Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
95. Protecting Connection with Our Kids: Brain Science Insights with Robyn Gobbel
In this insightful episode, the Vallottons sit down with Robyn Gobbel, an expert in relational neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, to discuss a transformative approach to understanding and supporting children's challenging behaviors. Robyn shares her journey from being a psychotherapist to becoming a dedicated advocate for families, particularly those dealing with complex trauma or adoption histories. The conversation centers around her influential book, Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies That Really Work, which has been a key resource for the Vallotton family as they navigate their daughter’s sensory modulation challenges. Robyn’s guidance encourages parents to look beyond difficult behaviors and address the underlying needs driving them, ultimately fostering deeper connections.
The discussion delves into the dynamic relationship between "connection" and "protection" modes within the nervous system, highlighting how these states impact both parents and children. Robyn explains the pivotal role of safety in building healthy connections and offers practical insights for handling real-life scenarios, such as when a child reacts with unexpected aggression. The Vallottons and Robyn explore the journey parents often face—from feelings of guilt to a deeper self-awareness—while learning to support their children’s emotional regulation and maintaining their own.
Listeners will also be introduced to the "owl, watchdog, and possum" framework that helps parents decode children’s behaviors as signs of their needs rather than intentional defiance. The episode wraps up with actionable strategies for supporting children’s emotional regulation, emphasizing that a parent’s regulation is equally essential. Robyn’s compassionate and knowledgeable approach equips parents with valuable tools to nurture strong connections and guide children through their toughest moments. This episode is essential listening for parents seeking a new perspective on navigating complex behaviors and fostering resilient, loving relationships with their children.
Where to find Robyn Gobbel:
https://robyngobbel.com/
@robyn.gobbel
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Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection but that's not always what comes easiest. We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Dates, mates and Babies. Everyone we are excited to be with you.
Speaker 2:We sure are. It is a rainy day in Reading but we are cozy inside our little studio and, guys, we're really, really excited about our guest that we are interviewing today. This is a surprise to some of our audience, but today we're interviewing Robin Goebel. Robin is an expert in relational neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology. Guys, those are big words. What you need to know is she is the author of Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors Brain Body Sensory Strategies that Really Work and she's the host of the podcast, the Baffling Behavior Show. But I want to tell you we discovered Robin and her book in our own journey to support our four-year-old daughter, who has some sensory modulation issues and some very baffling behaviors, and we're going to get into that. But first, robin, welcome to our podcast. Could you just take a couple of minutes and tell us about your work in the world and kind of how you found yourself in this niche?
Speaker 3:I am just delighted to be here and meet you both and get connected with the folks who listen to your show. I am formally a psychotherapist and have stepped away from doing one-on-one psychotherapy in the last five-ish years, but prior to that I lived and worked in Austin, Texas, with my family and had a mostly outpatient private practice therapy practice where I worked with kids with what I would like early early in my career, I would have said kids who met criteria for reactive attachment disorder, complex trauma. The majority of the kids that I worked with had histories of adoption or foster care and I worked really closely and intimately with their families. And when I first started this work it wasn't because I knew what I was doing, it was because I just really wanted to help these people.
Speaker 3:And I had no idea what I was doing and was as completely confused and baffled and overwhelmed as they were. Right, I was leaving the office just feeling like this can't be right. I'm really, really missing here, which, again, is essentially exactly what the families that I was working with were feeling. Essentially exactly what the families that I was working with were feeling. And I think I just temperamentally, personality-wise, have a pretty tenacious streak, and so I was really just dissatisfied with all of the answers that were coming my way or the things I'd been trained in or what I'd been told to do. It just didn't feel quite right. So I just went searching to try to understand. I really wanted somebody to help me understand what really was happening with the behaviors, as opposed to just give me more ideas about what to do to stop it or change it, because that ends up that only goes so far.
Speaker 3:So that's how I discovered what is the field of interpersonal neurobiology Dr Dan Siegel's work, that sort of just over the years merged into a broader field of relational neuroscience, which is including other theories. All people need to know about that is it's, you know, taking the, the science of being relationally, socially and behavior. So I don't know that much about the brain, but I know about how the brain is behind. You know how we're behaving relationally and socially, or at least I have some ideas based on what we think we might know here in 2025, though that is always changing. So over the years that's just really kind of grown. To support families of kids with all kinds of histories. Mostly families are just coming to me feeling confused. They don't understand what they've been told should work doesn't work and their kids they know their kids are just having behaviors or reactions that aren't like their friends' kids. So I still have a pretty large portion of folks that I serve of kids with histories of complex trauma, but that's really expanded to again, families who are just confused.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we thank you, because finding resources as confused parents is like finding gold. I mean, honestly, our listeners know this about us, but when Jason and I were married in 2011, I became a stepmom to three children that I helped raise through their elementary, junior high and high school years, and then we had two little ones and we thought we had done the hard work right. Blending a family is supposed to be like one of the hardest things you do, so we were like oh high five.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was hard, it was challenging, but we're like high five, we did the hard part. Here we go, yeah, we're starting over, but like how hard could it be? And then our absolute gift of a daughter came along and for the first couple of years we would tell people like, oh, she's just so easy, she's just really easy and really. And then something happened right, like whether it was her baby brother was born or she hit three. Whatever it was, we were like what is happening? So we discovered your book and one of the things that you said early on in your book, robin, is that regulated, connected kids who feel safe behave well.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that caused both Jason and I to stop and pause and go. Okay, so we're having a hard time with behavior Now we know enough to know because of our work with people, we know enough to know that there's meaning behind every behavior and it is a symptom of a root cause. And to actually find the root is how you actually solve the quote problem. So when you said regulated, connected kids who feel safe behave well, it started in it, it encouraged us to ask the question so what's going on with her? Is she dysregulated? Does she not feel connected to us which we were pretty positive was not actually what was going on Does she not feel safe? And those are big questions for parents. So I would love for you to start there and kind of help us, as parents, understand what you mean by that phrase, because it really is huge.
Speaker 3:You did exactly. What I hope parents will do is not take it as like a checklist, but instead as this moment of pause and curiosity, right that, if we look at what relational neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology leads us to believe again in 2025, I'm open to the theory changing. It's that we are in like the infancy of brain and nervous system. You know understanding it and how it relates to behavior, but if we look at all these very, very complex theories, we really can whittle it down. I mean, that's this, you know, enormous oversimplification, but it's exceptionally useful If we start with that premise that a therapist in my field says kids do all when they can, Dr Ross Green.
Speaker 3:And so if we kind of start with that premise kids do all when they can and really I believe that's true about all humans Like humans, we're designed to be relationally connected to one another. There's absolutely no question about that. As far as what we understand about brain development and human development and some of the uniqueness about being humans, I mean, clearly our brains are designed to develop and exist inside connected relationships with ourselves and with others. So if that's true, then when we have folks who are behaving in ways that are making us not want to be by them, not want to be connected to them. We're annoyed, we're frustrated, we want to kind of just go away. Or those behaviors are dangerous, they're crossing our boundaries right, Like all those kinds of things. There's a moment, if possible, where, if we can take a breath, be regulated enough ourselves to say, huh, well, this is weird, what's up with that. So it does really require a huge, for most people, belief shift about what we think it means to be human. It is pretty different for a lot of folks. Culturally, most of us have grown up feeling like left to their own devices. Humans are terrible creatures that will just do terrible things if we don't punish them hard enough to not do those terrible things. That's true. Yeah, I mean, humans are complex and, yes, humans can do the most wonderful and the most awful things, without question. But again, if we pull back and look at the science, it's like well, but when they're safe and regulated and connected, humans are pretty cool actually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again, I was working with kids whose behaviors were like what? None of this makes any sense. Nobody could tell me like, if a kid does this, do this and it'll get better. It just doesn't. There was no algorithm, yeah, so we had to pull back and and again. This is really hard. I'm not pretending this is easy. This is really really, really hard when we're faced with these out of control, sometimes dangerous, but if nothing else, just annoying and frustrated behaviors and pause and say, huh, what's happening here? Is there a regulation issue or a fault safety issue or a connection issue? And this is especially hard because somehow we have learned that if our kid isn't those things, it's our fault.
Speaker 3:Which is actually not true at all, but if we think it's our fault, we're a lot more hesitant to explore those options, did that?
Speaker 2:answer your question. Yeah, no, that's great, that's really good. The language of connection is something. That's great, that's really good. The, the language of connection, is something that our audience would be really familiar with. We use a lot of that language and we even go so far as to say that in our most intimate relationships, fostering connection should actually be the main priority. Like to foster connection above other things. If that's what we're really protecting, then then and we bend and we adjust, because in order to protect our connection for one another, we do those things out of love.
Speaker 2:You say in your book that our brains are always either in, and our kids' brains are always either in protection mode or connection mode. And I think when we as parents get into these situations where our kids are acting wildly and maybe I should pause here and just say I think sometimes parents are asking the question is this behavior normal? What is normal and what would classify as wild and big and baffling? And sometimes I have conversations with friends where we describe some of our child's behavior and they, in a really beautiful and sweet way, try to relate to me and I'm like no, no, no, I've hung out with your child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, like we're not speaking your child's not growling at you?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think your child is growling at you Like, does your kid make animal noises? And threatened you know, like where are we at on the spectrum. So when I say big baffling behaviors, you know you're, you're saying it too. We're going like, no, this is out, we're talking outside the realm. But, but truly any child that would seem to be dysregulated or disconnected or unsafe. They're either operating in connection mode or protection mode, and that was a really helpful distinction for me to make when trying to figure out a strategy for helping our daughter find connection. So tell us about the connection versus protection mode.
Speaker 3:The brain- has two settings and it really is that binary Either the nervous system and the brain this very complex process we won't go into the details of the nervous system and the brain this very complex process we won't go into the details of the nervous system and the brain either is experiencing felt safety or not, and when the nervous system and the brain decide, huh, in this moment, and we're asking the question, safe or not safe? Pretty continuously, multiple times a second, so it can shift pretty rapidly. If we're experiencing a lot of safety, then we're going to rest into connection mode. It's our default. We actually really, really, really want to be in safe, connected, connection mode. It's much better for our physical health, our mental health, like for everything. So our body and our brain really want to rest into connection mode.
Speaker 3:And if our nervous system, our brain, through this process of assessing for safety, decides, oh, actually in this moment I'm actually not sure if I'm safe or not, or yeah, I'm in danger, or I'm in life threat, Then the nervous system flips into protection mode and it really is one or the other. It's not kind of halfway, kind of somewhat in between. It's just one or the other, Though once you flip into protection mode. It can be quite varied. You can be a teeny tiny bit in protection mode and still kind of in that assessing space, or you can be full blown in protection mode where we would maybe be growling at folks.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly that was a special moment. I took our daughter to the Nutcracker yesterday and a friend of mine actually runs the event center and so she came up and knelt down and our daughter had had a particularly dysregulated couple of days.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And my friend knelt down to actually greet her and say how tall she's gotten and my daughter responded with a growl and a scowl and wouldn't snap out. You know, just had zero need to make that woman feel human.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, y'all Exactly. Also, do you know that this is not like in my world? Growling is not unusual, Like the parents I know have kids who growl, so I just want you to know I understand it's unusual in the bigger scheme of things, but people tell me all the time about their kids growling and I've seen this myself.
Speaker 2:Special yes, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things. One of the things that you said is that I think is incredibly helpful for parents. The first go-to I think for parents is guilt. I'm doing something wrong. I caused this, what did I do to cause this thing? And obviously, the more guilt and shame condemnation that we as parents feel, the more I try to get my child to just stop that behavior, Because you're making me feel guilty, bad shame.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And we go to be the judge instead of the scientist right, like, what's causing this? How do we get this to stop? Where did it start? For the sake of our children and I think that was a lot of our journey at first is like what did we do?
Speaker 1:Lauren was convinced at one point that she had caused this, that she had done something to cause Edie's dysregulation, and then maybe it was her mom dying of cancer last year and doing this big, long battle and we were in her house for five weeks trying to love on her and all those things of course play a role in Edie feeling connected or disconnected or afraid, all that stuff. But I think that for parents getting past that did I cause this, what did I do? How do I stop? This Is massive. I would like to maybe move in just a tiny bit to what to do, because it really is and we're going to say this word forever it really is like confusing. My daughter wakes up in the morning, she calls me in there, I go, walk in there and she says I don't want you in here.
Speaker 1:I'm like okay, you just called me. I feel very confused right now. And we did, we did you know a year of that, last year? Um, or mom can't put me to bed, you know things like that. And so I guess the tools of getting our children from dysregulated to regulated I mean I've done everything from start out as playing horse at 6am and slowly working my way into her feeling safe and connected.
Speaker 1:But, robin, what are like your go-tos? Where do parents start in this crazy journey of you know trying to crack the code on how to move? The hard part for me is like this morning Edie woke up, okay, but I could tell she was kind of on the edge and I know I have a choice, like and she knows that she has a choice she can flip over into don't touch my hat, don't touch my hoodie, or you made the eggs wrong. You ate off my fork too. How do I get her into that place where she's feeling more regulated?
Speaker 3:You've articulated definitely the most important piece, which is a lot of self-awareness for ourselves, because when we aren't being very present or aware, it is very normal that we're going to have a negative reaction to somebody's controlling behavior or somebody you know, kind of barking at us when we thought we were moving into a moment of connection, kind of barking at us when we thought we were moving into a moment of connection, right. So protection mode and connection mode, both. But protection mode is contagious. So our kids come into contact with us and they do something that lets us know they're in protection mode. I mean our first reaction is going to join them in that place. And then we do, we get controlling, we get all the things right. It's very rarely does that make anything better, but we try, and I do too.
Speaker 3:I like to be really clear with people like I same. I mean I do this work because I need to be immersed in it in order to show up and do my best in life, like that's how much, that's how hard it is for me. So just to be really clear with everybody. So de-shaming ourselves is crucial. Moving past the. Did I cause this question, or am I causing this question, or is this somehow my fault? There's a big difference between it's all my fault and there's something that I could do to impact this right. And we're not in control of anybody else's regulation, connection or felt safety, ever, ever. We're barely in control of our own. So barely, exactly barely. So that's the very first thing, right. And so if I have a kid like y'all's and you're saying, you know, wake-ups are hard, well, actually kind of helps me to know that the body needs to start dumping cortisol, you know, before we wake up. Because now I understand, oh, neurochemically, like this kid has nervous systems right on edge, like, of course we're like moving into protection mode because of the stress chemical that is biologically needed for them to even wake up. So for me it's helpful to kind of understand some of those pieces Like this isn't personal, this isn't about being good or bad, this is about being human. And actually if we weren't dumping cortisol she wouldn't wake up, we'd have a whole nother problem, right. So she's clearly very sensitive and you know, so I can know, that mornings are challenging. And then I'm thinking, well, you know, it's not because she's a bad kid, or she wants to get us off on the wrong, you know, foot or she's, you know, committed to making our days all start bad. And the further we go into protection mode, the more of those things feel true, right, those things feel super true. So if we can pause and remember like, no, no, no, no, four-year-olds don't like to start the day with their parents mad at them, that's not what they're dreaming of, right? And then we can go huh, okay, so what's happening? That's leaving her nervous system a little more vulnerable. She's clearly somewhat here in protection mode. She needs more cues of safety.
Speaker 3:Then we start to look at well, what are things that offer cues of safety? Well, regulated parents offer cues of safety. Number one Playfulness, which you described, offers a cue of safety. Playfulness only emerges from a nervous system that's feeling safe, so playfulness sends really clear cues of safety. We can look at really practical things like intonation, voice volume, things like that.
Speaker 3:What kinds of things help other humans know that you're a safe human? Well, if you're not in a threatening posture, that helps humans know that you're a safe human. Well, if you're not in a threatening posture. That helps. Helping our eyes be lower than theirs can help. Food and drink really help, right, like gestures of care, gestures of caring for their body and also usually those things are regulating. So there's an infinite number of things that, generally speaking, humans experience as safe and regulation and gestures of connection. And then we want to look at well, what about our very unique kid, right Like your kid's sensory sensitivities? Does she need the lights on right away? Does she need to really ease in to the morning? Is it helpful if we go in fun and silly and really activated, or is it helpful if we go in and maybe it changes every day and that's really tricky? But at least if you know that it changes every day, then you can say well, this isn't my fault, I'm not doing this wrong.
Speaker 3:I just have to keep trying.
Speaker 2:Right, right, that's huge. I love what you're saying and when we were reading through your book, what was helpful for us was you've created a really helpful framework for how to understand what mode your child's brain is in. And you talk about the owl, the watchdog and the possum brain and this was really helpful because actually in hindsight, when we look back at raising our older children, we've realized, we've realized, oh okay, so we've raised some possum brain kids and we've raised some watchdog brain kids and luckily, as they're aging, they've all adapted to being able to find their owl brain more consistently. But it helped me. I even remember one of our older children.
Speaker 2:When he was growing up I always thought he was the quote easy one and he was the one that just didn't have all the struggles. And then after reading your book, I realized, oh, he was actually largely in protection mode, but in his protection mode he looked like a possum, he acted like a possum, whereas three of our five children go to watchdog hardcore, and so all of this has been very helpful in me kind of retrospectively understanding their behaviors a little bit more. But could you take a moment for our audience to kind of unpack your definitions of the owl, the watchdog and the possum brain, because I love this.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, people should get her book and read it? Yes, oh, of course, and understand it because it's so helpful.
Speaker 2:It is. Thank you, yeah, but talking about these tools, I really wanted to write a helpful book. I really thought of that. I don't want to just write another book.
Speaker 3:There's too much for people to read or sort through. I'm not going to put something else out there if it can't be helpful. So I just thank you for sharing that. So the Owl, the Watchdog and the Possum is a framework that largely emerged from the kids that I worked with for 15 years as well. As you know me, kind of bringing the science into it right, like I was observing what was happening for the kids, seeing a lot of themes.
Speaker 3:I had one kid a long, long, long time ago who really clearly articulating their watchdog brain and then the levels of watchdog brain, and it was around that time where I was becoming familiar, or more familiar, with Dr Bruce Perry's work, who has levels on a continuum of arousal and activation and they just overlaid essentially perfectly, which is always really fun to watch. Theory match real life, as it doesn't always. And then again, deeper watched out, kids come to therapy more often than possum kids do, totally, I'm sure, yes, 100%. So it kind of started there and then discovering again, diving further into Dr Perry's work, dr Perry, who's one of our international leading researchers in trauma and toxic stress and brain development. He very clearly articulates two different pathways the arousal pathway and then the dissociation pathway, and then, along the way, I also started working with Dr Porges' polyvagal theory, which is a theory of the autonomic nervous system. They're not the same but they overlapped enough, especially because I'm a play therapist and I'm not an actual brain surgeon. So metaphor is fine, right. So there's these two pathways that especially kids and also their parents are mostly thinking about, and they're the pathways that have behavior challenges associated with them, right. So we've got the watchdog pathway, which has a lot of energy in it. We've got the possum pathway, which has like a decrease in energy. It's like a more of a shutdown collapse. These kids are often described as being in la-la land.
Speaker 3:And then we have what I call the owl pathway. It was a metaphor that kids really connected to Kids, at least in American culture, and US culture seem to connect the idea of the owl with kind of like the wise, smart, thinking parts of them, which is true. The owl pathway is kind of what emerges and allows us to use our most grown up parts of our brains, whether we're three or whether we're 30, right, we have different size owls. But the other really important part about the owl pathway in my work is the owl's not just thinking and logical. The owl is feeling safe and connected.
Speaker 3:So the owl has capacity to do things like compromising and waiting our turn or dealing with disappointment when things don't quite go our way. And of course, this is, like really varied based on our age. Again, three-year-olds and 30-year-olds are wildly different in their capacity to tolerate disappointment. But it is that owl pathway that's responsible for the kinds of behaviors that we like in other people, that help us feel connected to them, whereas generally speaking, it's those watchdog or those possum behaviors and this is an oversimplification of the model. But the watchdog and the possum behaviors are the ones that are bringing parents or spouses or partners or whoever to me saying I don't like this, I want this behavior in this other person to change.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's helpful because I think when we talk about tools for actually helping our children find felt safety, connection and regulation, we have to know where they're starting from. So if I'm noticing that in the morning my daughter is in her watchdog brain she is on guard from moment number one then I'm going to approach her and offer her connection in a different way than if I notice she's in her possum brain, because she actually will do both sometimes. Sometimes and it's funny because sometimes we'll even watch her and I've talked to other parents who have this experience like we'll watch her settle into one of those characters. It's like where she needs to go for a second and we'll watch her either become the aggressive watchdog or we'll watch her almost choose to slink into some sort of quiet, soft place where she it almost looks like she's putting on an act.
Speaker 2:And and you know, in I'm not going to call out older generations, but we have some beautiful older generations in our close circles of family and friends and sometimes we would hear that, oh, you know, she's trying to manipulate you. She's trying to. She's just this is a control play and I'm like totally On one level, yes, because she actually does need something. So there is a valid need at play. But she's not manipulating me from some sort of like evil place of wanting to be the. You know she's four. She actually, like you've said, she actually really wants to have a great day All four-year-olds do, and so I think what's been helpful for me in understanding more about these different the owl, the watchdog or the possum brain is going okay. When I notice my daughter take the form of one of these characters, it helps me in my approach with her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%, 100% Because you're seeing it as something totally different. It's just. I mean, I realize the behavior is not neutral, but it's neutral, meaning it's not personal, it's not. I mean, when we feel manipulated by someone and it doesn't mean she's not being manipulative. I'm real clear about that. Like I'm not, I never tell parents oh, they're not manipulative, they're not being controlled, they are being all of those things, they are 100%.
Speaker 3:But there still begs the question of why and for me that's true whether they're for or they're your partner. You know, in an adult mutual relationship the way we approach that's going to be a little bit different. But it's still why, like why is this the way this person is kind of moving through the world and in a way, in a way to like kind of get their needs met, because nobody likes to be manipulated. So you pull the tool of manipulation out of your back pocket. You know it's coming with a cost right, which is that it's going to hurt the relationship. So why is the cost acceptable in that moment, if that makes sense?
Speaker 3:But really, the whole point is just like I really was like 1% of the time, 1% more than yesterday. Can we stay more curious? Can we just stay believing that she wants to have a good day and this is the best way she can come up with in this moment? And she's little. But even when they're big, they still are little in those moments, and so can we come in in a way that's not tolerating what can sometimes be very bad behavior, like we can still have good boundaries, but can we set those boundaries and we just come at it so energetically differently?
Speaker 1:And I think that really matters. It does. I wanted to ask about that exact thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a great transition.
Speaker 1:I grew up in a home with two incredibly loving parents. Yes, right, but my parents had, you know, one tool beyond connection and my parents had one tool beyond connection and my parents did a great job at playing with me and all that. But I mean you got to spank him, right, if you don't listen? And my dad was very much the stereotypical dad that was going to lead the home and in a lot of ways, it's super helpful because you know what to expect.
Speaker 1:There's not a ton of chaos. You do this, you get this, you, you do this, you get this. You don't do this, you get this, and I did okay in that, although I got my fair share.
Speaker 3:But there was safety. You're describing safety right, predictability, predictability. You're describing a home that was so full of connection that it was like a buffer.
Speaker 1:Essentially, I mean in one second you gave me five seconds of your history, but that was great and raising my first set of kids. It was a lot of that right. I mean, I'm modeling that, and the big challenge has been making this massive shift to okay, I have to get more. On one hand, I got to get way more curious about why this behavior is happening, so I can get to the root and help her through some co-regulation stuff. Right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Play together. We're going to, I'm going to try to meet her need. At the other hand, I've had lots of mornings where my three-year-old or four-year-old, depending upon where she was was telling, was saying things like I mean, just awful, hurtful, horrible things in the moment. And here's where we got to for a while, because we've been in this for like a year and something.
Speaker 1:A year and a half now A year and a half. Now Is for a long time. I swung all the way to the side of don't put any weight on what she says, it's all about what she's feeling. And so she would be in the kitchen and maybe say something really mean, and I would ignore that mean thing and try to just give her what she needs. And we did that for a long time. At some point I started feeling like well, now she just doesn't respect me at all and I don't respect me and we don't respect we.
Speaker 3:It feels yucky to be dominated by anyone, but especially four-year-olds.
Speaker 2:Who's in charge? Why is this person in charge?
Speaker 1:And then it's easy for me to swing to the other side of that behavior is not okay. We are going to come in and get a spanking right off the bat. I guess I have an opinion on what the line is, but can you help me understand when my four-year-old is acting out in a mean way, being mean, being rude?
Speaker 2:what's the line?
Speaker 1:Yeah, disrespectful. What's the line between the boundaries and I'm gonna try to get to the rudest thing.
Speaker 3:can you help us like suss that out I can again, I think, offer a little bit of a framework to help problem solve these things in the moment that's good yeah so when we think about you we talked about the watchdog and the possum I have like there's four levels of each of them and the first level of watchdog can have some sassy, rude language. So there's not actually a ton of nervous system dysregulation, but what's coming out could be it can come out in a lot of ways, can be this rude coming out. Could be it can come out in a lot of ways, can be this rude, sassy, sometimes nasty language. And so if I'm assessing or guessing, then my kid is just mildly dysregulated and kind of using a big tool, essentially in their toolbox, to get what they want. Because when we're dysregulated we want what we want. Like that's not a character assassination, like that's true about all humans. When we're dysregulated, we want what we want. So if we're kind of mildly dysregulated, I'm going to think about one okay, this is dysregulation, I don't need to take it personal, but also it's not cool and also being rude and nasty keeps us stuck in protection mode actually.
Speaker 3:So is there a way, in a really low level dysregulation, to say something like? Like if a kid is demanding and says, make me a peanut butter sandwich right now, or I'm going to throw this at you right. So there's like this threat in there too. Oh, you are hoping to have a peanut butter sandwich. I will make you a peanut butter sandwich and actually start like gathering the things, because those are cues of safety, cues of safety, cues of safety. I'm going to get what I need. It's very clear to me. And then I might say something like while I'm making you this peanut butter sandwich, I just need your owl brain to let me know you want a peanut butter sandwich. And implicit in that is that maybe you've had this conversation before. And then a owl brain request could sound something like dad, could you please make me a peanut butter sandwich? All right, and so what I know about that is it might not be the most perfect, polite, respectful way to still ask for a peanut butter sandwich, but it is giving me cues that like oh, we're coming back together, we're getting closer towards connection and regulation, and I want to stay on that path instead of saying, staying preoccupied with it being done the right way right now, if the regular dysregulation is higher, which sometimes we don't know until we try like, hey, can you try with your owl brain? No, you stupid head, I hate the owl. Or something like, right, it escalates. Oh, okay, so we're actually a little more dysregulated than I thought. And so then it's still.
Speaker 3:I'm still going to think in my mind and again, you know, we're going to do this about 5% of the time. This is like superpower parenting but if I'm in my best place I'm going to think in my mind, oh, this child's more dysregulated. I thought, okay, obviously she must be hungry or something like that. Let's meet that need, because nobody regulates when they're hungry or they want something. I might actually not even say very much at all, I might just make that peanut butter sandwich and hand it over. Right, I'm going to try to stay regulated.
Speaker 3:I'm going to think about creating some structure and then I'm going to pay really close attention to my kid and notice any shifts towards more connection, any shift towards more regulation, and then I might follow back up with so your watchdog really barked at me about getting that peanut butter sandwich. You remember that. I mean, it was just a couple of seconds ago. I remember that, yeah, yeah, well, I got you that peanut butter sandwich because I could tell that your watchdog was really hungry, really need that peanut butter sandwich.
Speaker 3:But also in our family we use our owl brains to tell people what we need and ask for what we need. And so when you're done with your peanut butter sandwich, I'm going to ask you if your owl brain can let me know what they need next. So we're never just letting things go. There's always coming back to you and what I say is like what are we going to do when the owl brain returns? And continue to reinforce. Well, number one what we're reinforcing is I know that when you're struggling, it's because your elbow brain has flown away, not because you're a bad kid right.
Speaker 3:So it's super important actually to really reinforce that. But then it is important. I mean, relationships that are ruptured need repaired and nobody likes a relationship rupture that just lingers right. Our kids don't like that anymore than we do. So we're just kind of constantly assessing how do I get this kid's owl brain back? And you might not be able to, might be totally out of your control, but you're going to do the best you can. Can I get my kid's owl brain to fly back? And then, once's owl brain back and you might not be able to, might be totally out of your control, but you're going to do the best you can Can I get my kid's owl brain to fly back? And then, once the owl brain is back, how do we repair this? And then, are there any steps we need to take to kind of possibly make this go more smoother in the future?
Speaker 1:It seems like the big win I mean, at least one of the big wins is really helping the child understand what's happening inside of them. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:I mean for us.
Speaker 1:That's been something that's starting to win more and more and more over time, cause at first it really felt like she was scared of what was happening, like she didn't know what was happening, yeah, and as she's getting older, but as we're talking more, when she can listen and actually hear, she's starting to put the pieces together on, like last night I was putting her to bed and what triggered it.
Speaker 2:Lord knows She'd had a hard couple of days. Oh yeah, I went to put her to bed.
Speaker 3:There's that nutcracker thing that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Crazy and she just got super, super angry. Yeah, and so my typical go-to is you can be mad, you can't be mean, right. So I use that language a lot. You can be mad, you can't be mean. Yeah, be mad, you can't be mean. So I use that language a lot. You can be mad, you can't be mean. I try not to talk too much because that's dysregulating for her.
Speaker 1:Is there something that you need? She barely got her toothbrush with me and then lost it and went to her room and she said she was growling and stomping and angry. And then she said I just need to be alone. I just need to be alone, I need to be alone. So I let her be alone. I said, okay, no problem, you can be alone, but you can't slam your door. So she closed her door calmly. She went in there and I could hear, you know, moving stuff around. I waited for a while. I tried again, so I went in. I tried again, so I went in, tried to re-engage again. Hey, I'd love to help put you to bed, but her being able to, it ultimately worked out because she's starting to learn and be able to communicate. Even though I'm being bad, sorry, even though, yeah, I'm being bad, I'm acting horrible right now yeah.
Speaker 1:I need some time to you know by myself. She said she wanted to put herself to bed last night. I said that's fine.
Speaker 3:I heard her crying.
Speaker 1:She started to cry about her heel. I went in there and said oh, did you hurt yourself? That was a connecting piece to get.
Speaker 2:She'll usually use. Isn't that common for them to use, like something physical, a physical pain to actually beckon connection? It's interesting.
Speaker 3:So for us.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's been the biggest wins is, you know, us understanding that we have to help her regulate on a completely different level than our other kids. Um, trying to get her into her owl brain but teaching her about it, really helping to teach her about how to get her needs met and how to talk through what she's feeling has been a massive win for us. And that's a lot because of your book and stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm so grateful for that. I mean, there's so much about what you said. That's just beautiful and brilliant and you can be mad, but you can't be mean. I mean, so many of us didn't know that those two things were different, like we were grownups before we knew those things were different.
Speaker 3:And so I mean to be four years old and to know like, hey, you can have any feeling you want, but there's a way to have a feeling without being, you know, hurtful towards someone else. And also, again, we were grownups. I was before. I knew what I needed when I was dysregulated.
Speaker 3:So to be little and be like I just need some time alone. I mean so, yeah, the more we can help our kids disconnect from their belief that they're bad, right, that that's what kids end up feeling. They feel so bad on the inside they can't separate that from. I feel bad and I am bad. And so the more and more we can help them separate from that, the more they believe oh, I could do something about this and we're not going to try to change our way of being if we don't think we can.
Speaker 2:No, that's so true and even at such a young age. We're watching this in our daughter. I'm watching her toe the line of I'm bad. She tests out statements of her badness with me and I get to great. You know, I'm grateful I get because I can hear it and I know what's happening. I get to nip it in the bud really quick and we get to reinforce with messages that come against that. But what I really, what grieves me is to think of children who truly do believe, because their baffling behaviors are so confusing to their environment and maybe they don't have support in a way that helps them understand the difference between quote being bad, which they're not, and trying really hard to get their needs met.
Speaker 2:Obviously, the goal here is that we would give parents tools and give people tools to be able to help protect connection above all things. And I think in kids whose nervous systems are unique or who's in kids who you know we have a lot of. We have a lot of friends who've walked through adoptions with their children and and have had some of those wild behaviors crop up a couple of years into raising these children, things that you've described in your book and some of your early work the whole spectrum right, the whole spectrum of parents who have children that have various different needs. I think these tools are so critical, and what I have loved, what's been a challenge to me as a parent but has also been a gift to me, is learning about my own watchdog, possum or owl brain, as I'm trying to decode things for my children.
Speaker 2:One of the best things that I think we as parents can do is work on our own nervous systems, and Jay is much better at that than me. Luckily, I have a partner who's just naturally great at it. I would be on the struggle bus in that arena. He's telling me things like honey don't match her energy. Whatever you do for the love of God, do not match her energy. I'm like got it Right right right.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, all of this to say do not match her energy. I'm like got it Right, right, right. So, anyways, all of this to say Robin, your book has been incredibly helpful for us. We're so excited to share the link to your book with our audience and make sure that they have some helpful resources, but is there anything else that you would like to tell our audience about how they can reach you or how they can access the resources that you have available for people?
Speaker 3:I am very easy to find robingoblecom and, just like you said, I do have I mean, I have a ton of free resources on my website. I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to create a lot of things and just give them away. So tons of free downloadable resources the podcast, the Baffling Behavior Show we're about to cross 200 episodes. Probably by this airs I guess we'll be past 200 episodes. So there's a huge, essentially almost like a library. It's like a database that folks can search for what they're looking for, and then my book and you can find all of those things at robbinggoldcom Amazing. Well, we're going to make sure that everybody can find all of those things at robingoblecom Amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to make sure that everybody's got access to those things. So again, Robin, thank you so much for today. Thanks for the conversation and for your work and for your hard work really, and this is not an easy field.
Speaker 3:You too. Thank you very much. It's been delightful to meet you both, you too.
Speaker 1:Guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast this week. I would encourage you, if you have kids, to share this episode and spread the word. There is hope for our kids, who are hard and challenging. Otherwise, have an incredible week. We'll see you next week, everyone.