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Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior
Neuroscience with Heart… wrapped in Glitter & Fun
I translate the complex science of the Relational Neurosciences (that’s just fancy talk for the parts of the brain that keep us in connection with ourselves and everyone else) for helpers, healers, educators, and parents.
I help it make sense so you, your audience, your students, and workshop or conference attendees feel empowered to use the knowledge to support the world-changing work they are already doing- you know…helping, healing, educating, and parenting!
Bring Robyn to your Audience in 2026!
1.5 – 2 hour Workshops
Virtual or In-Person
Strengthening the Brain through Play
Playfulness feels impossible to a stressed and overwhelmed nervous system, and it’s the most important experience for a stressed and overwhelmed nervous system. With compassion and curiosity, we can allow both to be true- and that’s the first step toward playfulness. Playfulness does not have to feel like something ‘to-do.’ You’ll leave both inspired and hopeful that playfulness is not just possible- it’s necessary.
How Do I Stay Calm?!
Since parents and (and the professionals who support them!!) often cannot remove themselves from stressful parenting situations, they benefit from learning how to shift their nervous system into a state of regulation even in the midst of chaos. By leaning into the latest brain science on regulation and self-compassion, this webinar will help you identify and harness already existing opportunities to practice moments of rest and regulation in order to strengthen your resilience and decrease burn-out. This workshop will leave you inspired to find moments of joy and rest hidden in plain sight- no expensive, impractical, unsustainable or otherwise unhelpful suggestions for self-care, promise!
Self Compassion for Burned Out Parents
Compassion is – quite literally – the neurobiology of change. It is the most powerful tool we can put in our parenting toolbox. In this highly experiential workshop you will create a self compassion practice that is do-able even when you return home to your precious, yet dysregulated, children.
Supporting Kids’ Regulation: Teach Kids to Playfully and Compassionately Understand their own Nervous System and Behaviors
Regulation is a complex developmental milestone achieved through both experiencing co-regulation and developing awareness of our own body and its needs. Through play and metaphor, kids can learn about their different nervous system states with compassionate curiosity and develop a toolbox full of tools that will support self regulation. Workshop participants will learn playful nervous system language to share with kids, tools and techniques to support children’s regulation, and ways to both teach these concepts to kids and help kids explore their own nervous system needs.
Strategies to Strengthen the Stress Response System
Strengthening the stress response system is like strengthening a muscle. After reducing stress to heal from an ‘injury,’ the most effective path forward is to slowly begin increase stress- with enough support.
This workshop will help you identify what things to consider when assessing how to support your child’s stress response system by increasing stress (after you’ve decreased and allowed for some repair to occur).
Healing from Trauma and Hard Moments through Stories
Trauma, extreme stress, and overwhelm can disrupt the memory processing system, resulting in trauma symptoms and ‘mixed up thoughts’ – like “I’m a terrible kid” “It’s all my fault” or even “It’s all your fault.”
Stories can be intentionally crafted to help our kids’ memory networks ‘jump start’ and make correct connections.
This masterclass will teach you the basics of creating a story when your child has been through something hard.
Match the Energy NOT the Dysregulation
When our kids are dysregulated, a little or a lot, our natural instinct is often to try to get them to calm down.
Believe it or not, there’s an easier way.
Before our kids can ‘calm down’ they need to have their energy matched and mirrored by us. The tricky part is matching the energy withOUT the dysregulation. The workshop will teach participants how to use supercharged attunement with their kids even when dysregulation is high.
Making Sense of Baffling Behaviors (Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behaviors)
Research emerging from Relational Neuroscience, including polyvagal theory, regulation theory, and the neurosequential model of development, has shifted our understanding of how the brain grows and heals. When parents, caregivers, and child development professionals are armed with the latest science in brain development, they increase their capacity for connecting with children in a way that promotes positive growth and development of their relational, social, and behavioral brain.
Understanding behavior through the lens of the stress response system will increase the likelihood of implementing useful behavior interventions. Participants will leave feeling empowered by the belief that changing how we see kids’ behaviors is the most important strategy of all.
Creating Felt Safety
Being safe doesn’t equal feeling safe! Creating felt-safety is crucial if we want to help our children decrease dysregulated behaviors. So what is felt-safety and how can we cultivate within our families?
This training addresses the three places children are looking to determine if they are safe- and it’s happening below conscious awareness.
This means we can’t TELL them they are safe- we have to create environments in which they can FEEL safe.
By the end, you’ll have learned practical tools related to:
- The importance of moving your own nervous system into a state of safety
- How to adjust the environment to increase felt-safety
- Ways to support your child’s inner-experience to invite felt-safety
Regulating the Body with Sensory Based Interventions
Regulation, energy, and arousal are underneath all behaviors- so it makes sense that an effective way to help shift challenging behaviors is to go right to the source- regulation! Body and sensory-based strategies offer parents new, effective, and fun ways to help shift challenging behaviors. Participants will learn the connection between sensory experiences, regulation, and behaviors as well as practical tools to support their child’s regulation and decrease difficult behaviors at both school and home.
Untangling Disorganized Attachment
Up to 80% of children who experience abuse and neglect will develop disorganized attachment, which contributes to significant struggles with relationship, regulation, and behavior. Children with disorganized attachment have baffling behavior and send confusing signals that leave their caregivers uncertain about how to best help them. This two-hour webinar will demystify the behavior of children with disorganized attachment so caregivers can feel confident responding in ways that don’t just change behavior but support long-term attachment healing.
Lying as a Trauma Driven Behavior
Lying is a common- and challenging- protective behavior for all people, but can feel especially baffling in our children who have experienced trauma.
Families often get stuck in a vicious cycle of difficult behavior, parent reaction, and then more difficult behavior. This webinar will help you understand lying as a trauma driven behavior and will give you ideas on how to respond in a way that will actually increase trust and decrease fear- the very thing that is driving the lying in the first place.
This training will help you get to the root of the lying without relying on short-term behavior fixes or fear-based compliance.
Opposition, Defiance, and Control
Opposition, defiance, and control are SUCH challenging behaviors! You are frustrated, overwhelmed, and also- kinda just over it. It’s NO fun being controlled by your child (or anyone else, for that matter!).
Opposition, defiance, and control break-down relationships and cause you to be at odds with your child…and you hate that. They are behaviors that you want to truly figure out- and not just a band-aid but long-term change.
The first step is truly understanding what on earth is going on in their brain (because the brain is behind EVERYTHING) to cause this level of opposition, defiance or control. After all- humans are designed to be in connection and your child is no exception. So why is your child displaying behaviors that are leaving you reluctant to be in connection with them?
When you understand the brain-based reasons for opposition, defiance, and control, you’ll start to gain clarity on how you should respond so you can create an environment for your child that encourages cooperation and connection.
Participants in this training will be able to:
- Identify the brain-based origins of opposition, defiance, and control
- Describe strategies to increase connection and cooperation
Shutdown, Stonewalled, & Alone: Strategies for Kids who are Shut Down
Children who are shut-down may seem easier to parent than children who are explosive, but the truth is, they are hardest to reach. This workshop decodes these frustrating and elusive behaviors using the latest research on the science of safety.
Some shutdown kids are watchdogs acting like volcanos (keeping it all inside).Some shutdown kids are possums. This webinar will help you distinguish between the two and provide practical strategies that you’ll be able to implement immediately
3 hour Workshops
Virtual or In-Person
Helping Kids Regulate through Movement & Play
Challenging behaviors emerge from a nervous system in protection mode. Movement and play are the antidote to a stressed out nervous system and invites it back into connection mode. Webinar participants will learn the neurobiology of play and how to use playfulness to decrease dysregulation. Participants will leave with practical play and movement-based tools and activities that they’ll be able to use immediately. Feeling too stressed to even imagine being playful with your child? No problem! We’ll also learn why play is so hard for parents of dysregulated kids and learn easy, low-energy ways to make playfulness possible.
Helping Kids Find their Voice: Strategies for Manipulation, Lying, and Verbal Aggression
Manipulation, lying, and verbal aggression are all protective behaviors with one big thing in common: the person is struggling to use accurate words that truly reflect their needs in that moment.
In this training, we will explore ways to scaffold our kids’ ability to use words to reflect their accurate needs and feelings.
No, we aren’t going to tell them to “use their words” but with practice, we can make attempts to hear what they are really trying to say and respond to THAT.
We can also be strategic about scaffolding their development of this skill during times their owl brain is more engaged.
Boundaries with Connection
Sometimes therapeutic parenting with children with histories of trauma and vulnerable nervous systems can appear to be permissive parenting. But actually, this way of parenting often calls for more structure and boundaries. It’s just that we often aren’t using the word ‘boundaries’ correctly! This session will bring clarity to what boundaries are and aren’t and how to set boundaries that set our kids up for success. We will also address how to begin building boundaries with behavior we cannot control- specifically verbal aggression.
Connection & Co-Regulation Based Strategies to Decrease Dysregulated Behaviors
Increasing parenting strategies of connection and co-regulation will decrease challenging and baffling behaviors before they begin. This workshop helps parents step out of the ongoing game of behavior whack a mole and focuses on proactive parenting strategies instead of reactive and responsive strategies. Participants will leave with six clearly defined strategies that can be infused throughout their relationship with their child, as well as leaned into during difficult moments when a dysregulated behavior needs supported and addressed.
- Decrease distance
- Scaffolding
- Attunement
- Validation
- Connection as a strategy
- Matching the energy NOT the dysregulation
Full Day Workshop
Live (all day) or Virtual (4 parts, 2 hrs each)
A Brain Based Approach for Parenting Dysregulated Kids
Parenting kids who have experienced trauma (or have otherwise vulnerable nervous systems) is overwhelming and confusing. The baffling behaviors you are facing- lying, stealing, manipulation, being spaced-out and in la-la land, come from a vulnerable nervous system that needs support with co-regulation, connection, and felt-safety. This day-long workshop will help you put on your ‘x-ray vision goggles’ to look past behavior and see what’s actually causing the behavior. You’ll leave the workshop with a toolbox full of tools that really work so you can stop playing behavior whack-a-mole. Participants will learn an easy-to-understand model of addressing baffling behaviors based on Robyn’s owl, watchdog, and possum brain.
Participants will:
- Reframe baffling behaviors as stemming from nervous system vulnerabilities and a sensitive stress response system (due to trauma, neurodiversity, or unknown cause)
- Learn strategies to increase felt-safety, regulation, and connection in order to decrease baffling and challenging behaviors
- Learn strategies to address baffling behaviors specific to the level of dysregulation the child is demonstrating
3 hour Workshops
Virtual or In-Person- for Professionals
Reframing Resistance: Working with Resistent Parents of Dysregulated Children
Many play therapists report that working with resistant and uncooperative play therapy clients is the most stressful part of their job. This stress contributes to compassion fatigue and decreased satisfaction in our work. Some play therapists even leave the field due to the stress of working with ‘resistant’ parents. Play therapists can rediscover confidence and contentedness in their work by applying the theory of the autonomic nervous system to play therapy clients, seeing their resistant and uncooperative behaviors as signs of stress. Workshop participants will learn a step-by-step process for connecting with — and setting boundaries with — even the most challenging parent or caregiver.
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Describe challenging play therapy parent behavior through the lens of the Polyvagal theory, distinguishing between behaviors that emerge from neuroceiving safety or danger.
- Be able to explain challenging play therapy caregiver behavior as adaptations they’ve developed due to current and previous adverse experiences
- Describe a 4 step process for attuning to self during stressful interactions with play therapy parents and caregivers
- Develop a ‘safety plan’ to return to their own internal sense of safety during stressful interactions with play therapy parents and caregivers
- Identify a 6 step process to offer safety, connection, and co-regulation to resistant play therapy parents and caregivers
Attachment as a Brilliant Adaptation
Attachment adaptations are brilliant and adaptive, but they aren’t without cost. This exploration into the neurobiology of attachment will deepen attendees’ conceptualization of attachment-based behavior, inviting clients and clinicians to be with their various streams of attachment with curiosity and compassion. Attendees will be introduced to concepts from memory reconsolidation theory to create a roadmap for how attachment really heals.
Learning Objectives:
1) Identify client attachment behaviors through the lens of regulation theory;
2) Describe the parent/child experiences that can develop into three different attachment adaptations (anxious, avoidant, and disorganized);
3) Utilize memory reconsolidation theory to create opportunities for how insecure attachment heals.
Full Day Workshops
In-Person- for Professionals
Reframing Children’s Mental Health through the lens of Relational Neuroscience
Advances in relational neuroscience has created a new paradigm for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of children’s mental health concerns. This day-long conference will integrate key concepts from interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory, and the neurosequential model of therapeutics. Attendees will leave with a new framework for conceptualizing their child client’s symptoms and behaviors that will increase clinician competency and decrease burn-out.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe key concepts of interpersonal neurobiology, including coherence, complexity theory, and integration
- Describe how interpersonal neurobiology conceptualizes mental health symptoms and DSM diagnoses
- Describe the 2 branches of the autonomic nervous system and how they relate to symptoms and behaviors in children
- Describe how a sensitized stress response system contributes to symptoms and behaviors in children
- Describe why coherence is an important treatment intervention
- Articulate how mindsight prompts integration
Playfulness IS the Treatment
When feeling stressed, uncertain, or afraid, our brain works hard to protect us by reaching for tools and techniques that will help children heal after trauma. We can honor our fear and then rest into the truth that presence is the most powerful intervention and playfulness IS the treatment. Playfulness doesn’t need games or props or toys! Playfulness is experienced and shared through the resonance we co-create. It brings the safety, connection, and co-regulation the nervous system needs to experience a moment of healing. In this workshop, Robyn Gobbel will take you on a journey to explore the benefits of playfulness for our physical and mental health, grow your confidence that playfulness IS the treatment, and jump-start your creativity on how to cultivate the spirit of playfulness in your connection with clients and families.
- Participants will define playfulness from a polyvagal theory perspective
- Participants will identify how playfulness strengthens the ventral vagus and why this is a treatment goal.
- Participants will identify how playfulness shifts clients’ experience of self
- Participants will describe why therapists and helpers must be aware of their own relationship with playfulness in order to co-create playfulness with their clients.
Working with Dysregulated Kids and Families
All behavior makes sense- except the ones that don’t! Some children have big, baffling behaviors that leave even seasoned professionals and clinicians feeling confused, overwhelmed, burned-out or referring-out. This confusion leaves clinicians feeling ineffective and parents feeling hopeless.
Theories of human development and behavioral neuroscience, including polyvagal theory (Stephen Porges), the neurosequential model of therapeutics (Bruce Perry), and attachment theory (John Bowlby) help us make sense of even the most baffling behaviors in our play therapy clients. Understanding what behavior really is begins the roadmap for treatment planning. Clinicians (and parents) can stop playing behavior whack-a-mole and experience better client outcomes by shifting the focus away from behavior and toward the brain and autonomic nervous system.
Attendees will learn a playful paradigm that will decode even the most confusing behaviors in children, as well as in parents and even ourselves. Participants will increase their confidence in working directly with dysregulated children, as well their parents. They’ll leave with practical skills that can be implemented in their sessions immediately.
Working with the Families of Dysregulated Kids
Research in human development and behavioral neuroscience help us make sense of even the most baffling behaviors in children and parents. Understanding what behavior really is begins the roadmap for treatment planning. Therapists (and parents) can stop playing behavior whack-a-mole and experience better client outcomes by shifting the focus away from behavior and toward the brain and autonomic nervous system.
In this full-day conference, attendees will explore the theory of relational neuroscience as a way to conceptualize behavior disorders in children. Attendees will learn strategies they can immediately implement when working with stressed and overwhelmed parents, and will feel equipped to support parents of kids with behavior disorders.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will:
- Describe how relational neuroscience conceptualizes mental health symptoms and DSM diagnoses
- Describe the 2 branches of the autonomic nervous system and how they relate to behavioral symptoms in both children and adults
- Describe how a sensitized stress response system contributes to behavioral symptoms in children
- Describe why coherence is an important treatment intervention
- Identify a six-step process to working with challenging & resistant parents using the science of safety and connection
- Describe parenting strategies that can decrease challenging behavior by increasing felt safety, regulation, and connection
Participant’s receive
a digital folder with downloadable resources accessed via a unique link or QR code for your event
****this image is an example. The resources are cultivated specifically for your group and your event
