Ep. 24: The Secret to a Calmer Home: How Your Emotions Shape Your Child’s Behavior

In this episode of webe Parents, Dr. Alona Pulde and Dr. Matthew Lederman explore a powerful yet often overlooked parenting tool: co-regulation. Unlike self-regulation, which requires children to manage their emotions on their own, co-regulation is the process of parents helping their children regulate their nervous systems through calm and connected presence.

Discover how your own emotions ripple through your family, affecting your child’s ability to handle stress, tantrums, and transitions. Learn simple yet transformative tools—like the reset ritual and the webe breath—to create a calmer, more connected home. Whether it’s bedtime struggles, sibling conflicts, or daily frustrations, this episode gives you practical strategies to model calm and build emotional resilience in your kids.

Tune in to learn how small shifts in your own reactions can make a huge impact on your child’s emotional well-being!

To learn more about what Alona & Matt are up to check us out at webeparents.com, or follow us on our socials at Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube. Be sure to subscribe to webe Pärents wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Transcript

WBP 124 | Co-Regulation Topic & Tools

SEGMENTS:

Commercial 12:09

Topics/Tools 18:05

No Skills/Pro Skills 24:46

Bringing it Home 29:49

One Last Thing 33:19

[00:00:00]  
 

Alona Pulde: Hey there. We'd love for you to hit that subscribe button. By subscribing, you're helping us spread the word and connect with more amazing people like you.  

Host: Welcome to we Be Parents, where parent doctors, Matthew Letterman, and alone pull day, explore current parenting topics, share stories, and help bring families closer together. 

Alona Pulde: Hello and welcome to WeBe Parents, where we dive into the joys and challenges of parenting and uncovered tools that help us create more connection in our families. I'm Dr. Alona Poe. And hi, I'm Dr. Matthew Letterman, and today we're exploring something incredibly powerful. How our emotions ripple through our families and shape our children's ability to regulate their own emotions. 

Something called co-regulation.  

Matthew Lederman: Before we jump in, which I'm excited to talk about this topic, don't forget to hit the subscribes so you never miss an [00:01:00] episode. Remember, we're here to support you with real practical parenting tools every single week.  

Alona Pulde: Alrighty. How you feeling? I am getting over a cold. Very happy to be on this end of it, but you might still hear that over our little discussion today. 

Matthew Lederman: I like the raspy voice. That's exciting.  

Alona Pulde: Oh, well, thank you. Let's get started. This one, I often think, oh, who doesn't get impacted by this? Right? You have a tornado in the room, whether it's me or you, or one of the kids, and how can that not impact everyone else?  

Matthew Lederman: And depending on how you're doing, then their reaction if, especially if it seems unreasonable, like they. 

Fall apart because they get the wrong color cup or something. You know, it's just a, uh, it can. How do you regulate your nervous system? How do you regulate with someone else's? How do you support that? It's, I. It's, it's interesting. It's not easy all the time, but at the same [00:02:00] time, it's very powerful when you understand the dynamic. 

Alona Pulde: Yeah. And I like that idea of the, the tornado I like. I am very visual and so that notion of this spinning thing that can easily suck you in, you're both spinning together or you can watch it from a distance and help it peter out. Um, and it does really depend on. What state you are in, you know, kind of how all the stars align, right? 

Matthew Lederman: Yeah. Sometimes when I'm working with parents, I'll say the first thing is to check where your energy is, and if you're triggered or activated, the best thing you could do is, is walk away. Keep your mouth shut, walk away, do some self empathy, get some empathy from someone else. If you're grounded and not activated, then you can dive in and, and empathize and help regulate the other person. 

But you gotta be able to check in first. And I think a lot of times we're so focused on learning, what do I say, what do I do? Versus let's check in first.  

Alona Pulde: You want might also be [00:03:00] saying Make it stop. Make it stop. And so yes, that is the topic for today, co-regulation.  

Matthew Lederman: And when you talk about the tornadoes, just to be clear, you're talking about the kids and not me, right? 

Alona Pulde: Oh, it can be you. It can be, I can be the tornado sometimes too.  

Matthew Lederman: All right. I don't wanna say anything. But now that you've brought it up,  

Alona Pulde: yes.  
 

Matthew Lederman: You can be a  
 

Alona Pulde: tornado too. Yes. There have been many an occasion where I've been the tornado in the room. It's a beautiful tornado though. Uh, not, not at the moment where it's spinning outta control, but the, the topic of today co-regulation, uh, and that is so evident not only when we're, you know, when there's a tornado, but also when there's rainbow and sunshine in the room, how contagious that positive energy can also be. 

So in the midst of celebration, it's hard not to. Get sucked into that celebratory spirit. [00:04:00] You know, it's one of the things people love about like amusement parks, like Disneyland or Universal or you get in there and so many people are experiencing that presence and that joy. It's hard not to absorb yourself in that,  

Matthew Lederman: and the idea of other people's emotions can trigger. 

Similar emotions in us. Have you ever had that experience? Absolutely. Where you mirror other people's experience. Yeah, mirror neurons. I think that those are really fascinating. Once I learned exactly what those did and, and that I can actually mirror the, the state of the other person, it's not even, it doesn't have to, it's not a conscious thing. 

My body's going to perceive your body, your, your state, your physiological state, and then I'm going to regulate or, or sort of match it. So if you see someone smiling, the same neurons that fire [00:05:00] when you smile are activated in your brain. It's, it's really interesting, like if you watch someone pick up a cup, their brain will mirror that action as if preparing to do the same thing. 

So it's pretty fascinating that it can ha, it can really help with empathy. For example, how a lot of people are like, what do I say? But actually just, if you come with empathic energy and compassion, your whole body changes the muscles in your face, the the tone, the pace of your language is going to all communicate to the other person's nervous system. 

Hey, we're, we're safe. We can calm down here. Or it could say, oh my God, this is a catastrophe. We gotta quickly fix this. In fact, when kids spill something and I've, I had the, you know, parents have, oh my God, it's a spill. And then they'd rush to fix it. And even though they were saying It's okay, it's okay. 

Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't. But it didn't matter what they said, it was how quickly they had to try and fix it. That communicated [00:06:00] to me that there's actually something wrong. Something's not okay here. So when a kid gets really upset, even though we're telling 'em it's okay, but we're trying really hard to calm them down with our words and our actions, we're communicating a different message. 

And I think it's important not only what we say, but also the energy that we're in, in our whole expression of our bodies.  

Alona Pulde: Yeah. And I think we're, you know, in situations where, 'cause we're not always gonna be able to get to come, but I think if we can even name that. Yes, I'm feeling a little bit worked up, but this is not a big deal. 

Or, you know, where you're owning your energetic state, not pretending that it doesn't exist using language that's totally contrary to how you're showing up.  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah, because even that language regulates the other person. If, if you're upset and you use language that's like everything's fine, but you're clearly upset that, that there's an incongruence there that's very off-putting to the other person's [00:07:00] nervous system. 

When you use language and vulnerably share that you're upset, that is actually more calming because now there's congruence and that creates a sense of safety and security.  

Alona Pulde: Exactly. So it really is a dance that you do, whether in partnership or in parenthood or at work, where you're engaging in this dynamic dance that continues  

Matthew Lederman: and it's the authenticity, just like you said. 

I think that's such an important point. Just because I want people to be calm. If I'm not feeling calm, then trying to get them calm is actually gonna have the opposite. It's gonna have a dysregulating effect. So you ever see where somebody like stubs their toe and like wax their toe and you can almost feel it in your body like, oh, like you flinch almost with the same pain. 

But if they were, if, if they're like really hurt and they're laughing and like, this is great, but they're, they're physically, they appear really upset. Your body's just gonna, there's something off with this picture. So it's, it's so regulating and part [00:08:00] of the co-regulation process is vulnerably sharing where you are ideally without attacking or blaming the other person if you're upset. 

So it, it lands well when you explain where you're coming from as your process, not because of the other person doing something wrong or something like that. Yeah. But as long as you're keeping it about you, it works well.  

Alona Pulde: The, the visual that I have as you're talking about that, you know, somebody else getting into pain, it's when. 

Toddlers fall. And parents' reaction, you know, they, they're shocked or they're scared or they, um, uh, express concern and then the toddler starts to cry. Whereas if the parents didn't say anything, the toddler would be absolutely okay. And, and that almost innate mirroring. We do it just like you said, subconsciously without thinking. 

Just by looking and being connected and in close [00:09:00] proximity to someone else. Yeah.  

Matthew Lederman: So you can even be in pain, but if you don't learn how to regulate your nervous system, you can't then communicate back, well, here's what we do with our pain. So you have this new baby that's not sure how to regulate their nervous system. 

They're looking to the, the parent or their caregiver. And if the caregiver doesn't have tools to regulate their body, everybody's left. With lack of clarity of what to do, how to come.  

Alona Pulde: Yeah. And this matters in the parental field, uh, on so many levels. The first, and you mentioned it, that the family functions almost as one nervous system. 

Um, when one person shifts, everyone naturally feels it. And I think that's particularly because. We're, we've become so at attuned to one another, spending so much time together, um, that, [00:10:00] that attunement really wires you to mirror those emotional, uh, emotional states more quickly.  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah. We feel it in our family. 

I have an intensity. That if I don't do self-care and regulation on a regular basis, I can have an intensity that ripples through the family, and I see it with the kids in particular. I'll see their, their reactivity shift based on how my intensity is being channeled.  

Alona Pulde: Good noticing.  

Matthew Lederman: That's where you're supposed to say no, you're not intense. 

This is your,  

Alona Pulde: we we're talking about being authentic here. Correct. All right. All right. We talked about that. I'm just gonna emphasize it again, that stress, that tension. It is contagious in the same way that celebration and joy and laughter are contagious and calm. Calm is contagious. When we can bring ourselves to calm, how easy it is, or it [00:11:00] feels easy for everyone else to. 

Get there as well. You know, so a situation that could be completely overwhelming all of a sudden feels quite manageable if there's a significant energy of calm.  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah. That calm is contagious and it's so impactful. That's why I love the, the, we become, you know, some people will say, Hey, how can, how can this make a difference? 

Like we, we use it with the kids. Every night before bed and it's 60 seconds, five breaths, five repetitions. You have this device that teaches you the proper way to calm your body. When we all do that, we calm. When I do that by myself, if I come downstairs after doing it, there's a, there's a different sense of energy that I have that then ripples through the family, and to me that's what's so. 

Powerful is that it doesn't take [00:12:00] a lot, it takes consistency. It's not a, it's not like you have to lift this huge weight. It's that you have to lift the weight, the small weight every day.  

Commercial 
 

Matthew Lederman: This episode of We Be Parents is brought to you by We Be Calm, the child calmer, designed by doctors and loved by parents  

Alona Pulde: struggling with bedtime routines or managing your child's anxiety. 

Webe Calm, transforms deep breathing into a fun and engaging activity, helping kids find their inner calm, perfect for bedtime, stressful moments, or anytime your child needs a little extra help to stay calm. Visit webe calm.com to learn more and bring tranquility to your family. We be calm because we be in this together. 

We become is a, a fun, playful way for us to introduce it a way that. Didn't meet resistance, but, but were, was met [00:13:00] with excitement with our kids. The underlying current, which I think you mentioned, and I think parents sometimes forget, is tantrums, misbehaving, acting out. A lot of that is indicative of dysregulation, and if we can recognize that. 

Then helping the, helping kids in those moments get to regulation is what can really change the outcome. And you know, you mentioned sleep. Sleep was a really big deal, especially with our oldest daughter, Kylie, and still, you know, she's very energetic during the day and then expecting her to just, uh. 

Peter out just 'cause it's nine o'clock just doesn't seem to happen. And so her body continues to be revved up and then sleep is really difficult. But with the, we be calm, she in in several [00:14:00] breaths, can get her body back to calm and she's asleep in minutes. It's. Amazing. Really?  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah. And what I like about it too is that throughout the day we can tell each other, Hey, do you wanna take a WeBe breath? 

And by doing it every night for months, you have this neural pathway that you've created, this path that messages from your brain go to your body and you have, and it becomes this. Easy way to turn on calm. And that's really, you know, some people say, I'm, I'm always stressed. Well, you get stuck in stress because you've created neural pathways that reinforce stress, making it very easy for that experience to manifest. 

And, you know, sort of like, think of it a slide going from the second floor to the first floor. You have this fast lubricated slide that you go on and you shoot down. That's a very reinforced neural pathway. The way you get that slide lubricated is by doing it every single night, but instead of practicing stress, now you can practice [00:15:00] calm. 

So during the day now without the device, I'll ask them to take a weedy breath and they'll do it. And, and it's interesting because like I said, it's just like lifting weight strengthens your body. Practicing the WeBe breath creates these neural pathways and, and at first I remember thinking this myself. 

And that breath work, it seems sort of weak. That's what I used to think. And just like a tiny stream against a, a mountain, you know, where it's like, that's like nothing, this huge strong mound, this little stream. But you know, with repetition that that weak stream can carve a valley. And I was like, you know, I think about it that way. 

You know, over time your breath can carve this path to calm. So I get this visual in my brain of this stream. That's seemingly weak, carving this really deep, strong valley in this, in this mountain. And I, and that's the way I think about doing this, breathing every night and calling upon it during the day. 

And that's what's happened. And then it not [00:16:00] only benefits the kids benefits me and any of us can take a WeBe breath and that sort of ripples throughout the whole family, the calm. And that's, it's so exciting to put all those pieces together.  

Alona Pulde: Yeah. I love it. One more piece that I was kind of putting together, and maybe it's a little bit abstract, but I was thinking, you know, we can co-regulate with one another, but it's almost like. 

If we look at our, our, our own person as parts, there's the brain part, there's the body part, and they can co-regulate in the sense that if our body is taking WeBe breaths, we're sending that message to our brain that we are safe. If our brain is telling us, okay, we are safe, our body can co-regulate to that message. 

By taking those WeBe breaths. And if we know, the more, the more we know what to do, the easier it can be done in moments when it's [00:17:00] most needed. And I think that kind of puts us into what is the tool that we would recommend to parents to. Keep in mind in situations like this  

Matthew Lederman: else? Well, I think, uh, to me, like you said, the more you can do it. 

I think of it as calming and instead of food nutrients where you wanna get as many food nutrients in as you can during the day with healthy eating, think of this as calming nutrients. You wanna get in as many calming nutrients throughout the day, messages of safety to your nervous system, and breathing is a fantastic way. 

The slow exhalation. So taking WeBe brush throughout the day. Is super helpful and the, especially if you know that you're taking the breaths correctly, that's where the we become is helpful to actually mold and a container of which you can see, okay, this is the right breath, this is how it should feel, and then doing that regularly throughout the day. 

So to me, that's a really important thing. Start bringing in it to 60 [00:18:00] seconds, five breaths. You know, every hour, every couple hours, whatever works for you.  

Topics & Tools 
 

Matthew Lederman: Topics and tools. 

The tool that we want to talk about today that I think fits nicely with all of this is the, the reset ritual. So when you notice dysregulation, tension, stress, whatever you wanna call it in yourself or your child. You wanna try these steps? So first would be pause and notice what energy are you bringing to the moment where, where is your energy? 

And it's not to judge it or change it, it's to name it. And I dunno if you've, you know, heard of name it to tame it. But all of a sudden when you name something, you can see it and you can step out of it. You unblend from that experience, from that energy so that it's in front of you, almost like you're holding it on your hand. 

Hand versus it being. And, you know, sort of fully encompassing you. So step away from it, pause it, notice it, oh, I'm [00:19:00] feeling, I'm feeling this frenetic energy right now, this intensity. And then once you pause and notice, then the next step is to take three deep breaths. And that's where we do the WeBe breaths. 

And if you, and then by practicing every night, your body knows exactly what to do during the day. It's that breathing neural pathway. And it's just an inhale. You can do it for inhale of four and then an exhale of eight. 

And I also like when you make the, the sound like the with your throat, that vibration stimulates the vagus nerve that does run by the pharynx. And it also helps turn on the calming, the calming in your nervous system, the parasympathetics. So that deep, that weepy breath is really helpful. And the third step is then ground yourself. 

Feel your feet on the floor. And bring your awareness to your body. Again, that helps separate you from and unblend you from the tension or the stress or whatever the energy is. And then once you feel your feet on the [00:20:00] floor and you're grounded on the floor, then you soften your body, you relax your face, and you can just breathe into these different areas. 

Breathe into your shoulders, breathe into your face. You can even touch. Sometimes I'll touch my face as I'm doing it and just tell the muscles that it's okay to soften just a little bit. They don't have to stop feeling tense if they don't want to. You don't want to put pressure on them, but just say, Hey, do you wanna create a little bit of space around you so you can move more freely? 

So that's sort of the energy, not to try and stop or change them, but just soften, make a little space. And then the fifth step is to reconnect. So whether it's with you or let's say you're reconnecting with your child. Make eye contact. Offer a warm tone. Make sure your pace and your voice and the energy and the, the, the words that you're using is all about just reconnecting at this point. 

So it'll be the, the five steps. Pause and notice to step one, take three. Deep [00:21:00] breaths. Two, three is ground yourself. Four is soften your body. And then five is reconnect.  

Alona Pulde: I love that on so many levels because the first thing that I love about it is it really allows you the moment to ground yourself and, and remind yourself about the importance of doing that before connecting to someone else. 

And it sounds like it's this lengthy process, but it can happen pretty quickly.  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah, and it's, and that's very important, the pause and know, okay, I'm feeling a little tense right now. And then. 

And then I feel my feet on the floor and I'm touching my face and then I'm reconnecting. And sometimes I'll touch my leg. 'cause reconnection can be, it doesn't have to be with someone else. It can be with myself. I'm talking to myself out loud. Yeah, Matt really stressed out. But you see how my voice calm and I'm empathizing with myself. 

This is called self [00:22:00] empathy. I can touch my leg. It's reassuring. And it's like we're okay right now. I used to say, I'm, uh, I'm safe. Everything's okay. There's time just to make space. And that tends to really calm the nervous system.  

Alona Pulde: Yeah. And I love that. In that calm, you can find expansive strategy, even humor. 

You know, one of the things that I, I just had a memory when, uh, Kylie was. Young, maybe she was five, Jordan maybe was three. And she was sitting in her room, Kylie was sitting in in her room and she was upset with me about, I have no idea what, and I was trying to talk to her and she was really upset and. 

And it, and I took a moment, I remember it very clearly to kind of ground [00:23:00] myself. And in connecting with her, I, I started saying, oh, you are, you know, mirroring her. Oh, you are so mad. You are so, so mad. But I was, my body was calm. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter what the words are, you know, so. 

She started engaging. She's like, yeah, I'm really mad. And I said, oh, but you're all, you're, they're all by yourself being mad. And we went back and forth, back and forth and finally was like, Kylie, how about we sit together and be mad together? She said, yeah, that's a great idea. And so I come sit next to her and I'm like, okay, well now who are we mad at? 

We're mad at Jordan. And so it was so funny how she switched. And she let me in and her whole kind of picture changed based on not even my words. 'cause my words were, we're mad and you're [00:24:00] mad and, but my energy, which was inviting and open and calm. And so I, I find that like I snicker when I think about. 

That, um, and wish that I could connect to that level of humor now, which it sometimes can be pretty challenging, but I think when you can remember to step back and take those few seconds even to, to ground yourself and find your own feet, what becomes available to you as far as connecting to someone else is quite rich. 

Matthew Lederman: And that really regulated her and you at the same time. 

No Skills Pro Skills 
 

Host: No skills to pro skills.[00:25:00]  

Alona Pulde: So what would this look like as a no skills when we go, you know, we talk about no skills to pro skills, what would it look like as a A No skills?  

Matthew Lederman: Yeah, the no skills generally starts with seeing an, an action or hearing something that you don't enjoy and focusing on stopping that. So if your target, if they're whining and you try to tell them to stop whining or they're throwing toys and your immediate focus is to get them to stop throwing toys. 

That to me is the no skills approach, which I've tried many, many times. Hmm. And sometimes it's all I have and I just don't have space for it, and that's not gonna go very well. And then I have to do some repair and cleanup afterwards. But when I focus on stopping what someone else is doing, I'm basically communicating that your needs don't matter because they're doing something to meet needs. 

Everybody does things to meet their needs. So throwing toys and whining are an attempt to [00:26:00] meet needs. So when I tell 'em to stop that, I'm basically saying, I don't care about your needs. And if I say I don't care about your needs, that's not gonna be very connecting or supportive. So I have lots of examples, but everybody knows if somebody's whining and stop whining, I can't deal with this, or stop whatever, behave yourself. 

Usually you get the opposite of what you're saying to me. You know, whenever I do that, the whining escalates, the behavior escalates. And then I get more annoyed and we're both escalating and it's a mess. Okay. Does that sound familiar?  

Alona Pulde: Oh, no. No. Yes. I, I can absolutely relate to that on in so many occasions. 

Um, and then the pro skills.  

Matthew Lederman: The pro skills is where you focus on yourself first, where you focus on your energy, where is my body, where is my tension? And you take a breath and you speak calmly. I can see and you can say something like, oh, Matt, I'm talking to myself now. Oh, whew. In fact, this [00:27:00] happened the other day in the car when Kylie brought something up that I'd handled poorly in the past around some stuff that happens at school. 

And I want to go right into telling her how to fix it, telling her how to do it differently, telling her what I didn't like about how she handled it, and I will. And the other day in the car, I actually. You know, I would say I, I get like a 80% for how I handled it. Because, 'cause I was, I was noticing, I was aware, I was like, oh Matt, you're feeling revved up. 

I can feel it in my chest. I'm getting tight here. I really wanna tell her what to do, that I'm really worried about how she's handling it. But don't just stay with empathy. Don't go into teaching or directing or telling her your opinion. And I was able to do that for a little bit. The problem was, as we got into it, I. 

I lost that connection with myself, and then I started veering into advice pretty quickly after a period of time. So it's like, if it's ha, if you're to empathy and minutes and minutes are [00:28:00] going by, all of a sudden I start veering off the road, you know? And, and I'm like, oh, get the car. I'm gonna crash. And you have to pull it back on the road. 

And you can tell, because her reaction shifts. She goes from absorbing and softening the empathy to getting quiet or getting defensive, and then I, it's a sign that if I can just check back in again and start the steps over again, pause and notice again, ground myself again. Take those three deep breaths, soften my body, and don't even worry about what she's saying. 

At that point, the content doesn't matter as much as your state of your nervous system and your ability to connect with that person. A lot of people are like, Ooh, if I stop listening to them, it's rude or impolite. But actually it's really important to stay in connection to sometimes stop the content, uh, following the content for a minute or two. 

And don't worry when people are activated or passionate about something, they're gonna repeat the, the, the repeat the content anyway. [00:29:00] So you're gonna get the gist of what's going on. So that's what, for me, I, I got the 80% 'cause I was able to. Do the steps, but then I forgot to do 'em again when I started, started to veer off. 

And you might have to repeat the steps over and over again.  

Alona Pulde: I love that. I love that it pulls you out of enmeshment, and I'm guessing that that's what made this experience different. You know, your ability to, to say, oh, Matt. Right. That, that one second of Oma allows you to pull out, take care of yourself, regulate yourself, and then show up differently. 

And yeah, you might need reminders and that comes with practice, but, um, but 80% is, you'll take it,  

Bringing it Home 
 

Host: bringing it home.  

Alona Pulde: So how do we bring this home?  

Matthew Lederman: Oh, I love the the tenets of explain [00:30:00] it, invite it, model it, and practice it. So explain, it might look like something where you teach the kids that emotions are contagious and just like a yawn feeling spread. 

So when I'm calm it helps you become, and when you approach something on calm helps me. In fact, Jordan will often say, Hey dad. I'm, I'm noticing some tension. Are you feeling tense? But she says it with a very calm and just the way she says it and the curiosity. I noticed my tension starts to calm down. So just that explaining it, um, and, and helping give examples of how we can support each other. 

Is okay. And that, hey, when I'm really upset or angry, you can feel really upset or angry, or you can feel scared and I can be. So just helping them understand that and then it's inviting it. So I ask the kids to check in, Hey, how does your body feel when we're rushing? If I'm saying, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. 

Let's get ready. [00:31:00] Um, how does that feel? And then how does it feel when we slow down? So if I'm rushing someone, notice the tension in your body. And if I'm going slow and calm, notice how your body feels and helping them to start differentiating the two. And then the modeling, it would be showing them out loud, sort of. 

I would, I would verbally show the regulation. So I'll say out loud, Hey, I'm feeling a little stressed right now, and now I'm gonna take a deep breath so I can calm down and feel a little bit better. I'm gonna calm my body right now. Oh, I'm doing this little exercise where I breathe and I have my hand on my arms. 

There's a little bit of touch there, and I'm feeling my feet on the floor and I'm doing a WeBe breath. So I'm talking out loud, which shows them how to do it, and it calms me at the same time. And then the practicing, it is just a daily habit. I love having them fire drill it, which means let's pretend we're upset even when we're not, or just, [00:32:00] or tense or weaving when we're not. 

Having, um, practice around it of calming rituals before bed. We love doing the WeBe combo before bed. And then we love practicing WeBe breath. So I'll sometimes randomly say, Hey, let's just take a practice, WeBe breath together, and they'll do it together. We'll do morning check-ins around how we're feeling. 

Sometimes we're driving to school. I'll say, does anybody wanna do five WeBe breaths? So, you know, it's helping to, to practice it whenever we can. Like those calming nutrients that send some to our kids as well, and then show them how to access it.  

Alona Pulde: I, I love that. And, and to that, the, the one thing that I might add is also identify, identify where potential triggers are, um, for dysregulation. 

For example, right before bedtime or, um. The transition from coming home from school or. If your kids are involved in activities right before a, [00:33:00] a big soccer game or a theater show, so the more that we can identify ones that happen commonly, we're not gonna capture them all. But the ones that happen pretty regularly, the easier it is to implement the, the bringing at home skills. 

Yeah, I like that.  

One Last thing 
 

Host: Just one last thing.  

Alona Pulde: We as parents are our child's emotional anchor, and when we can study ourselves, they find they're calm in us.  

Matthew Lederman: We're all one nervous system, and as parents, we have a lot of impact on that nervous system as a family. Mm-hmm. It's not just about yelling, calm down. It's about modeling calm. 

Alona Pulde: Your experiences and feedback are invaluable to us.  

Matthew Lederman: Please email us at parents@webetogether.com with your own cheers and cheers as well as any questions or stories you'd like to share.  

Alona Pulde: Thanks again for joining us today and we [00:34:00] look forward to connecting with you next time.