
Show Notes
You know that kid who just can't stay in the therapy room? They leave, wander around, get into things that aren't theirs, or are maybe even destructive? And three therapists have already called it quits. Maybe this describes your kid. Maybe this describes the kids you work with. This episode is for both of you. The helper who is trying to be with this kid, wondering what they're doing wrong. The helper who is working with a furious or checked-out parent — because it's the same question. But t...
More from The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}
When life with your kid is this hard, asking for help can take more energy than you have. And the people who love you often don’t know what to do, so they offer advice, or they stay away. This conversation with Rose Lapiere is one you can hand to them (just send the link, no explaining required). In this episode you will learn: Why “I have no idea what would help, and I’m here anyway” does more for a struggling parent than any piece of adviceWays to lighten a family’s load that ha...
Sometimes you work so hard to stay ‘calm’ but then realize- it feels totally fake. Yeah, that’s because sometimes calm makes no sense! Sometimes the behavior is serious, and you are mad, and of course you are. Regulated doesn’t have to mean calm, and there’s a four-step process that can help you hang onto your owl brain by one sharp talon even while your watchdog is starting to get really active. In this episode you’ll learn: Why working to look calm when you aren’t is hard on you...
Does hearing “no” or “not right now” or “stop doing…” seem to bring your child’s back-off watchdog or shut-down possum out? Or even worse?? Almost every family I’ve ever worked with has had some sort of struggle with their child tolerating frustration, or disappointment, or not getting what they want. These kids look ‘spoiled,’ and the judgment from others is REAL. But accepting no and tolerating frustration are owl brain skills that can be scaffolded. There’s a pretty lengthy ‘sk...
I know how intensely we want a checklist. Do this, this, and this, and the dysregulation will end, and your kid will be OK. This episode is the story of chasing exactly that list (Dr. Sears' Attachment Parenting checklist that I worked to check off one by one) and finding something else entirely in Dan Siegel's Parenting From the Inside Out. He didn’t give a checklist at all, just a way of being. So, I can’t give you a checklist, but this episode is the closest thing I can give you: a s...
Sometimes it’s the little moments that overwhelm us more than the big, scary ones. The "whatever" muttered under their breath, the stash of snack wrappers under the bed, or they flatly deny something you're 99% sure they did. Sure, these things are frustrating, and it makes sense you’d have a reaction- but for some reason, you find yourself in zero to fury before you even had a chance to think. It can feel so perplexing. There was no meltdown, no real crisis- why is the reaction oh so b...