Building the Tower of Self-Regulation {EP 9}

Robyn: If you're listening to this episode after January 8, don't worry. I plan to open registration again near the end of March 2021, so sign up for that waiting list, and I'll make sure you know the moment those doors open up again. Today's episode is going to shine a light on the concept of co-regulation. I use that language a lot, so it's probably helpful to talk about what co-regulation even is, but I'm going to go at the concept of co-regulation a little bit backwards and talk first about self-regulation. Self-regulation is a concept that's been getting a lot of air time over the past couple years, which is really fantastic. We're starting to shift away from this emphasis solely on behaviors and behavior management through rewards and consequences, to really looking at like what's underneath those behaviors, which is what's bringing us to look at the concept of regulation and self-regulation. So this is awesome. The relational neurosciences are slowly seeping into parenting and education practices as we're beginning to more understand the importance that the role of regulation plays in behaviors.    

Robyn: There are times, though, especially when we as the adults, are starting to feel dysregulated or helpless or confused or out of control ourselves that we accidentally turn the concepts of self-regulation into another behavior management technique, sometimes self-regulation gets confused as just another skill that a kid can be cognitively taught with worksheets or flashcards, and then when kids are struggling to use or implement those self-regulation skills, we can label that child negatively, such as being like unwilling to use those skills, or that they are making a choice not to use those skills. But if you remember from Episode Six, what's regulation got to do with it? Do you know that as humans, we are actually always longing to move into regulation. We want to find regulation, and our behaviors are attempts at regulation, even though many times those attempts honestly are unsuccessful, or may only be successful in the short term. Think about how it's really easy to- well for me, I'll just say for me it's really easy to regulate through sugar or a sweet or a dessert. It's definitely one of my kind of tried and true regulation techniques, one that I often don't even really realize I'm using.    

Robyn: And the truth is, is that that does work in the short term. If it didn't work in the short term, I probably wouldn't continually turn to it, that all the goodness happens in the brain with a dose of sugar does provide a very short moment of regulation, or at the least a moment of distraction from what was feeling unpleasant or what was sort of driving this need to find some external regulation. There's also truth, though, that it's pretty short lived and comes with some negative consequences, right? If it's continued to be used repeatedly or regularly as a self-regulation technique. So that's a behavior that does have a momentary positive impact, but unfortunately, it's very short lived and has some negative consequences. So again, we can see it through the lens of an attempt at regulation. We're always trying to regulation- to find regulation. I mean human beings are what's considered complex systems. And therefore, something we know about how complex systems exist and move in and operate in the world is that they're always moving towards coherence and regulation, so not wanting to be regulated is not typically the reason why kids are struggling to use their self-regulation skills.    

Robyn: What it usually is is that they're just too dysregulated to access where those skills are stored up in their owl brain or their cognitive brain or their thinking brain, as arousal and dysregulation increases all of us, us as adults, our kids, we are less and less able to rely on or use those cognitive parts of our brain. Those skills are stored up in the cognitive parts of our brain. So if the more kind of dysregulated we get, the less able we are to access our cognitive parts of our brain, and the less able we are to access skills, let's look at a more efficient and effective approach to developing self-regulation or helping our children develop self-regulation than simply teaching skills. Let's first just simply define again, regulation. Dr Dan Siegel, who is a pioneer, the founder of the field of interpersonal neurobiology, defined regulation as keeping the accelerator and the brakes in balance, and we're specifically talking about regulation then that drives behavior. So we're going to talk about keeping the accelerator and the brakes of the energy and arousal of our autonomic nervous system in balance- energy and arousal in our body in balance.    

Robyn: Being regulated means that we are present in the moment and that we are mindful of our experiences. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're calm. It means that we have the capacity to fully experience the up and the down of energy and arousal while continuing to remain present and mindful. So I can have intense, big emotions, or even emotions of anger, and still remain regulated, still remain present, mindful, fully engaged in that experience. The experience isn't sweeping me away and leaving me pulled out of the present moment or with a lack of kind of mindful awareness about what's happening in the moment.    

Robyn: Characteristics of regulation, which, of course, vary so much based on the age of the human we're talking about, include things like being able to delay gratification, having impulse control, understanding cause-and-effect, and being able to link together cause-and-effect and having that link make an impact. Taking into consideration the impact of our behaviors on the relationship. Regulation increases as brain development increases. So literally, just as we get older, regulation increases and as brain integration increases. But also obviously, regulation isn't only about chronological age, right? Chronological age isn't the only relevant piece of information when we're talking about regulation in general, we can expect a 17-year-old's brain to have more regulation than a three-year-old's brain, right? But in in addition to chronological age, there are other nuances and pieces to consider when thinking about regulation. So then let's look at what is self-regulation. Let's- I'm going to, again, turn to how Dr. Dan Siegel defines self-regulation, and he writes that self-regulation is having the ability to both monitor and modify our interstates of energy and arousal. Monitor and modify means to notice and change, so self-regulation involves the ability to notice my level of arousal and then make steps, take the steps myself to change that level of arousal if it's getting to be too high or too low for a given situation. The development of self-regulation is almost exclusively through, primarily through having experiences of co-regulation.    

Robyn: So let's define co-regulation. Co-regulation is about sharing and supporting the internal states of arousal with somebody else through presence and attunement. So co-regulation is the coming together of two different energies, two different human experiences, and that there is a mutual influence on the internal states of who's coming together through co-regulation literally means that there's impact on each other, right? You impact my state of regulation, and I impact yours. If we think about babies, it's a little clearer to picture this experience of co-regulation. Babies are born with immature regulatory circuits. They have all of the hardware and need the co-regulated experiences that occur inside the attachment relationship to really nurture and develop and wire up those internal mechanisms that ultimately develop into what we call self-regulation.    

Robyn: Babies very much struggle to regulate themselves, and as adults, as caregivers, we really intuitively know this, so we offer our regulation, we offer our energy, we offer our arousal to help soothe a baby, the parent or the caregiver and the baby develop a co-regulatory dance. Co-regulatory meaning the parent, state of regulation is impacted by the baby's, and then the baby's is developed- is impacted by the parents, right? The parent's state of regulation, is impacted by the baby's dysregulation, right? The parent goes, oh my goodness, a baby needs something, and then the parent moves in, or the caregiver moves in to offer a soothing, connected, co-regulated experience to the baby and the babies and parents, and babies and caregivers are repeatedly having a co-regulatory experience, and it's inside this co-regulatory experience, that the baby receives the adult's soothing and regulation, and the baby experience is impacting the caregiver, that the baby's neural circuitry that ultimately develops into self-regulation, is nurtured and matured. And this happens over and over and over and over again, in of course, a baby's first year of life, when they are so dependent upon an adult's co-regulation. And our need, though, for co-regulation really never disappears. We just need active co-regulation less and less as we get older, as our brain develops and as we experience sufficient amounts of co-regulation from the regulated other right we babies and small children begin to internalize the offerings of co-regulation, and it's this internalization that ultimately develops into self-regulation.    

Robyn: My primary mentor in the field, Bonnie Badenoch talks about self-regulation as internalized co-regulation. And often when I'm teaching, I'll use that language as opposed to self-regulation. I'll talk about internalized co-regulation. Now co-regulation can happen in a couple different ways, through more active experiences of co-regulation, and then ultimately, through more passive ways of co-regulation. A caregiver moving in to soothe a dysregulated baby is a very active form of co-regulation, right? The adult is doing something is moving in the adult is you paying attention to their own state of regulation, making sure that they've soothe themselves, and then they're offering the soothing to the infant. As babies grow and as we begin to internalize some of this co-regulation, we begin to rely on and benefit from more passive offerings of co-regulation. So because we are very energetic beings, and the energy of our bodies can be experienced and shared in the space between two people.    

Robyn: Co-regulation can be experienced and expressed more passively, like simply by being near each other. This makes me remember, when my son was a lot younger, he's a teenager now, but when he was a lot younger, he needed adult presence in order to have the frustration tolerance to get through difficult tasks, especially something like homework or practicing his instrument or doing chores. As he got older, he needed less direct adult interaction, less active parenting when it came to doing homework or completing homework, but he always and continues to be most successful with difficult tasks when he's in the presence of me or his dad, when he's in the just physical presence, it could be in the same room, sometimes there's some social engagement happening. But as he's gotten older, we're less engaged in literally sitting down and helping him with these difficult tasks. And the co-regulation is a bit more passive, simply by being present or nearby. In addition to his increased ability to rely on more passive experiences of co-regulation, as opposed to just very active offerings of co-regulation. As my son has gotten older, he has internalized the co-regulation of me and my husband so he can go longer periods of time without our presence and hold on to his own regulation. This is true about all of us, that as I have gotten older, as I have developed a tighter network of folks I can turn to for co-regulation, I have internalized their presence, their co-regulation, and have developed my own internalized community of co-regulators.    

Robyn: So of course, as our thinking brain develops and matures, we're learning more skills that we can use to support our own regulation, and my capacity to learn skills and utilize those skills are obviously significantly different than a three year old or a five year old or even my 14-year-old, right? So I have developed skills for my own self regulation. A huge one for me is exercising, reading, taking really deep breaths, having mantras, bringing my co-regulating community to mind. These are skills I've developed, and if I'm regulated enough, I can monitor and modify my states of arousal. I can notice I'm starting to become dysregulated, or I'm starting to have an increase or a decrease in arousal. That is not ideal. I can notice that, and then I can access or use those skills that I have. The key point here is that I have had to have sufficient enough experiences of co-regulation that I've internalized, that co-regulation, and now I can draw upon those skills as needed. So yes, self-regulation is a crucial developmental milestone, and I am just so thrilled that we're beginning to turn our eyes towards self-regulation instead of staying strictly focused on attempting to change or modify behaviors through rewards or consequences, and often giving kind of character logical reasons for why somebody is behaving inappropriately, right? That it's a choice that they want to behave that way, that they have these manipulative motives, right? And we're starting to see that there's just so much more to the story when it comes to behavior, so much more and a huge piece of the additional story of what's contributing to behaviors is regulation and self-regulation.    

Robyn: But at the same time, we must remember that self-regulation is developed through repeated and regular experiences of co-regulation with an attuned, regulated other. So if kids are struggling to use their self-regulation skills, it's quite possible that they aren't regulated enough to access those skills. They're getting too dysregulated too quickly, and need co-regulation from a regulated adult or caregiver before they can be expected to use those skills on their own. But it is these experiences of co-regulation that are building the neural circuitry for ultimately is labeled self-regulation, so you don't need to worry that the continued offering of co-regulation is going to impede that development of their own self regulation. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.    

Robyn: And just like I previously mentioned, the need for co-regulation isn't outgrown. We all need to be co-regulated to be able to access the skills that we learned and stored in our thinking brain. A lot of us, as you know, by the time we're adults, are relying on internalized co-regulation, but not exclusively, right? We all need people to turn to to offer co-regulation. When your kids are struggling, they need more co-regulation. And when you're struggling, you likely need more co-regulation too. But I also know that it can be really hard to find people who truly get your struggle, who help you feel really seen and really known, who are regulated enough themselves to offer the co-regulation that you need. And it's because of this that I have decided to create what I'm currently and affectionately calling The Club. The Club is resting on the belief that we all need connection and co-regulation, to be our best selves, to parent the way that we want to. When we're struggling, to parent the way that we hope to parents. It's not because we're bad parents. It's because we're dysregulated. Every time I am not parenting in alignment with my parenting values. It is because I'm dysregulated.    

Robyn: When I was seeing clients in my office, parents would comment and how just coming to these weekly appointments for their child, but in which I connected with them as parents as well, was this weekly dose of co-regulation for them, they got to feel seen and known and held and cared for. And they weren't necessarily learning new skills in our appointments. Though certainly, sometimes they were these weekly appointments became this weekly dose of co-regulation that was almost like a booster shot of regulation and compassion for them, and then, because of these weekly appointments, they could get through another week of parenting a pretty dysregulated kid. So the club is definitely not therapy, but connection and co-regulation aren't only available in therapy. Connection and co-regulation is available when there is a mutual influence on one another's nervous system, right? When a regulated other who's committed to the belief that you're always doing the very best that you can, right? That is co-regulation, and we can do this virtually. We could do this with people we never meet in quote-unquote, real life, although, of course, with the, you know, technological advances in web meetings and Zoom and all that kind of good stuff, we do get to meet people, even if we aren't physically present with them in real life.    

Robyn: So The Club is going to offer parenting master classes where you'll get to continue to increase your skills, but honestly, it's going to offer so much more than that. If you're interested, I'm going to open the doors for the club from December 31st, 2020 until January 8th, of 2021, after that, I'm going to close the doors for probably about three months so that all of kind of the new founding club members get to work together to create the culture and the community that we're longing for. And I believe that that's going to be easier to do if we close the group temporarily to new members, then my plan is to open doors again, probably at the end of March. Though, I'm leaving this a little bit open ended because I really want to have a solid foundation before bringing in new members. If this interests you, I'd love for you to head over to RobynGobbel.com/theclub and read about all the details you can sign up for the waiting list. Or if you're listening to this between December 31st and January 8th, you can just register and sign right up. Thank you so so so much for continuing to show up for yourself and for your child, you are doing this every time you join me here for an episode of the parenting after trauma podcast. I can't wait to be with you again next time!