This is the podcast where you learn how to become a calm parent and raise emotionally healthy kids, but what do emotional health and emotional regulation actually mean? Today I’m sharing a framework from the book, “What Happened To You?” and outlining the 3 Rs of emotional regulation.
You can start using these simple concepts right away to help calm yourself and coach your kid when they’re having big feelings.
When I talk about emotional health (which is the goal of all my programs), I'm really talking about emotional literacy.
Emotional literacy is made up of three parts:
I know what I'm feeling
I know how to talk about what I'm feeling
I know what to do with my feelings
We all have an emotional life, with lots of messy stuff inside. We're constantly responding to experiences and stimulation from the outside world. As things happen around us, we have thoughts and feelings about it. And those feelings show up as behavior.
When we are overwhelmed by a circumstance or it feels like we're in danger or something bad is about to happen, we get flooded with a lot of big feelings. When our kids act out these feelings, it often looks like temper tantrums or meltdowns. I call it a Big Feeling Cycle. When an adult gets overwhelmed, it looks like them freaking out, losing their shit and being a hot mess.
In these times, we are dysregulated. Our brain is flooded with hormones and chemicals that are meant to help us deal with a stressful situation and keep us safe. The brain wants us to respond FAST. But it ends up looking like someone who is out of control, wild or raging.
I want to help you see that that behavior is really just somebody who's struggling to manage their emotions. They're doing their best to move through their big feelings. They're in a dysregulated state, and they're doing things to regulate themselves.
Knowing what to do with feelings is the biggest thing I help parents learn - for themselves and for their kids.
When you find yourself yelling at your kids, lecturing or grabbing their bodies, you are dysregulated. Your stress response is activated and you are seeking regulation.
In kids, dysregulation often looks like crying, kicking, punching, threatening or yelling. It is helpful to remember in those moments that your child is using those behaviors as tools to cope with the overwhelm.
They are trying to regulate themselves, but they don't really know how to do it in an acceptable way yet.
These 3 Rs come from the book "What Happened To You" by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey.
Rhythm
Rhythm involves moving your body in some kind of rhythmic way. It is what we do during a Pause Break. You take a break to move your body and your mind. Stomping your feet, jumping up and down, going for a walk or doing a shimmy shake are all ways that we use rhythm and movement to calm ourselves.
Relationship
This can mean your relationship with yourself or with others. In your relationship with yourself, this looks like self-compassion. Being able to put your hand on your heart and say, "Geez, this is hard. I'm very overwhelmed. These kids are a lot. I'm having a hard day." In relationship with others, it might look like calling a friend or talking to your partner for support.
Reward
Rewards are the things we do to distract ourselves and get a little dopamine kick. We might have a treat, scroll Instagram for a few minutes or get something checked off our to-do list.
All of these things are good and healthy. The key is to start having more awareness around yourself in the process. Notice when you are doing something because you are dysregulated. When you can identify it and intentionally calm yourself, it happens more quickly.
When kids are dysregulated, they need support from the adults around them. And in order to help your kid through their big feelings, you have to be calm and regulated yourself.
Once you're calm, your child needs you to validate their emotion. Help them figure out what the heck they're feeling and let them know it's okay for them to feel that way. You may not think that whatever they're going through is a big deal, but compassion requires us to get out of criticism and judgment and get into the heart and mind of the other person.
You can validate their emotion and understand that they're mad/disappointed/sad, listen to their complaints and offer them other ways to deal with their big feelings. I call this the "Now What?" and it's where the 3Rs are really helpful.
What does your kid need?
Do they need rhythm (movement, looking at a fountain or fish tank, rocking)? What do they naturally do with their body when they're dysregulated? This can be a clue to the type of movement that will be helpful.
Do they need relationship (kindness and compassion from you)? This can be a bit confusing when you're the one who upset them by saying no, giving a consequence, etc. You can be both the adult who is helping them regulate and the adult who is helping them become responsible.
Do they need a reward? Reward in this context is a little different from how we usually think about it. Picture the reward as the feeling of relief we all feel when our Big Feeling Cycle ends. There’s a little bit of pleasure that is created from being regulated after being distressed.
Relationship and the feeling of being soothed can be a reward in and of itself.
We’re also seeking a little dopamine kick. Screens give us this, but they don’t allow us to release the built up stress hormones that are pumping through the nervous system. I love little tasks as a reward tactic. A tiny, simple task can give a little distraction and pleasure or satisfaction when it is complete.
You don’t want to always distract your kid from negative emotions (or they won’t learn to self-soothe), but these rewards or tasks can be a helpful tool at times, especially when they also involve rhythm or relationship elements.
I want to invite you to see their behavior as a strategy that they are using to cope with overwhelm or discomfort, to see their behavior and think, I think they might be dysregulated. What do they need? Rhythm, relationship or reward?
When you use the framework of seeing the behavior as an expression of unmet emotional needs or struggle, you will shift into compassion faster, and you will co regulate faster, which is amazing!
Hello. Hello. Welcome to become a kamama.
Speaker:I am your host, Erlyn Childress, and this is the podcast
Speaker:where you learn how to become a calm parent and raise
Speaker:emotionally healthy kids. And I want to talk
Speaker:today about emotional health and also talk a little bit
Speaker:about the process of self
Speaker:regulation. I wanna talk for a few minutes about
Speaker:emotional health, what I mean by that. And then the process
Speaker:that you will take your children through so that they can become
Speaker:emotionally healthy adults. I teach these classes
Speaker:called, you know, it's like the emotionally healthy series. Right? So we've got emotionally
Speaker:healthy kids, emotionally healthy middle schoolers, and emotionally healthy teen.
Speaker:And when I define emotional health, I
Speaker:really talk about it in terms of emotional
Speaker:literacy. Emotional literacy
Speaker:is really the ability to manage our
Speaker:emotions. And when we can do that, when we know what to do
Speaker:with our feelings, then we can activate
Speaker:emotional health. We can move towards greater and greater experiences of
Speaker:emotional health. Emotional health is not always feeling
Speaker:happy. It's actually more about
Speaker:how to know that you're feeling happy. How
Speaker:to know that you're, feeling sad, how
Speaker:to be aware. Emotional literacy is I know
Speaker:what I'm feeling. I know how to talk about what I'm
Speaker:feeling. I know what to do with my feelings.
Speaker:And then compassion or empathy is the ability to help someone else
Speaker:Manage their emotions. So when we break down emotional
Speaker:literacy, I know what I'm feeling. I know how to talk about
Speaker:it, and I know what to do with it. The
Speaker:knowing what to do with it is really
Speaker:the biggest thing that I help
Speaker:moms do with themselves and then helping
Speaker:moms and dads parent their children. So their children
Speaker:learn What to do with all this messy stuff
Speaker:that's inside? We all have
Speaker:in emotional life. We all have you know, experiences
Speaker:and stimulation in the external world that we are responding
Speaker:to all of the time. So, you know, if you're a little
Speaker:kid and your mommy is on the phone talking to
Speaker:someone or looking at their phone or working
Speaker:and you look at your mommy and you want her to pay attention to you,
Speaker:which is a valid desire, and she's not able to is
Speaker:also valid. You might feel sad.
Speaker:You might feel a little bit uncomfortable. That
Speaker:feeling, you might feel unsafe. And when
Speaker:you don't know what to do with that feeling, it shows up in
Speaker:behavior. Why I always say feelings drive behavior.
Speaker:Now there are times where our feelings,
Speaker:kinda get ahead of us. Like, they become so intense, so
Speaker:overwhelming, or are our
Speaker:external stimulus, whatever's happening or circumstance,
Speaker:it feels like we're in danger, or it
Speaker:feels like Something bad is going to happen to us.
Speaker:When our brain interprets that situation
Speaker:as dangerous, or we experience it as
Speaker:dangerous, we can be flooded with a lot
Speaker:of big feelings. So what does that look like when you're a little kid?
Speaker:We call it a temper tantrum. We call it a meltdown. I call it a
Speaker:big feeling cycle. When a an adult gets
Speaker:overwhelmed, we say they're losing their shit. They're in freak out mode.
Speaker:They're a hot mess. Whatever. So we have these words
Speaker:describe this overwhelmed state.
Speaker:And in psychology, I'm not a psychologist
Speaker:or a therapist, but I do do a lot of studying about it. And what
Speaker:is what that is called is dysregulation.
Speaker:So our brain has these, you know,
Speaker:chemicals that we get flooded
Speaker:with when our stress response is activated. And
Speaker:the purpose of those neural chemicals, like
Speaker:adrenaline epinephrine, cortisol,
Speaker:dopamine, all of those different neurochemicals that you've heard of,
Speaker:what the purpose of it is that there there
Speaker:to cut off thinking so that we can respond to our environment with
Speaker:and do it fast. That's the idea that
Speaker:our our dysregulated state is there so that we can
Speaker:respond. And that's per the purpose of
Speaker:of of stress and dysregulation is to move us to action.
Speaker:But in that process
Speaker:of action, It looks
Speaker:like off track behavior. It looks like misbehavior. It
Speaker:looks like a kid who's wild. It looks like a kid who's out of control.
Speaker:It looks like a parent who's raging. And I want to
Speaker:help you see that that behavior is really just
Speaker:somebody who's struggling to manage their emotions. They're
Speaker:doing their best to move through their big feelings. They're in a
Speaker:dysregulated state, and they're doing things to
Speaker:regulate themselves. So that process
Speaker:of self regulation is what
Speaker:I wanna talk about. I wanna go into depth a little bit more
Speaker:on how we regulate ourselves, how we
Speaker:go from a dysregulated state to a regulated
Speaker:state. I recently read this
Speaker:book called what happened to you. We'll link it in the show
Speaker:notes, and it's by Bruce Perry, who's a
Speaker:PhD and a doctor. So Doctor Bruce Perry and Oprah
Speaker:Winfrey. And she sort of interviews him, and that's the structure of the
Speaker:book. And the purpose of the book is
Speaker:to really help people understand
Speaker:how trauma and, you know, adverse
Speaker:Childhood experiences affect us in our
Speaker:regulation, in the way that we process our
Speaker:emotions. And it's it's an incredible book. I highly recommend
Speaker:it. And what he talks about is the
Speaker:3 r's of regulation. And
Speaker:I think it's really helpful for you as parents to understand
Speaker:that when your child is dysregulated, their
Speaker:behavior are those are tools that they're
Speaker:using to cope with the overwhelm. So
Speaker:sometimes we see kids, you know, screaming, crying, kicking,
Speaker:punching, threatening, yelling. Some kids run away, slam the
Speaker:door. Some kids go into internal shame spirals. Some kids do all of
Speaker:those things. Right? So their behavior is
Speaker:there really their, their attempt
Speaker:to regulate themselves?
Speaker:Now a cool thing that I'm not gonna talk about too much in this episode
Speaker:is the concept of co regulation, and it really is the
Speaker:process that children, especially use. They
Speaker:use someone else's nervous system. They borrow an
Speaker:adult's nervous system or an adult calm
Speaker:calm emotional state, and they,
Speaker:you can help regulate someone who's in a dysregulated state if
Speaker:you're calm. It's kind of a cool process, and I'll talk about it in another
Speaker:episode. But what I wanna talk about really specifically is
Speaker:this idea of regulation. And the 3
Speaker:r's of regulation. So the first r is rhythm.
Speaker:The second r is relationship, and the 3rd
Speaker:r is reward. So I often teach
Speaker:when you are in the pause break as a parent,
Speaker:right, that You need to move your body and move your
Speaker:mind. Right? That's what I talk about a lot is that you
Speaker:probably need your in an activated stress response You're
Speaker:dysregulated as the parent. When you're yelling at your kids or you're,
Speaker:you know, lecturing them or grabbing their bodies, you get
Speaker:dysregulated as the adult. And you are seeking
Speaker:regulation. And one of the things I teach is how to
Speaker:move your body. To go jump up and down, to
Speaker:go wash your hands, to drink some water, to fluff some pillows, to fold some
Speaker:towels, to you know, do the shimmy shake where you put your hands in the
Speaker:air and, you know, you shake all the way down. Stomp your
Speaker:feet. Like, all sorts of things that you can do to
Speaker:regulate yourself. The other thing I teach you
Speaker:is how to offer self compassion.
Speaker:That is really the second r is really about
Speaker:relationship and how self compassion being able to
Speaker:put your hand on your heart and say, jeez, this is really hard. I'm very
Speaker:overwhelmed. These kids are a lot. It's I'm having a hard day.
Speaker:You your self compassion is really you being in relationship
Speaker:with yourself. It's you calming you, which is
Speaker:super cool. So when you're moving your body, you're doing
Speaker:rhythm. When you are re
Speaker:self coaching and offering yourself self compassion, You're in
Speaker:relationship. That's second r. And then reward
Speaker:is kind of the things that we do to distract ourselves
Speaker:And, typically, we distract ourselves with something that's gonna give us a
Speaker:little dopamine kick. Right? Maybe we go eat some sugar
Speaker:or We go, you know, scroll on our phone for a minute and
Speaker:trying to kind of get something from Instagram
Speaker:or TikTok or whatever. We're we're gonna learn something. We're gonna pop
Speaker:our brain into a a
Speaker:reward based system. Or we go to tasks
Speaker:as parents. I think sometimes we regulate ourselves by getting
Speaker:something done on our checklist and making that really important Like, oh, I
Speaker:can't play with you because I really need to send this email right now, or
Speaker:I really need to, you know, get dinner prepped or, you know, I'm I'm doing
Speaker:the laundry. I can't play with you. And I want you to see that when
Speaker:you are doing those small tasks that, yes, they're
Speaker:necessary and all of that, but they might be actually what you're doing to calm
Speaker:yourself, to calm your nervous system. To to regulate yourself.
Speaker:So I I'm sharing how adults regulate
Speaker:when they're dysregulated using the 3 r's do using
Speaker:rhythm, which I always think of as movement,
Speaker:using relationship. So, you know, either
Speaker:self compassion or you call a friend or sometimes we go to the
Speaker:internet. We go to those Instagram. We go somewhere. Because we're seeking
Speaker:relationship or reward. We do small tasks to make ourselves
Speaker:feel better, and then we move on. None
Speaker:of those things are wrong. They are all
Speaker:good and healthy and great. I want you to
Speaker:have a lot of awareness about yourself in
Speaker:that process. I want you to notice, I am doing this because
Speaker:I'm dysregulated. I am, you know, shaking
Speaker:my hands or moving my body, or pacing
Speaker:or stroking my arm or putting my hand on my
Speaker:heart. Any of those behaviors that you're
Speaker:doing with your body, I want you to build awareness and
Speaker:think, oh, look. Oh, look. Hello, dysregulation. Look
Speaker:at how well you're doing at calming yourself. And when you bring that
Speaker:little awareness to the moment and
Speaker:you see what you're doing and you go with an intention to
Speaker:calm yourself, to regulate, then you
Speaker:will have it go faster. That awareness
Speaker:brings intention and then intention makes the result
Speaker:happen quicker, which is really, really amazing.
Speaker:That's when I when, you know, emotional literacy, I know what I'm feeling.
Speaker:I know how to talk about it, and I know what to do with it.
Speaker:When you are aware of what you're doing and why you're doing
Speaker:it, Then you actually calm yourself much
Speaker:faster. Isn't that great? So that is
Speaker:how it works for adults. Now for
Speaker:kids, they also get in dysregulated states.
Speaker:And what they need is support from the
Speaker:adults around them. They need someone to help them learn to
Speaker:self regulate. So what does that mean for you as the
Speaker:parent? It means being calm, being in a regulated state
Speaker:yourself. That's why calm comes before connect in my program.
Speaker:You cannot help your child through their big feelings if you
Speaker:are struggling with yours. So it's okay to always take a pause
Speaker:break. And then what your children need is they need
Speaker:you to validate their emotion. And this is something
Speaker:that's very difficult in the moment is to figure out what the
Speaker:heck they're feeling and then to validate it because
Speaker:you're probably thinking you shouldn't be feeling this
Speaker:way. It's not that big of a deal. You're getting this a consequence
Speaker:because of your own behavior or you should know better.
Speaker:And we look at their behavior. We're judging their behavior.
Speaker:And then the feeling that's driving the behavior, we're judging that too.
Speaker:That's why, you know, compassion requires us to get out of
Speaker:criticism and to get into the mind of and the heart of the
Speaker:other person. So it's hard to do. But
Speaker:just saying, you know, you're doing this with your body. This
Speaker:is the connection tool. I see you screaming. I wonder if you're really overwhelmed.
Speaker:Or are are you overwhelmed? Right? You
Speaker:can, you know, say you have to leave the birthday party because
Speaker:your kid, you told your kid. You can stay at this birthday party long as
Speaker:you don't, you know, keep going to the snack table. And then they go to
Speaker:the snack table again. They've got like a giant cupcake in their mouth. And you're
Speaker:like, looks like we have to leave. So you turn to them and you say,
Speaker:hey, we're leaving because I don't wanna have to worry about you continuing to
Speaker:get, you know, snacks from the snack table. And then they're gonna
Speaker:start crying. Right? They're gonna start getting dysregulated.
Speaker:That's why we avoid consequences is because we don't want to go
Speaker:through is dysregulated state.
Speaker:But going through the whole process with compassion and then
Speaker:coming on the other side, and having your kid say,
Speaker:I understand. I really shouldn't have, you know, gotten
Speaker:snacks. Like, I wanna stay at parties, so I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not
Speaker:gonna take too many snacks. That's how they learn. You can say it
Speaker:fourteen times. Don't don't eat the snacks. Don't eat the snacks. Don't eat the
Speaker:snacks. But learn happens through experience. But when
Speaker:your child is experiencing the negative
Speaker:thing, the bummer, the result of their behavior, the
Speaker:impact of their behavior, they are
Speaker:going to be upset. And they might get dysregulated. So
Speaker:we're gonna validate their emotion. Of course, you're
Speaker:upset, honey. It's hard to leave a party. Of course,
Speaker:you're sad. You love being at football practice.
Speaker:Of course. Yeah. It's okay to be mad. It's okay to
Speaker:be mad at mommy. It's okay to be or older
Speaker:kids. It's okay to be angry with me. It makes sense. It's
Speaker:okay. So we're gonna validate that emotion, and then we're gonna
Speaker:listen to their complaints. And then we're gonna offer
Speaker:ways to help them manage their big feelings. So what
Speaker:can they do with their big feelings? That's always such a big
Speaker:question. The now what?
Speaker:So if you wanna think about the now what? Being those 3
Speaker:hours, that will be really, really helpful for you when your
Speaker:kid is dysregulated to think, what do they need? Do they need to
Speaker:move? Do they need rhythm? Another way you can bring rhythm in
Speaker:is bouncing a ball back and forth,
Speaker:or you know, tossing some pillows around, turning
Speaker:on some music, looking at a fountain, looking at fish,
Speaker:Right? Anything that you're kind of watching rhythmically can help.
Speaker:Listening rhythmically can help moving your body rhythmically can
Speaker:help. Having that feeling of, like, that's why little kids
Speaker:rock or just think about a baby, like, how we sued them. We shush them,
Speaker:and we shake them up and down, and we rock them side to side. We
Speaker:contain them in that little bit of a compression, and that is soothing
Speaker:to their nervous system. That's the same thing
Speaker:for older kids and for adults. They need soothing to their nervous
Speaker:system. So that just means offering them
Speaker:a way to cert to sue themselves. I like to
Speaker:look at a kid and see what their what
Speaker:their natural intuition is to sue themselves. Is it
Speaker:hitting? Is it eating candy? Is it running away? Is
Speaker:it, you know, throwing things? Is it kicking? Like,
Speaker:whatever their body is naturally doing to
Speaker:If you could see that behavior as a form of regulation,
Speaker:then you can say, oh, you wanna hit hit this. Of course, you
Speaker:wanna hit We're validating and we're offering an
Speaker:alternative. Of course, you wanna hit. Hit this. Hit. Hit hard.
Speaker:I'm gonna hold this pillow. You're gonna hit it really hard. You
Speaker:wanna spit. You wanna kick. Right? So we're gonna
Speaker:continue to offer our kids alternative
Speaker:ways for them to do what they're already doing.
Speaker:Your child has so much internal wisdom around self soothing
Speaker:and self regulation. Sometimes the strategy they're
Speaker:using doesn't work. It's not good for the doesn't work
Speaker:for the community. Works for them. Doesn't work for the others. It might feel
Speaker:really good to take, you know, a sippy cup and hit
Speaker:my little her on her knee over and over and over while I'm in the
Speaker:car. That might feel really, really good. Think about how
Speaker:rhythmic that is. Like, taking a sippy cup and going,
Speaker:or poking or whatever, like, oh, you feel like hitting
Speaker:something here? You can bounce that on your knee. You
Speaker:can bounce that here. You can take these 2, you know, straws. Let me give
Speaker:you two pins. Click them together. So we're gonna see what our kid
Speaker:is doing, recognize it as a form of regulation,
Speaker:and offer another alternative.
Speaker:So the the 3 r's rhythm, relationship,
Speaker:or reward. So what are those other ones? How
Speaker:are those available for us? Thinking about relationship is really just having this person who
Speaker:is
Speaker:Kind and compassionate. It's so confusing as the parent
Speaker:because we're, like, the person who said, no. You can't
Speaker:have a candy. And then we're also the person
Speaker:soothing the child when they're upset that they can't have the
Speaker:candy. And it could It can feel like you
Speaker:are two different people in that moment. And
Speaker:you are your child's regulating
Speaker:adult, and you are also your child's responsibility
Speaker:builder adult. Right? Like, you're both. And you
Speaker:can hold both together. You can say, I'm
Speaker:saying no, and I have compassion for you that you're upset with my
Speaker:no. This might sound easy, but I
Speaker:know for those of you who are in my programs and and have or been
Speaker:listening to the podcast and you're like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. It is
Speaker:really hard, isn't it, to
Speaker:sit in your child's discomfort, especially
Speaker:if you are the reason for it. It's like
Speaker:your brain breaks because you want to comfort your
Speaker:child by solving their problem. You wanna just okay.
Speaker:Fine. Have the candy. And then tomorrow, though, I'm not giving it to you. We,
Speaker:like, add that little threat for tomorrow. So we give in, we rescue, and then
Speaker:we kind of you know, kind of threaten them. And all of
Speaker:that is to soothe our discomfort because
Speaker:we don't like to see our kids be sad. We don't like how
Speaker:they how how they feel when they're upset, how they act.
Speaker:Also, it's very disregulating to be around a person
Speaker:who's losing their shit. When your kid is
Speaker:freaking out, it's really hard to stay calm because amygdala's talked to amygdala's.
Speaker:And so that's why you have to go back and reset your stress response so
Speaker:that you can come back and connect. So we're in this calm connect
Speaker:kind of in Yang, right, this dynamic
Speaker:of I'm gonna call myself and I'm gonna connect and then I'm gonna get dysregulated
Speaker:and I'm gonna call myself actually what's cool is while you are self
Speaker:regulating through that process, you're teaching your child
Speaker:how to co regulate. I wish you could see my hands because I'm, like,
Speaker:doing this little dance with them pushing, you know, kind of a a figure 8
Speaker:together. And that is a little bit what it is like
Speaker:when you're in that process of co regulation
Speaker:and helping your cat child self regulate.
Speaker:Parenthetically, You don't always have to do it.
Speaker:Your kid can, as long as everyone
Speaker:stays safe, can go find their way to regulate
Speaker:themselves. You don't always have to be the regulating adult. You
Speaker:can't Do it. Remember when I said a couple episodes
Speaker:back about therapeutic parenting and how you really, it's very difficult to be in the
Speaker:state all the time, to be the regulated regulating
Speaker:adult all the time. It's why co mama breaks are so important. It's why
Speaker:taking really good care of yourself is so important. Because this type of
Speaker:parenting requires a high level of, regulation within
Speaker:yourself. Really learning to self soothe.
Speaker:To cope in healthy ways, to be very
Speaker:aware of your emotions, and and
Speaker:knowing, oh, I'm not really feeling so great today. What do I
Speaker:need? How can I bring more delight into my life? How can I
Speaker:you know, can maybe I should make a cup of tea? Maybe I should make
Speaker:myself you know, maybe I should set the table nicely today,
Speaker:or maybe I should candle, or you know what? I really haven't been outside in
Speaker:a while. Whatever it is that you need to calm
Speaker:yourself, inviting you to do that as often as you
Speaker:can. And I promise you'll be able to show up as the regulated
Speaker:adult that you want to be. Now the
Speaker:3rd r is reward. And I think
Speaker:this one can be a little bit confusing. One very simple way
Speaker:to think about reward is the feeling that we
Speaker:all feel when our emotional,
Speaker:you know, big feeling cycle ends. Like,
Speaker:it's really intense And your child is crying, and
Speaker:they're really upset. And I call them big feeling cycles because I want you to
Speaker:always remember that it's a cycle, which means it has an ending.
Speaker:And so that big intensity, and then it ends,
Speaker:there's a reward in the ending, actually. There's a little bit of
Speaker:pleasure that is created from
Speaker:becoming regulated after being distressed.
Speaker:So that feeling of, is
Speaker:regulation. So we get that through movement. We get that through relationship.
Speaker:And then we feel a little bit of pop. Like, oh, you
Speaker:know, and you watch this with your kids. They're like, I'm fine now. And then
Speaker:they just move on. And you're like, What? How it you were just crying
Speaker:so hard. Like, were you just manipulating me? Were you,
Speaker:you know, trying to, like, you know, get what you want or whatever?
Speaker:We think that they were faking it in some ways, but
Speaker:actually getting soothed feels fantastic.
Speaker:So that in itself is a reward. We can also be
Speaker:intentional about how we create reward. And what
Speaker:we're seeking is, like, a little dopamine kick, but not too much.
Speaker:And, I mean, that's why honestly we go to our phones and
Speaker:things like that because our brain is looking for a distraction. It's looking for a
Speaker:little way to, like, get some ease and some movement out of
Speaker:it. And Again, nothing wrong with it. But with
Speaker:kids, we don't really wanna, like, just shove a, you know, a
Speaker:phone in front of them. Like, that's not it's soothing short term, but it
Speaker:it actually it doesn't feel great long term because you're not getting the rhythm. You're
Speaker:not actually getting the release of all of the pent
Speaker:up like, cortisol and all the pump from your nervous
Speaker:system. So what can we bring in? I
Speaker:love to honestly bring in little tasks.
Speaker:Like, oh, honey, you're crying so so much, and I'm gonna help you.
Speaker:Can you take this to the your room real quick and come back?
Speaker:Like, a little teeny distraction, a
Speaker:little teeny task can be really helpful.
Speaker:Or if you start to see your kid dysregulating, you can kinda
Speaker:watch the pattern. You can give them a job
Speaker:small job, you know, oh, will you carry this to that
Speaker:room, or can you bring me a cup or some little
Speaker:task? Then your kid will get a little pop of like,
Speaker:oh, I did it, and they can actually shift and not have to dysregulate.
Speaker:It's a little test. It's like, Let me just test to see if
Speaker:the, how stressed they are, how their nervous
Speaker:system, how activated it is, and you can give a little task.
Speaker:Or you can give a little bit of pleasure, and that's why,
Speaker:you know, you know, let's have snack or let's go outside or
Speaker:let's play Legos. The now what strategies
Speaker:that I teach in my classes are sort of move your
Speaker:body, talk about it, show me, do
Speaker:something else. So the do something else, sometimes it can feel like,
Speaker:oh, we're bypassing and we're avoiding and we're letting our kid
Speaker:disassociated check out, not deal with their feelings. I
Speaker:don't want you to constantly distract your children from their negative emotion.
Speaker:Absolutely not because they don't learn -- these self soothing
Speaker:tools. But I want you to also feel a little bit
Speaker:free to offer a distraction,
Speaker:especially if it's movement, if there's rhythm involved, and
Speaker:relationship. Honey, honey, honey, let's go outside through the
Speaker:ball. Honey, honey, honey, let's let's come over here,
Speaker:and I wanna show you, how to fold this towel.
Speaker:Right? So we're bringing a little task. We're bringing a little pleasure. You
Speaker:know, can you help me real quick? Because I'm trying to figure out how to
Speaker:put this Lego on this Lego, and I can't. Or I'm trying to figure out
Speaker:how to button this Barbie's, you know, little dress.
Speaker:Or I can't get these shoes on. Can you come help me get these shoes
Speaker:on, especially if it's a dollar stuffed animal or something? Or
Speaker:I'm arranging your stuffed animals to prepare for a stuffed animal party do you
Speaker:wanna put this stuffed animal here or there? So
Speaker:we're kind of pulling their brain out that dysregulated
Speaker:state and into some sort of task, into some sort of thinking, which
Speaker:is cool. But you your kid, they'll know if
Speaker:you're trying to distract them. And not truly being compassionate. So
Speaker:we always wanna connect first and
Speaker:then kind of offer some now wet strategies. We wanna
Speaker:connect by validating their emotion and making sure that
Speaker:they feel really seen and felt and heard. So
Speaker:we give that a beat We validate, and then we
Speaker:try all these different, regulation strategies. Alright.
Speaker:So that Those are the 3 hours of regulation, and I really
Speaker:wanted to share those with you on the podcast. If you are interested, I
Speaker:think the book What happened to you by Doctor Bruce Perry and
Speaker:Oprah Winfrey is an incredible resource. It's really it's an easy
Speaker:read. It's not written very academic. It's kinda storytelling.
Speaker:So I loved it, and I I recommend it. And the 3 hours of
Speaker:regulation, I got the that concept from that
Speaker:book. And I
Speaker:hope for your takeaway this week that
Speaker:while you're watching your child and they're
Speaker:freaking out and they're acting badly, like, quote unquote, badly,
Speaker:I want to invite you to see
Speaker:their behavior as a strategy that
Speaker:they are using to cope with overwhelm,
Speaker:to cope with discomfort, to see their behavior, and think,
Speaker:I think they might be dysregulated. What do they
Speaker:need? Rhythm relationship
Speaker:reward. So that framework if you
Speaker:work within that framework of seeing the behavior as a
Speaker:as an expression of unmet emotional needs
Speaker:or struggle, You will shift into compassion
Speaker:faster, and you will co regulate faster, which is amazing. This concept of
Speaker:regulation is just one thing that I teach in the emotionally healthy
Speaker:kids class. And I am that next
Speaker:fall session starts I think on October 12th.
Speaker:And so I really want to invite you. Yeah. We're gonna meet on October 12th
Speaker:for 6 weeks. It's gonna be a 9 AM session, 12 PM
Speaker:Eastern. So 9 AM pacific. We're gonna meet for 6 weeks
Speaker:and a class is $500, and I'm gonna teach you how to calm
Speaker:yourself, how to connect better with your kids, how to help your
Speaker:kids regulate, how to set limits in my limit setting
Speaker:formula and then how to do consequences without
Speaker:pain and shame. So it's really the the class is
Speaker:com comprehensive. It's everything you learn on the podcast, but con you you
Speaker:know, in one very 6 week course. So
Speaker:you kind of really master the things. If you love this podcast and you
Speaker:listen to it all the time, And you haven't taken that class yet, get
Speaker:in there, because I think you will love learning from
Speaker:me. I teach it live. So it's you know, just us on
Speaker:Zoom. The classes haven't been very large, and so it's not like
Speaker:you, you know, you have to talk or anything, but You do
Speaker:get to ask questions. You do get to talk to me, which is nice. And
Speaker:you can, you know, we can work through what's going on with your family.
Speaker:And then you get to be in the club for the next 6 months after
Speaker:that. So there's a lot then that's when you get to talk to me privately
Speaker:because in the club, you get 15 minute private sessions with me.
Speaker:You have access to those every week, which is cool. Highly
Speaker:recommend that that, I I don't know if we've
Speaker:opened up enrollment yet, but it's coming. So go to kamamacoaching.com.
Speaker:Go to that programs page, and you'll see the parenting classes.
Speaker:And you can sign up for either the wait list or join if the drawers
Speaker:are open. Alright. I wish you this week
Speaker:the most regulated humans for yourself
Speaker:and for your children. And when you are when you are dysregulated,
Speaker:you have permission to pause, you have permission to take excellent care of
Speaker:yourself. And when your kids are dysregulated,
Speaker:Think about the 3 r's. Alright. I
Speaker:will see you. Well, I won't see you. This podcast. I will talk to
Speaker:you next week. Have a great week.