This beautiful blue eyed boy used to freak out every time he couldn’t see me when he was in this thing, but he was also the kid that would chuck himself off every high thing he could find. He was the kid that would walk himself home from the skatepark covered in blood, the kid that NEEDED those old school reigns, that would be the first to run off to check out all the slides at the park but would be checking where I was every two seconds “just in case”.
Now we are at that point where he is ready to leave the nest, well, he is ready and really not ready but you can’t tell these kids cause they want to go out and experience the world and they wont be told right??
I wanted to come and chat about not what to do about kids that wanted to go out and explore the big wide scary world on their own - that’s for another blog - very soon, cause I’ll be freaking and will need to vent - but about how after some reflection and working with some families in coaching I have learnt some lessons through my journey with mine of them needing you SO MUCH during the journey of them finding their authentic selves through neurodiversity.
Granted, when my son was going through this process I was burnt out and I made a lot of mistakes and I found the constant need for co-regulation so draining, hence the burn out.
Let me explain co-regulation a bit as I have been asked this a bit when I’m in coaching sessions.
Co-regulation starts the first moment we are passed that beautiful baby into our arms, actually probably in the womb, we sing to them, we cradle our hands around our belly at times of high emotion, ups and downs, we protect them from moment dot.
This is because our nervous system, comprising the brain, spinal cord and a network of nerves, plays a central role in co-regulation. It's responsible for receiving, processing, and responding to internal and external stimuli. In co-regulation, one person's nervous system can influence and stabilize another's. This is particularly evident in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which controls involuntary bodily functions, including heart rate, digestion, and respiratory rate.
Emotions cause reactions but also their basic needs cause reactions, as babies when they are hungry they cry, we pick them up and feed them, that’s co-regulation. As toddlers, they struggle to understand how to problem solve, we help them figure out a solution, that’s co-regulation (either with our body, a hug, our voice, reminding them about boundaries, or an action, problem solving).
A neurodiverse kid, these co-regulation techniques might look different from the “norm” because you either need to be more involved with co-regulation or maybe less involved.
Let me give you an example. My boy used to be (actually still is) completely fearless, would climb everything, throw himself off everything, would run towards danger (especially if it happened to have wheels). When he was about 5 he threw himself off the climbing wall while his sister was climbing happily. He crashed at the bottom quite hard and because I was there watching him, and because we were at the recreation center regularly (as I taught gymnastics) he took himself down to the place where there was the ice bags, came back to me with ice on his “ouchy”, sat with me until he felt better, handed me the dripping bag of ice, and got back up on the climbing wall.
The parent who I was sitting with was mortified by how “relaxed” I was with him, but he didn’t need me to be fussy with him, I just needed to be around, he knew where to go, he knew what he needed to feel better, and then he was back playing.
As parents of neurodiverse kids, and lets face it as neurodiverse people, we worry that we’re not doing enough, or we’re doing too much, or we’re just not doing it right, right?
So, let’s look at some of those little things that you are probably already doing that are helping and that you can start making the most of…..
Mirror Neuron Engagement: (I know I know, I hate the buzz words too). This is the brain's function that basically is “monkey see, monkey do”. And this is not me giving you shit about staying calm in times of stress and being pissed off and all that, this is more about noticing the things that your kid has picked up because of the way that you do things.
Have you re-discovered a special interest since you had kids, crafting, drawing, digging in the garden, baking?? The reason I say this is because co-regulation is a lot about being curious and seeking to understand what’s going on for your kid and they are also curious about how you do it all.
Regulating yourself through the things that you enjoy and getting them involved is a great way to co-regulate. Getting involved in the things that they love is also a great way to co-regulate (although you may have to learn to love Bluey or something even more than you do now).
Heavy Work: Just a tip - don’t call it this, cause your kid ISN’T going to like it!!
The idea about “heavy work” activities for neurodiverse kids is that these are activating those parts of the brain where the executive functioning happens rather than where all the emotional regulation is happening. So when they are all emotionally reacting and the executive functioning is NOT happening, the “heavy work” helps bring us back on track. Sometimes I also use the words “problem solving” for some of the kids I work with, they love the idea that they are helping to “solve problems” for their parents or teachers.
Again working with what you know about your family and your kid. Do they love a dark warm space to calm down?? Build a fort together. Love dirt and water and making a mess?? Get out in the garden and water the plants and dig some stuff up. Love collecting and arranging stuff?? Reorganise the cans and plastic cupboard. Now I know you can’t do this every day that they have a meltdown, and you have to come up with a whole bunch of stuff but starting to understand how the “heavy work” thing works, and being aware of their sensory stuff (you can check out my sensory worksheet on my website), you can start to come up with little ways to help them self regulate not only at home but also when you are out and about.
A couple of quick and easy ones I use with some of my clients
Rearrange my coloured pencils in colour order - my Audhd clients especially.
to unpack and repack their bags - especially a good one when having a meltdown about going to school
Screw up paper with each hand and throw it into the bin using each hand - crossing the midline (brain/body connection) helps settle the brain when it’s all over the place.
Self Talk:
Not sure about you but now that I understand my brain better I have realised that there’s an awful lot of self talk going on in there, and a lot of the processing gets done with self talk and creating visual scenes in my head.
So, the learning and research I’ve done tells me that this starts early. Helping them make sense of this and helping them manage the not so great stuff that’s in there - even better.
Ways we can do this is watch what we say to them obviously, but also helping them understand that it doesn’t make them completely nuts, that the voice is there for a reason and it can be super helpful at times 😂
Over time neurodiverse people tend to develop self talk strategies as coping mechanisms, that’s to say we all use self talk, but ND people tend to use it for things like remembering things, talking ourselves through situations, or out of situations (as the case may be), and for most adults they have created for themselves self talk mechanisms for self regulation.
So as a parent or caregiver, teaching our children how to make the most of their brain's strengths and self-talk to regulate their emotions.
Helping identify the emotion that kids are feeling (there’s a feelings wheel resource on my website) and then where they are feeling it in their body so that you can come up with some techniques to help them work through that emotion. Are their heads feeling frustrated and foggy and they need to do some spinning and shaking? Are their fists clenched cause they are feeling angry and ragey? Maybe you can all be one of those men with arms in the air?? Make this work for you and them and have a script (a set of words that you say basically the same each time) so that kids find it easy to remember.
Brain body connection is important because when we are in an emotional state our regular body functions tend to not work as well. So having a few easy things to remember that puts our brain and body back in connection with each other is a good way to self talk and connect the two. A 4 word sentence while touching the thumb to each finger (which is also a pressure point) is one that is commonly used. “I am OK” is one that I have used in the past with a client, I’ve used another one that I won’t share that worked just as well 😂, point being, make it work for you and your kid.
Having a “safe” swear word or words to use when things get tough I think is a good way to have an out “just in case”. I hate it when I’m under pressure and I just need to get out what’s in my head and if I’ve got someone asking me ‘what’s up’, ‘what’s wrong’, ‘what happened’ it makes the meltdown 10 times worse. The time for those questions is after the fact to debrief. So for maybe the older ones that you can have the conversation before and after the meltdown and who gets that there's time and a place…….. this might be an option.
I don’t pretend to be the expert on any of these things but I’ve seen these things work in practice both at home and at school and with my clients. Making this work for kids is not about following a tried and tested method, kids don’t come with a rule book, especially ND kids, so make it work for you and yours.