← The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}
The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}
REPLAY: Not Flipping Your Lid...When Your Kid Flips Theirs
00:32:59
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- [00:01]
Robin Goble
I finally get to share with you something that I've been working on for a while. Making Sense of Baffling Behaviors is a free audio training for professionals who work with the families of kids with big baffling behaviors. This four part free training is delivered to you again for free right in your podcast app, the one that you're using right now to listen to the Baffling Behavior Show. If you work with high intensity families with a lot of dysregulation and baffling behaviors, you might occasionally, or yeah, maybe even a lot of the time, feel overwhelmed or even burned out. Making sense of those baffling behaviors, the kids, the parents, and yes, your own, is the first and most non negotiable step in decreasing burnout, being more effective at your job, and yes, even loving your work again. If you join this training, you'll also get access to a discussion forum that I'm holding over on Facebook and 2 live Q& A sessions with me. This is a pop up audio training, meaning it's time limited. It will start May 5, runs throughout the week and will be available to listen to you until May 12th. That's one week total. I mean there's really no reason not to sign up. It's free, it's offered in a podcast app so you can listen whenever you want. There's no live commitment, just those bonus live Q&As. The link to register is down in the show notes robingobel.com bafflingbehaviors Y'all, this is one of my most favorite weeks of the year and I cannot wait.
- [01:42]
Co-host or Assistant
To share it with you.
- [01:43]
Robin Goble
Now let's get to that episode that you pressed. Play on.
- [01:49]
Co-host or Assistant
So when your kids behavior is baffling and yours is too, sometimes. Yeah, I know.
- [01:55]
Robin Goble
Let's take a break from all the bamboozle here on the Baffling Behavior Show. Hello. Hello, welcome or welcome back to this episode of the Baffling Behavior show, the podcast for formerly known as Parenting After Trauma. I'm your host, Robin Goble and my team and I are taking a little holiday break. So we're not recording new podcast episodes. We are instead playing some replays of some old podcast episodes that I think could be helpful during this stressful holiday season. So we are going way Back to episode 10 today and replaying not flipping your lid when your kid is flipping theirs. I am imagining families all over the world just having an increase in the overall stress level in your home right now, which means your kids are more dysregulated and you may Also be more dysregulated and therefore a little more likely to flip your lid when your kid is flipping theirs. So so I hope that this podcast episode will feel very practical, very implementable, and you can walk away feeling like you have some ideas about ways that you can try to hold onto your owl brain when your kid's watchdog or possum brain is taking over. If you look down in the show notes, there are a There's a link to a free download all about not flipping your lid when your kid is flipping theirs. It's an infographic you can download, you can print, you can save, you can hang on your fridge. Whatever you need to do to help you now y'all, this was episode 10. So the podcast has changed a lot in the last 200 episodes, but I still think the content is important. I still think the content can help you as we kind of all together survive and get through the next several weeks. All right, here is a replay of episode 10 not flipping your lid when your kid is flipping theirs.
- [04:09]
Co-host or Assistant
Let's dive into today's topic. Not flipping your lid when your kid flips theirs. Hands down, one of the most common questions I receive usually has something to do with how to stay anchored and all that goodness. You know about brains, behavior regulation and felt safety when your kid is going bananas, when they are really dysregulated and out of control, or when they're doing that one thing that just really grates on you, or they've asked the same question for the billionth time, or they're just totally ignoring you. Or maybe they don't seem dysregulated at all, but are still completely oppositional or outright defiant. I mean, honestly, right? It's really easy to stay regulated and grounded in parenting with a brain in mind when our kids are also regulated. But since dysregulation is literally contagious, we start to lose our foothold in regulation when our kids arousal and dysregulation begins to increase. This is totally normal. It doesn't make you a bad parent, it just makes you a real live human being just like the rest of us. Now, staying regulated yourself and being able to offer regulation connection and felt safety isn't a guarantee that your child's arousal will decrease or that they'll become regulated or they'll experience the felt safety safety you're offering, or even that their behavior is going to change. So staying regulated yourself isn't the only thing that's important, but it's still a pretty important piece of the equation if you're new to parenting through the lens of regulation, connection and felt safety, head over to robingobel.commasterclass for a free 40 minute masterclass that will help demystify your kids behaviors and show you these three most important things to consider when trying to support your kids behaviors right Regulation, connection and felt Safety. And if you're listening to me for the first time, I also want to just pause for a second and say perfection in parenting is never ever required. It's not something I believe. It's not something that's supported by the science. It's not only not required, but even if it was possible, which it absolutely isn't, it wouldn't even be good for you or your kids. I talk a lot about what we can do as parents to help our kids because we're really the only person that we can control. But our kids are their own people and we're not in control of their behaviors. When it comes right down to it, staying regulated in the face of intensity and dysregulation is just like anything else. It requires a lot of practice. Now maybe this can feel like a relief to you because your kids give you a lot of opportunities to practice trying to stay regulated in the face of their dysregulation. It's no more about just learning a set of skills and learning them than it is about your kids learning a set of skills and using those skills. Anything was actually that easy. You would likely not even be listening to this podcast, so learning the skills isn't enough. But still, it's a really, really important piece. Hopefully it goes without saying that the most effective thing to do to grow your capacity for stress and increase resilience actually happens more outside the moments of stress, right? Like when you're not faced with really challenging behavior or your kids dysregulation when you're not in those moments is really, truly the best time to practice growing your capacity to tolerate those moments. But today's episode is specifically about how to not flip your lid while your kid is flipping theirs. So that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today. We'll go through some steps in this episode and then you can head over to robingobel.com notflippingyourlid to read a blog article and see the steps in writing, because usually seeing things in writing can be a helpful piece in anchoring and remembering those steps. So I'll put that article in the show notes, but again, it's robingobel.com notes flipping your lid okay. So the very first thing to do and remember, I'm talking about in the moment when you're faced with a stressful situation with your child, but it's not a dangerous situation with your child. The very first thing to do, step number one is to notice the reaction that you're having. That's it, Just notice it. Oh, I'm freaking out. Oh, I'm starting to flip my lid. Oh, I'm starting to go bananas just like my kid. Noticing the act of noticing yourself gives you this bird's eye view or this astronaut view that we're looking at our behaviors or looking at our experience. And this is an absolutely crucial part of the process, this noticing this bird's eye view or this astronaut's view. It creates a little bit of distance, a little separation. When you see your experience or you notice your feeling, you get to distance yourself from it. You can see the feeling instead of completely becoming the feeling. Step number one is simply to just notice it. That's it. Then step number two, this will probably surprise you, but step number two is to acknowledge that your experience is real. Okay. I work with parents who are working so hard to see beneath their child's behavior or not get triggered by their behaviors or really understand where their kids behaviors are coming from that sometimes they start to criticize their own experience. Parents are criticizing their reaction or being hard on themselves for having this reaction, even though they know that this is, you know, a trauma based reaction from their child or that the child's behavior means, you know, that simply that they're not regulated or whatever. Right. That we're working so hard to see our kids behaviors through this new lens that we unintentionally kind of criticize or demean or even downplay our own experience. So the second step after noticing your experience is to acknowledge that it's your real experience. Don't try to talk yourself out of it or convince yourself that you're overreacting or really say anything to yourself at all except something like, wow, my brain thinks this is scary or overwhelming or whatever it is that is under the reaction that you're having. Acknowledge that it's real, it is your experience. It doesn't really matter if it's quote unquote reasonable or if it's quote unquote helpful, or if it's the response that you want to have. It is your response period in this moment, kind of end of story. So it's just an acknowledgement. Wow, my brain must think this is really scary. We'll call this inner Attunement, this attunement to self. Right. So we're not saying that the reaction is helpful. We're not saying that the reaction matches the problem. We're just acknowledging that it's your reaction. It's an inner attunement, an inner A way of just being with what is. And this is a really important part of the process. So again, number one was notice. Number two, acknowledge your experience is real. And then the third step is offering yourself self compassion. Right. I have a whole other episode on self compassion. So if the idea of self compassion is new to you, you're going to want to go back and check that episode out. I also blog about self compassion. I talk about self compassion a lot. So go check out that previous episode that I did about how self compassion keeps you regulated. What self compassion might sound like in the moment of your child's dysregulation could sound something like, wow, this is so hard, or it is so hard to parent this child. It is hard to be constantly on alert. It is hard for my nervous system to be regularly going bananas. It is exhausting. I am doing the very best that I can and it is hard. Right. So self compassion and self pity are different. And a lot of the difference between self compassion and self pity is really that tone. It's the energy that's underneath it. Self compassion has a mindful, gentle kindness to it. Wow, this is so hard. Again, that's just inner attunement. It's just acknowledgement. Yeah, this is really hard. Parenting a child who has experienced trauma is hard enough that you're seeking out resources and listening to podcasts and reading blog articles about it. I mean, that's hard. Okay, so we've done noticing, acknowledging, offering self compassion. And now at this stage, you actually may have already done the next step without even thinking about it. And the next step is take a breath, a good breath in with a longer exhale. Relax your shoulders, your fists, or your eyes.
- [15:05]
Robin Goble
Just a real quick interruption. If you're loving the podcast, you should go right now to my website. Check out all my free resources. There's webinars, downloadable ebooks, and a huge amount of infographic cheat sheets on so many different topics. Felt safety and boundaries, how to handle lying. What to do if you have a child who seems always dysregulated. How to not flip your lid when your kid is flipping theirs. Steps you can take when your nervous system is fried. What co regulation really looks like. And y'all, that's not even all. There's More. And my team and I add at this point about one new free resource a month. So you're going to want to check in regularly, see all those free resources and download exactly what you want@robin goble.com freeresources let's go back to the show.
- [16:10]
Co-host or Assistant
Relaxing your body, maybe even sitting down, and that breath with a long exhale helps to send a message to your brain that says, hey, I'm okay. This is a stressful situation and I have to deal with what's happening, but I'm not in physical danger. And like I said, by the time you've gotten to this point, by the time you've noticed, acknowledged it as real, offered self compassion, you may have already, without even thinking about it, taken that big breath in, right? But if not be intentional about it. Big breath, long exhale, physically relax your body, send a message to your brain that says, I'm going to be okay. What's happening here is hard, it's stressful, I've got to deal with it, but I'm going to be okay. I'm not in physical danger in this moment. So by now, after these four steps, you may have already successfully recontected to your own thinking brain, which means you're not necessarily calm, but you're no longer feeling like in your in extreme danger, right? Maybe you're feeling just as though there's a situation at hand that needs to be managed, which is completely true, but you're no longer in this intense kind of fight flight, flipping your lid, state of energy. And also the reality is is that aiming for calm while your kid is kind of going bananas or flipping their lid, aiming for calm may not even be what you want to aim for. There is a way of being with somebody who is pretty dysregulated that we could call matching their energy or matching their level of arousal, but without the dysregulation. And so when somebody is really kind of flipping their lid or going bananas, calm might actually not be what you're aiming for at all. So this idea of matching the energy but not the dysregulation is a pretty tricky skill. It takes a lot of practice. It's going to be what the January masterclass is in the club. So again, if you're lucky enough to be listening to this episode before January 8th, you can hop on and join the club before registration closes at the end of January 8th. And then January's masterclass is going to be on this exact topic. How do we match the energy but without the dysregulation okay. So by the time you've gone through these four steps, noticing, acknowledging, self compassion, long, you know, big breath, long exhale, you might not be calm, but you might have reconnected to your own thinking brain enough that now you can connect with your kid and manage the situation. But maybe not. Maybe after those four steps, you still aren't quite there yet. You haven't quite reconnected to that thinking brain quite well enough. Right. And maybe the situation isn't so dire that you do have a couple more seconds where you can help yourself come into some more regulation. So for me, the next step, which I guess at this point is like step five, what can be helpful for me after I've taken that big breath with a long exhale and I've sent cues of safety to my own body, the next thing that I often will do is to bring to mind who I would call my people. The people in my life who have my back. The people in my life who show up for me and support me no matter what. The people in my life who will hold me accountable, but will do that with compassion. I literally picture these people behind me with their hands on my back, literally physically supporting me. I hear their voices and their voices are soothing and inspiring, not critical and harsh. Right. I actually have a physical object in my house that represents these people to me. And sometimes I can bring that object to mind or maybe even go and get the object, like go hold it or put my fingers on it. And that helps me bring to mind my people. And really what I'm doing here is leaning into the CO regulation of these individuals, these people that I have internalized. So I'm leaning into this internalized CO regulation and that can offer me a little bit of additional regulation. Then if I still have time and if I still need more help with my own regulation, I'll go back to self compassion again. I often use Kristin Neff's self compassion mantra. It sounds like this is a moment of suffering. Suffering is a part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment and may I give myself the compassion that I need. So I learned that self compassion mantra right from Krista Knapp. It's in her book Self Compassion. If you head back over to my blog, Robin Goble. Let's say that again. Robin goble.com not flipping your lid. I've written that mantra in there. And then again, it's also in Krista Neff's book, Self Compassion. I recommend her work all the time. It's very inspiring. It's Wonderful self compassion, in a way, is one of the most important experiences you could cultivate in your own nervous system when parenting a child impacted by trauma. Okay, so maybe by now I'm ready to be with my kid and connect with my kid over whatever that real problem is. And my kid might think that the real problem is that I won't give them like more screen time or that I'm asking them to complete their homework or do a chore, but I know that the real problem lacks. I'm sorry, the real problem lies in. In most likely a lack of connection to themselves or to me or lack of regulation or a lack of felt safety. So I can tackle the real problem, regulation, connection, or felt safety, and not get sucked into just fighting about whatever the surface problem is, right? If I'm dysregulated, if I lose access to my own thinking brain or my own owl brain, I am much more likely to kind of jump down the rabbit hole of whatever my child is telling me is the problem, and then I lose connection to what the real problem is, right? Which is something about connection or regulation or felt safety. So I know that you're very likely not taking notes while you're listening to this podcast. So again, you can head over to robingobel.com not flipping your lid, and you'll get all of these steps in writing. Number one, notice. Number two, acknowledge that it's real. Number three, send yourself some self compassion. Number four, take that breath, offer yourself cues of safety through your body. Relax your fists, relax your shoulders, relax your eyes, maybe even sit down. Number five, bring to mind your team, the people who have your back, who will speak to you with compassion, who offer you co regulation. Number six, offer yourself more self compassion. Number seven, then brings us to being able to focus on what the real problem is. This might seem really impossible to do. Like, these are a lot of things to do in the middle of some intense dysregulation with your child or something that's really triggering you or leading you down your own path of dysregulation, right? And it makes perfect sense that this feels really impossible, like a really long list of things to do, right? It's like it would be impossible for me to go out and run a marathon today, right? Or it'd be impossible for me to climb my aerial silks using only my arms. So I am not a very good aerialist, but I've been taking Ariel silks classes and lessons for the last couple of years and absolutely adore it. It takes a ton of strength Strength that I'm still really building. And I tell you what, even two years in, I can't climb the silk using only my arms, right? Like, just pulling myself up the silk on my arms. I'm still using my feet and my legs a lot. But that doesn't mean that it's always going to be impossible. It just means that I have to keep trying a lot. Like, I have to keep doing a lot of practicing. And sometimes it hurts because growing those muscles stresses those muscles. And if I want to grow the muscles to climb my silk using only my arms, I'm absolutely going to get sore. No question about that. But I'll still practice, right? And I'll still just go one step at a time and then maybe two. I'll practice these seven steps towards not flipping my lid when my kid is flipping theirs when I'm only mildly dysregulated, right? Or I'll do a mental, like, practice session. Like, I'll do it in my mind by reflecting on a situation that has happened in the past. Like, I'll rewrite the scene in my mind's eye and in my imagination. And in my imagination I'll do the steps. So just like anything else, with practice, this is going to become easier, it's going to become more automatic and it's going to become more implicit. So it won't take long. Like, you'll be able to do these seven steps in like a second. And of course also, just like anything else, doing something hard is way easier when you do it with someone else. So just like anything else, learning the steps and doing the steps, especially when you need to, right? Like, especially when your kid's dysregulated and you're starting to get dysregulated. Those are two completely different things. And this is exactly why I created the club, this new virtual community for parents of kids impacted by trauma. The club is completely 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 struggle to parent the way that we're hoping to parent, it's not because we're bad parents, it's because we're dysregulated, right? When I was seeing clients in my office, parents would talk about how coming to these appointments were a weekly dose of CO regulation for them. They had this experience of being really seen and known and held and cared for. But the weekly dose of CO regulation was almost like this booster shot of regulation and compassion for them. Because these weekly appointments they could get through another week of parenting a pretty dysregulated kid. The club is definitely not therapy, but connection and CO regulation aren't things that should only be available in therapy or in the therapist's office. That's just not reasonable. Therapy is not accessible enough for that. We all need connection. We all need CO regulation, and we especially need it when we are in deep, close relationships with people who are pretty dysregulated, like kids who have experienced trauma, right? So what I have discovered is that we can receive connection, we can receive CO regulation, and it's especially important to receive this connection CO regulation from other people who are committed to belief, committed to the belief that all of us are always doing the very best that we can, even. Especially when things are really hard. And that's true about me, that's true about you, that's true about everybody being in a community of people who are committed to offering connection and CO regulation and to this belief that we're all always doing the very best that we can. This is a way for us to build our own resilience, us to build our own nervous systems, that through this CO regulation, we will develop more capacity to navigate all of the stress, all of the dysregulation in our homes. And we can do this virtually, can connect with others, and we can offer CO regulation to others virtually. And we can do this with people we never, ever, ever get to meet in real life. And this is why I have created the club. The club is going to offer these parenting masterclasses where you can continue to increase your skills, but it's going to offer so much more than that. So if you're interested, registration is open now through January eight. So if you're hearing this after January 8, 2021, you'll still want to head over to my website, read all about it and put yourself on the waiting list. But I am going to close the doors to new members on January 8th for probably about three months, because I want all of us, like founding members, to come together and work together to create the culture and the community that we're longing for. And a culture and a community that is going to allow the club to last for a long, long, long time. Like for years and years and years and years is my hope. So I'll be opening those doors again probably at the end of March, beginning of April. So again, head over to robingobel.com you can read all the details. If you happen to catch this podcast episode before January 8, 2021, you can sign up and come right into the club or you can sign up to be on that waiting list and I'll let you know as soon as it's open. Again, thank you so much for just continuing to show up for yourself and for your child. You do this, you show up for you. You show up for your kid. You do this every time. You join me here for an episode of the Parenting After Trauma Podcast and I can't wait to be with you again next time. Bye Bye.
- [32:06]
Robin Goble
I hope that you loved that episode of the Baffling Behavior Show. If you did and you're wondering where can I go to learn more or get more support? Or maybe you're a professional and you want to be able to bring this work to your overwhelmed clients. I have got three places for you to go next. Number one, my USA Today best selling book, Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors. A year and a half after publication, Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors continues to exceed our wildest dreams, breaking sales goals and getting feedback that it is changing people's lives. Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook, which I read wherever you buy books online. The second way to get more support is to come and join us over in the club. It's an online community of connection, co regulation and yes, even a little education. We have over 500 members and you'll gain support from the wisest, most compassionate, most in the trenches with you parents in the world. You'll be able to pick my brain, watch over a hundred different videos and Download the over 50 resources that are uniquely developed just for the club and just for you to bring owls, watchdogs and possums into your family. And if you're a professional like a therapist or a coach, a teacher, an educator, maybe an occupational therapist, a daycare owner, anyone who supports the parents of kids with big baffling behaviors. Hop onto my waiting list for the 2026 cohort of being with. It'll be our fifth cohort of our year long immersion into the neurobiology of big baffling behaviors and the science of connection, safety and co regulation. You'll grow your capacity so that you can hang in the hardest places with families of kids with vulnerable nervous systems. And you'll finally get the professional support that you need and deserve to work with the families who keep being told by other professionals that they can't help them anymore. One of my goals is that families.
- [34:20]
Co-host or Assistant
Never hear that again.
- [34:22]
Robin Goble
We'll be opening applications in the late spring or early summer and we'll be opening those applications only to folks who are on the waiting list, so be sure to add your name to the waiting list over@robingobel.com beingwith y'all, I'm so grateful to support you and be with you on this journey.
- [34:45]
Co-host or Assistant
Till next week.