I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of pre-regulation and how it can help with preventing meltdowns. Today, you’ll learn how to help your kid get calm (and stay calm) so you have less dysregulation and fewer tantrums.

You’ll Learn:

• Why meltdowns actually happen
• Things you might be doing that make tantrums worse
• How to help you child calm their nervous system in the moment
• Tons of simple (and fun) strategies I used with my kids to keep them calm in advance to prevent meltdowns from happening

I hope you implement just one or two of these this week for yourself and for your kids. Then, tell me how it goes!

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Understanding Meltdowns and Regulation

In kids, dysregulation often looks like kicking, screaming, punching, yelling at you, saying really crazy things… aka a tantrum or meltdown. I like to call them Big Feeling Cycles. You can actually see that your child is sort of out of control. 

As a parent, the instinct is often to try to control that behavior. So maybe you raise your voice, make a threat, or try to bribe your kid in order to stop the behavior. But these don’t deal with the cause of the meltdown, because feelings drive behavior.

Arguing or trying to “teach them a lesson” doesn’t help in these situations. It usually just creates more problems.

When you trust that the grumpiness, complaining, or meltdown is temporary, it gives you some perspective. You’re able to allow for some of those feelings to be and have compassion.

A helpful thought for you when your kid is in the midst of a Big Feeling Cycle is: Thoughts and feelings are like weather. They always pass. 

As your kid’s emotional coach, your goal is to help them get out of fight or flight (the sympathetic nervous system) and into rest and digest (the parasympathetic nervous system). 

Imagine this (or maybe it already happened in your house today)… Your kid is having a fit because they’re in a bad mood and they don’t want their chicken nuggets. Instead of arguing, you say, “Okay. Eat it or don’t eat it. We’ll figure it out.” And then all of a sudden, they start eating! What happened in that moment is that their nervous system came back online, and they’re better able to regulate.

In-the-Moment Strategies for Calming Big Feelings

If you want to go deeper and get the step-by-step process for these strategies, I’ve done individual podcasts episodes on most of them, so go back and listen!

The Connection Tool is your best strategy to handle a Big Feeling Cycle. It has three parts:

1. Narrate the situation - What is happening? What behaviors are you seeing?
2. Name the emotion - I wonder if you’re feeling…
3. Now what? - Give your child another strategy to communicate or cope with their big feelings.

The 3 Rs of emotional regulation are also really helpful in getting back to calm.

1. Rhythm - Intentionally moving your body in a way that has a soothing effect on you. This could be jumping, swinging your arms, or doing a shimmy shake.
2. Relationship - When you have someone come alongside you and say, “You’re okay. I’ve got you. We can handle this,” it takes away the fight or flight response. You’re no longer alone and afraid. 
3. Reward - This isn’t a reward like a toy or ice cream. It’s a little dopamine kick that can be achieved by completing a small task. This isn’t one that you can do right in the middle of a Big Feeling Cycle, but if you catch it before the train has fully left the station, you might be able to turn things around.

Intercepting or interrupting the Big Feeling Cycle with a small task or limit can sometimes prevent a full-on meltdown. 

Using reward, as mentioned above, is one example of this. Maybe you say, “Okay, I want to talk to you about that, but why don't you go ahead and take your shoes and put them in the shoe bin and come right back. Let's see how fast you can do it.”

A limit might sound like saying, “I’m happy to listen to you as long as you stop screaming,” or, “I can only listen to kids who are using their best voice. I can’t hear you when you use that voice.”

These interruptions aren’t meant to make them forget how they’re feeling. It’s just a way to help lessen the intensity of the emotion. It forces the brain to do some thinking, and that helps them shift from the limbic (emotional) part of the brain back into the more logical part. 

After the Big Feelings Pass

A lot of times you really just need to wait it out. For some kids, Big Feeling Cycles might last 30 minutes. It just depends on how dysregulated they are. 

After they start to settle, movement is still a great way to reset. 

Then, one of the most valuable things you can do is give your child space to express themself and process what they are feeling. Let them tell you more about why they’re so mad, sad, frustrated, etc. 

Don’t try to change their feelings. Often, when kids are complaining or talking about something hard, we want to give them perspective. We want to silver line it or tell them they should be grateful. But when you do this, it shuts them down. This is not the time to teach values; it’s the time to let them process their emotion.

If you don’t have the capacity to listen, suggest that they go talk to their stuffed animals or a pet about how they’re feeling. Or they can record it for you, and you can listen later when you’re able. 

Neutral listening is also an option if you aren’t able to fully participate in the conversation. When you do this, you aren’t really tuned in, but you’re there as a sounding board while your child talks it all out. 

Not all kids are talkers. Some will do better with showing you their feelings. You can ask them to do things like show you how sad they are with their face or throw down a pillow to show you how mad they are.

If they don’t want to do it, that’s fine. This isn’t about control. It’s about offering them options and solutions to process and move through their negative emotion. 

Preventing Meltdowns with Pre-Regulation

Ideally, we can catch dysregulation before it becomes a full-blown meltdown. Pre-regulation is the idea of keeping your kid calm in advance. It’s about noticing when your child is starting to go offline and helping them get back on track. 

One of my favorite ways to do this is with the Preview tool. With this strategy, you talk through an event or activity that is coming up with your child. Is there a challenging situation that might happen? How do they want to deal with it if it does? 

For example, your child’s sibling is having a birthday party. The sibling is having friends over, they’re going to get presents, everyone is going to be paying attention to them. You can say to your child, “You might feel sad, lonely, or jealous today. Those feelings are totally normal and okay. But let's talk about what you're going to do with those feelings when they come up. Let's make a plan. Do you want to come to me? Do you want to go sit by yourself? Do you want to have a special toy that you're playing with?”

You problem solve with them ahead of time.

You can also pre-regulate when you notice your child starting to get overwhelmed. When one of my sons was young, I could tell he was starting to go offline when he didn’t engage with his friends right away at school drop-off. This was my cue to help him calm his nervous system before he went into the classroom.

Other times pre-regulation can be really helpful are before homework, when you see complaining or sibling conflict starting, and before bed. 

Here are some examples of things you can do:

• Do patterns of clapping, stomping, and hopping and have them copy what you do
• See how high or how fast they can jump
• Have them push against your hands 
• Use compression (e.g. give a big hug, cover them in a blanket and put your weight on them)
• Play a game like Statue
• Sing a song or count together
• Balance on one foot
• Race to the end of the driveway
• Push or pull something, like a wagon or laundry basket
• Swing

Different things work for different kids, so get creative!

I hope you implement just one or two of these this week for yourself and for your kids. Then, tell me how it goes!

Resources:

• Learn to use The Connection Tool
• Episode 87: The 3 Rs of Emotional Regulation
• Episode 8: Pause & Reset Your Body
• Episode 170: Sensory Activities for Kids with Alisha Grogan
• Episode 195: Raising Neurodivergent Kids with Sara Hartley

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✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

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Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlin Childress.

And today on the podcast, I wanted to talk about

how to help your kids regulate their nervous system

and how to help your kids either get calm

or stay calm. And I've been thinking a lot about this

concept of pre regulation. We think about

dysregulation and how that's a period of time where your

child's nervous system is firing in a way that they're somewhat

out of control of that dysregulation is

we see that when we see a kid, you know, kicking,

screaming, punching, yelling at you, saying

really crazy things, you know, out. Just really out of bounds, and

you can actually see it within their body that they're sort of out of control.

And a lot of times when that happens, as the parent, we want to control

that behavior. We want it to, like, fix it, change it, stop it, solve it.

We want to get in there and get them to stop. And

a lot of times we'll use a raised voice or a threat

or a maybe we try to bribe them

or something like that, because we're trying to manipulate that

emotion in order to get your kid back to a

calm, parasympathetic nervous system response. So we

have that activated sympathetic.

Sympathetic nervous system response where you

are in a state of arousal. And what we want is to get

that body from fight and flight to what sometimes is called rest

and digest. Okay? So, of course, the

best strategy to handle a big feeling cycle

or a moment where your kids have a lot of emotion or

intensity, or you're just like, what the heck is going on

here? Compassion and narrating and using that

connection tool is a very useful tool.

Kind of like what I talked about last week with Sarah,

how you can use her align method, which is

just kind of really labeling and looking at the

triggers that is happening, narrating the circumstances, and then giving your

kids some tools to help them calm their nervous

system, same as the connection tool. The connection tool is three parts

narrate name. Now what? Narrating

the situation, narrating the behaviors that you see. So

you're like, I see that you are screaming, or I hear you're really

yelling very loudly and then naming that emotion,

saying, I wonder if you're feeling very overwhelmed right now. Now, that

is kind of, do you feel sad? Right? Kind of labeling

that emotion. That's a huge part of connection.

Connected parenting, compassionate parenting is name

it to tame it, right? Labeling, emotion, identifying

emotion. But then we have to go through and help Our kids

figure out what to do with that emotion. And

that's oftentimes where we get stuck. And so in the

connection tool narrate name now what? Now

what is really about helping give our kids

strategies to help them cope or communicate

better with their big feelings. So one of the best

ways that all of us, every human, has at their

disposal at all times is to move your body.

When I talk about the three Rs of regulation,

rhythm, relationship and reward,

rhythm is really about doing something with your body intentionally to

calm or soothe it. When I teach you the pause break and we

talk about resetting your body, right? Pause, reset.

Resetting your body is a lot of times about moving your body.

Intentionally moving your body in a way that has

a soothing effect on you. So that

can be, you know, jumping up and down,

putting your arms in the air, the shimmy shake, right? We have these strategies that

we can do. Expanding our arms really wide and you know,

tiktoking your arms. Like one arm goes up and one arm goes down and just

kind of tick tocking. Any sort of intentional movement with rhythm

can be very balancing.

Obviously being in relationship, getting that oxytocin, getting that

serotonin from the relationship, from the compassion.

Compassion actually calms the nervous system because you don't

feel so alone, you're not afraid, you're not in fight flight.

When you have someone who comes alongside and comes

alongside of you and says, you're okay, I've got you, we can

deal with this, we can handle this. And you have that leadership energy, that

self energy that you're approaching your kids with.

Then the other one is reward. That's like kind of the dopamine

uptake, like giving a little task or having a kid do something.

You can't do that right in the middle of a big feeling cycle. But you

can kind of catch a big feeling cycle before

the train leaves the station. And you might be like,

okay, I want to talk to you about that, but why don't you go ahead

and take your shoes and put them in the shoe bin and come right back.

Let's see how fast you can do it. So sometimes we can intercept

or interrupt that nervous system, that big feeling

cycle by giving a little task. Sometimes

limits can do that too by saying to our kids, I'm happy

to listen to you as long as you stop hitting me. Or I'm happy to

listen to you as long as you stop screaming. Or I can only listen to

kids who are using their best voice. I can't hear you when you use that

voice. So we can kind of test whether they're going to go

crazy pants into big feeling cycle

by putting a limit or giving a boundary.

And then that brain has to do some thinking and it can kind of shift

from that limbic, the middle of the brain, the emotional

response, into a little bit more self contained, logical,

practical response. So you're kind of playing with the

nervous system in with your kids when you're helping them calm

their bodies either before they really lose

their nervous, you know, they have their big feeling cycle, they have their meltdown,

or while you're helping coach them through the big feeling

cycle. Now a lot of times you really just need to wait

it out. Some kids, big feeling cycles

might last 30 minutes. It just depends on how

much dysregulation they've had, how much

capacity that they've been like, you know, living in

this like buzzy space, and now it's popped and now you're

okay, the flood has come through. I'm using so many mixed metaphors here, but

you get the point. So moving your body is a

way to calm the nervous system, talking about it, right?

Letting your kids, tell me more about why you're so mad. Tell me more why

you don't like your brother. Tell me more about why your teacher is so mean.

Tell me more. Actually, giving your kids a space to

express themselves can be very, very useful in getting them to calm

their bodies and move through it. A lot of times when kids

are complaining or they're talking about something hard,

we want to silver line it. We want to give them perspective.

We want to tell them, well, that's not how all kids feel. Or you should

be grateful, actually that you have a nice school. We kind of weaponize

gratitude or we shut down or dismiss their

complaints because we're trying to use that moment to teach

values or to define their character. And

it's not the right time to do that conversation. When a

child is at that spot where they're kind of buzzing and you know, they

need to process some emotion, listening can be very

helpful. Now if you don't have the capacity to listen and your kids are

under, you know, 5, 7, 8, you can be like, why don't you go tell

your stuffed animals that? Why don't you go tell the dog that?

You can also, if your kid has like a little device, they can be like,

why don't you record that for me and, and I'll listen to it later.

So you can have your kids complain to you, but you don't always have to

be Participating, compassionate listening and neutral listening are

really effective tools where you just don't really listen to the content. You're just

kind of being there as a sounding board while someone

processes a thought or a feeling. Now,

other activities that kids can do right when they have their big feelings

is they can show you their feelings. Like, whoa, you seem really mad. Show

me how mad you are. Show me with your face. And they go,

or, show me with your hands how, you know, take this pillow and throw

it down as much as you can. Show me how mad you are, or show

me how sad you are. Give me the saddest face you can.

Now, all of these are invitations for your children. If

they're like, no, I don't want to do that. Okay, no problem.

We're not trying to control the child. We're offering

it some. Offering it. Offering the child some solutions

to help them process and move that negative

emotion through. Sometimes, like I said, giving them a

task, giving them an activity, just being like, you know what? Why don't we

go outside for a few minutes? Or if they're outside, like, why don't we go

inside? If you're at the park, why don't you sit down with me for a

few minutes? Or, let's go walk to the water fountain. Just kind of

distracting, but not with the intention of having them

forget, but just to help the emotion not be so intense.

So you're just kind of like, it's okay. Why don't we take a minute? You

come with me. You're not in trouble. Nothing's wrong. But let's just, like, walk and

move our body and you can tell me more what's going on. We'll go get

some water. We'll come back. So kind of allowing some

time for them to pause and reset is really helpful.

The other thing is just realizing that

thoughts and feelings are like the weather and they always

pass. And if you can know that and

hold space and hold leadership around the fact that your child's not

always gonna hate their brother or always

be in a bad mood, if you can just be like, you know what? You're

in a bad mood right now. You're grumpy. You don't like your chicken nuggets that

you ordered. It's fine. Don't eat them. Eat them. It's

okay. We'll figure this out later. I know you're

gonna feel okay in a little bit. Having some compassion and

giving some perspective and some permission for those feelings to

just live and be. Oftentimes the person

that you're coaching or you're doing that with the child

will be like, it's fine, I'll just eat them.

Or if they're a toddler or young, they can then say, you

know, they'll just get distracted, right? You just kind

of go, it's okay, eat it or don't eat it. You know, we'll figure this

out. You can have something later, you know, whatever. And then they're like.

And then all of a sudden they'll start eating. You're like, what the heck just

happened? And it really is the nervous system coming back online.

Try not to be like, a minute ago you said you didn't like those chicken

nuggets and now you like them. Like, you don't need to be petty. You don't

need to be arguing with your kids. It's not helpful. It

doesn't help you as a parent. It doesn't teach your kids any

lessons either. Like, unfortunately, it's just a way of relating

that creates more problems than it's worth, I'll tell you that.

Okay, so that's kind of in the moment strategies. I've talked about those on the

podcast. Now I want to talk about pre

regulation, this idea of

how to keep your kids calm in

advance. So we talk about preview how I have that tool

where you can walk a kid through a situation that

might come up their sibling's birthday party, you know, walking them through

the circumstances. Your sibling is going to have a birthday party, they're going

to have their friends over, they're going to get presents, everyone is going to say

happy birthday. They're going to give hugs. And you might feel

really sad, you might feel lonely, you might feel jealous.

Those feelings are totally normal and okay. But let's

talk about what you're going to do with those feelings

when those come up. Let's make a plan. Do you want to come to

me? Do you want to go sit by yourself? Do you want to

have, you know, a special toy that you're playing with so

you problem solve? Do you want to have some coloring set out? Do you

want to have a special rock in your pocket that you rub on?

So you're giving your children pre strategies for how to

cope with circumstances. So now

how can we bring these pre regulation strategies

into your family, into your routine? Let me tell you how this worked for me.

So when my younger son went to kindergarten, he was

quite overwhelmed. It was a very sensory rich environment.

So there was like snack every day and the kids all participated and

there was a lot of costumes and it Was a beautiful kindergarten experience.

Just everything that you want in a play based experience. But for

him having sensory sensitivities, it was a

very overwhelming environment for him. And school in

general had been throughout elementary school a bit overwhelming.

So he might shut down and go hypo

aroused. Like he might get dysregulated and become

a, like disconnected from the class. He might act those

feelings out by. Sometimes he could be a little belligerent.

Even like as a six year old, like, I don't want to do this, I

don't like it, you know, which he's using his words. But

really the issue was that he was overwhelmed. So it's funny, what

I started to do just instinctively is

that I felt like if he could get a sense of

his body in time and space before school, that

he would have more success at school. So what we did was

I always walked in because I wanted to have that transition,

those eyeball times and delivering the most emotionally

regulated person that I could to school. We would walk in

and, you know, have some connection time either on the yard or

just at that transition. Some schools let you do that, some schools don't.

But anytime that you can kind of move your body alongside your kids is

helpful. Okay. So I would walk him in and he wouldn't

immediately engage with the friends. And those were days I could tell he was like

little bit overwhelmed. So we started to do this little game

where it was almost like Simon says, but without saying

Simon says. And I would do a pattern where I would like clap two times,

like, and then he'd have to clap back to me two times

with the same rhythm. And then I would like clap, clap, stomp. And then

he'd go, clap, clap, stomp. And then I'd stomp, stomp, clap. And he'd

go, stomp, stomp, clap. He was in kindergarten, he's five or six years old.

I would go, okay, let's hop three times. Can you hop three times? Pop, pop,

pop. And then he'd pop, pop, pop. Right. So in this

thing I was doing, I was just making it up, but I was

regulating his nervous system. I was pre regulating it. It was starting to

go offline and I was offering him a way to get back online

and helping him with rhythm, with

relationship and a little bit of reward. So I'd say like, can

you do how high can you jump? Can you do it faster?

So I give a little bit of that dopamine. Oh, good job. That was really

fast. Okay, let's go. Sometimes I would have him put his Hands on my

hands. And I'd say, push me over, push me over. Now.

He's not 11, okay, when I'm doing this because an 11 year

old might actually push you over. But little kids under 7, under 8,

you're bigger than them for the most part. So you're pushing, you know, they're pushing

on you. Now I'm doing this not when he's super activated, not when

he's in the middle of a big feeling cycle. I'm doing this to prevent

one. I'm doing this to calm his nervous system, to get him

to be in a space where he is feeling like

he's in control of his environment and in control of his body.

So this, there's a lot of different really amazing activities

that you can bring into your life that just kind of pre regulate

your kids. Another one I noticed with this, with my, with

this son is that if I like

smushed him up with compression, like covered

him in a blanket and kind of like went on top of him, like, I'm

gonna get you. You know, all of this was like under seven, under eight,

like from three years old through third grade,

he was willing to do these things, which is a lot of years when they

have those big feeling cycles. And if I

built that into our morning where I had a little bit of time, or

he had this giant stuffed animal that was like, like, I don't know, five

feet tall. And he would just roll around on it on the

carpet, he would, you know, smash it down. And all

of that was like his way of calming his nervous system, calming

his body. And I want you to

be thinking creatively, if you can, about

what could calm your kid's body. If you think about a little

baby, right? We swaddle them, we shush them,

we swing them, we hold them tight,

we, you know, we swaddle them tightly. All that is to create

a calming sensation. Part

of that soothing that's necessary is that feeling

of being safe and cared for and taken care of. So

sometimes we want to compress or give our

kids an opportunity to be in charge of their bodies.

You can do a game like statue, where you

have them like moving around, moving around. Maybe it's like music.

There's music playing and then you say, okay, freeze, show me a bear. And then

they have to go, right? Or you say, freeze, show me a giraffe.

Freeze, show me downward dog. If they know any yoga poses, you know,

freeze, show me cobra, right? So you can be

having them do their body, manipulate their body, moving it,

stopping it. Moving it, stopping it, and then having a little bit of

gameplay there. So I want you to start thinking about

all sorts of different ways that you can add things in your life

that will help your kids stay calm or become

calm. Now, in When

I had Alicia Grogan on, we

talked about all of the different sensory activities. That

was episode 170, and it came out in April. And I

love Alicia's work called you'd Kid's

Table. And it's all about teaching you sensory activities. And she has a

really good downloadable that you can get that has 25

different ideas. I also have that in my workbook. If you are

part of my programs, you have that as well. So I'm going to kind

of go through a bunch of them just to help you get an idea

of activities that you can bring into your life.

So one is just jumping, right? Jumping can be

to a beat, like singing, like, you know, 1, 2, 3, or a song

or counting or something, or doing the ABCs while you're jumping

on a trampoline or a couch or a bed, if that's okay. If

it feels safe. That can be very regulating.

Putting a pile of pillows on the ground and having them climb over those

pillows and jump into those pillows can be really calming.

Now, this is when you have a kid who has

maybe if they're really, really wild, sometimes we

don't want to do more wild things. If they're very

active and they have a lot of energy, sometimes we want to have that

energy burn out, but other times we want to contain that energy.

So instead of jumping, you might have them balance

on one foot and hold their, like, control their body. Like, can

you balance on your foot for 20 seconds? Can you switch sides? Can you

jump slowly? Right? So you're kind of manipulating

to see how can I burn through some of this energy from some of

this adrenaline without activating them even more.

So you're really going to be learning about what works for your kid and what

not. My other son, he would not like to be wrapped up in a

blanket and contained. That would be very overwhelming

to him. Instead, he liked it when there was,

like, races, you know, like, okay, race to the end

of the driveway and come back. Or before he got into

his. Into the car before school. I would say,

okay, let's do, like, three rounds of head, shoulders, knees and toes. Okay, ready?

And then he would like it if it was a little bit not so contained.

No compression for him. Climbing

can be good. Like being on a set of stairs. Like, go up and down

the Stairs five times. You know, go, show me. Or how

fast can you do it? Getting wrapped up tight in a blanket like a

burrito is good for compression, for moving. I like to roll a

burrito up and down like a little kid in a blanket, kind of roll them

so they get that flat, full vestibular movement. Pushing

or pulling can be really good, like a heavy wagon or a

laundry basket full of toys, even. It doesn't have

to be super heavy. My older son really liked doing that kind

of stuff. Swinging was huge for both of them. We had a swing

set. We also had a trampoline. So I would have my boys

do these activities throughout the day, almost

intentionally. I'd say, okay, like, it's trampoline time, or it's,

you know, swing time and sandbox time. It's

time for races on the scooter in the driveway or in the, you know,

in the street. If we went to the park, I would say, like, okay,

I want you guys to like, we're gonna race. And how many.

How fast can you go up and down the stairs? I'm gonna count. When we

were in the swimming pool, there was always counting games, always me counting and tracking.

Because when you are doing an activity that you. You're trying to

beat your time, you're in control of your nervous system. You're kind of

manipulating your own energy. So those

are really helpful. So swinging, pulling, pushing,

animal walks are fun. You can have your kid slither like a

snake, walk like a bear, crawl like a crab,

soar like a bird, leap like a frog, hop like a

bunny. And so if I was taking my kids to go to Brett

to bed, they started to act dysregulated. I'd say,

do you want to walk like a regular person, or do you want to hop

to the, you know, bathroom or wherever we were going?

And then they would be, like, looking at me funny, and I'd say, I'm going

to hop. What are you going to do? Are you going to hop or are

you going to crawl? And then they start giggling, and then they would crawl

and I would hop. So I know it takes a lot of energy to be

playful, but it also takes a lot of energy to drag kids into the bathtub

and get angry with them and yell at them and all that's also time consuming

and draining. So the more fun you can have with this stuff, the

better. Now, some kids need to use their mouth,

so chew toys, even for older kids. Or necklaces.

Lincoln, my older one, he would eat his shirt, like, throughout

kindergarten and that was a good sign to me that he was very stressed.

If his shirt came out wet, I was like, oh, this kid has been

struggling today. And then we started to

have different chewing necklaces. Now, some

schools don't let you have those things, so I might have him do that on

the way to school, chew on a straw or chew on a toothpick

or something. As he got a little older, and he still has

strategies like that that he likes to do. Like he will chew on a

toothpick. And he bit his nails. We had to get him to

stop biting his nails. And so we taught him how to, you know, use his

mouth for other things. Obviously, doing,

like, finger paint is great, or, you know, playing

in sand or rice or birdseed. Like having

kind of a sensory area in your home. I call that

like a calm down basket. Some people call it a calm

down corner, big feeling basket. It's

really where you have all this stuff stored. So

blowing bubbles is, you know, helpful. As they get

a little older, chewing gum can be really calming. The 5, 4, 3, 2,

1 method that can help connect us and ground us

and balance our nervous system. Sarah mentioned it last week in the podcast, so I

wanted to walk us through what that is. So it's like five things you can

see, four things you can touch,

three things you can hear, two things you can

smell, one thing you can taste, even if it's just your

own saliva. So having a kid kind

of play I Spy is kind of good for this. Like, if you think about

all those preschool games, they're very good because they

teach kids how to be in control of their body. Red light, green light,

hands and shoulders, knees and toes. Simon says,

you know, I spy, right? All those little games are really helpful for

kids to. To learn how to manage their

emotions and manage their bodies.

Sometimes changing the light in the room or

darkening it, or if you have a lava lamp or you have a fish tank

or something like that. Having your kids or going in the dark, like

making a fort, right? And having them be in the dark, that's so fun for

kids. And it can actually help their eyes adjust

differently and things like that. Playing music, having

a dance party, laying under a weighted blanket,

tossing a ball back and forth, taking a heavy ball

and pushing against your belly like a. Like a beach ball pushing against your belly

and then pushing against the wall and just kind of pressing on. It can

be very regulating. Creating a silent space

is also soothing, right? Like a reading corner. Or maybe

their bed in their room is a sanctuary where they get to Go and sit,

settle down and they can read, or they can bring some small toys to their

bed and they can calm themselves there. And teaching your kids a couple

yoga poses is fun. Like I said earlier, teaching them how to

do mountain pose, just standing up really straight and strong and looking

out and being as still as they can. Teaching them

cat, cow, tree, balancing on one leg. Those

ideas are so, so helpful. So,

so I want you to be thinking about how

to bring this stuff into your family,

especially during transitions. Like if you

had a couple of small ideas in your mind for the morning

that help to calm your kids. Maybe it's a small game

or you play ball for a minute or you bike ride

to school or walking to school, all those things are very calming. Or you have

a special song, you play and everybody dances, or you light a

candle and everyone sets an intention it for the day and then you blow it

out. Anything that you do rhythmically, ritually,

that is like part of your lifestyle will help keep your

kids pretty calm. So thinking about delivering the

most emotionally regulated human you can to school, adding in

some of these activities in your day

right after school is helpful. Before bed, is

helpful. Before doing homework is helpful. And also

when you start to see sibling conflict happening or

tension or a lot of complaining, that's probably an

indication that the person needs a little bit of soothing, a little bit of

support and some ideas to move their body.

Now I hope these have been helpful. And if you

have questions, you can tag me on Instagram

and just DM me. I don't get a ton of DMs, so it's not like

you're gonna overwhelm me. You just ask me like, hey, here's my kids

behavior. Do you have any ideas? And I'll throw some out there for you.

Your comment, I always post on Instagram. Every time I have a

podcast episode there's a post. You can go read that and

then also you can comment there and help me know what kinds of

activities you've tried or if you need some ideas.

Happy to share any of that. And if you want to work with me

one on one. We don't have the calmamma club anymore, but we

do. I still do have private coaching. We have six weeks where you

can work with me one on one, privately. And we'll just dial

in your kids, you know, sensory overwhelm and

what works for them and what works for you and how to build all this

rhythm in and how to calm your mornings and your afternoons and your nights,

how to make dinner simpler like everything that you wish someone could

help you do or like the things you ask Chatgpt to do.

Maybe you want to talk to a human about it. That would be great for

you to talk to me, so I'd be happy to do that with you.

And, yeah, I hope you implement just one or two of

these this week for yourself and for your kids. It'd be a huge,

huge benefit to keeping your family calm.

All right, mama, I will talk to you next time.