Is It Time to Raise the Bar? {EP 207}

Robyn: All right, we're going to talk about the stress response system today, not just lowering the stress to heal the stress response system, but also, kind of like, what next? How do we then strengthen the stress response system? It's a conversation we've been having more and more and more over in the club, and it sounds a lot like the question, is it time to raise the bar? Families are asking questions like we've reduced the stress so the stress response system can heal, now what? Now, if the language stress response system is new to you, you might want to pause this episode. Head to Episode 94 which is called the stress response system. My understanding of the stress response system comes a lot from Dr. Bruce Perry, as well as just how I've integrated that with other theories, polyvagal theory, interpersonal neurobiology, theories like that.    

Robyn: I also talked a bit about how to strengthen the stress response system just two episodes ago, when I talked about strengthening my body after an injury, and while it's not a perfect comparison, it's worth considering with regards to the importance of not resting too long, we've got to start using our muscles again, whether that be for me, my physical muscles, I had a serious back injury, and it was so important that I risked movement and going back to the gym and how much felt safety I needed in order to take those risks, right? So important to risk using that muscle again and for the stress response system, the quote-unquote muscle is exactly that the stress response system. How do we start using that quote-unquote muscle again and in a similar way? What's the importance of felt safety in doing so? So, so that episode was just a couple back, like Episode 205, you don't even probably have to scroll. It's gonna be right there in your view on your podcast app.    

Robyn: So yeah, over in the club, and honestly, just a lot of places in social media, and a lot of the discussions I'm having with the professionals that I'm training or who have trained, and being with, we are just having a lot more discussions around, how do we lower demands, how do we lower the stress? And I love that. That's a topic of conversation that is getting more and more accepted, right? We're stepping further and further away from, you know, really what are steeped in ableism, beliefs about what our kids should or shouldn't be able to do or handle, and shifting our attention to what about my kid, being in attendance with my kid, and noticing the intensity. Which their stress response system has been weakened or harmed, and is therefore, you know, exceptionally, quote-unquote, over reacting right, like the stress response system is kind of chronically going off, or really starting to notice that, and we're really starting to be aware of the fact that how we heal the stress response system isn't to power through. It's to rest. It's to reduce the stress, lower demands, and I am so grateful we are finally, finally, finally bringing that conversation into the mainstream.    

Robyn: There is often this belief, though, that once we lower the demands or stress enough that we will just eventually have a nervous system that starts to strengthen all on its own, and the child will naturally, kind of, in a way like raise their own bar, naturally begin to start to tolerate more stress. And this does indeed happen for a lot of folks, though I think it's worth considering why. Why does it seem to come more naturally for some and maybe not for others? This kind of like, inborn desire, natural desire, to start to experiment with more stress again, why does it seem more natural for some people than others? Is it really about personal temperament? Is it more complicated than that? My guess is it is more complicated than that, but that's just my anecdotal observations. So yes, it does happen for some kids, right? We lower the demands enough, and they start to very naturally, increase their desire to seek out stress, try new things, be more curious things like that, but, but the reality is is I know many, many, many, many families where that is not happening.    

Robyn: Now, humans do have a natural drive for curiosity from an attachment perspective. Bowlby talks about one of the three attachment behaviors as being curiosity and seeking, like moving out into the world and being curious- having seeking behavior that is one of the three attachment behaviors that Bowlby identified, And he said attachment is an inborn system. Generally speaking, when there is enough felt safety, humans do want to seek and explore and grow and change. And generally speaking, when we're babies and toddlers, this seeking and curiosity emerges relatively naturally. Now please hear me say things like, generally speaking, nothing I ever say could be universally applied to all humans, and the humans that it doesn't apply for aren't bad or wrong. We're all just different. But generally speaking, when we're babies and toddlers, this seeking and curiosity system emerges relatively naturally when we're feeling safe. So is that also true about older kids or adults? Is it going to just naturally emerge that desire to seek out new things and be curious, and, frankly, to increase the stress, because seeking and curiosity is stress driven. What does this happen with older kids?     

Robyn: Their nervous system heals, and then they start to just naturally explore and grow and essentially just naturally increase their own stress. Because, again, seeking and curiosity. That's stress, right? Think about how a baby goes from sitting to crawling to walking. There is stress there. They increase their own stress. Naturally, learning to walk is hard, but actually just sitting and watching the world go by as your brain is developing, just sitting and watching the world go by in front of you, that's also stressful, right? Like there's a desire that's thwarted, a desire to get that thing yourself, explore it, touch it, and do it on your own, that's a developmental desire that's thwarted if you aren't walking, like if you're still a blanket baby.    

Robyn: So there's this experience of, I want that thing, but I can't get it. And that also is stressful. The stress of desire, in a way, then overrides the stress of trying something new, like walking. But Bowlby also tells us that underneath moving through that stress to pursue something that's desired is felt safety. And not only that, but a baby doesn't have too many memories where they learn something like taking risks and enduring stress is dangerous. I mean, maybe they have a couple experiences that are like that, right, that could contribute to some memories like that, memories around stress and risks. But babies with a lot of felt safety feel safe to take risks. They have a belief that I can have some stress and be okay. They have a belief that not all stress is bad. They have a belief that I won't get stuck in the stress, and that stress is worth it. So it is in a way easier for them to intentionally move towards stress.    

Robyn: If you're parenting a child whose trust response system has been so injured that you've moved into a low demand, low stress way in your family, then your child almost certainly has many, many, many memory networks that say stress is too hard. It's not worth it, those memories that fear right? And again, I'm speculating right now, but, but here's my speculation, that those memories that fear is likely going to suppress a natural desire for curiosity, for tolerating stress, because Bowlby tells us that felt safety is essentially required for seeking and curiosity to emerge. We may be parenting older kids who have a lot of past experiences where they learned it's too much, it's too scary, the risk isn't worth it. It's safer to stay in this extremely low demand, extremely low stress state, even though I am missing a lot of things by not having my curiosity and seeking system engage, right, even though I'm missing a lot from that, and that's stressful too, but the stress of the risk is too much.   

Robyn: So shifting out of an extremely low demand, low stress way of being in the world becomes very, very difficult, and this very limited tolerance for stress, right? Because the stress response system has been so injured, it's not because they're bad kids, bratty kids, manipulative kids, controlling kids. This is all about their stress response system. When there is such a limited tolerance for any stress, it means that their nervous system almost certainly is going to very, very, very quickly shift into protection mode because life is stressful. No matter what you do to lower the stress, right? We cannot eliminate all stress from life, especially if you have more people in your family, it's just impossible to eliminate all stress. And so folks who have a very, very, very injured stress response system and a very limited tolerance for any stress, are going to have nervous systems that very quickly shift into protection mode. Their stress response system is what Dr. Perry would say, extremely sensitized.    

Robyn: And because we can't eliminate stress completely, but also haven't been able to strengthen the stress response system, the tiniest stress shifts that nervous system immediately into protection mode, and that often leads to relational distress, because so so often, protection mode almost always ends up violating the boundaries of others with things like verbal aggression, right? Name, calling, swearing, cussing, right? Parents tell me things like they feel held hostage, again, we're not talking about bad kids. We're talking about kids whose nervous system is so sensitive that they're shifting into what I would call back off or attack watchdog so quickly and so, yes, behavior tactics that are emerging from a very sensitized stress response system are going to look like things like verbal response, controlling, manipulation, yes, of course, right, and those behaviors are violating other people's boundaries.    

Robyn: So how do we navigate this? How do we make sense of both truths? Right? Like this child's behavior isn't because they're bad or needs to be punished more. It's because their sensitized stress response system is so wounded, but also it is having a very serious negative impact on other people. So now we've got families who are attempting to navigate these extremely distressful relational dynamics. The thought of adding or reintroducing any amount of stress in an attempt. And to strengthen or rebuild the stress response system is often causing like a fear or a trauma response in parents, right, which is so reasonable, right? Because the impact of stress on their kids in the past has been essentially traumatic, while also parents are feeling afraid of what is going to be my child's history is our future, not history future, if we can't strengthen their stress response system, right? What is going to come of my child when, as they grow older, and they have this extremely fragile nervous system and little, or what feels like no desire for curiosity, to seek new things, to try new things, to explore things.    

Robyn: Now, let's pause for a second, because not every child with an extremely fragile nervous system will have the capacity to strengthen it to the point that we want or are hoping for. Some injuries can be healed. Some injuries mean we make adjustments to our expectations from life, and this is a tough call. How do we know the difference? How do we know when we are forcing ableist ideas on what our kids should do or should be able to do, or should want to do, or should like to do, or or how they should behave. How do we know the difference? We might not, we might have to guess and fail and get it wrong and sometimes right. But also many, many, many, families I know come to the point where they say, no matter how much I lower demands, no matter how much I examine my own ableist beliefs, deal with my own triggers, strengthen my own psychological boundaries, this is not sustainable for Our family, and this nagging sense that also I'm not sure that this is good for my kid.   

Robyn: One of the things that I say sometimes is that my own life would be wonderful if everyone would just do everything I always wanted to do them to do. I'd have no problems. I'd be nice and happy and never grumpy, right? And I say that kind of tongue in cheek, although there is a part of me that's like, yeah, come on, people, can we make that happen? But there is also an owl brain part of me that knows that if I actually were able to make that happen. And I tell you what people sometimes I try, if I were actually able to make that happen, my life would not be relationally rich at all, not just with others, because a relationship where everyone always does what I want them to do isn't really a mutual relationship. So there would be a lack of relational richness there, but there would also, frankly, be a lack of relational richness with myself, because that level of rigidity and that level of it always must be the way I want it to be, would suggest some pretty intense inflexibility in my own nervous system, and would probably mean I didn't spend much time in connection with myself.    

Robyn: Now, again, I am simply self-reflecting right now. This is a case study of one I'm not making, you know, grand assumptions to the general population. I want to be clear, we all have very different connection and relational needs, and it is hard to stay in attunement with a child who is very different than you, including very different in how they're experiencing connection, what their preferences are for connection, some folks just have different needs for connection, and when that is coming from a place of being in attunement and alignment with themselves, It is less likely to cause so much distress in the nervous system that protection mode behaviors that, frankly, are violating other people's boundaries, like yelling, throwing, cussing, manipulation, holding them hostage, things like that. You know, those kinds of behaviors are much less likely to emerge from a nervous system who's in tune with themselves, and is demonstrating different kinds of needs, for connection, for seeking, for curiosity, you know that are based on their authentic selves, as opposed to based on an exceptionally fragile stress response system does? Does that make sense?    

Robyn: So how do we know if our child needs us to start raising the bar? How do we know if we need to lower demands, lower stressors, or we need to hold the boundary, not lower the demand or the stressor, but instead increase the co-regulation and support. I am, unfortunately about to give you a non-answer-answer, but it's just the best that we can do right now, and especially in this format, right where we're not actually in a mutual back and forth, serve and return relationship, where we can explore something together. Right? In this podcast, I'm talking, you're listening, right? So the non-answer-answer that I'm going to give you is that the best thing we can do to navigate this question, is it time to start raising the bar? Is to continue to increase our connection to ourselves, to increase our own attunement to ourselves, to increase our own capacity to regulate through stress.    

Robyn: And at this point he the podcast is at episode 200 and something. I don't even remember exactly 200 and something. I have so many episodes about that, about how do we increase attunement to ourselves, increase our own capacity to regulate through stress? It is tricky. Okay, it is tricky. And if you're in the club, you know, we've got tons and tons of resources for that too, and we are just days away of from our new resource library opening up, and there's so many resources that we can turn to for increasing our own connection to ourselves, increasing our own attunement to ourselves, increase our own capacity to regulate our own stress. The more we're connected to ourselves, the more we can stay in our own Owl brain, so the more we'll be able to see our child clearly, which means we can make decisions from connection mode, decisions like, huh, I think I actually need to lower the demand or the stress here, and we can make that decision from connection mode with our Owl brain, instead of from protection mode, which would come from, oh my gosh. I can't handle this anymore. This stress is too much. I am changing the stressor so that the stress response for everybody will decrease, because I can't take it anymore. That's a decision made from protection mode. Now that's not criticism. I make decisions from protection mode all the time, and if we want to strengthen our child's stress response system, we do want to be taking steps to making these kinds of decisions more and more and more from connection mode.    

Robyn: That way, when we do make the decision to lower stress, if you do it from connection mode, you are still offering true co regulation, which is still contributing to strengthening your child's stress response system. Dropping demands from protection mode doesn't do much to actually strengthen the child's stress response system. In fact, it could give the child the experience that no one, not even my caregiver can manage my stress. It really is too big, and it must be avoided at all costs, and I'm willing to do anything to avoid it, including using my 'Back Off' and 'Attack' Watchdog, because it really feels that life threatening. So y'all, those of you who already know me, you know, I can't give you a flow chart. The best I can do is give you a frankly kind of crude map, right, the map of the nervous system. And the truth is, is that the nervous system does want to be strong, but also the nervous system does not want to change. Our bodies are calorically exceptionally efficient. They want to do things the easiest way possible and to avoid as much stress as possible.    

Robyn: A lot of being human is navigating this constant conflict. Want to be strong, want to be curious, want to be seeking, want to be calorically efficient and do things with the least amount of stress possible. There's this kind of constant conflict happening. Dr Bruce Perry says we build a resilient stress response system when we experience stressors that are predictable, controllable and moderate, whereas he says, we build a sensitized stress response system from stressors that are unpredictable, extreme and prolonged. Of course, of course, we want to eliminate stress that is unpredictable, extreme or prolonged. But strengthening the stress response system doesn't mean that there's no stress. So as you begin to be more thoughtful about this and to ask yourself the question, is it time to raise the bar, think about is this stress something that could be predictable, moderate and controllable? Okay? And part of what makes stress moderate and controllable is that it's supported, that there's co-regulation offered, that we're not alone in that stress.    

Robyn: So what about the parent who tells me, if I really, truly hold a boundary, what feels like a very, very reasonable and simple boundary, my child become so dysregulated, that is attack level dysregulation? Does that mean that it was too much stress? And I wish the answer to that question was clear. I wish we could say yes, that attack level response means it was too much stress, but unfortunately, in some circumstances, when we are thinking specifically about how to rebuild the stress response system. It isn't that clear. It's just not. It might be true that your child has memory networks that tells them that stress is so, so, so, so dangerous that I need to have an attack level response. And it also might be true that your child has such strong neural networks for tiny stress equals extreme dysregulation that their mind immediately starts taking that neural pathway, and it's fast, and once it's initiated, it's impossible to stop. So yes, now you're faced with a pretty impossible decision, do I hold the boundary through this dysregulation that seems so intense that it seems actually traumatic for my child and it's causing extreme distress for the other family members, or do I remove the stressor?   

Robyn: And unfortunately, no one can tell you the answer to that. This is where your own regulation and your own connection to yourself and your own stress resilience comes into place so that you can try as much as possible to make the decision from a place of regulation, safety and connection. You can take a breath and go, okay, this is too much right now, too much for them, or too much for me. Then you can take another break, breath, shift the boundary, the expectation or the demand. Or you can take a breath and you can decide that you're not going to shift the boundary or the expectation or the demand, when we are not going to lower the stress, and sometimes, without question, we should not. We need to increase structure, safety, connection and co-regulation. We need to increase the support, if lowering demands for your child has increased the safety connection and regulation in your family, super, super wonderful, I'm so so so grateful for that. Okay, keep doing what you're doing. That's the goal, right? Increased regulation connection and felt safety for your child and for your family.    

Robyn: But if lowering demands for your child has decreased the safety connection and regulation for the rest of your family, and also doesn't exactly seem to be contributing to your child's overall satisfaction in life, that's probably important to consider what the next step is, do we sometimes lower demands for our kids, but haven't actually lowered the demands for ourselves. So we lowered the demands for our kids, but we find ourselves still having the same expectations, so we're in conflict, right? Or sometimes we lower the demands for our kids as a behavior management technique, right, really using it as a way to eventually get to the same place we were hoping to in the first place, which was basically to just get them to do exactly what we want them to. And if you are being reflective and you're noticing some of those things might be true for you, that's not criticism. I mean, I've certainly done that. We've all done that we can be curious with ourselves and be honest, because it matters and what we do next.    

Robyn: Listen, y'all, this is so, so so hard. I never, ever, ever want to make things harder for you. And I am so aware of how much conflicting information you get in the world about how, quote-unquote good parents handle hard things. I don't want to ever contribute to that. I want you to feel more confidence in yourself. I don't want you to feel more confidence in me or another parent or another person who's talking about parenting. I want you to feel more confidence in you. And also, I've been fortunate to learn a lot about the science of behavior of the nervous system. Issue of the stress response system, and I want to try to keep decoding that for you and to make it practical for you. I 100% wish I could come to your house and support you through all of this. Give you a flow chart and help make these decisions for you. But alas, that's not what I can do. So here's what we do instead, I try to do this. I try to podcast. I tried to write my book in a way that as much as I can, I am helping you trust yourself more, right? And as much as I can, I try to train other professionals who can support you in this way, to support you in learning to trust yourself more. And I wish I could just tell you what to do here on this podcast microphone say, do this, this, this and this. Need to strengthen your child's trust response system. Do this, this, this, and this. It's just not that straightforward. If it was that straightforward, we wouldn't even probably be in the situation that we're in right now.    

Robyn: That said, if you are in The Club, yes, y'all this is what we're talking about, a ton right now. So come into the forum, come to this month's master class and putting it into practice, submit your ask anything questions, right this we are actively working through these curiosities. Is it time to raise the bar? Is it time to shift and raise those expectations again? Is it time to increase support and co-regulation, as opposed to decrease demands? And even though, in the club, we can talk about it, you know, I still can't make that decision for you, but we're going to work on it together, right? And the other parents are going to help you, right? And the more that we do this together with our own co-regulation and connection, the more we get to know ourselves better, the more we grow our own Owl brains, and the better we feel about making these decisions ourselves, including if they end up being the quote-unquote wrong decision, right? Because a wrong decision means we reflect on it and use that as information about what decision to make in the future. I know many, and actually most of you listening aren't in the club, so we're going to just keep talking about this here on the podcast. We're going to keep talking about this subject because I know it's tricky and it's nuanced, and it is my hope that we can sort through it together, even though we aren't actually together. I mean, that is why I podcast.    

Robyn: Okay, so I didn't actually give you any suggestions on what to actually do. I get that. So here's what I'm going to tell you to actually do next is maybe re-listen to the stress response system episode, go back and listen to the episode I published just two episodes ago. If you haven't heard it, yes yet, about increased scaffolding felt safety, because there is so much need for felt safety if we are going to ask people to trust stressing their bodies or trust stressing their nervous systems. If you are in the club, come to the forum. Let's talk about this episode. Let's talk about, you know, what landed for you, what didn't land for you, and what questions you have about, okay, well, now what.    

Robyn: Everyone else, here's where you can stay in contact with me. You can hit subscribe to this podcast in your podcast app, and when each episode comes out on Tuesdays, you'll get a little notification. It'll make it so much easier for you to just hit play. You can head to RobynGobbel.com and get yourself on my email list. You can sign up for any one of my free things that I offer, and there are many, many free things that I offer that'll get you onto my email list, and then you'll hear from me, usually about twice a week. You can follow me on Facebook. You can follow me on Instagram, where I try to post pretty regularly, infographics, carousels, slides that are practical, helpful and give you some ideas about, okay, well, how do I actually implement all this stuff we talk about? And of course, you can snag yourself a copy of my book, Raising Kids ]With Big Baffling Behaviors, which is in paperback, ebook and audiobook. You can get it wherever you buy books online. And if you need some ideas about where to get it, you go to RobynGobbel.com/book, alrighty, y'all, I will be with you again here next week Tuesday for another episode of The Baffling Behavior Show. Bye!