Why Can't They Just Do It?

How many times has your AuDHD child missed a deadline, or simply not done something really important?

Spoiler alert: they’re not lazy or naughty, because neurodivergent brains do not process things in the same way. Their reward system is entirely different. And their executive dysfunction can make even the most straightforward tasks feel impossible.

I am joined by Nicola McAllister, a specialist in child development and founder of The Regulated Child, to break down why our children can’t just do the thing.

Nicola explains her ‘brain house’ model that she uses to understand and support neurodiverse brains, and why simply telling a neurospicy brain to do something is not only unhelpful, but might actually make a frustrating situation even worse.

Together, Dr. Olivia and Nicole discuss:
 ✨ how to understand the neurodiverse brain

 ✨ the regulate, relate, reason framework

 ✨ why consequences don’t work with ADHD

 ✨ practical tools to help you work through the wobbles

🤝Contact Nicola and find out more about her work at https://www.regulatedchild.co.uk/ 

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Dr Olivia 0:04

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast, focused on supporting, inspiring, and empowering parents and their neurodiverse children. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr. Olivia Kessel. We'll be speaking weekly with experts in the world of neurodiversity. And most importantly, hearing the voices of other parents just like you. Looking forward to having you join us weekly as part of the SEN Parenting Tribe. So, welcome everyone. It is so nice to have you here today and to have our wonderful uh guest, Nicole McAllister, with us. She is amazing, and I think what what you say and how you say it is going to resonate with many of us on the masterclass today. You're founder of the Regulated Child, which is a training and coaching program which really understands our children who experience the world differently. And it's really grounded in the principles of self-regulation, co-regulation, resilience, and just understanding how our children's brains work. And, you know, it's been life-changing for me as a mother, understanding my own daughter's brain and understanding how it works and kind of taking off the lens I had of what she should be able to do at her age and actually what she could be able to do at her age. And it's shifted our lives dramatically in the last couple of years. And what's also lovely to see is slowly but surely they do get there. I refer to her as my slow cooked chicken. And you know what? I didn't get an air-fried chicken. I got a slow-cooked chicken, but you know what? She's going to taste beautiful when she's done. So, Nicole, I am so happy. I'd love to, if you have a few words of introduction before we get into the nitty-gritty of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah, well, um, welcome everybody, and thank you, Dr. Olivia, for inviting me along um today. So, yes, I mean that that's I guess my kind of professional, you know, persona, but also I'm also a mum to two uh amazing children. And my youngest, my son, who is 11, is autistic. So while, you know, I've had experience working in in the world of what we would call in Scotland additional support needs, um, special educational needs for you guys, neurodivergence. It's been my professional world for for 30 years now. Um it's now my kind of lived experience as a mum. So that's kind of what I'm hoping to bring along today is to kind of dovetail kind of what I've learned over the past few decades, but actually what that means when you are on the other side of the table and you are living and breathing at 24-7, because it's quite different from doing it professionally.

Dr Olivia 2:45

Wearing those two hats, I think, is so important because until you've walked the path, you really can't understand what most of these people on the call. So it's it that's why I'm so excited to have you here because you have both of those hats, and that's that makes you really relatable. So let's let's kick it off with how do we understand the neurodiverse brain?

The Brain House Model

Dr Olivia 3:03

And I love your brain house model and how you describe it. So I'm gonna hand it over to you to share with everyone.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Okay. It's just do you know, I what I love to do is to take the research and the science, which can sometimes be quite dry, and just find how I can relate it to my everyday life at home. And you know, I am not gonna take the kudos for this because this has been developed from Dr. Daniel Sagal. Um, so it's not it's not my brain house, but it is something that I've kind of evolved and developed and what works really in in my head and in my house. So basically, you know, when we think about the brain, I think as a mum, do I need to know every little bit of the brain and what it does? No, I don't. But actually, what is helpful to understand what part of the brain is functioning predominantly at any given time. So I like to think of the brain a little bit like a house. And the house, you know, a house is built from the bottom to the top. We lay the foundations, it's a basement, then the ground floor, then the upstairs, and the roof gets popped in. And it's a little bit like, you know, information that that goes into our child's brain. So, you know, the information comes from the senses, from those extenses from the the external world and also internally gets fed up into the brain. And the first bit that goes into is what I like to call the basement brain. And that basement brain is where all the involuntary responses are. So, you know, our sensory sensitivities, our survival responses, our fight, flight, freeze, collapse, and also the stuff that happens that we don't have any conscious control over, you know, our heart rate, our breathing rate, our temperature. So all of that is down in the basement. And the important thing is it's that it is all involuntary. We don't have any control over that stuff. If we take a couple of steps up into the next part of our brain, into the next room, I talk about the ground floor of our brain. And that is kind of our emotional connected brain. So that's where, you know, it's it's our emotional brain, the root of our emotions, it's where we form our relationships, our playfulness and fun happens there, our explicit memories, the memories that we can put words and pictures to, because before then, all those memories are down in the sensory systems, down in the basement. And also in that downstairs brain is what I call that stress response button. And in our real brain, it's called the amygdala, but we'll think about it as that stress response button. And I'm going to come back to that. And then if we think about the last part of the brain to develop a little bit like a house, it's upstairs. So we go up the steps, upstairs, and there it's where the magic happens. That is where all what we call our self-regulation executive functions. So being able to regulate our emotions, um, focus, our self-control, um, our self-regulation, um, organization, time management, impulse control, all of that stuff happens upstairs in the brain. But we have a problem. And for our children that we are all parenting here today, first of all, you know, upstairs is wired slightly differently to neurotypical children. So, you know, when babies are born, that that upstairs brain that the roof is on, but the wiring hasn't happened yet. But because of our child's brain biology, it gets wired slightly differently. And therefore, they experience the world slightly differently. And the second thing is that stress response button that is in that downstairs brain, whenever there is a perceived threat that is coming up from the basement and into that downstairs, if it's it's if it's feeling threatening or hard or tricky or something you don't like or no choice or a change, then that stress response button gets hit and everyone goes down to the basement, down to that basement brain. And as soon as we're in the basement brain, that staircase to upstairs completely disappears. So not only do our children that that wiring is slightly different, but also they have less opportunities to get upstairs and to practice and to strengthen those capabilities. So it's kind of like a bit of a double whammy. But that the really important thing is that, you know, if we can understand what room of the house or room of the brain our child is in at any given time, that is a room that we need to meet them in. You know, we as as mums and dads and carers, we and grannies and granddads, we are fixers. We want to fix things and reason and do all of that, but that's all upstairs brain stuff. If we've got a child that is right down in that basement brain, we need to get into the basement brain with

Regulate Relate Reason Framework

SPEAKER_02 7:43

them.

Dr Olivia 7:43

And you talk about your regulate, relate, reason framework, and that kind of applies to the house. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Yeah, this is this is a trauma-informed framework from from Dr. Bruce Perry. And this comes from um the years that I work worked within um foster care sector. And what I then realized was actually that trauma-informed model really relates to our neurodivergent children because they are functioning under heightened levels of stress all of the time. So basically, when we're down in that basement brain, that's that's the regulation, that's the kind of the sensory regulation. Um, moving up to that downstairs brain, that's the relate, that's the relational regulation, the connectedness. And then when we get upstairs to that upstairs brain, that's where the reason is, where we can reason and reflect and think and plan and organize. So it's bearing in mind that that is continually on a continuum, that regulate, relate, reason. And it has to go. You can't jump from being dysregulated to be able to reason and to think. Um again, we need to kind of know where our child is on the continuum, and we need to also identify where we are on the continuum any given time and what room of the house that we are in at any given time as well.

Dr Olivia 9:00

I think that is so important because oftentimes you're both in the basement, but maybe you're screaming about, you know, about what's going, what should be going up on in the attic. It's such a it's such a great way and such a good analogy to kind of think. And actually, it's it's easy easy to stop and think, okay, where are we at right now and what can we do? And I like the the kind of analogy there of the staircase disappearing too, because then there's just there's no way to get up there. So don't waste your time trying to rationalize a reason when your kid is in the basement, you know, just needing to regulate. Does this kind of concept go across all neurodiversities? So are the brains kind of similar? Uh can the analogy be used with ADHD, autism, or a combination of them or or other neurodiversities? Do you know what?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

What is so fantastic about this is that actually it is applicable for all children. And I do a lot of work in in schools, and sometimes teachers will say, Well, that's fine, but I've got a class of 30 children, so how do I do this for, but actually, it's this is about child development, you know, and and irrespective of you know how your brain is is wired and how you experience the world, you know, that that concept is is still the same, that the idea that you know our our brain functions within a sequence, and also you know, the idea that when our brain is is integrated, when you know that basement and that ground floor and the upstairs has the staircase going all the way from the bottom to the top, when that is integrated, that is when it works best. So irrespective of whether your child um is autistic, it's ADHD, you know, is is neurotypical. My daughter is is a neurotypical and um uh little girl. And actually, I use this with her all of the time as well. So so no, it it's it doesn't matter because what it does is it really helps you understand that specific child development of your child and understanding where they're at at any given time, and then you think, right, okay, so we're down in the basement, we're down in that kind of sensory regulation. I need to go sensory right now. That's where I need to go. So, no, it's it's it's that's what's so great about it. It works for absolutely everybody.

Dr Olivia 11:18

And it sounds like also from what you're saying, it works really well for us as parents and moms as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

So absolutely, because it does, you know, it's that kind of model of we have the though that kind of regulate, relate, reason. And at one side we've got the child, and at the other side we've got us. And I always kind of say, you know, our child is only as well regulated as we are at any given time, you know, regulation emotions are contagious, it's like tuning forks, you know, we we vibrate at one end of the room and the energy travels to the other, and it is it is an energy, and and we absorb that energy. But I think again, if we kind of have this kind of framework and these analogies in our head, it almost kind of takes the heat out of it for us a little bit because we can kind of think rashly and think, this is not personal, this is not about me. This my child is actually in the basement right now, and this is not kind of you know, as premeditating, absolutely, yeah, yeah, totally.

Sensory Threat And Constant Overdrive

Dr Olivia 12:16

Um and you mentioned also like that that our neurospicy kids are kind of under this constant stress response, you know, and that that kind of sensitivity that they have. Can you can you explain that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, it's it's like you know, we we always kind of go back to those those nervous systems, and you know, the the the the basic that the the core function of our brain is survival, is to keep us alive. And you know, so so what our nervous system is constantly doing numerous times every second is scanning the environment to find out what is safe and what is risk. So safe and threat, safe and threat. Now, you know, the thing is with our you know neurodiverse children is you know they perceive threats everywhere because the information is going into those sensory systems first and foremost. You know, for many of our children who are neurodiverse, those sensory systems are are extremely hypersensitive. So sometimes, you know, they they may let in far too much information and not filter out enough, and therefore the brain becomes overwhelmed, and and that is a perceived threat. Sometimes there's not enough information going in, sensory information, and then the brain needs to go out and seek that. So for a lot of our neurodivergent children, they almost get stuck down in those sensory systems, which feels incredibly overwhelming. And you know, the brain is constantly making what I would almost say prediction errors, but it's it's it's doing that just to keep us safe. Um, but so even although it might just be that um you have to put on your blue jumper and not your red jumper, or you've been given a ham sandwich and not a cheese sandwich. Now, you know, to us that is not a life-threatening situation, but whether a child is in a house that is burning down, or whether something has happened that is hard or unpredictable or don't like, the nervous system doesn't differentiate to them. The nervous system is I'm in a house that's on fire, you know, fight, flight, freeze, collapse. So, you know, it's and that's the thing with our neurodivergent children, because those sensitivities are heightened, the nervous system is is constantly on overdrive, trying to keep the body and brain safe.

Dr Olivia 14:35

And understanding that kind of reframes, I think, for for for myself as well. It it reframes how you're looking at when they have an absolute meltdown over the cheese sandwich that was supposed to be a ham sandwich.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Yeah. And and again, you know, to us, it doesn't, and and it's you know, it's that validation as well. And I think we'll kind of talk about that later in the session, but it's about validating, you know, our children will behave in in certain ways and do things that that's not okay. You know, situations will happen at home that's not okay. Actually, what we do have to do is we have to validate how our child felt because if we want to help kind of move and shift them and support them, we need to feel validated that that was really tough. That must have felt really difficult for you, that must have felt really overwhelming or really hard or really tricky. You know, what we're not condoning necessarily what happened as a result, and we're going to look at the repair around that, but it is about validating how how our child feels because we've got to remember that they are living in these body and brains and trying to navigate, you know, the day-to-day world, which is completely overwhelming. And for a lot of our kids, by the time they get to school and when they're in school, they're so overwhelmed by just trying to kind of keep a lid on things that actually they can't get access upstairs to the brain because they're trying to hold everything else together. And I don't think we should ever, ever underestimate that.

Dr Olivia 15:57

Yeah, and it it reframes it from you know what they what they won't do to what they can't do, and kind of understanding the those extra pressures that they have. Because, you know, we we talk about, we talk a lot actually on the forum that we have, you know, about the kind of oppositional behavior, the avoidance, the emotional outbursts, because they really do suck the life force out of your family. They're very hard. You know, I describe it in in the book I've just written, you know, it's it feels like you're walking through a minefield with active minds that are going to just explode. But, you know, listening to you, it's it's almost like we're misread, you know, we're misreading. And that's what I found with my daughter as well. Is I was misreading those as at me and not really what she was going through.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah.

Behaviour As A Nervous System Signal

SPEAKER_02 16:45

It's a whole different, you know, I have to say, you know, the when you are parenting, you know, the our our children, and as we do, you know, I think it it becomes our normal. Um, but what we have to realize is actually, you know, it is back to that kind of Premier League, you know, what we are doing every day is above and beyond, and we are co-regulating every day and we're predicting every day. And it is about, you know, looking at those behaviors as signals. And traditionally and historically, what we've done with behavior is it's about being about managing the behavior, it's been about eradicating the behavior. But, you know, if that's all we do, what we're doing is we're closing the stable door once the horse is bolted, because the behavior is the cue or the signal that we have got a nervous system that has completely tipped. And that's easier to say than it is to do because you know, behavior is really emotive. When you've got a child that's maybe shouting or screaming or breaking things or in complete kind of shutdown, it can be really, really difficult not to react and respond to that. Um, as I said, you know, behavior and emotions are absolutely contagious. But again, if we can come back and just keep thinking about the brainhouse, okay, what room are they in just now? You know, that continuum, regulate, relate, reason, where are we just now? And that actually it's not personal because if our children could be in a place of feeling calm and alert and feeling good and feeling just right, that is where they would choose to be. Our children, you know, they they don't choose to be in that state of intense dysregulation and distress. It doesn't feel good. If they could feel better and do better, that's what they would choose to do. And that's why I always say, you know, um, you know, when we're talking about this stuff, you know, our impulses are not choices. And I think we have to be very careful that making good choices or bad choices, a lot of the stuff is not about choices, it is about, you know, uh uh emotional regulation and executive functions that are are working differently. One of the other things I think

Why Consequences Don’t Work

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Dr. Olivia was wanting to talk about was, you know, why consequences don't work. And you know, the reason, and again, this can be really quite tricky sometimes in school settings because a lot of school settings are still set up to be quite consequence-based. But if we have children um that cannot access their executive functions, you know, as they should, for example, impulse control. You know, consequences are based on the concept that we need to be able to reflect on what happened before, we need to be able to predict what's going to happen next, we need to be able to control our impulses and our emotions, and we need to set out goal-directed behavior of what we need to do. And actually, that is really, really complex. That whole thing is really complex. And for our children who are, you know, autistic, ADHD, it's it's it's almost impossible a lot of the time. And that's why consequences don't work. And all it does is that we look for then bigger consequences, and and all we do is then we begin to kind of rupture relationships. And if we think about that, um, regulate, relate, reason, then that relate bit is is all about relationships. And when the relationships aren't there, that's the glue that holds all together. Um, then that's when things kind of try to fall out, end up falling apart.

Dr Olivia 20:08

And you know, talking about consequences, you know, it is so hard because that's what we experience as what we experienced in our childhood. If you don't do this, this is gonna happen to you. Sit on that, you know, step for a period of time. And it it it literally you could then go down a three-hour rabbit hole where you're in that basement and it's ugly.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah, and the thing is as well, it can be really difficult.

Public Meltdowns And Safety Moments

SPEAKER_02 20:30

And I'm quite sure that everybody in this room has been there when it's very, very public. Everybody's got got an opinion. And I've been there where I've been in supermarkets or shops, or I remember once actually out in the street um in the middle of town, where it was all because I would go to a soft play with my son and I hadn't taken the right socks, and that was just the end of it. And he he ran out of the soft play, we were in the middle of the street, and it took about an hour and a half to get him shifted, and it was messy and it was hard, and it was pouring down with rain, and you're very aware of that it's very public. And that's really hard as well, because if we're thinking about kind of our you know, that idea of our own regulation and co-regulation, that point, you know, we're in a place of almost that kind of like that fear and and and survival responses as well. So, yeah, I mean it's the the this stuff, it it's it's sometimes easy to talk about, but we understand how how difficult in the day-to-day life where things can just get really, really tricky.

Dr Olivia 21:30

Yeah, and it it it usually happens when when you know you really, really don't want it to happen, I find. Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I think it's also it a lot of us are neurodiverse ourselves. So, you know, we we we we can regress to that basement quite easily as well. So it's it's doubly challenging because you're dealing with your own brain's network, which might be quite similar to your child's network, and therefore you sparks can fly.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

And it can also be quite difficult as well. When we're talking about behaviour, you know, I've kind of talked about things like you know, throwing things or breaking things and whatnot, you know, you know, and and and we don't like that, and it's not nice, but the world doesn't stop turning. But sometimes it might be things that it becomes unsafe. You know, I remember a time with my son just at um at the beginning of the year, everything was icy. We were walking uh down by a loch nearby us, and he climbed up on a wall and it was a sheer drop to the frozen lock down below. And you know, it's that you have to react and respond. And I knew what the consequences of that was going to be of physically getting him off of the wall. We tried the kind of talking down and he was getting further and further, and you know, and then you know that you're having to deal with a child in the basement brain in a very public situation. But you know, when we're talking about behavior, I'm also mindful, as I say, you know, we have to kind of also think safety as well, and and that can be really, really tricky because when we've got a child that's down in the basement, they're not in that reasoning brain that actually they're in a position that is really dangerous, and we're just keeping them safe. And there's no point in trying to reason that I'm trying to keep you safe because they're not in their upstairs reasoning brain at that time. So that's where it can get tricky as well.

Dr Olivia 23:08

What did you do?

SPEAKER_02 23:09

What did I do? Yeah, that I'm actually I'm actually just it just came to my mind as we were talking there, and I'm telling that what what what I did was um it took me uh again, it was about an hour and a half. Um I I had to end up just pulling them by the hands off the wall, and then that was it. So we basically it was frozen cold. I had the dog with me, a big massive dog. I had him, people were walking past, and he just was he goes went into complete shutdown and he wouldn't move and he was really distressed, and then he was lying across the path, and people couldn't get past. So you just have to. There's nothing you can do. You know, it's that whole thing about, you know, I think when we think of our neurodivergent children in their own space and time, and sometimes you just need to create an imaginary bubble around you and think, right, okay, I can't physically move him, he's too big, and we're stuck here for the duration. I just need to be, and it's that idea of at that point, I'm in the basement brain with them. We need to sit there, I need to think sensorly, I need to keep people away from them. Talking, touching is going to kind of activate things even more. So I just need to be present and there, and it's just going to take as long as it's taken. And it did, it took about an hour and a half, between an hour and a half and two hours to finally get um shuffling over to the car and in the car. But we lost the whole day. By the time I got him home, he was gone, he was under the doo-view for the rest of the day after that. But my goal was to get him home safely. But sometimes, and that's the the difficulty is that the ready, not ready can be really tricky. Um, so it is it is about in their own space and time, and we just need to put our little protective bubbles around us sometimes and shut the world out and do what they need. And that's not always easy.

Dr Olivia 24:50

No, hats off to you. You both must have been freezing

Practical Tools To Shift States

Dr Olivia 24:53

and well done for for and I guess that kind of brings us nicely on to our our our our next session of uh of discussion, which is the practical tools, you know, what can we actually practically do do with our kids to kind of work through these situations?

SPEAKER_02 25:11

It's it's that there's different tools for, I guess, kind of different situations. Again, it's about knowing where your child is at at any given time, what what room of the house that they're in. And for me, you know, if a child's in the basement, then we are thinking sensory and we are thinking right, okay, what what what is go what is going to reduce the sensory sensitivities right now? It's not the long-term goal, it's not what I want to achieve, but the right now, what do I need to do to move from the basement to the ground floor? And you know, that all you know, the golden thread through all of that is also about safe relationships, it's uh it's about creating that felt sense of safety. Um when we do actually begin to kind of shift from that kind of downstairs brain to that the upstairs brain, for for me, a real, real practical tool that I have used for many, many years is what I call the self-regulation framework. And it's

Goal Predict Plan Do Review

SPEAKER_02 26:05

really super simple and it's it's goal, plan, do, review. And what it is, it's you know, when we're talking about kind of self-regulation and executive, I always say self-regulation and executive functions because for me, you know, self-regulation is probably the most important one because self-regulation is about regulating our stress responses. And as soon as our stress response takes over, that's where the stress response button gets hit and we all end up in the basement brain. And we've got access to none of our executive functions. So being able to regulate those stress responses is really, really important. And, you know, for you know, even kind of neurotypical children, the these systems and capabilities don't really fully function until we enter our their mid-20s. For our neurodivergent children, you know, we know that the wirings are really quite different. So what we can do is that, you know, when we've got children kind of moving into that upstairs brain, when we're in a place where we're maybe having fun together, where we're connected together, when the going's going well, when we tend to think, oh, thank goodness, and keep my fingers crossed, this is all okay. It's actually the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining, and that's when the work can be done. So it's when we're up there that we want to kind of support our child's self-talk because that's what self-regulation is. We we we do it as adults every minute of every day. You know, it's the words in our head of I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to do that first. I've not got enough time for this, so I'll leave that till later. So we are constantly, you know, setting goals, our tiny wee goals of, you know, getting the breakfast or making the pack lunches or getting the school bags packed. We are constantly doing that. We're predicting, we are planning, we are doing. Our children don't have those capabilities. So, what we can do is we can be their external regulators and we can help them, we can break down the big stuff because that's the problem, is we assume that our children kind of know what they need to do to get through the day, but they don't, you know, even things like um, you know, go upstairs and get dressed. That's a really complex, you know, set of instructions and and capabilities. You know, in order to do that, I need to um prioritize what I need to do. I need to be task-focused, I need to be organized, I need to be looking at my time management to make sure I'm getting things, you know, so it's it's all I need to not procrastinate, I need to kind of not, you know, be impulsively pulled into something else. So what we do is is we support our children to identify very specifically what the goals are. So we take the big stuff, and I tend to use the four Ws of the what, what we need to do, where, when, and who. So what we need to do, when we need to do it, where it's it's happening, and and who's going to be around. So we are taking something that just feels quite day-to-day, but we are making it super explicit. We are then the predict bit, so we've set the goal. Now, the goal might be just about um brushing your teeth, popping your clothes on, putting your daughters in your school bag, it's tiny, tiny little things. But we then need to, I spoke earlier about prediction errors. You know, our children make lots of prediction errors, you know, catastrophize, it's too hard, it's not enough time, I can't do it, I don't like it. And that hits the stress response button. Now, a lot of behaviours are actually quite predictable. So, as the adult, if we can co-regulate and co-predict with our child by, you know, and using simple words, and it and it's it's age and stage appropriate, but things such as, you know, you know, I'm wondering if that is going to be hard or tricky, or hmm, last time you found that, you know, quite quite difficult to do. I was a bit of a challenge, or oh, you told me you didn't like that. So these words like hard, tricky, like, don't like, big deal, little deal, not ready, these are all predictors that we can use in that very kind of just thoughtful way. You know, I noticed that last time. This was really tricky. And also what we're doing is we're validating how our child felt. And then it's about making a plan. And it's again, it's that kind of thinking aloud of, I'm wondering what might help. You know, what do you need? How can I help? I could be wrong, but I am thinking if. So what we are doing is we are thinking aloud. We are not telling our child what to do because that is our self-talk and our self-regulation. And if all we ever do is give them directions and tell them what to do, we don't get them upstairs like you know, it's like a gym at this point. They're strengthening their self-regulation executive function muscles because they are upstairs and their upstairs brain actively engaging in this planning process of what might help. And sometimes, you know, or a lot of times, we we think we are dealing with an issue which isn't actually the issue. So we are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. So we we support our we collaborate in a plan of what might help. And it's going back and forward with our child, and then we we think about the doing because our children are great at telling us what they should do. Comes to the doing, they get hit by the curveballs and the impulse control, and it all goes horribly wrong. So it's thinking about what do they need to get through the do? What supports do they need? Do they need something visual, something practical? Do I need to be there with them? And then it's a review, which is just a very quick statement of how'd that go? That worked out really good today. Maybe we'll try that again tomorrow. Because that is what joins the dots. It's go predict, plan, do review. And just to give you a really brief example, it's a bit of a funny one actually from from yesterday. My son was we were getting ready to go from school and he always has a little shot in his scooter up inside, up and down the pavement outside, um, and you could hear him shouting. So I went out and uh he was really cross with his jumper. There was a little he had found a little hole in his jumper, so he came storming back in. I can't go to school, I can't go to school, I've got a hole in my jumper. Now, at which point I am hooking into the goal protect plan due review. My goal is to get him to school. I was also going off to deliver a training event, so I had all those little goals in my head. My predict is this is going to be hard. So I'm almost doing a body scan of because it's it's not just what you say, but how we say it. So I can't look that I'm getting a little bit stressed and touchy, so I have to kind of think about how I'm sounding. So I'm saying, oh my goodness, I can see that you've got a little hole. Oh my goodness, that must feel really uncomfortable. So I'm doing the predict, I'm validating. And uh, yes, I can go to school. And I'm like, hmm, okay, I can see this is really tricky. So now we're on to the plan. So I said, Well, I know, I wonder, I could I've got time, I can take your jumper off and I'll give it a quick sew. Taking my jumper off. No, that's fine. I wonder how about I could just sew it, I can just do it while it's no, I'm not doing that. I want my other jumper, which I realize is in the washing machine soaking wet, so he can't have his other jumper. So, and I said, hmm, right, this is really tricky because you know, we need to get to school because that is my goal. But his goal is the jumper getting fixed. My goal is going to school. And that's where the difficulties are, is quite often as parents and children, our goals are different. So we need to ensure that they align. And he said, But I'm not going until I have a plan because I use this with him all the time, and he knows that plans are helpful. And I said, Hmm, what do you think? He said, I know I have a plan. I will get plaster and stick it over the hole and just tell everybody I have an injury. Now I would never have come up with that plan, but that was his plan. So we got a plaster, we stuck it over the hole, and off he went to school. And I said, Would it help if I popped some plasters in your bag in case that one comes off? Yes, please. So off he went and then we came home. And I said, How did that go? It was fine. I said, So, you know, tonight when you've taken your jumper off, would it help then if I sewed it? Yes, once it's off, you can sew it. So that's a really simple example of go predict, plan, do review.

Dr Olivia 34:04

That's just it, it's so brilliant. And, you know, listening to how you handle that situation and thinking to myself, how I would have, you know, because you were probably quite stressed. You had something that you had to go to, you have to go to school. You know, we can change the jumper. And we we jump into solution modes, but being able to take that step back, scan yourself, and really let him come up with a plan. It keeps him in the upper part of the house. Absolutely. Whereas if you demanded that he change his jumper or made solutions for him, we're just basically knocking out those stairwells and he's gonna go into the basement ring. And then we're more like he was on the on the wall, and you're gonna spend two hours and you're gonna miss your meeting, and he's not gonna go to school. It's so clever, but I also have to say, well done you for your your calmness.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

I call it intentional parenting. You know, it's about being very intentional. I am always, and and it is, and I suppose it's it is knowing what we know about the brain house and about that regulate, relate reason, and and being very, very aware that this little conversation that we are having of predicting and planning might take a couple of minutes more. But as you said, what I'm doing is I'm also keeping him in the upstairs brain and connected to me. So we have got a better, you know, chance of success. I'm not gonna lie, at one point I thought I don't have, I mean, if he hadn't come up with the plaster, I didn't have anything else in my tank to give him. But it is about, you know, and then children are much more likely to carry out their plan because they have ownership and that sense of agency is so, so important for our children because it eradicates a lot of the stress as well and it creates predictability, which is so important.

Dr Olivia 35:53

Yeah, you know, it is that ownership. And I find the more ownership that I give my daughter, the better she does. Like, you know, I want her to make her breakfast in the morning, and it was a real disaster the other week. And I said, So what can we do? What what what's the solution? Kind of like your planning model. And uh, and she goes, let me think about it for a while. And then she came to me and she had actually written, you know, in an Excel spreadsheet what breakfast she was gonna have every day, printed it off, cut it out, you know, stuck it on the fridge, and she's like, This is how, this is what I'm gonna have for breakfast every day, and I'm gonna make it. And I was like, Well, and you know what? She did it, you know, didn't need any more.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

She'd made her solution. And what's so amazing about that is she also is even one more step ahead of the game, and she's created a visual resource because she knows she's not gonna be able to remember every day what she had. So actually, not only has she created her plan, which is her plan, she has also created a visual template that is something that she can go back and check in with because she knows that she needs that as well. So, how clever is that?

Dr Olivia 36:54

Exactly. And I love that, you know, I just and I love that your son also said, Oh, so we'll do a plan. Like it, it's just it's you know, and even though it takes a little bit longer, what you're saying there, it pays off dividends because we all know when those mornings go wrong, how long it can be.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Oh, absolutely. And do you know it's it is, and as much as we're we're kind of laughing at that point, you know, I am very aware of my own brainhouse and my own, you know, regulate, relate, reason and thinking, you know, if also if I tip and and I could feel myself beginning to push towards the making demands of you just need to get in the car and we just need to go, because that's actually what I would say to my daughter, and that would work, but it doesn't, it's it's a completely different method of parenting. And actually, this this process as well, um, this is what school uses for them as well. They and he knows that also school make plans. So when things, something's coming up that's tricky at school, um I can just send a little email and somebody will make a plan. So that the idea for him is he knows that actually making a plan creates solutions, and that's what this framework is. It's a problem-solving framework because when you can solve problems, you are out of the stress zone. It's very empowering.

Dr Olivia 38:11

Absolutely.

Working With School Without Conflict

Dr Olivia 38:12

And that's a great thing, you know, being able to take it into school. How can parents who are listening, like, how did you broach that subject with school? How did you bring them on board? Uh, you mentioned earlier, oh, well, we have 30 kids, how can I be, you know, specialist to you? But I think it's a it's it's a big question because, you know, the homework that's expected of them might not meet their executive functioning, and the way that homework is is given often doesn't work. And and you know, and and also being in school and and having demands often doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And you know, well, I come, you know, I I I'm a primary school teacher, you know, I I come, I kind of can wear those two hats as well. I come from an education background and I know how how difficult it is. And and certainly we have, you know, more and more children with a diverse range of needs in our classrooms and trying to meet all those needs is really, really difficult. However, when you are on the other side of the fence as a parent or carer, you're only bothered about your child really. You you want their needs to be met. And I've always just I've always I'm very, very lucky, I have to say, I've always had a very open relationship and a good relationship with school. And, you know, I don't go in and tell them what they have to do, but it is about helping them to kind of understand, and you're talking about executive functions, you know, understand, you know, the day-to-day demands within a school environment and how for kind of a lot of children that that's fine. They can they can manage those, but it's about helping them to kind of almost understand for him where some of those kind of executive functioning differences are. So that the things that and I call them almost those kind of like his hidden, you know, areas of development. And it's those hidden areas, so it might look like that he can manage, but but we know that there's going to be fallout from that. So I I spoke to them very, very early doors about the fact that, you know, if he feels involved, if there's collaboration and he feels that that he is involved in the conversations and and the plans, then they are much more likely to have a successful outcome. Now that's what they want because when it's not successful, the work on their part is tenfold because they are dealing with fallout. So, you know, it's almost about selling it, about being, you know, if we can be more proactive, we can minimize the likelihood of some of this really tricky stuff happening, which I know is really hard for staff, and I know can hijack a whole class. So um, so so I've quite explicitly kind of looked at kind of those executive functions and those kind of little hotspots and and worked with school. And we have an agreement that um if the if there is an issue, which there is quite regularly, well, every week I would say, where I just send a little email and it can be something quite minimal and you know, about a change that's happening that he's feeling really stressed about. And all it will take is a five-minute conversation between a member of staff, and it can be any member of staff and him, for him to feel heard and make a plan. I mean, everything's fine again. So I think again, it's about just trying to kind of get school on board with that if we can be more proactive and reactive, it's actually going to be really helpful for you in the longer term as well, and to be as explicit as possible and that we're not working. And again, you know, it can be quite fragmented sometimes with schools, it can be really tricky, but it's about if if we can try to work together for that kind of common goal. Again, it's almost in my head when I'm working with schools, I'm doing the goal predict plan, doing review when I'm speaking to staff, you know, what we're problem solving. Okay, what is it we need to do here? What are the tricky bits? You know, what are we predicting together that's going to be throughout the week that's going to be the hard bits? Well, what plans can we put in place? How can I help at home? What can I support you? So it's almost using that framework of problem solving as the adults for the child as well.

Dr Olivia 42:04

Great

After-School Fallout And Rethinking Homework

Dr Olivia 42:05

how it can have that dull purpose. What would you say to parents who the child is absolutely fine at school? And then, you know, the wheels come off at home, and then when it's time to do homework, you know, at home, there's just, you know, it's just diabolical. And then they go back to talk to the school, and the school's like, well, they're fine at school, you know, could it be your parenting?

unknown 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

And do you know what? You know, I I work with a lot of parents, and I would say that is more often than not, that that is what the situation is, is that in particular with our girls, um, you know, they they go into school and they, you know, just about get through the day. And um, a parent I'm working with just now, there they were saying, you know what, in fact, we can't even get to the school gates before it just the explosion happens, just as soon as she comes out of the door, it just all falls to pieces. And that's really, really hard because what we are experiencing at at home, school aren't experiencing. So again, it goes back to that validation. We kind of as parents don't feel validated, we don't feel heard, we don't feel seen. But it is again, it's it's about understanding, you know, our child's biology and it's about understanding that and and speaking to children as well, whereby they are going through their school day suppressing, suppressing, suppressing. So what happens is, you know, they can't get into their upstairs brain to engage and to learn because they are holding everything together down in those lower parts of the brain. So there's not an explosion in school, and therefore it just has to come out somewhere. And so for me, there's there's not an easy answer to that, but it is again, it's just understanding that actually, you know, what's happening is it's just that that pressure cooker that is being held all day, and it's about us predicting as parents that when our child is going to come home. That's going to be the situation. So, actually, what's the plan going to be? You know, what is going to help at this point? And you've talked about homework, and I am going to be really controversial here. And this is just our absolute personal opinion. And I am, it's not for everybody. But for me, school day is a long day, it's an exhausting day. Our children have got nothing left in the tank when they come home. And for me, again, understanding what we know about biology, the body needs to rest and digest. And it, you know, physiologically, it has to do that by adding an additional, quite intense stressor of you need to sit down and get your homework done. And if we think about that as adults, you know, if you've had a really hard day at work, and then after your dinner, you've got another hour worth of work to do and you have got nothing left in the tank. And that's us as well, regulated adults. So for me, I think you need to look very carefully at what that night times looks like. And do we need the clubs and the going out and the homework and all the rest of it? And sometimes it just means that our evenings and weekends might look a little bit different because rest and digest is so important.

Dr Olivia 45:12

I think you said that so so correctly. I just say it's to hell with the homework, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't really matter. It actually has absolutely no predictor of academic success. I know you're a teacher, so you probably have to be a little bit more, more uh but I, you know, what's interesting is since I've stopped homework in our lives, and we might do, you know, maybe on the weekend, she actually now is at an age where she's wanting to do her homework and she will do her homework, you know, when when she wants to. And if she doesn't, I don't really care. And so it it's up to her. But I think, you know, it's so true. We we just have to create an environment at home where they can can relax and release. And I've also had parents come to me and say, you know, it's so bad at home that I actually need to reach out because of the kind of the explosions from a violent and you know, physical and verbal kind of sense are so big that I need to go back to the school and actually be open about this and really, you know, and that's scary to do as a parent. Um, and I I, you know, I'm I I really admire people that are able to do that because then the school can step up and be like, and they can hear, and then they can say, okay, what can we do at school so that your child isn't sitting in that basement, you know, just trying to hold it all in? What are the things that are triggering? And then you can really start to work towards solutions and back into your planning kind of framework. Um, but I think we need to take that embarrassment away and that it's not your parenting and that it is understanding your child and bringing the school on a journey to understand your child as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Absolutely. And it's, you know, it's it's it is it's it puts you in a very vulnerable position because we we want to present, we're parents, we want to present ourselves as capable and that you know we've got this, and and actually sometimes, you know, it is about going and and saying just being absolutely brutally honest and saying, you know, that this is you know, this this is hard and and you know, I'm not coping. And and schools that you know, schools are are getting, I think they're getting much better. I work with a lot of schools, and I do think schools are coming on board, they're a bit slightly further behind in the process as we are as as parents and carers, but they are getting on board and understanding, you know, sensory sensitivities and demands and expectations and transitions, beginnings, endings, and you know, trying to, you know, that there's all sorts and and schools working in partnerships as well with all sorts of different, you know, agencies and professionals and um and and bringing other folks on on board as well. But I think when it comes to evening time after school, you you just do what works because that is what needed. And again, when we understand children's biology um by putting in more stressors, something will give quite significantly at some point if we keep doing that.

Listener Question On Hidden Build-Up

Dr Olivia 48:00

Now um we've run over a little bit, but we have some time for questions. So everyone, you know, please feel free to take yourself uh to put your cameras on. And if you have any questions for Nicole, please take yourself off mute. I see Sophie there. Hi, Sophie. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Uh thank you for this. It's always a very good reminder because I keep going out of this, going into the blame game a little bit with my son. Um, but as something that's recently happened, I'm thinking about that when you're talking. He doesn't always show to me when he is in that basement brain, if you like. So in the car on the way home from school, it's exam week, it's gonna be a bit trickier. How's it gone? Fine, and this wasn't so good, but he's talking about it calmly. And I'm thinking, okay, everything's okay, he's coping well, we get home, he's not showing fizziness, he's got ADHD, he's 12, and um then I'm starting dinner thinking everything's okay, and then there's explosions upstairs when he gets upstairs to his sister and he's hitting her, and she's responding to him, then because she's responded to him physically, he then ramps it up, and then I'm coming down trying to separate them, and it's just that not seeing that it's about to happen, if you see what I mean, is is is difficult. And then how do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Yeah, for for me, yeah, it's it's actually and that that's a really good example that we don't we don't always see the signs and we we don't always read the signs. For me, you know, in that that moment, you know, what what you're doing is is is a bit of crisis management of kind of trying to kind of de-escalate and soothe everything to get everybody back to a safe place, but then it's what happens afterwards when he's kind of back in that kind of you know, calm alert state. For me, that's when I would be doing the good goal predict plan do review. And when we're talking about the goal, I would just say, I I noticed. Now it might be you would have that conversation that night, or it might be the next day. I, you know, we know how kind of that that it's very much when a child's in that dysregulation, it's physiological, it can take a bit of time to for things to kind of settle. So you'll know when the time is right, you'll be able to read the signals. And it's almost that thinking aloud. And for me, I would almost script it as, you know, I noticed yesterday, you know, when when you came home from school and you went upstairs, you were just finding it really hard. And and I think as as parents, what we want to do is we want to name the behavior and say, when you came in, you were you hit your sister and you were annoying her, and then and we get we kind of get back. As soon as you you you name the behavior, we shut down the we shut down the conversation. So sometimes to just say, I noticed that you found difficult or hard. It's those prediction words again. Um so it's it's more of a statement, and you know, just and and and and again, then it goes back to that predict. It's it, you know, you say, you know, I thought you you were doing all right, but I could see that you were having a really tough time. So, you know, so I'm wondering, you know, next time or tomorrow, whenever the next exam is, you know, I'm wondering, you know, what could we do? What do we need? You know, so it's about the the afterwards, you know, you know, what we want to do is minimize the likelihood of that happening again. So I as I say, it's the I noticed that you found whatever difficult or hard. And it's that kind of validating those feelings and coming from a real place of compassion and and empathy. I know the hitting and all that's that's not okay. We can talk about that later. But if you try to bring that into the conversation, you know, just because what we then go to, and you mentioned it blame and shame. We go back to that blame and shame, and therefore we shut down, we shut down the discussion. But that's a really good way of doing it. And ask him, you know, what's up? What can I do to help? Um, and sometimes it's just about, you know, sitting next to each other on the bed. It's not, it's not or when you're driving the car, it's like something when it's not really intense, you're not sitting down, having a one-to-one. It's almost just, oh, this has just popped into my head, and I'm just happening to mention something that I noticed. Um and keeping it really low-key. But that that that's what I would suggest, and and and and see how you get on. But you'll know, you'll know the words that that and that the phrases that feel right to you, but around that kind of that kind of framing.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

That's very helpful because if I start talking about that's too aggressive, that was really hurtful, he then just won't even accept that it's happened. Oh, she did this to me, she did that to me. You know, it it it's because it's I'm blaming probably too much with the it's that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

It's it's it's that's our gut reaction. And as parents, that's the thing, you know. If we were to say the first thing that was on our tongue, that would be for every single one of us, that's exactly what we would say. And that's what I'm talking about, that intentional parenting of us stopping and thinking like what words am I going to use here that's going to keep him on board and is going to allow him to feel seen and felt um and and validated because you're absolutely right. If you as soon as you go in with the behavior, he will deflect onto everybody else. And because in his head, you know, it's and again, it's like those kind of like fixed mindsets, the problem lies elsewhere and and not with me. And we'll get nowhere if if we go down that rabbit hole. But it is the it is the one that we jump on, you know. That's an that's our impulsive one, I would say. But that's a different way of reframing it. Yeah, thank you.

Dr Olivia 53:41

Excellent.

Kindness To Yourself And Closing

Dr Olivia 53:42

Do we have any other a quick question from anyone else? No, no questions. You did such a wonderful job of explaining to us, Nicole, which is so true, you know. And I think uh one thing that I have to say is, you know, it's a work in progress for us parents as well. So be kind to yourself. It's not always possible to um react the way we know we should react. And so give yourself some slack when you also end up in the basement with your child and just, you know, uh be forgiving. And, you know, it's it's also an opportunity to teach your child that, you know, it happens to you too. So um I just uh want to stress kindness, kindness to yourself as a as a parent. Absolutely.