048 - Co-Regulation and Co-Dysregulation - With Penny Williams

Welcome to the podcast. Today, we are diving deep into co -regulation and co -dysregulation. Don't worry if that's not like words that you know, we'll address that too. And it's something that we talk a lot about, we int a lot about in a lot of episodes. So I'm really glad to have Penny over on the podcast to talk with us about that. Let's get into it.

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Hi

Penny, welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you

here. Thanks having me. I'm really excited to chat with you.

Yeah. I always love chatting with you. Um, so I would like you to start by introducing yourself and telling us a bit more about why you do what you

do. Yeah, I'm Penny Williams and I have the website parentingadhdandautism .com and the beautifully complex podcast. And I basically coach parents of neurodivergent kids and have online trainings and that sort of thing as well for that population. Because when my own kid was diagnosed back in 2008, many years ago now, there really was no help for parents like me. There was nothing to say, here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to change about your approach. And took me a really long time to learn it on my own. And I just hated the idea that I did all this research, I did all this work, and everybody else was gonna have to do the same thing. It made no sense to me. So I started sharing it and ended up growing a business. And this is what I do full time now. And, you know, my kid has sort of shown me the way right and changed my path in life, but definitely for the better.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's, I feel it's still hard to find that now. But like 20 years ago, it must have been just impossible because now there's more and more, but still it's hard to find. So yeah, it's definitely a struggle.

It's a tough journey. It's a tough journey. And I think that a lot of the material out there sometimes really sugarcoats it. And you read books and they say, well, if you just do this reward chart or this token system, or if you're just more structured and it's just so much more complex. Yes. And complicated than that. And many of those things are not going to work, especially if you're not doing the foundational work. If you're not, you know, changing your approach, that stuff just isn't going to work for you. And so, yeah, there's just a plethora of information that you need to know if you're raising kids who have ADHD or autism or anxiety learning disabilities, that sort of thing.

Yeah, for sure. And we wanted to talk today about regulation in a very specific way. And regulation, self -care is I think something that comes up in almost every podcast episode I do with guests, like people, we will talk about that at some point. And I touched briefly recently on co -regulation and escalating, but just as like an introduction. So I'm really glad that we can dive a bit more into those topics because I think it's a big, big part of what makes it smart to bubble. And just like you were saying, reframing the way we parent. So first I would love to get your definition of regulation because it's not necessarily that easy to understand. And I love that listeners can have different definition of it. So how do you define it?

Yeah, I get really excited when we talk about behavior now because the science is really helping us understand the human experience really, and the role that our body is playing in the ways in which we respond to things. And so if you're regulated, I describe it as feeling sort of settled. You don't necessarily have to be calm to be regulated. Your energy needs to match the situation. So, sometimes you do need to have more energy, but you still feel safe and settled, kind of at peace, right? If we're dysregulated, then we feel really out of sorts. Our body doesn't feel quite settled. We are having a hard time maybe with our emotions. We're having a hard time with just being okay with what's happening, right? or the environment that we're in. And so that piece of regulation is helping us move from dysregulated to regulated, right? If we're regulating, we are moving from sort of the state in our nervous system of reactivity to feeling more safe and settled. And I think, you know, when we use those terms, it's a lot easier to understand.

I all of us at some point have felt out of sorts, right? Just out of whack. Yeah, I have anxiety. So I feel that way often all my life. I triggered. But I didn't know, you know, that my body was actually doing that. My body was sending out this signal that said, hey, you know, alarm, alarm, alarm. there's some perceived danger when you have anxiety, it's often a false alarm, right? It's too sensitive, it triggers too often. And I think that's true too for a lot of neurodivergent individuals, especially kids who don't yet have self -awareness and self -regulation, they're getting triggered and they don't know why or what to do with that. And so that's when we see a lot of challenging behavior sometimes. you know, if my nervous system is triggered in that activated zone, then I need to move or I need to protect myself, right? That's that fight or flight zone. And, you know, now we're learning that we can take that information and have it inform the ways in which we help the kids when they are dysregulated. If I'm getting signals that my kid is in that, say that yellow activated fight or flight zone, I know that their body is telling them they need to move. And I need to remind them maybe, let's get up and go for a walk. What if you went outside and jumped on the trampoline?

So we're able now to take all of the stuff that we're learning from the science and use it in our parenting, use it in our human experience because it's true for us as well. Of course. We're humans. We're neurotypicals, right? We all have the same nervous system, it's just more sensitive for some people than others. And some of us know what to do with that information and that trigger from our bodies, and a lot of us don't because we haven't been talking about this for very long.

And sometimes we've been taught and trained to not listen to our bodies signal a lot. So it's hard to learn, it's kind of de -learning or re -learning to listen to our body's trigger and our body's sign of this is how I feel when I'm dysregulated or when I start to feel dysregulated and we're

not used to that. Yeah, if you think about a kid in a classroom, we're telling them to sit still, sit still, sit still, right? That is the expectation all day long in almost every class, right? And if you think about a kid who is getting triggered and their body is in fight or flight, they need to move. And so we're asking them to sit still and their body is telling them they need to move. If we don't allow them to get that movement, what happens? They get more and more dysregulated. They get more and more stressed And they get less and less able to learn actually physiologically, less and less able to learn. So we're actually by instituting these sort of traditional rules of what learning looks like, we're actually keeping kids from learning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I think like it's starting slowly in some classrooms, they are starting to incorporate some more sensory -friendly and movement -friendly things. Like, I know in my kids' elementary school, they add some balls, like gym balls, and they add some, like, heavy animals, like you can put on your legs and things like that. It was starting to be implemented, but it was also a school with some class for kids with special needs. So I think it was coming from there mostly.

So

general school, it's very, very common. Way too slowly, I would say, that adaptation. And it's not, even when it's coming, it's not coming at the level that lots of kid needs.

Yeah, yeah. And so what's happening is we're co -escalating instead of co -regulating with kids, right? When we're asking them to do things without taking into account the signals that their body is giving them, what they need, where they are in that moment, then we're actually making it worse for escalating that situation when really we're trying to control it, right? To me control is a dirty word, I don't like it because we know better now. We know that we're not trying to create many versions of ourselves, right? we're raising individuals, we're educating individuals, but our systems are still trying to work totally on control. And that's where we get into trouble. That's where we are escalating those struggles for our kids instead of helping them to feel okay and safe and settled. Yeah.

And that's an example from school and how would it show up at home, for example,

how as parents are we co -escalating?

Oh so so many times and and here's the thing I want to start by saying that our intention is always good. Yeah. As parents our intention is good and sometimes we get triggered right by our kids behavior and we instinctually and reactively respond before we're able to sort of get control of ourselves. It's going to happen, it's a mistake, Like you repair with your kid, you move on, but we need to really make the assumption that our kids would do well if they could. So if they're yelling at us, if they're saying ugly things, if they're throwing things and breaking things, it's a signal that they are dysregulated and that they need our help. And so when we are reactive or when we try to control their behavior, we escalate the situations. If my kid is upset and he's screaming at me, I hate you, I can't believe you're doing this to me, and I am yelling back, I'm escalating that situation big time. Because he's already overwhelmed with emotion that he cannot manage clearly. And I'm piling on to that. And, you know, a big aha for me as a parent was when I understood that when we get super emotional, when we feel unsafe, our emotional brain and our survival brain take over and physiologically cut off access to the thinking brain. So I often refer myself as the great rationalizer. I'm very type A. I want to fix everything right and I want to

take care of things right away. We don't wait. And so every time my kid would get dysregulated, every time he was going into meltdown, I just wanted to talk him out of it. I want to talk him through it. I wanted to help him to get through that emotional thing. But what I was doing was adding language he couldn't process, adding expectations he couldn't process, he couldn't do anything with. So I was actually building that overwhelm and making it worse. Adding to the stress. Yeah. Adding to the

stress that he was feeling in the

moment. Instead helping. Yeah. And I love that you brought up stress too, because as he got older, he would say to me, you're putting too much pressure on me. And I would just ask him to something. He'd be like, nope, too much pressure. I'm like, man, you need to do things. You need to get things done. And I had to learn that what he was saying to me was he needed more time to get really settled, get his thinking brain online and working, and then he could take care of things. And so a lot of times we would come home from school and I'd be like, okay, what do you got for homework? How was your day? Blah, blah, blah. Because I'm a let's take care of what got to take care of and get through it. And he needed zero pressure for a while, zero talking so that he could get regulated after all the stress of school. And just had to learn how to interpret those signals. So he wasn't saying, I'm not going to do that stuff and I don't care about it. He was saying, I need time with nothingness, so that I can get back to a place where things are doable for me. And I just had to learn how to interpret that. But I escalated for a long, long time. I didn't know any better, right? If we, we can only do what we know to do.

For And I love that. What you said that is, it's interpretation, because it's not clear most of the time, like he was not coming like has this eight year old telling you, you know what, mom, I need to just rest and have nobody talking to me and no expectation on me for at least an hour when I come

back from school because it was a very stressful day. And after that, I will be able to do what you're asking me to do. Like no seven year old ever will tell you that. No,

always coming up with

behavior. And that's when the behavior is triggering us because we think that we're really fast. And as you were talking about anxiety, like we will go very fast in the downward spiral of if he's acting that way now, he's going to do that in his entire life and we will never

be

functioning adults. And don't do it on like consciously, but that's still what we're doing.

We do it out of fear, right? We future cast out of fear. And I remember, oh my gosh, everything went berserk when my kid went to kindergarten. Like everything was just bad. And I kept thinking about all these things that he wasn't able to do yet. Oh my gosh, he's going to be walking across the stage to graduate from high school and he's still going to be bumping into walls or all these sensory things he was doing, or he still won't be able to read yet. It's natural because we fear for our kids because we want the best for them. We really do have to be mindful and not go there because none of that stuff was true when he graduated and he actually had a drive through graduation because it was COVID.

So he didn't even walk across the stage, but like, you know. You what

will happen, right?

Exactly. It goes to show that we have no idea what 10 years from now is going to look like. And we have a lot of fears for it, but if we're spending all our energy on those fears, then we're not spending energy on things that could actually help shape that future to look better, to look more like what we want it to be for our kids. And you're bringing up a good point here about intention. And I learned to really step back and ask myself, is my kid intentionally trying to hurt me now with what he's saying? Is he intentionally trying to hurt me now with the behavior that he has? The answer always, for me at least, with the kid I have was no, it was never his intention. And I think that it's a good measure for parents and for educators to figure out where a kid is really coming from, if we can look at that intention and see that, yes, they're trying to do harm or no, they're not. Because most often and they're not. And it comes back to what Ross Green says, kids do well if they can. And that was the first big shift for me. It was reading The Explosive Child. I was like, oh my gosh, if I'm assuming that my kid is doing the best that he can in those moments, then certainly I'm not taking it so personally. Having a hard time. He's not trying to make my life miserable. all, he's actually struggling. I think that's a really good measure. You know, he I knew that he was a super kind kid. So if my super kind kid is now screaming awful things at me, is that really him?

Yeah, no, it's not them. No,

yeah, it's their disregulated state. It's not

where they

are at their best. And I, someone and And cannot remember who recently said like, when you have a four -year -old talking about like haughty related words, like using those words all the time, we kind of, we said we're not using those words, but we don't make a big deal out of it because it's just normal. But when kids grow older, when they start to use names and say bad words, we often react much more. But it's kind of like teenagers equivalent of those words are words that can be very helpful, like hurtful, and that are swear words. And like, I'm not going to give example right now. But like, it can be hurtful, but we tend to react much more. But in general, it's the same level of language, they're doing it with the same intent of just expressing themselves. And we are giving it a lot of importance. In the same way we give a lot of importance on little kids using potty related words, they will just keep doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not saying that we're excusing the behavior, right? No. You know, it's not okay for your kid to say awful things to you, but this is where they are at that moment. These are the skills that they have and the control that they have over their own regulation at that moment. So I always teach parents and teachers put yet on the end. So my kid can't express to me how angry he is with me in a healthier way yet, right?

My kid can't tie his shoes yet. I remember freaking out when my kid was six years old and couldn't tie his shoes yet. And I thought, oh my gosh, he's gonna be like, again, wearing Velcro closure shoes when he graduates from high school, he'll never tie his shoes, right? Of course he learned to tie his shoes. He just didn't do it in the same timeline that we expect maybe from neurotypical kids, right? So I think when we're talking about neurodivergence, we just have to be open to sliding that timeline. And the word yet helps us do that. It us get in that really helpful mindset of pushing the timeline. And

helps with the future projecting. Like if you come back to that yet, I think it's really helpful also to say, it's just now, it's not in 10 years, it's right now.

And the shoe tying, for example, that you were referencing, There is so many options now that you can have like elastic laces on your shoes. Nobody will notice that you don't know how to tie your shoes or like any sort of closer. I have a child, it took 10 years to tie shoes, but we bought shoes that had cool closer system that were easier to manage. And nobody noticed and nobody cared and it was working well. And they would have been able to tie shoes, but then they would be late all the time because it was

taking

time. And I think that's also like, we will be freaking out if we can find a solution that are out of the box. And it's just right now solution. It doesn't have to be forever.

I think that's a big worry. And though, too, that I would ask a parent in that situation is, so what if they never tie their shoes their whole life. Because there are options, right? We do have all these elastic lace options now, which were starting to come out about a year before my kid figured out how to tie shoes. So I was like, Oh, thank goodness. Like it isn't the end of the world now you can wear because they get big enough. It's really hard to find shoes that has closures without laces really out. So we're really bumping up against that issue. But there's so many things that we worry about that we find normal and I'm using air quotes with normal and then we worry that it's going to be a forever thing some of it is so what it's a so what so what if that person never ever ties their shoes if they had something like cerebral palsy they would never be able to, we couldn't do it. Nobody would judge, right? So why does it matter? If you have ADHD, and you never tie your shoes?

Yeah, nobody really cares. It's not gonna keep you

from having a great life. And I think when we are future planning, we are escalating ourselves.

Yes, totally. We are, we are dysregulating ourselves with that thinking. And that, you know, brings up another good point. A lot of parenting kids who are complex requires flexibility in our thinking. We need to change our thinking. We need to have radical acceptance of what is and what the timeline is for our kids and what might be different in their lives. Because when we get okay with those things, we're not freaking out about them. We're not freaking out about their future. There's so much more room for joy. There's so much more room for being in the right mindset to be helpful instead of escalating, to be that calm anchor and that co -regulator. If we're freaking out all the time, if we don't have acceptance, then we're fighting against everything all the time and we're taking up all of the space with that, all of it. And so we can't, we can't make progress, we can't have moments of joy and peace, or we can't notice them when we do have them, right? Because we're so immersed ourselves in that dysregulated space. Yeah.

And when we are doing that, we are then able to support our kids and we are escalating with them much more than we are co -regulating with them. So yeah, I think that sums it well. And before we end, I wanted to ask if you had any resource, you talked about Ros Green, we had a few people talk about that, if you have any resource that you would like to share with the audience, something that you use yourself for yourself or for clients that could be helpful.

Yeah, so many things. And we certainly have our own courses and stuff. But something that I think is really, really helpful in the space of talking about regulation is Kelly Mahler's interoception curriculum. Interoception is that sense of our body signals. So if my stomach is growling, I'm noticing it, and I'm interpreting it as saying I'm hungry. And that really, really helps with regulation and self -regulation, right? And so I think that's a good resource for your listeners if they want to get even deeper

into regulation because we don't, like, I didn't know about interoception probably until 10 years after my kid was diagnosed, had never heard the word.

not that talked about, like, it still

is

something that is not talked about that much today.

No, we're getting better. Yeah, but it's super important. And kids who are on the spectrum, often struggle with noticing their body signals, or they work really hard not to focus on them like my own son who is now 21. He would not do a body scan it freaked him out. He probably still wouldn't do it. But he's getting better. But he could not think about the breath in his lungs. He couldn't think about the beating of his heart. It totally freaked him out. So, you know, building those connections in their minds in ways that work for them can be more difficult. And so Kelly's curriculum is really great at working with all kinds of kids in all kinds of, you know, stages of that. And, and I would highly recommend that for anyone who's listening to do more of a deep dive in that area.

Yeah, and it doesn't, it's just not just for autistic kids, it can be for anybody, like everybody as as interoception needs, and it can struggle with that to some different levels.

So yeah, that's a very,

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, as a person with anxiety who gets a lot of body signals, I have been acutely aware of what my body is telling me for a really long time, but only because like, it was screaming so loud at me, right. That I couldn't ignore it. And I could easily make that connection. Oh, you know, my skin is tingling. I must be panicking right now.

Right. like, and so, you know, it is for everybody. Kelly is just really good at adapting that for neurodivergent people. Right.

Thank you. So if people want to know more about you, get support from you, of course, they can go to the podcast, Beautifully Complex. And what else like, where can they find

you? Yeah, ParentingADHDandAutism .com is the easiest. Everything is linked up there. Our behavior program, lots of other resources, free resources like the podcast, other courses, summits, like there's so many things that I get my hands into, but it's all linked up there.

Great, perfect. We'll link everything in the show notes so people can find it easily. Thank Thank you very much for being here today. That is really appreciated.

Always a pleasure.

I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes as soon as they drop, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and please leave everything in review so other parents can find it too. Also check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments .ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now. And take a deep breath, keep going, we're all in this together.

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