Helping Children Catch your Calm with Nervous System Co-Regulation

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Learn how staying regulated helps you respond calmly to kids’ big behaviors. Lauren shares simple ways to stay grounded and support co-regulation.

In this episode, Lauren explores the importance of adult emotional regulation when navigating children’s challenging behaviors. She emphasizes that outbursts aren’t personal—they’re rooted in a dysregulated nervous system. By staying calm and composed, adults can create a sense of safety that allows children to begin co-regulating. Lauren shares practical strategies like pausing before responding, reframing the moment, and using grounding techniques to manage your own emotional state. She reminds us that regulation doesn’t mean you aren’t frustrated—it means choosing not to let that frustration lead.

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Episode Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, I'm excited for this one because man, we're talking about kids and behavior. I feel like everyone takes it so personally. And hey, I have an almost three year old and sometimes even though I know this and I can logically tell myself like this has nothing to do with you Lauren. My subconscious is like, you are trying to attack me. That's not really what's going on. I mean, they might actually physically be, he might be physically trying to attack me, but it's logical, rational, regulated thought.

So today's episode, we're gonna talk about when it's not about you, because most of the behaviors are not about you. Their behavior feels so personal to us, but almost always it isn't. And our own nervous systems get so triggered when they are dysregulated. So, we really have to separate ourselves from the behavior. Like what's mine and what's theirs and how am I taking what's theirs and making it escalate what's mine and then what's mine even greater escalation to theirs and it just goes poof and it just gets out of control. So, your regulation, as the adult, like you're staying regulated and you're co-regulation matters way more than their outburst. Like, if you want to stop behavior quickly, the best thing that you can do is teach yourself to regulate really well in those dysregulated moments.

So, that one, those dysregulation meltdown outbursts, screaming, talking back, swearing, whatever comes into play, you stay really, really regular, which is so hard, y'all. I have been doing this work for like 15 plus years and I'm humbly very good at coaching people through it. Families, educators, systems, even people that are outside of education. What I really realized when I had my own child, my first child is it is really hard to do this work at home. like, I'm like, wow, I'm like in the moment can coach people and see things and shift them and guide them. And in my own home, I am failing. So, for like the first two years of his life, I'm like, that was a failure. That was a failure. That was a failure. And I was, I was catching myself getting dysregulated where I was, I was catching his dysregulation. So, I'm like, okay, he's wild crazy. Now I'm like feeling like anxious and tight and stressed and tense. And I feel like I'm about to pop. So, I had to teach myself how to regulate down. So, when I feel like I'm about to pop, I'm like, this is not about you Lauren. This is a child who is learning how to regulate and he needs your guidance and he needs you to be calm so you can catch your calm, because that's how the nervous system works.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so hang with me here, but ever have student who like threw a chair or a desk across the room, screamed at you, glared at you like you personally insulted their grandmother. Oh, I remember my first classroom. Oh, it's hard, hard start. My first year of teaching, I graduated early, so was like 20 years old. I don't think I was even 21 yet. I had, I didn't know what I was doing. And I had some students who really challenged me and yeah, they became some of my favorites. And I know when I was with that favorites, but let's be honest, we have favorites and my favorites are always the ones that are crying out for help that people aren't seeing and are ignoring and are writing off. But for a really long time before I understood what was really going on with behavior in the nervous system, I used to think: “What did I do? Like, what did do to you? Like, why are you treating me like that? Why do you hate me?” And I didn't ask those questions, but I did in my mind. But turns out it wasn't actually ever about me. It was about the nervous system. And the minute that I realized that and moving forward, I stopped taking all behavior personally or any behavior personally. I realized that I stopped escalating myself alongside them or tried like even getting away from like powering over them and authoritarian figure over them. And I started to actually be able to help them.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, let's talk first about the problem with taking it personally. So, as I said a moment ago, your lovely neural workings in your brain and body, there are something called mirror neurons and mirror neurons kind of see what's going on and they mirror what they see. So, like that's why you've maybe heard like someone will say like you act like the five people you spend the most time with. Well, that's mirror neurons because you're trying to do the things they do or act like them or say the things they say because your neural wiring in your brain is like, I heard that I saw that I heard that I saw that and it just keeps storing it and rehearsing it and just the pathway is formed. So, it's the same for dysregulation in children. Our stress response starts to mirror theirs when we take it personally. But if we don't take it personally, we can keep ourselves regulated and our regulated nervous system can mirror to them, it is safe here. I'm going to help you. When we feel attacked, either like physically or, and sometimes we are physically attacked, but psychologically, we go into this fight flight mode, or maybe you go into free spawn, but suddenly the adult in the room isn't regulating. They're just reacting and reacting without thinking that kind of emotional brain overriding the thinking brain usually doesn't result in things that we want or things that we like. We usually regret how we responded later. I know a lot of parents can resonate with that. The behavior is definitely directed at us. Like that's not not true. Like it's directed at us, but it's not about us.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Think of it as like a... This is a terrible example, but I'm gonna say it anyhow, because it just came to mind. feel like it's a good visual representational, representational, representational. Think of behavior responses, like outward actions of behavior of students of any age, or even just adults, as like an emotional shrapnel from an internal explosion. Like , internally, it's like blah, blah, blah, it's chaos. And the behavior that feels directed at you, it's just shrapnel from so for those who explain that word is like it's like a debris or like something kind of internally explodes it's like pieces or chunks of maybe if it's like metal pieces or chunks of metal if it's brick it's like pieces or chunks of brick but they're like flying all over place from the explosion that's kind of what this behavior is you're in the classroom or you're in the household so you're in the blast zone even though you didn't light the fuse, you still get hit. Like that's part of it. think what I hear in education a lot is like, I didn't sign up for this. I'm not gonna get paid enough for this. Well, yes, that's true. And also these kids, depending on their backgrounds may not have anybody else. And they may be in a horrific situation that they also didn't choose and they definitely don't want to be in. so we have this incredible power to help kids regulate by regulating ourselves first. And not only that, it just feels better for us. We respond better. Because I mean, going to the shame spiral, like, oh, I can't believe I responded like that, and it was a terrible day, and I go home, and I just keep ruminating on the thought. Now I'm in the shame spiral, and I come back to work the next day, and I don't even want to go back to work the next day, because I'm still stuck in my shame spiral. If you stayed regulated or even if you didn't stay regulated, because we are human and we are gonna leave our regulation, but always do the repair work, go back and do the repair work. But, what happens when you take it personally is you can go right into power struggles. Everything escalates, nervous systems escalate, shame spirals for them, for you, and you walk away feeling awful. It's kind of like, I don't know how many of you are, like, close to, familiar with, have ever seen tornadoes, it's kind of like the tornado starts and it's just like picking up the speed and it's like swirling. And it's like arguing with that. And then you just get sucked into it. So, you've got to like stand firm in your regulation and foundation and be like, I'm not going to get sucked into the chaos of the tornado. My therapist also used to, her references were good too. She said it's like an emotional roller coaster. So, like when there are a lot of breakdowns and like ups and downs, when you choose to get dysregulated or not to choose not to stay regulated. And it's a practice skill. So, give yourself some grace. And there's this emotional roller coaster. I'm full of analogies today. Wow. The roller coaster like makes you sick because you're just like up down, up down, up down, up down. Well, you don't have to ride it with them. Like, get off the roller coaster and regulate yourself. And guess what? They get off too.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, nervous system here is key. How do we regulate ourselves to help them regulate. How do we co-regulate? So, if we are staying regulated, it's called co-regulation when they catch our calm, when they catch our regulation, because regulation is contagious and so is dysregulation. But you are the thermostat, not the thermometer. Oh my gosh, the analogies again. Your job is not to match their state. It's like I said with the tornado, like hold steady, hold firm so that they can come back down, just like temperature.

Okay, so in the moment when you feel like this is so hard, there's a really good quote by Victor Franco and he's like, between the stimulus and the response is like the zone where everything can change. And he's true, it's true, it's true, that's right. But that zone happens so quickly that most of the times we just stimulus response, stimulus response, we respond the same way. We're trying to break the pattern. We're trying to like stimulus, pause, different behavior, respond.

The more you listen to stuff like this, like what I'm talking about, put it in your brain, you think about it and you like preventatively think about it and the scenarios happen, what will eventually happen is the space gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, and then you can catch yourself. So when I was feeling myself with my kiddo like, oh, I'm gonna pop, and a couple of times I did where I'd like yelled and there was shame all over, like just days of shame, especially because I do this for a living and I'm like, wow, you can't even get it right, Lauren, when you do it for a living. I have graced myself now, but I don't anymore because what I've been able to do is when that moment comes and I start to feel a little bit of, just the slightest bit of elevation where I'm like, he's really dysregulated. You are getting dysregulated. Pause, breathe, walk away, take a break, whatever it is that you need to do between that stimulus before I respond. And I respond so much better because I respond from a place of thinking, from logic, from my prefrontal cortex versus letting my emotional brain take over, join him in this dysregulation, and then it just spirals out of control because responses from your emotional brain aren't very good.

So, pause. When you feel yourself starting to escalate, maybe take some breaths. If you feel like that's not enough or it doesn't work for you, take a little walk away, turn away for a second. This is all happening in seconds here. Maybe even name what you feel. Name what's going on. Like for me, I'm like... I'm feeling a tightness in my chest. I feel like I want to yell right now. Okay, that's my cue to soften. Do the opposite, soften. And I go give him a hug instead. I don't want to. What I want to do is be like, stop doing that right now. But I know that's not helpful because that's just taking energy up. So, instead I'm like, I can see your body is moving really fast. It might need a tight hug or squeeze, only squeeze and things like that. So, you you've got to train yourself to respond differently.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Something else I really like that works really well for me that I lurked, lurked, lurked, learned, and I guess worked is what I combined that word with there. In Dr. Wood's work, he does a lot of nervous system retraining. He does like anchoring words or anchoring gestures or like self touches, and they're really good. It's like hand on your heart, like a really good firm hand on your heart, tapping, tapping your legs, saying something like, I am safe, they are safe, we are safe, it's all okay. I like to grab my shoulders and kind of squeeze as like a self hug. All of those things are down regulating that you can do in the matter of like five seconds.

So pause, do the thing, breath, walk away, hug, state the mantra. And then when you are a little bit more regulated, respond. Note that your ability to regulate doesn't mean that you're not feeling frustrated. In all these moments, I'm still feeling frustrated. It just means I don't let the frustration lead. That's the difference. I'm like, and there it is, i'm feeling like I'm about to pop. Okay, respond differently.

I think reframing helps too, because again, this isn't about you. It's about nervous system distress and dysregulation. It's not intentional defiance. So, when I think to myself like, oh my gosh, he's doing this to me, I could instead say like, he's showing me what he can't say. Wow, those students are being so disrespectful. Hmm, I don't feel respected right now, therefore I don't feel safe right now. I feel a little bit threatened and that's really subconsciously what's going on. They are manipulating me. Or maybe they're just trying to get a need met the only way that they know how.

Reframing really helps to reduce resentment because resentment kicks into play a lot here and it really helps to build relational trust too. Like I remember yesterday, my two year old. had these wooden sticks from his camping set and he came back from behind and he just whacked me in the back of the leg so hard, he left a big red mark. And I was like, ouch, that hurt. And I raised my voice a little bit and in moments like that, that's okay, because that was a safety concern and I wanted him to experience and know clearly, that really hurt. And then, instead of like, put that away, I'm taking that from you, that's not what we do. I said, “I think you're trying to get my attention. I think you might need a hug right now. I think you might need to have a hug from me or you'd like me to play with you because that's what was really driving that choice.” It was a way to get my attention and it got it really fast. So, I can kind of address that like, ouch, that really hurts. I need to give you some feedback and let you know that hurts. And I can also simultaneously be like, and I'm not going to respond the way that I normally do. I'm going to respond with like, I know what's going on here. Let me get that need met.

So, you know, ideally, there comes into play there a little bit of like, negative behavior, reinforcement of negative behavior. We don't want to have that happen. So once I get him a little bit of reinforcement and I get him regulated, then I might tell him, show him, teach him a more appropriate way to get my attention next time. It doesn't involve plastic logs, lacking back of legs.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, let's try this. Pause. Think. What behavior triggers you the most? Do you know what mine is? It makes me laugh kind of. You know what the like childhood behavior, think about what in school age drives me the most? I guess maybe, I don't know, talking when I'm talking. But at home, it's definitely whiny. Like whiny, oh, stop the whining. I'm going to lose my mind. So, which behavior at home in school triggers you the most? Which one like really like that one's gonna set me off?

Okay, now that you have that behavior locked in, ask yourself, what's the story I tell myself when that behavior happens? What's probably going on under the surface when that behavior happens. What's the one thing I can do or say next time to stay anchored when that behavior happens?

Taking a quick moment to reflect like this not only kind of helps you to view the behavior and what's happening underneath it differently, but it also helps you to plant the seed for next time. So when the same behavior comes to play, because it probably will, you're ready to respond differently because you've planted that thought in your mind already.

Lauren Spigelmyer: All right, so a nutshell, behavior is not about you. It's about nervous system dysregulation. So if you can keep your nervous system regulated, they are far more likely to get and stay regulated. And this is the kind of work that we do at Five Eyes and it's the kind of stuff that we're teaching in our new program called the Behavior Breakthrough. So, it is all about swapping the chaos and dysregulation for strategies and calm that could be integrated into your everyday life in the classroom and really just helping people understand what's going on in the nervous system. What are the needs that are really driving behavior and how do we get those things met so behavior stops? That way behavior doesn't leave you feeling drained at the end of the day or in a shame spiral or leaving you feel like you're stuck in survival mode and you're about to burn out.

So, the Behavior Breakthrough Course is an online self-paced program, highly researched back, nervous system-based, neuroscience-based, trauma-invested, so beyond trauma-informed, that helps educators really understand behavior through a nervous system lens and needs lens and helps them to work towards preventing it before the behavior spirals and before they decide they're ready to leave the with their job completely or have to like take large chunks of mental health chime off. So we're working on preventing burnout and keeping people in the field. But the best part about this program runs summer, fall, spring is that you can get 4.5 credits from the University of Pennsylvania.

So, we this week, last week, last week started the summer cohort and we'll in a couple of weeks, in the fall, start the fall cohort. So, if you want to learn more, you're welcome to go to the five Ives website, F-I-V-E-I-V-E-S and shoot us a message about it. But we're also going to link below in the show notes, the landing page where you can learn more about like what is the description? Like what is the curriculum? How much does it cost? What about the credits? How do I get the credits? Do I get a grade? How do I get all these things? Because most schools and many schools do reimburse for credited programs like this.

So, we would love to help you through behavior and prevent you from leaving the field. Don't forget to take what you learned today and apply it. It might be helpful to really think about like what keeps you anchored, like what's gonna keep you regulated and plant that seed in your mind so that you use it the next time that stimulus response happens.

Lauren Spigelmyer: And next episode, we're going to go into what happens when consequences backfire. Until next episode, I'm Lauren Spigelmeyer and thank you for joining me.


Categories: : Regulation Strategies

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