Welcome to the kids with big emotions. Podcast formerly the calm nights, strong days. Podcast. I am your host, Andi Clark.

and just quickly, before we dive into this episode. I had covid in the last week, and feeling great now, have a resounding cough, so I'm hoping to make it through this, but there may be times where I have to pause this

and

have a huge cough, and then I will be right back. So if anything seems disjointed in this episode, my apologies. Let's see if we can get through the whole thing.

So what we're diving into today in Episode 70

is your child's stress type.

And this has been something that recently I discovered through Robin Gobel. She deals with traumas in kids.

and she has a way of using animals to describe the certain stress types.

and

it has been eye opening for me. I'm like, this is the way I've always been like, how do I,

when I'm speaking about stress levels? How do I say it in a way

that

is

easier to understand if you don't dive into all the deep science some quite often. I use the big science words.

and

I would really like to

to be getting to that point where I don't have to use the science words, and I can explain it. And that's what I am able to do today. So I. She has 3 animals that she uses. I have 4 that I have created. And and I've differed the animals a little bit to work towards neurodiverse kids.

not solely traumas working on stress systems and different things that tax our kids stress systems. So I'll be using these animals as a way to explain things. But it'll allow me to explain all of the other things I do, and all of the different stress triggers in our kids and things like that that are non-trauma related, explaining all of them in a way that I'm hoping. That makes more sense and resonates with you as parents. I know for me it really has.

and I've even been teaching my kids about it. And, man, it is making such a difference in them, recognizing when they are in different stress states.

So I am so excited. And let's dive into this episode.

So I have 4 animals. I have a dolphin.

a shark.

We have the clown fish, and I'm using Nemo's dad from finding Nemo Marlin using him as

the representative and of that animal and a turtle.

So we're going to start with a dolphin

now, Dolphin is.

They're dolphins love to play.

They love to swim, they're playful. They're in like their pods with their family. They're engaged with others. They're socially engaged. They're not isolating themselves, they're, you know, playing back and forth, able to communicate back and forth. They're connected and real, just really well engaged.

And so when your child.

this isn't even just for children, though

when

when you

have

when you have a dolphin.

when you have a dolphin, when any of us are using our dolphin brain.

That's when we're able to really big picture, think it's when we're really regulated.

This is when we're able to solve problems when we're rational.

And

now in this state it doesn't always mean we're common. Zen. It doesn't mean we're sitting here meditating, and and that we can be slightly stressed and we can be slightly relaxed

if we think of it.

We actually like, think of this like riding a horse

when you're on top of a horse and you're riding it, and I

I'm not a horse rider, so I'm just putting this out there for you. If I say any of the words incorrect

is when you're riding a horse and you're holding the reins.

If you let the reins just be completely loose

and your legs are just completely loose on the horse. The horse just goes any which way. They're going all over the place, meandering everywhere. So that's when we're in like that totally calm, Zen

chilled state.

and with the reins, though if we kind of have a little bit of tension in the reins.

little bit of tension in your feet, your legs.

you're able to kind of like steer and direct the horse, but it is a play between loosening the reins

and tightening the rain, so it's a bit of loosen and tighten and loosen and tighten.

And so that

is how we want to be when we're in this dolphin state.

So sometimes like when you're a Dolphin, and you're in the pod, and somebody does something you don't like. You can kind of go like

I just have a dolphin sound in my head when I'm doing that like a dolphin click. And you're kind of like, hey? I didn't like that.

And then, you guys, the other dolphin checks himself, adjusts their behavior. And you continue on. That is the dolphin break.

Right? So it's not saying that everything is always good, but it is meaning that we are

able to adjust our behaviors, able to communicate with others able to work things out. Okay?

And then we get into the next 2 layers. So that's our regulated state, which, when we are speaking science words, we're talking about our ventral vagal state.

So then, under our ventral vagal state, we have this fight or flight state.

And I have 2 animals for this, because there's 2 different ways that our kids may show

when they're kind of in that fight or flight state.

So we have this shark.

The shark is the one that is the predator.

They're always moving. They're looking at for potential threats. They're always surveying their area for potential threats ready. They're ready to attack quickly, ready to attack without warning.

They're not sorry, not necessarily looking for threats. They're being threatening as well as they're looking around to see, like surveying their their audience. They're ready to attack at any moment in time.

and that is when you're in that fight or flight state. You're ready to, either, when your child

yells.

and there may be kicking, hitting, or screaming, you know.

Great! We're doing pretty good with this cough.

So that is the shark. The shark is

where

they are ready to attack. They're really on edge. They're really watching where they're

their surroundings. As if anything could happen at any moment. So I'm just imagining a shark as they're like going through the water, and they're just

you watch them. It looks like they're just watching everything around them, cautious

and

ready to spring or attack at any moment. That is that one piece that

kids as well as adults can get into when we're in a fight or flight state, when our stress system is really taxed and we

are in our sympathetic stress state.

Now, in the other sympathetic.

We also have the anxiety.

It's

it's

so.

So if we think of

the

Nemo's dad, Marlin from finding Nemo.

he's constantly worrying.

He's constantly looking around.

He really struggles with any change. He's preoccupied with all of the potential dangers around him in an anxiety way.

The shark is

preoccupied with potential dangers

in an attack way.

the clownfish or Nemo

and I'm Marlon Nemo's dad

is

preoccupied with potential dangers in an anxiety way. They're often feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling anxiety. And if we think of clownfish clownfish, they have this anxious behavior where they are always staying close to their an enemy. If you remember.

Marlon in the movie.

He was so afraid to move away from his anemone right that little home that he always stayed in, that he knew anything outside of there. He was like freaking out like, no, we shouldn't go there. We shouldn't go away from this. We need to stay close to the anemone.

and so clownfish. They stay close to that an enemy, and then they show very skittish responses to new situations, so whenever anything new comes by, they boom like. Just run hide, you know, like those total, anxious behaviors we think of. Marlin as well. Didn't want to be away from

Nemo to go too far, and that's where, too, our kids might get in this anxiety state, where they don't want the parent to go too far from them. They may have, like a parent, or a sibling, or something that they know that they feel safe around, and that's where they

they stay

in.

They always want to stay in that. So that is your clown fish, or Marlin Nemo's dad.

and those are both fight or flight.

and then the last one that I have is your turtle.

Now a turtle is when you're in the freeze stage.

The freeze is where you are just slowing down. You're withdrawing. So you think of a turtle, they withdraw into their shell if they need to protect themselves. These might be kids that don't answer you

when they're stressed, and when I'm saying, Don't answer you. This could be like

they're stressed doing their homework.

or they're stressed playing a game.

And they're struggling to answer your questions like they almost like, shut down and get very quiet.

It's not

like it's a kid who may not voice their thoughts or ideas anymore.

A kid who is just

quiet

and not quiet in a hand just enjoying this piece. And I'm super calm, quiet. It's almost like a withdrawing

right? This is where, if we are dealing like with stress systems. This is where you get like depression

and stuff. But with kids, how we see it is they're not necessarily wanting to play with other kids. They're not engaged in a lot of different things. They may not show a lot of interest in different things, or they might just be really quiet and get into that protective shell all the time, we may say, oh, they're shy.

which the child may be completely shy once they

warm up to people, but they may be in that turtle

when you 1st go to somebody's house.

and then eventually they go from the turtle and move into the Dolphin.

So this is where we start understanding

that when kids are explaining, displaying these

these animals, these characteristics, these traits, they're actually giving us such good information as to where they are in their stress system. Where's their stress state?

If they're really anxious about everything

and worrying about where are you going? What are you doing?

Or if they're getting angry, agitated.

Yelling, fighting.

speaking words that aren't nice, that's them being in that shark. So both of those are fight or flight state.

And when you're in that fight or flight state, or when you're in the Freeze State like the turtle.

we're not in our dolphin brain.

So we're not able to.

We react differently when we're being checked.

So like I said before, when the dolphins are playing, and maybe one dolphin does something to the other dolphin and all other dolphins like Hey.

you know, stop doing that. Then I was like, Oh, sorry! And they continue on. They want to adjust their behavior or what they did, and they move on.

That's what they can do in a dolphin state.

But when your child is in a shark, a clown fish or a turtle state

they can't.

So we may be putting demands on them, saying, telling them that

you know you're going to be okay. It's going to be fine where we go or go, play with the other kids, go like, move away from me right now and go out and play, or, you know. Calm down, stop hitting, you know. Stop doing these things. And

the thing is is that when the child is in those brains, in the shark.

the clownfish and the turtle.

They're really struggling

to big picture, think.

and

I mean

it took me a while to really wrap my head around this

and start thinking that everybody is doing the best they can.

And these kids are not bad by nature. Even kids

kids that are tearing apart rooms that are breaking things that are damaging things

that are saying violent, verbal things.

They're not bad kids.

Their stress system is in the shark mode.

or they're in a clownfish mode where they're anxiety and totally stressed out. Or they're a turtle where they're just freezing and shutting down.

This goes for people, too.

I know, in relationships, too, like I am more the shark

where I will

want to know what's going on. I want to know what's bothering my husband right then and there. I want to dive into it, and he goes into turtle.

He actually the more that I press him in shark mode, the more that he dives into his turtle into his shell, and actually can't

answer my questions. I'm saying, can't. It's not that he does not want to. He wants to, but his body has gone into such protective mode because of.

That's how his stress system learned to react to keep himself safe growing up. And that's how mine learned to react to keeping myself safe growing up.

And by safe, I just mean in the environments that we're in

or the people around, it doesn't have to be toxic environments. It could be being a neurodiverse kid.

That is way, more

astute and aware of our surroundings, that really feels emotions deeply, that sees things so much more in depth, in clear, and at such a larger magnitude than most people

that can cause us

our bodies to become stressed where we go into shark or clownfish, or turtle mode, and we leave that dolphin mode.

So

it's really important to. And and this is what I was saying. Just took me so long to get my head around is that everyone's doing their best.

And when anybody around us in our environment

is having a reaction

that is not a dolphin reaction

that is not playful and fun and communicative and good at problem solving.

then

quite often that means they are in a shark or a clown for sure turtle mode.

And

the 1st part in understanding this helps to understand that

it's not

personal.

So quite often when somebody is yelling at you or putting them down.

I know I was just having a conversation with somebody this past week

about an individual that

we have in common with.

and I told them that

I've finally dug deep enough into myself and working on myself to realize that when they are picking at me.

putting me down for things being snippy with me

that

I know that it's actually not me. I know that it's them in their shark mode.

I know that it's them

with the struggles that they're happening. I know that they're in such a heightened stress mode, and it's them. And it's not because of me.

And that individual looked at me and said, Well, they do it to everybody.

And

and so

I, though in the at the moment, because

of the relationship with this individual, I always thought it was me.

I always thought it was me.

and we thought I was the bad person. I was, the one that wasn't good enough. No, isn't smart enough, wasn't whatever.

And now I realize that this person's constantly in their shark.

and once you start seeing the world, seeing everybody seeing your children.

all of your children, not even necessarily your child, that is, having big emotions, if you have one with big emotions and one that

seems to

be much easier to work with and deal with and do things.

but start looking at them. They that other one may start going a little bit into turtle at times.

because turtle is harder to notice.

especially when you have somebody that's in shark. All the time the turtle seems easy to deal with, because they're quiet. They're not getting in your way. They're not putting up a fuss.

They're not fighting.

And

it's fascinating. Once you really start looking at

your family.

start looking at people around you, interactions at work at school with neighbors, and you start

looking at them as far as which animal are that are that dolphin, shark, clownfish, or turtle.

and you can see how often they spend in dolphin.

And you can see when they're out of dolphin out of the dolphin brain.

and they've moved into another brain and you can see it.

It's like, Wow, you know, you start seeing it from such a different light.

And once we start seeing it from this different light. It takes the emotion away from it.

and it can help us.

Then go, okay, this person's in shark. Okay, this person's in clownfish.

This person's in turtle.

What do they need from me right now?

And the hardest thing is that quite often, when someone's in shark, we go into shark brain.

you know. Same thing with like even clownfish. When we have a child that's going into clownfish with their anxiety and their stress.

our shark brain kicks in, and we're like, Oh, my gosh!

Here we go again! Do I have to deal with this again, and you start like

we get. We move out of dolphin brain as well when we're dealing with

others that have moved into these other brains.

I know with my husband earlier on in our relationship. Anytime he'd go internal. My shark would really kick in higher, and I've learned now crappies and turtle

is stressed.

He's feeling it, and he cannot converse right now, cause he's not in Belfast.

And so I'm like, hey, what does he need right now in order to get back in a dolphin?

I'm making this sound simple.

It's not sorry.

It kind of is simple, a little bit in the concept, but it's not easy to execute

when you yourself have switched out a dolphin.

It is really really hard to

stay calm, stay rationalized, and really figure out all the things to be doing.

So

there's a lot of dynamics to this.

and my hope from this episode here

is for you to 1st start understanding these animals and start taking observations right?

So what we talked about today are

the Dolphin.

When you're regulated.

when you're able to swim playfully, feeling safe, you're feeling connected. You're feeling engaged. You're able to think problem solve. And really, you can still see the threats around you. But you're seeing them from a way that is able to problem solve.

And then we've talked about shark.

which is when you're in that fight or flight state that heightened stress state

where the shark is moving, looking out for potential threats, ready to attack quickly without warning

can come out of nowhere.

and

we have the clownfish.

So just like Marlin, from finding Nemo Nemo's dad

really struggles with change so preoccupied with potential dangers all the time.

and feeling so overwhelmed by anxiety.

And they get like this skittish response to new new situations don't like change.

and we have the turtle.

where they slow down in our movements

you may notice speech slows down as well. Those child. Those kids may speak a little slower.

which may at times seem like they're actually calm.

It might be deceiving. They're like, oh, they're speaking slower in this calm, grounded way. We start realizing that's actually turtle. It's actually a stress response.

And then they start withdrawing into their shell in order to protect themselves.

So just start observing.

start observing your kids start observing how often, if you have a child with big emotions, is it shark?

Is it clownfish, or is it turtle?

How often do they spend in that? And do you see those moments where they get into dolphin?

How often are they in dolphin? And how often are they in one of the others

start just noticing that start noticing it about yourself. Any of your other kids, your spouse.

to start noticing.

That's what I'm hoping for you to get from today

is to start noticing, because we are going to be using these these animals, these analogies

throughout so many of future episodes

in so many things that I speak of when I'm bringing in executive functioning, when I'm bringing in sleep, when I'm bringing in stress systems, different stress triggers that are happening to kids.

All of these things. I'm going to be bringing in these animals as well in order to help you understand where your kids are regulated and dysregulated from these different stressors that are out there.

So

hopefully, this has been helpful for you.

if there's any questions that any of you have.

if you have questions about like, Okay, my child is in one of these. What do I do?

Hop on a call with me? I have 30 min calls booked down below

as well.

If you go into we have a free Facebook group where there's other parents just like you. And I'm going to start having some conversations going in there about what animals

your kid most represents as well. And you're going to start seeing that

you're not alone.

You're not alone in this.

This is definitely a really good 1st step in seeing and understanding

where your child is at and where you are at.

If you have been dealing with a child with big emotions.

fighting with the schools in order to get the kids support that they need.

trying to explain to others what your child needs, because they feel that you should be parenting different when you know that those different parenting styles or the traditional ones do not work for your child.

just

yeah. It's

there's so many different stressors that you are going through as a parent just friggin' being a parent without being a parent with big emotions is already hard enough.

And then we throw in relationships. And we're just all kinds of things.

So check and see where you're at. Check and see where your child is.

If you want to chat book a call

and feel free to join my Facebook group as well.

and I'm so excited I made it through without any crazy coughing.

And

yeah, let me know what questions you have. I'm here to help you as best as I can.

I know the clients I've worked with, and I know my

kids

and where they're at. And that's what I'm speaking about here. But I would love to speak more about your kids as well. So let me know. Hop on that call and fill me in on what your child is about the links for both those the Facebook group, and the 30 min call with me is down below. It's not a sales call.

I just want to put that out there. It's so not a sales call. This is literally, we're going to sit here and talk about your child for 30 min. And I love to do this, and I want to learn more about you so that I can make this podcast. More

attuned to what it is that you need. And you want as a listener.

Alright!

Any questions? Let me know. All of my information is in the show notes.

and I will see you

in the next episode.