Show Notes
Parenting a PDA, autistic, or highly sensitive child can put enormous pressure on parents to stay calm all the time.
If that's your day, start with my free 3 Shifts guide — the three patterns most parents get pulled into during a meltdown, and how to shift them: https://www.illuminateu.ca/3-shifts-free-guide-podcast
We hear that our nervous system regulates our child’s nervous system — and that message is true. But many parents walk away from that idea believing that regulation means being calm and perfectly composed no matter what.
And when we can’t do that — which is often — we feel like we’re failing.
In this episode, Afshan Tafler explores a different understanding of nervous system regulation in parenting.
Real regulation doesn’t always look calm. Sometimes it looks messy. Sometimes it looks like feeling big emotions while learning how to work with them safely instead of suppressing them.
Children don’t learn regulation from perfectly calm parents. They learn it by watching how we navigate big feelings and come back to connection.
In this episode you’ll learn:• why the pressure to stay calm can lead to burnout • what “functional freeze” or “pretend calm” looks like • why regulation is about capacity, not perfection • how children learn nervous system regulation through co-regulation • why messy regulation can be healthier than suppressing emotions→ Read the full blog article here→ Free resource:Download 7 Steps to Regulated & Resilient Parenting with Your PDA, Autistic, Hypersensitive Child
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It's the fear so many parents of PDA and autistic kids carry: that today's aggression means something frightening about their child's future. In Part 3 of this series I gently take that fear apart, and offer a completely different way to understand how our kids actually learn.