, or if they do send it back they send it back like spitefully chucking it in your face. It's impossibly hard. And then we have to acknowledge the truth about how much we are suffering, that we are longing for connection from our kids, and that not receiving it at times is unbearable. It is only in the recognition of this and the recognition of how hard it is and then recognition of how and hence we were suffering, that we can begin to even consider what we need to do to be able to move forward. And mostly, what we need to do to be able to move forward is grave. Believe it or not, being honest and authentic with ourselves noticing and acknowledging our own suffering, y'all, that is a cue of safety. It's a cue of safety that we get to offer to ourselves, it becomes like this little drop in the inside safety bucket, right? Inside, outside between, there's three. So if we imagine these as little separate buckets, there's a bucket of drops of inside safety. And when we attune to ourselves, when we notice and acknowledge our own suffering, that's a drop in the inside bucket of safety. And if the in-between bucket is really low because our kids don't reciprocate our connection, then we've got to fill those other buckets, we're also going to need other places to get that in-between bucket filled. If you can increase your cues of safety, from your other relationships. Eventually, your neurobiology will hold on to the felt safety of those relationships. And then those relationships actually start to also fill your inner bucket of felt safety. Because you internalize those people and their safety and connection, you literally build neural networks of the safety and connection that you experience with other people. And then that also fills your inside bucket of felt safety. 

Robyn: This actually– this tenant here that I'm talking about this little science of how we internalize the safety of others. This is actually really the core of my Being With program. The professionals that I trained to work with parents are, of course, learning a lot of tools to help them navigate their kid's really baffling behaviors. But really mostly what those professionals are learning is how to increase their capacity to be with the most struggling parents. To continue to offer those really struggling parents the connection and co-regulation that they're longing for. Because eventually, the cues of safety that are offered from the professional, the cues of safety that are offered from that relationship with a professional, they become internalized and to the parent's own neurobiology. And this is when parents begin to be able to stay in connection mode, even when their child is in a chronic protection mode. 

Robyn: Okay, let's take a second here and summarize. Okay, so I said the number one strategy for when your child experiences connection as a cue of danger, is to notice and acknowledge it, this is sending a cue of safety to yourself, it's going to help you stay in connection mode, even if it's just one second longer. The second strategy that I just described, is to increase the connection and co-regulation that you get from others. Now, maybe you don't have access to a whole lot of support, to a whole lot of connection and co-regulation from others. But you're listening to this podcast! And I know that listening to this podcast is helping people internalize me and the safety and connection that I offer. Because y'all write me and tell me this. In fact, it was those emails and messages of how you're starting to kind of hear my voice, just through the emails that I was sending out. Because three years ago, I didn't have this podcast, I was communicating to you all through my emails and then I had a blog, right? And y'all were telling me even way back then, that you were starting to internalize me and internalize my voice and that you could hear my voice in your head when things got really hard. And it was helping you hold on a little longer to your Owl brain. And those emails, those messages you sent me were– it was literally the reason I started the podcast, right? Because I was like, Wow, if I can do that through emails through social media through blogging, imagine the power of podcasting. And then I drew on what I was learning through podcasting and writing those emails and being on social media. And I tried to write a book in a really similar way, in a way that you could receive the connection and the co-regulation from me, even if we never meet. Because the connection and co-regulation that's offered, here's this podcast or through my emails, or through the book, or through the club, if you're in the club, that connection and co-regulation, even if we never actually meet, it's changing your nervous system. 

Robyn: So if you've ever felt like you could hear my voice in your head, or hearing my voice helps you hang on to your Owl brain a little bit longer, or hearing my words is helping you feel compassion for yourself for even one more second, right? If you've ever felt like that, if you've ever felt like you can hear my voice in your head, then this experience here of connection and co-regulation, through the podcasts or my book through being in the club, it's working. You are increasing the drops of safety in your own inner felt safety buckets, which will then eventually help you stay regulated, even when your child isn't. As you've internalized me or whoever else is offering you a connection, co-regulation. I know in the club, there's internalized one another, right maybe it's your therapist, your parent coach, your spouse, anyone who's offering you connection and co-regulation. As you begin to internalize them, that is increasing your own inner cues of safety, that is going to help you stay regulated even when your child is not. That's going to help you stay regulated, even when your child is rejecting your connection because rejecting your connection, that's a huge queue of danger. And unfortunately, as the grown-ups, it's our job to try to figure out a way to stay regulated to stay in connection mode, even when we're getting a lot of cues of danger. 

Robyn: Okay, now the third strategy we're going to talk about is that we have to learn how to then titrate the amount of connection that we offer to our child that sometimes we're offering too much connection, it's totally flipping them into danger-danger mode, and really significantly contributing to their dysregulation. Now, that's not your fault. But what we can do is look at how we're offering connection, how fast we are offering it, the intensity of it, and the different ways connection gets offered. We can learn how to kind of strategically or deliberately back that off; we can titrate it so that the connection can be offered in doses that might not be experienced as so unsafe, so dangerous, so life-threatening. I was planning to talk about that in today's episode, but here we are half an hour in and I'm thinking about all the things that I want to say about how we titrate connection. I think I'm turning this three-part series into a four-part series. So that's what we'll pick up with next week. And maybe that'll be the conclusion of this four-part series on oppositional and defiant behavior for our kids who don't experience connection as regulating, how can we be really thoughtful, really strategic about the ways in which we offer connection, and so we titrate it so that we offer it in a way that maybe offers up the opportunity, that connection and protection, the tangling of connection and protection can maybe start to be untied? Because that will be a huge contributing factor to decreasing your child's oppositional behavior. If you have a child who experiences connection as dangerous, you are of course seeing a lot of oppositional behavior, you're seeing like some really baffling confusing behavior for sure. And some of that is oppositional behavior. 

Robyn: So we'll round out this four-part series on oppositional behavior by looking at how do we strategically offer connection in a way that can allow our kids to titrate the amount of connection that they take in, so that connection can start to feel like a safer connection and can start to feel regulating instead of dangerous, and dysregulating. I want to tell you about a couple other places where you can go and explore the science of human behavior, where you can really explore what behavior really is and how can we make sense of that. On my website, I have a lot of free resources. It's just at robyngobbel.com/freeresources, you're going to find a webinar on how we can focus on the nervous system to change behavior. It's kind of like an introduction to all of my work; regulation, connection, felt safety, Owls, Watchdogs, and Possums. Okay, webinar and ebook.. free. ‘Focus On The Nervous System To Change Behavior.’ I also have a separate, specifically curated podcast feed, that's called Start Here. I was getting so many questions from parents and professionals. It was like you have so much great information, you have so many episodes on your podcast, where do I even start? So I actually literally took 10 podcast episodes, curated them and put them in order, in a separate podcast feed that's called Start Here. So you can just press play, and listen to episodes one through 10 without thinking about it without jumping around the podcast, without searching for episodes. That's a private podcast, meaning you're not going to find it in your regular podcast player, need to go to robyngobbel.com/starthere and sign up for it, I'll send you an email, and you'll get the directions on how to subscribe to this private 10 Episode podcast. All of those episodes are here on the Baffling Behavior Show, I've just taken them out and put them in a curated feed, so you don't have to think about it, you can just play them in order. 

Robyn: I have a lot of other free resources at robyngobbel.com/freeresources; one-page infographic, things you can print out, signs, you know, hang up on your fridge, give to teachers or you know, other caregivers that your child has. And then of course, we have the club, which is a virtual community of parents and caregivers who are caring for kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big baffling behaviors. You can find that over at robyngobbel.com/theclub. And oh my gosh, I almost forgot to mention my book. It's still brand new, I'm still getting used to mentioning it. Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors came out on September 21st, 2023. And has wildly exceeded my expectations in how many families it was going to reach, how impactful it was going to be, and y’all, that is so so so exciting. Because the more people It reaches, the more people who are going to know about the science of behavior, know about the science of safety, and they're going to be able to be with our kids in that way. So that we don't have to work so hard to educate everybody. Okay, you can get Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors wherever you buy books online. Okay, so next week, we'll be back here I'm gonna plan to conclude this three-now four-part series on oppositional and defiant behavior. We'll talk about high trading connection so that our kids whose nervous systems are really stuck in protection mode can eventually start to experience connection as regulating and they'll be more easily brought into or invited into that connection side of their nervous system, which will, of course, decrease their oppositional behaviors. As always, thank you, thank you. Thank you for everything you do, to show up for your kids, show up for yourselves, and contribute to truly making the entire world safer. I'll see you next week!