Scaffolding is a Form of Co-Regulation {EP 82}

Robyn: So what if the child who is taking things that don't belong to them? What if that isn't about trust? What if that's about the child needing more co-regulation, probably more structure and boundaries, and more skills? And what if we could look at that behavior, not about them being sneaky, or untrustworthy, or they can't be trusted, I can ever take my eyes off this child, or the second I take my eyes off of them, or the second I'm not right there watching what they're doing, they're doing the things they're not supposed to be doing. Right? We make all these generalizations that are typically negative. When what if it's really about the fact that when I'm not there, supervising, my child doesn't have enough co-regulation, enough connection to their owl brain, to have the impulse control that's needed. To have the proverbial pause, but for doing something they're not supposed to do. Before they need their brain- they need the co-regulation in their nervous system to be slow enough that they can remember that what happens 10 seconds from now is gonna be real different than what happened one second from now, when I take that candy bar and eat it. What happens 10 seconds from now is that somebody's gonna find out and be upset. And that- it actually requires a lot of regulation to be in a space of your brain, like I said, to even think about that, let alone to care about that. So that child, actually, what they need is more scaffolding. Okay? And I will take you through what that might look like in this situation as well as in other situations. 

Robyn: So, what actually even is scaffolding? Scaffolding is a word that I first came into contact with through like the education field and learning about teaching. I'm married to an educator and obviously teaching is a huge part of what I do. So scaffolding is about help- giving somebody what they need in order to be successful. And then sequentially kind of decreasing that scaffolding, as the child demonstrates an increase in their competence and independence. From a very practical perspective, think about scaffolding in a very literal sense, right? Like the scaffolding a painter would set up outside to be able to paint, you know, the whole height of a wall or a building, right? That scaffolding is in a way, like raising the floor for the painter, because they can't reach the top otherwise, right? So the scaffolding is supporting, it's providing exactly what that person needs in order to be able to do the job. And it's making an assumption, the scaffolding, is making an assumption that if we just give this person what they need, they'll be able to do the job. Which is to paint the top of this building. Right? So scaffolding in the education world is similar. And so scaffolding from a parenting perspective, what I would say is the parenting steps that we can take to slowly and sequentially increase our kids’ competence, and independence. Now, we're scaffolding our kids all the time, about everything. Social skills, academic skills, language skills, everything that our kids are growing, and learning, and developing, it has an element of scaffolding through- to it, right? Like kids get in a way kind of scaffold of their own learning how to walk, right? As they move through their- these different development milestones. And ultimately, they have the balance the, you know, visual skills, the motor skills, the muscles that allow for independent walking. 

Robyn: I think a really easy activity that helps us see kind of the steps of scaffolding is learning how to ride a bike. Right? So when our kids are first learning how to ride a bike, we don't just pull out the two wheeler, hand it to them, and say best of luck to you, right? Maybe a child on their own would eventually figure that out, but probably not. It will be so frustrating. And so to stick with it long enough to be successful at it is going to be darn near impossible for most kids especially. Right? So we don't just pull up the trailer and say, Hey, good luck and leave and walk away. What do we do to help our kids be scaffolded to eventually ride a two wheeler? Well, a lot of our kids had other kinds of bikes when they were even younger. Maybe they started with like- a- like a big wheel, or a tricycle. Right? And so they are starting to be scaffolded on things that move and have wheels, because that can be pretty, you know, discombobulating to the system if you've never been on something with- with wheels that you are operating yourself, right? So they've been- they've experienced success. Being on something with wheels, like a tricycle or like- a like a- big wheel. It was just those little, you know, things that we can buy for younger kids that have wheels and move around. And then when we start to get real intentional about like, prepping to learn how to ride a two wheeler, we put training wheels on the two wheeler, right? And then we make those training wheels like uneven so that the child has to now start to notice and practice their balance. Right? They- they're learning how to regulate their own balance. To like notice when their body is feeling off balance, and then what do they need to do to get back into balance, right? And then we take those training wheels off eventually. And what do we often do at first? Is we still kind of like run behind the child on their bike and we hold on and when they get up to a good speed, and we let go. And then what happens? They fall down. Right? So there's this almost, always inevitable aspect of scaffolding in which there's a fall, you know? And learning to ride a bike there's a literal fall in so many other aspects of scaffolding and learning new skills, there's more of like a proverbial fall. But with learning to ride a bike you literally fall. And then as the parent- as the person who's providing the scaffolding, I have to ask myself, did I really- like remove the scaffolding? Did I decrease the scaffolding too quickly? Or was this just the right pace? And now my job is not so much to scaffold the skill but to provide the co-regulation that happens during inevitable you know, falls, or failures, or setbacks, or whatever you want to call them. Because that's an inevitable part of decreasing the scaffolding is that there's going to be the either literal or proverbial fall. Right? 

Robyn: So, you know, something that, I- as an adult I've been really working on with scaffolding is my aerial silks skills, right? Like I've told you all I take aerial silks classes, I have since about 2018. And now I teach beginner aerial silks students. And beginners, of course, need so much scaffolding. And there's skills on the silks, there's strength, there's balance, there's so many different elements that go into aerial silks. And as you know, as a student myself, but as also teaching brand new students, I'm really thinking a lot about like, what's- what's the scaffolding that's needed? If- if I want the student to eventually be able to do this very advanced skill, what do they need to learn first? And again, it's not just skills, although that's an important one, right? There is before I get to drop, I have to learn the skills of climbing. I have to learn the skill that wraps me into that drop in a safe way. There's the skills that are scaffolded. But there's also my confidence that's scaffolded along the way. There's my literal strength that's scaffolded. There's my grip strength that's scaffolded. There are so many things that are being scaffolded along the way that are paving the way for a certain skill to ultimately be achieved. And this concept of scaffolding, it really can apply- it- I- my guess is that any behavior challenge that comes to mind for you with your kid, we could think about what is the scaffolding that this child would need in order for their success to become inevitable? Again, I'm not promising we could actually do those things. But I do believe we could at least answer that question. And then that, again, it gives us some good ideas about maybe what we could do, but it also helps us understand why our kids are struggling. So something like playing unsupervised, right? Like, wouldn't we love as our kids get older that we don't have to provide them with 100%, you know, toddler level supervision. Toddler parenting is super active, when our kids get to be older 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, we'd really like to not have to actively parent them so much. Very reasonable hope and goal as a parent. It's just a not all of our kids have the skills that they need to be able to have social experiences unsupervised. To be able to share, to be able to compromise, to understand what is happening in the person that they're playing with, so that they can understand the feelings and the motives of that other person. There are so many complexities that are involved in a social experience, and the social experience could be with their sibling. And so maybe what you see is if you are right there, playing right with your child, they are being, you know, successful or as successful as you can imagine that they would be. But the second you walk away, or the second you’re in a different room or the second you take a phone call, or, heaven forbid, you have to go to the bathroom. Like everything just hits the fan, right? And there's this feeling of like, oh my gosh, the second I look away! I can't even look away! I can't trust them. But what's really happened is they were getting co-regulation from you, even if you weren't actively participating. But if you were actually participating in the play, you definitely were giving them co-regulation. But even if you weren't actively participating, you are still giving them passive co-regulation, which I talked about in the last episode about What Co-Regulation Really Is. So that co-regulation that they're getting actively or passively is allowing them to have access to their- their highest developed owl brain. And your kids’ owl brain might not be as- as developed as their same age peers, but- but the co-regulation that you're giving them is giving them like the highest access to the highest part of their owl brain. And then you walk away. And now that co-regulation is gone. And they really needed that co-regulation to be connected to their owl brain, and know how to share, and know how to ask for help when their sibling took their toy instead of just walloping their sibling over, you know, upside their head because they took their toy, right? All of those things come from having enough co-regulation. 

Robyn: So when we leave our kids unsupervised, and you know, everything goes awry. It's not because you can't trust them. It's because the lack of supervision inherently means a lack of offering them co-regulation, or they simply just don't have enough internalized co-regulation yet to be able to stay regulated enough that they stay connected to their owl brain, even when things get a little bit stressful. And playing with other children actually is pretty stressful. It's a lot of complex skills that go into playing, right? So maybe the scaffolding your child needs is that they actually can't be unsupervised. That your children have to play while you are right there. They always have to be right there in front of you. And maybe another portion of the scaffolding is that you reframe what- how you label the misbehavior. If you know- do- because you're human, and you have to go the bathroom. And so you leave and you go to the bathroom. And- and then things erupt. In your mind, you know that like, of course that happens. They lost their co-regulation, and then they couldn't navigate these complex social experiences anymore. It makes so much sense that that happened. That shifts and so much how we respond. And that doesn't mean we don't like set a boundary. Right? It doesn't mean like, all bets are off. And okay, our kids are just wild animals and they can do whatever they want to. It doesn't mean that at all. It's- But reframing the origin of the behavior changes so significantly. What we think about our kids, and then that changes the energy that we have when- when we respond to them. 

Robyn: So similarly, think about, if you have a child who struggles with taking things that don't belong to them. I have a similar opinion that- that that is almost certainly about a child who simply doesn't have the skills and the internalized co-regulation to be able to withstand the temptation to not take something that they want. All of us want what we want, when we want it. This is true about all humans. This is not wanting what you want, when you want it is not an indication of a spoiled person, or some like morally corrupt person, all of us want what we want, when we want it. It's just that those of us was big, strong, owl brains can regulate through the feeling of wanting what we want, when we want it. Not doing things that are breaking the rules, and also the disappointment of not getting what we want. Because disappointment, a huge feeling, and it can be real hard to regulate through. Right? So when your kid takes something that doesn't belong to them, part of what happened is an inability to kind of dampen that impulse of I want that I will take that. It happens so fast. Right? Now, there was no time for the owl brain to think about all the other things, right? Like the social- the social ways we agree to interact with other humans on the planet, which is that like, I have my things, you have your things and we don't take them- take from each other without asking, right? It's just that's kind of this implicit agreed upon rule as a human. And- But we didn't, we didn't always know that. Right? We were scaffolded to learn that we understand boundaries, we understand yours versus mine. I understand how it impacts somebody if I take something that's theirs without them asking or consenting. I understand and care about how that can impact my relationship with them. All of these are very complex owl brain skills that require a lot of internalized regulation to be able to access all of those skills. Not to mention the regulation of getting through the feeling of disappointment when I want something and I can't have it. Which again, is a feeling you and I are dealing with multiple times a day. Like life is about wanting things that you can have, and regulating through the disappointment of that. But disappointment is also a very big, overwhelming, uncomfortable feeling that perhaps your kid doesn't have enough internalized regulation yet to get through that- to tolerate that feeling. So to avoid the feeling of disappointment, they take things that don't belong to them. Right? So this is all about skills. This is all about having enough regulation onboard, enough internalized co-regulation that I can use my owl brain to navigate these complex settings. Same thing- same with like- adhering to any rule, right? That, you know, teenagers are struggling, younger kids, not just teenagers are struggling with- with screen time rules. Because it's really hard to turn off screens. Because we really want them because they're designed to make our brains really want them. And sometimes, us as grownups, have enough owl brain enough, regulation on board that even when we don't want to turn off the screens, we do it anyway. Because we know it's time to move on, or it's time for dinner, or, you know, we've- we've binge watched eight episodes on Netflix. And at this point, it's like having watched, you know, the Lord of the Rings four times, because that’s how long we’ve been watching TV, right? And it's hard to stop doing something that you like doing, or not doing something you really want to do like screen time. And regulating through how hard it is not to do something you want to do is a very advanced skill that requires a lot of internalized regulation. And so, if I have a child who's struggling by taking things that aren't- don't belong to them, or struggling not to comply with screen time rules. One of the things I need to do is think about, well, where's the breakdown in co-regulation? And do I need to do it kind of like the proverbial toddler proofing, right? 

Robyn: Like, we don't blame toddlers for taking things off of the end table and breaking them, right? We realize oops, shouldn't have left that out. Toddlers can't regulate through the impulse to touch, to feel, to see, to be curious. They don't have a sense of yours and mine. It's just a thing. And thing that’s there and that's to be explored. And I know it sounds bananas to think that that could be true about your 10 year olds’ brain or your 15 year olds’ brain. But it could be. Because they could simply be lacking the skills and the internalized co-regulation that come along with all the things I just mentioned, you know? Especially the boundaries of like yours versus mine. Toddlers don't know yours versus mine. It's just ooh, that's a thing. Let me check it out. Right? And we don't get mad at them or blame them for that. We toddler-proof. And so our bigger kids sometimes need that too. And they need things that they can't have access to, they need to not have access to them. So we might have to put those things away, or get them out of our house, or put them even behind, you know, some sort of lock. If there's something that our kids are taking that don't belong to them. And it seems like nothing that we're doing is getting through to them. Then what you've learned is they just simply don't have the impulse control not to take that thing. And now it's my job to put that thing away, or put it behind even a lock so that the child can't get to it. And similar with- with screen time rules, right? Do all devices need to come to me at 8pm? Because that's the screen time rule. And it's just too tempting and my kid can't comply? Do I turn the WiFi off? Do you know there's- there's ways that we provide the co-regulation. And then there's ways that we set the structure and boundaries for when we can't be giving co-regulation just like toddler proofing, right? Like I put up the gate so that on those moments when I'm not providing 100% co-regulation to my toddler, and I do have to like run to the bathroom or take a telephone call. Put the gate up so that my toddler doesn't fall down the stairs during the moments when I can't offer the co-regulation. So it's the same idea here. 

Robyn: Scaffolding is one of the primary ways that we can really do those like, bicep curls, for the owl brain. It not only helps us reframe our kids’ behavior, pulls us out of judgment, pulls us out of- pulls us out of our own watchdog brain, right? Like if we can stay curious enough that we're looking at our child's behavior and being insane to ourselves like, Hmm, wonder what's happening there? Like what's the skills my child need in order to be successful? That's about an adult who's still in their owl brain. And that's an adult who's still offering co-regulation, right? So, not only is that true, when you know with one of the intentions or purposes behind thinking about co=regulation, but then offering the scaffolding is another form of co-regulation. Right? Scaffolding is a form of co-regulation. 

Robyn: We've been talking about scaffold- or not scaffolding- we've been talking about growing owl brain in The Club this month. And looking at all these different ways to not necessarily respond to our kids' challenging behaviors. But what are the things that we need to do to like exercise and grow their owl brain so that the challenging behaviors won't happen as often or with you know, such intensity. So I call that growing the owl brain. So we've been talking about that all month. And one of the strategies for growing the owl brain is scaffolding. But I didn't talk about that this month, because scaffolding is so much fun. Like scaffolding to me feels like- almost like a- like a strategy game. It feels like a puzzle. And I like things that feel like a puzzle, like, Ooh, how can I figure this out? And that's how scaffolding feels to me. Like the idea of looking at a challenging behavior, that everybody else is baffled or overwhelmed by in- in- in me staying in my own brain and saying, like, Hmm, what is this child missing? What skills are they missing? What co-regulation are they missing? And how do we give that to them? It just feels like I said, it feels like this little strategy game. And I love, like the thrill of the hunt, in a way, of how can I break it down? Like how can I break down what's really happening in this kids’ meltdown? Or their refusal to do any schoolwork at school or homework? Or them running out of the classroom? Right? Like, where's the missing skill? Where's the missing co-regulation? And once we determine that, then, of course, the next question is, well, can we offer that, right? How do I scaffold the skill in this child? Because right now, I'm just getting mad at a child who keeps falling off their bike when they've never been on anything with wheels before. Right? And I walked away and didn't offer them any encouragement, or any support, any co-regulation to help them through their frustration, right? And so really, you know, that's a huge setup for failure. Like, of course, that child's going to fall down a lot and get maybe so frustrated that they give up. Right? It's because we didn't do it, we needed to scaffold them to be able to find the sweet spot of challenge, right? Like scaffolding brings us to the sweet spot of challenge. Scaffolding brings us to that spot of this is hard, but I have- I have enough skills, and I have enough successes under my belt. And I have enough either actual co-regulation from someone around me or the internalized co-regulation of others, to do this hard thing to try this hard thing, even though it's hard, right? And then I have the frustration tolerance to keep trying. And those are skills that we absolutely can teach our kids. Sometimes we just have to go way, way, way, way, way, way back to basics. 

Robyn: Like one thing that comes up so often, and then I'm going to wrap it up after this example. But one thing that gets brought up so often is kids who don't clean up after themselves, and their rooms are a mess. And that is a skill that can be scaffolded. And we- when we have the opportunity to parent children from a very young age, that is a skill that scaffolded right? Like, you know, we're teaching toddlers the clean up song and we're cleaning up with them, right? We don't walk away from a toddler and say clean your playroom and I'll be back and think it's going to be anything but extremely much more messy, right? So that unfortunately could be true about your 10 year old or even your 15 year old that they simply don't have the skills that actually very complex skills that go along with, you know, being organized enough to put things away, pick them up, having the frustration tolerance, not getting overwhelmed by the mess, like these are very, very complex skills. And we scaffold that, right? When kids are little and we clean up with them. And we sing little songs so that we're connected, and we're helping to regulate them. And we have bins for where stuff goes like we don't expect toddlers to come up with their own organizational system. And so the blocks go here, and the cars go here, and the crayons go here. And somehow it's really clear. They're labeled or something or we're helping. And then, you know, maybe you tell your preschooler like you clean up the Matchbox cars and I'll clean up the blocks, right? So you're still together, but you're doing a different task. And then eventually, as your kid gets older, maybe you are with them in the playroom and you're like, okay, it's time to clean up. How about you clean up the Matchbox cars? I'm gonna go and check on your sister and I'll be right back. And you leave for just a minute and then you come back and you say, oh, the Matchbox cars are all put away. Great. Now it's time to go on to the blocks. So you see how you're still offering all this co-regulation by coming and going quickly, by giving all these instructions, giving lots of structure, right? And then eventually, truly this really does happen I promise, kids get to the point where they can mostly clean up by themselves. And maybe they can’t. Maybe you do have a teenager who still needs help with the overwhelm of how quickly they can make a mess. And y'all, I'm going to be honest with you, I use this example, because this is something that I sometimes need help with. I have a very clear memory of probably about 10 years ago, taking my home office, and literally taking everything out of it and putting it into the living room that it was adjoining to. And my husband had to scaffolds me cleaning up my office. He had to help me make piles. He had to help me know what went where. What was keeping. What we're putting away. What needed to be filed. That, yes, I made the mess all by myself. And that doesn't require near the level of regulation that it does to clean up a mess, right? Like they're totally different skills. Just because I can make a mess doesn't mean I can clean it up. I was so overwhelmed by this task. And that I was just frozen. I was in total possum brain shutdown. And I really needed- I was a grown up y'all with a successful business. Needed my husband to co-regulate me through the cleaning process. And then what I've needed to do since then is to one, bring less stuff into my office. Two, have better organizational systems. Like this goes here that goes there. Right? I've set up little toddler bins essentially for myself about what goes where. So my point is that adults need co-regulation too. And so if you have a teenager like I do, who's really struggling to make any sort of order out of their mess of a bedroom. It says- they just need some more skills, they need help. And so in my family when we get to the point where it's like, All right, we can't go on any further. We've got to clean up your bedroom, I go and help. And I don't typically need to participate at this point. But I can still give instructions like okay, first do this. Let's get rid of clothes that don't fit. Now let's get rid of other things that, you know- and I can I kind of provide the structure and the co-regulation that way. So think about that. Think about what is my kid struggling with and what's the- what's the scaffolding that they need? Where do they need more co-regulation for me because scaffolding is a form of co-regulation. 

Robyn: This is what we are going to be focusing on all throughout the month of June in The Club. So if you are lucky enough to hear this episode, during the enrollment period for The Club in June, we're going to be open through- for like the first week of June for new members. Come on over, come join us. You can jump into the scaffolding masterclass. Or if you can't catch it live, you can catch the recording. If you're hearing this sometime in the future, know that the scaffolding masterclass, and then we have- we do this other second meeting a month that we call Putting it into Practice. And in that meeting, we do exactly that. We take that month's topic and we get practical about it. We ask lots of questions. We get creative, we get curious. And we are able to like brainstorm and like really get in there and- and help parents figure out like what do I need to do to support my kid? So we always record those they are- they'll end up in The Club's on-demand video library just like every other masterclass we've done since The Club has started. So if you're hearing this in the future, and you're like, oh my gosh, I really need to learn way more about scaffolding. You can come and join us in The Club, because you'll be able to watch that video and then ask questions in the forum. But if you are hearing this at the beginning of June 2022, to know that The Club is coming open. It's probably open right now for enrollment. And we would just absolutely love to have you. The Club will help scaffold you. That is what The Club does. It gives scaffolding to parents. We co-regulate you. We helps- help you see what do you need in order to be okay. And then we offer so much co-regulation and we do it in this very structured and boundaried format. And so I really am seriously just thinking this right now, that that's exactly what The Club does. The Club provides the scaffolding to you. So if you thought about like, where are you struggling? Well, it's hard for you. The same things I just said about your kid apply to you too. You probably need more scaffolding. You probably need more regulation and that's okay! That's okay. It's shouldn't be expected that we can do these really, really hard things and simply be because we know how to do them, doesn't mean we can do them. Same with your kids, right? Like your kid could maybe sit down and tell you the steps of cleaning their bedroom. But could they actually do it when they're faced with it? Maybe not. Same is true for us. 

Robyn: You might be saying like, I know all these parenting things. And I've learned this all before. And I'm really struggling to do, it to implement it. And that's so totally normal. And all that's about is needing to really grow your owl brain, have some scaffolding, and get lots and lots and lots of coagulation. That all that cool information that's stored up in your owl brain, you'll actually be able to use when parenting is stressful. That's really truly the whole point of The Club. 

Robyn: So hope this episode on scaffolding was helpful. I hope it helps you look at where your kids are struggling and just a little bit different ways, And inspired you to get curious about what your kid might need in order for their success to be inevitable. Awesome, awesome to be with you again, today. I'm so grateful for you. So grateful for what you're doing out in the world. And the way you just keep showing up. Keep showing up in a way to help make things a little better for yourself. Maybe a little better for your kids. Thank you. Thank you. I hope to see you back next week and I hope to see you over in The Club. Come join us, it's a super fun place.