Episode 30: Intentional Parenting, Nervous System Regulation, and Kids’ Emotional Health with Katie Crosby of Thriving Littles
All parents want their kids to feel safe and secure in the world around them. Yet often, parents can send kids the message that their big emotions are unsafe. As an occupational therapist who is well versed in supporting kids’ emotions, Katie starts by providing some helpful definitions around the different states of regulation. Not only do we talk about dysregulation, co-regulation, and self-regulation as concepts, but we also get super practical and talk about what each of these stages of regulation can look like in everyday life. And we are not just looking at our children’s nervous systems, but examining our own pathways of regulation. Join us for this rich conversation about what it could look like to take the next step toward wholeness in your family’s pursuit of emotional wellness.
Join us as we discuss:
A definition of occupational therapy and its focus on wholeness
Identifying dysregulation, co-regulation, and self-regulation
Some tangible examples of what a dysregulated child looks like
How a parent’s state of regulation can impact the child’s
What a child’s under-developed brain needs to borrow from adults
Where authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting miss the mark
Examining your own nervous system when interacting with a dysregulated child
Why it is important to set our expectations based on a child’s developmental capabilities
How a child’s behavior may be communicating an unmet need
Beginning to recognize when a child is suppressing emotion and behaving performatively
Some pitfalls of behaviorist parenting
Connecting our childhood attachment styles to our present ability to self-regulate
Practical tips for overcoming relational wounding through relational healing
Recognizing how physical and spiritual and emotional healing work together
About Katie
Katie is an occupational therapist specializing in intergenerational care who sees connection with the body, others, and community as a conduit for that.
Katie merged professional training and background with 20+ years of experience with kids and families alongside her personal path to develop online programs and education to be accessible for all who want them. She now works as a pediatric OT and coach for adults and families around the world who are passionate about living life as their fullest, most present selves.
Resources mentioned
Use code ROOTED for 40% off your purchase of Katie’s Coregulation Bundle (masterclass and guide)
The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel
No-Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel
Attachment Styles Test by Diane Poole Heller
Connect
Katie Crosby of Thriving Littles | Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | Pinterest
“We are giving kids the pathways to regulate their nervous system and to feel secure enough and safe enough in the world to live to their fullest potential and purpose.”
Transcript
Kori Meloy Welcome to the Freely Rooted podcast, where we are passionate about helping women reclaim their metabolisms, restore their youthful vitality, and rediscover God's original design for motherhood and wellness.
Fallon Lee We are your hosts, Fallon and Kori, and we're so glad you're joining us for season four. If you're new here, be sure to listen to our previous episodes where we talk through many of our favorite foundational topics. Now grab your favorite nourishing drink and join us as we continue discussing simple, attainable, and life-changing approaches to wellness.
Kori Meloy Katie, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here. I know Fallon is too. Your platform is such a breath of fresh air to me. I love how the algorithm, by now— like if I click on Instagram, even if you made a post like three days prior, it's like right there on the front of my feed. I'm like, oh my gosh. It's just such a breath of fresh air to me. Your perspective is just so beautiful and we're so excited to have you on. And I would love for you to tell our audience just how you have come into the place where you are now as an occupational therapist and just what you've cultivated online and put into digital products and platforms now. And also you work with people as well. But yeah, tell us a little bit about your story of how you got into this place.
Katie Crosby Well, thank you. And hello, everyone. Thanks, Kori and Fallon, for having me on. I'm super excited to connect with you, and I've been kind of a follower for a while through both of your worlds. And occupational therapy— so I'm an occupational therapist by training. And it's really evolved over time again and again. But how I started out was really a lot of nudges toward working with kids in some capacity. So I was always babysitting constantly growing up, and I always felt a security around kids and was really into just play and relating and the honesty, I think, sometimes brutal honesty that can be with kids. But I didn't really want to be a teacher. I tried to go into education for a bit after undergrad, and a lot of different experiences led me to totally change my life path. So for a while I thought I wanted to be a CEO, corner office in the city, then I lost my brother actually at the end of high school just before I went to college. So I kind of spent college like, I don't want to do that anymore. I need to do something meaningful and make an impact in a different way. And so I graduated undergrad thinking I still don't really know, but I'll take action. And I started to get a job for the unemployment agency in Michigan, actually. And I talked with a claimant whose daughter was traveling the world talking about ergonomics. So in this really roundabout way, she was an occupational therapist. And that's how I first heard of it. And then I moved to Chicago and started dating my now husband, who lived behind a pediatric occupational therapy clinic. And that was really what— I was like, wow, OT and kids, this combined thing. So a lot of different synchronicities that really led me to OT, which a lot of people don't know what occupational therapy is. And it's really this weird thing often. So to give an overview of it, it's really looking at how occupation brings mental wellness. So not just kind of talking about it or therapizing which can absolutely be helpful, but looking at how we can heal and integrate our whole selves through daily routines and occupations. So whether that is relating with peers, relating with family, or play, sleep, eating, all of the things that we do through daily life. And then really what led me to Thriving Littles was recognizing how little known a lot of the work that we were doing in the clinic was. So looking at the nervous system and stress responses and how those things get in the way of OT or of wellness, of wholeness. So from there, it started to open up a lot of the things that I needed to unpack. And I looked at my own behavior and I thought, wow, I have a lot of these same stress responses that are coming up and my own family patterns that were some helpful, some not helpful. And really led me to merge it with a lot of looking at trauma healing and moving through some more intense things and how everything fit together. So that really allowed me to work with kids and families through Thriving Littles when I started this online world almost five years ago. And then really specializing in supporting parents and now even just adults in general moving through triggers and stress responses and things like that. So lots of different little— it's like a very God-led path that brought me here and talking with you today.
Fallon Lee I love that. Thank you for sharing a snippet of your story. And just to echo what Kori said, we're just so thankful to have you on here today. What you're doing is so important, and we're super thankful to share this time and space with you. And I love that you gave a definition of occupational therapy because even as you started getting into it, I was like, wait, do I know how to define occupational therapy? And so that was really helpful, and I would love to kind of continue that conversation of a bit of a verbiage breakdown. Let's talk about— before we get into the weeds of all of these words, can you walk us through dysregulation, co-regulation, and self-regulation? The meaning behind those words and how they apply to kids and to parents or adults as well.
Katie Crosby Yes, the words are important, and dysregulation is one that is out there more and more, which is really exciting because it really is an entirely different way of looking at behavior. So versus looking at behavior as intentional or kids doing something to be stubborn or defiant or whatever. We're looking at it as a state or something happening deeper. So dysregulation is a disorganized response to an emotion or sensation in the body. Or reactive, I could say reactive, too. So instead of feeling sad and crying or going to somebody sharing about it, we might feel sad and then get really angry or abrasive or reactive. So it's coming out in a way that isn't necessarily aligned with what is happening on the inside. And then co-regulation is a process of being alongside another person that is regulated enough to almost lend—thinking about our brains as social organs and our nervous system—it's like they're almost lending their capacity to the other person. So with kids, we're talking about it from a lens of their brains are really not developed in many ways. So obviously they're incredible. And from the time they're newborns, there's so much there. And there is a lot that isn't there yet. So it's really their ability to move from that reactive sensory motor reflexive way of engaging with the world. So they feel something on the inside, they react. What allows them to develop the ability to do that on their own—to regulate on their own—is thousands of repetitions of going through this co-regulation process alongside an adult. So it's really wiring their stress and pleasure response systems. And whatever they learn about their attachment— so ideally, they learn that attachment feels nurturing and supportive. Alternatively, they can learn that attachment feels stressful, but they still develop that attachment system in some way. So co-regulation ideally is where they're developing the brain capacity that stress— or rather attachment and connection feels pleasurable and they can experience sensations in the body and move through it in a way that feels like they can match their hopes or their intention with their outer behavior or their response. And then self-regulation is the outcome of that. So we have dysregulation and then co-regulation, and self-regulation is the outcome where ideally they can be in space. So right now we're doing a lot of self-regulation, just filtering through sounds that we might hear or how much we need to activate our bodies against gravity. So there's a lot that happens in order for us to communicate and filter the sounds that we need to hear. And self-regulation is the ability to do that in an organized way and really monitor and modify our behavior and intentions and sensations. So it's really looking at a lot of the things that we view as mental illness are a breakdown somewhere in this pathway. So we're helping kids to develop this pathway. I feel like we have a huge influence, and we're not responsible for everything of course. I really believe that there are going to be painful, hard things that happen no matter what we do. And biology and other things are a big factor. But it's really thinking about how we're giving kids these pathways to regulate their nervous system and to feel secure enough and safe enough in the world and live to their fullest potential and purpose and all that good stuff.
Kori Meloy That was such a great explanation and I love what you talked about with just the idea of looking at a child and being able to kind of flip the script of what we might see as bad behavior or just labeling, labeling the behavior, and then flipping that script and being able to be like, wow, there's some dysregulation that might be happening right now. And for our audience that is new to maybe reframing these ideas and might have their base of understanding when it comes to children's behavior as more of those moralistic and reward based behavior programs, I wonder how you would introduce our audience to recognizing what dysregulation might look like in practical terms?
Katie Crosby Great question. So really, we're in a new paradigm of looking at behavior, relationships, emotions. So we're coming from this older paradigm of really behaviorism—which I know you've talked about quite a bit in regards to nutrition—where we're looking at behavior as something that is either bad or good and we can extinguish or we have a positive reinforcement, which again really is missing all of the neurobiology and the humanity behind what we are wanting or how we're wanting to support kids in developing these pathways. So when I think about science in daily life to look for with dysregulation, even going back to infancy, dysregulation is really part of our development. So we're not looking at it as, again, this bad thing to go away as much as this is a sign that we can support. So infants have that, again, that reflexive need. So when they're hungry and they cry, it's actually a helpful way that they're communicating and getting their needs met. And then older kids might start to look like— for example, a lot of referrals that I'll get is like hitting siblings or having difficulty at mealtimes. So not a lot of digestion sitting at the table. A lot of nervous system regulation goes into just completing these daily tasks. Difficulty getting dressed, whether it is something like organizing, sequencing, planning how to get dressed. Visually, spatially, processing how the clothes go. Feeling sensitivity to a tag or a seam. And then suddenly, instead of filtering it in a way that is supportive and that we can habituate that sensation— so we might feel a tag or a seam and we start to notice it and it might be a little irritating, but then our system habituates it and regulates it. And kids have difficulty discriminating that or are over responsive to that, it might bother them all day long. So it's like they have this constant irritating thing that they're not able to articulate. And tactile is one that's really emotionally linked. They all are, but tactile is really hard to articulate often. We also see this with temperature. So kids that are suddenly wanting to jump out of the car seat or maybe they're overwhelmed by the movement input, so the vestibular input. And as an OT, I'm looking at all the sensory systems. So the eight sensory systems— we often learn five, and there are three others: interoception, proprioception, vestibular— that we really look at in a deep way because of how it impacts their ability to self-regulate and how sensitivities can show up. So it might be confusing. It's like suddenly they want to jump out of the car or they're overstimulated by all of that input and can't manage it. So kind of an extreme, motion sickness, for example. Other ways that it can show up is sleep. So really looking at sleep as an autonomic state or ability to downshift and the sleep wake cycles and regulation is really linked with that. So when we look at ongoing sleep issues, not just developmental. Kids' sleep can be all over as many know, but looking at it as we want to be able to gradually move through these different states. So a theory—polyvagal theory—has really become more and more known. And it aligns with a lot of looking at attachment theory or this interpersonal neurobiology and brings a lot of it together in looking at how the vagus nerve is either supporting our body to feel secure or putting our body and nervous system on alert. So when we look at how behavior is showing up, they might be in this ideally safe, secure, social state. So kind of top of the ladder is that ventral state where we feel overall pretty good. We're ready. We're alert enough, and we can process and filter what we need to. And then down the ladder is when we start to get the stress responses. So the system is saying protect in some way. So that can look like fight, flight responses where kids might be— fight response could look like hitting, kicking, biting, yelling, screaming, resistant. So a lot of my kids will just be resistant to a lot of things or they're not feeling secure enough. So they're— and not resistant in a healthy developmental way. So don't want to pathologize kids that are like no, in the no stage or— there is a very healthy willfulness and resistant stage that they go through. But this is more a resistance that's coming from an on-edge, dysregulated state. So flight behaviors might look like running away, hiding under the table, hiding in general. So some kids like to play hide and seek all the time. And this is different where it doesn't really make sense when they're hiding. Or they're hiding in a more reactionary way versus a playful way. And then down the ladder further, when we're feeling really stressed and that fight, flight isn't working, we might go into a free state where we're kind of full of that sympathetic energy but not able to act on it or a shutdown state where it's kind of a collapsed state overall. So it's really aligned with our primitive protective responses and a need to survive from a tiger, for example, where we might try to fight the tiger, realize that isn't working, we're running from the tiger, and realize that isn't working. And then we might freeze like deer in headlights and then play dead. So it's all these survival instincts that we have that really show up, and just about all of our behaviors can be explained in this way. And looking at it as are they overstimulated or under-stimulated and how can we bring them up? So if I have a kid that is really passive or never wanting to play, never wanting to engage—not in an observational way, but in a self-protective way—then we're thinking, how do we support their nervous system with sensory— I look at interaction, sensory input, and environment to kind of bring them up and help their system ascend the ladder. Or do we need to bring them down and use our interaction—which is really co-regulation—and sensory input which I call body co-regulation or environment? And look at supporting from the ground up so the behaviors— so they can be successful from the inside out.
Fallon Lee Katie, that was really, really helpful and it's so timely. What's funny is that—within the past few weeks, even—I've had some conversations with all of my kiddos, but particularly my oldest child, about how does our response match the situation that just happened? And kids and adults alike, I think I can kind of say that—I mean, as a whole—my family has walked through a lot of dysregulation issues from trauma, whether that's medical or familial. I mean, there's just a lot of— every family kind of has their own sort of background of things to sort through. But I think my family in this season has particularly been walking through this idea of being dysregulated. And so I'd love to kind of shed light on a personal level sort of what that has looked like in our home. But I love that kind of overview that you gave of how it can play out in a physical way. It can play out in an emotional way. I mean, I think that dysregulation is so multifaceted, and I think that I forget the physical component of it sometimes. So you talked about like the tags or the temperature, which is so funny. I've had one of my kiddos— the one that deals with dysregulation the most, has said at random times like, "I have to get out of the car. I have to get out of the car." And as you were talking, I was like, oh, my goodness. That's probably part of what's happening is that the combination of sensations that are happening in that moment, it's just too much for his little system. And I'm always like, why does he need to get out of the car? I'm like, I don't understand. And that was such a helpful insight as to why that's kind of happening. But yeah, this conversation has been so fresh for us because we just have had so many of them lately of, you know— because my kids are a little bit older. I do have a three-year-old, but I have a seven- and eight-year-old, and so they have this conscious awareness of was my response actually adequate and appropriate? That's the word we use. Is my response appropriate to the scenario that just happened? And I think all of us have just been kind of dealing with trying to figure out how to come back into the state of nervous system regulation. And so my kiddos, we're still dealing with a lot of just overreaction to things, again, where the reaction does not match the response. So like, maybe Dad has to go run an errand for a second. And my kids are like, "Is he ever coming back?" One of my kids in particular is like— he has a very hard time with Dad leaving the house, which is strange because we have no history of Dad not coming back. But we're working through learning, okay, how do we respond to things in an appropriate and measured way? And I was just telling my oldest son yesterday that this is not something that just children deal with, that mom and dad are still learning very much how to provide just a sense of calmness and safety. And we've been doing a lot of tapping and sentences and affirmations and things like that because we do have just such a history of trying to learn how to bring ourselves back into balance and back into regulation. And so I feel like, Katie, I could have a two hour interview literally where I used examples of my own family to ask you because it just— you know, we're dealing with this on such a deep level. And I know I've shared that on my Instagram before, that we just have medical trauma in our background. And so I have one kiddo in particular that just very much has a lot of dysregulation. And so we're trying to shift into that co-regulation and teach self-regulation. So this is just going to be a really fascinating conversation. Kori, so I know your kiddos are younger, but I feel like you guys are probably transitioning to this era of sort of developmental regulation. And so I'd love to hear how this is played out in your home with your young ones and then with you guys as adults too. Like, I know we have had so many private back and forth conversations about the things that we bring to the table from our own personal lives. And so I'd love to hear how all of this plays out and looks in your house right now.
Kori Meloy Totally. Well, something that I find really interesting is the difference between my two children, with one being born via C-section in a hospital in that kind of setting. And then my younger one, homebirth born at night and then immediately was like circadian rhythms kicked in. She was sleeping almost through the night, just maybe waking up twice to nurse even day one of her being born. And it's so interesting even just watching that of like my son was waking up all throughout the night his first couple of years, or a year and a half of life until we really worked out some things through fascia care and bodywork and nervous system regulation. And there's just so many ways that it shows up. But one way it shows up now in a really clear way to me is with transitions. So if my son is in a state— and usually a reflection of my own regulation as well, because I know that that firstborn to the mom, they're so connected with that dyad. If I'm dysregulated and he is dysregulated, transitions are really extreme. And so whether it's, "Hey, you've got about five more minutes scootering in the cul-de-sac, and then we're going to go hop in the car and go to Whole Foods," or whatever that is, on a normal day, he'd be like, "Cool, five minutes," and then kind of be silly and then come get in the car. But if he's feeling particularly dysregulated that day, he might scream or cry whenever I present that expectation. And even with those parameters of like, "Hey, in five minutes, not right now." I think we wouldn't be surprised if we were like, "Get in the car right now," and they had an extreme response. But even allowing with communication for that little warning in between, if he has an extreme reaction to that— and also I love, Katie, with what you were saying. Resistance is super healthy and normal for children to express and have this autonomy of resistance because they're their own separate humans. But it's that like 0 to 100 is what I notice whenever my child is feeling particularly dysregulated. And like I said, again, I just want to reflect it back on myself because it truly is so connected. It's usually not an isolated event for him to feel dysregulated. It's usually the family dynamics in the home and then— and especially me with my firstborn. So yeah, transitions is how I would say that usually shows up the most is like each transition from one thing to the next—whether it's dinner to bath, bath to bedtime—is like a whole extreme reaction.
Katie Crosby I think that's such a big point of like the big reactions that seem totally disproportional to what happened can be such a big sign. And as you're mentioning, the parent/child dynamics— and I candidly don't speak specifically often about parenting because we've been in our own long path to hopeful parenthood, and it's been painful and all kinds of heart opening in many ways, but I feel that even going through this and seeing myself work with kids, it really shined light on my own triggers and my own stuff by being with kids because my reaction. I'd be with a three-year-old or a four-year-old or this teeny little human that's been on earth for like 48 months, you know? And then I would be so disproportionately responding to them at times, or like my whole system would be reacting to something that they were doing. So taking it as it isn't always about the thing, right? It's just not about— maybe they're upset about—you just said—like a broken banana. So they ask for a banana split in half and then they get the banana and then they're freaking out about how the banana is broken and totally upset about it. So it's really thinking about how their brains, especially— because they're developing, they're born with that kind of spinal cord brainstem primitive reactive brain. And then they're developing the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, which are the parts of the brain that have— the prefrontal cortex is impulse control and ability to respond. It's really our thinking, logical brain. And then the limbic system is that kind of emotional, relatable, memories area of the brain. So when we have stress, it might not be related to what is happening in the moment. Because as adults, our limbic system stores reactions and kind of memories, but not necessarily specific memories. It might be that the reaction that we're having is something that along the way was kind of stuck in this cycle. So we're wired to move through a stress cycle and there's a hypothesis that emotion takes 90 seconds to move through in a healthy way. So if we feel and move through and release, it's this natural process. And we watch kids go through that a lot and then we get stuck in it because as humans we have the thinking brain that comes in and then we have a stressful thought and then it fuels that emotional cycle again and we get stuck in it. Or kind of older paradigms—and it still happens all the time today—is we as adults are logical and we think this isn't a big deal. Like you asked for the banana broken— I say broken, but in half. You asked for the banana in half and I give it to you in half. So we're logically, rationally talking it through. But that's like two brain states too high, really, to where they need to be connecting with, which is that deeper safety security co-regulation, which we'll talk more about what that can look like. But when they're in that totally reactive state of their whole world was this banana and they're visualizing this banana and how it was meant to be, and then it's split in half and it's different, doesn't match. So they're in that reactive black and white state. And they're trying to adapt, but their brain centers aren't really developed yet. So they need that regulated enough adult near them in order to— Stuart Shanker calls it like interbrain process of they're literally borrowing our safety security so that they can develop those brain centers and have perspective taking and see the gray area and the big picture of what's going on. But often I see it as either— instead of looking at it as a meltdown or a tantrum even, looking at it as an emotional release or a sensory release and moving through that emotional cycle in hopefully a healthy way. And then we can get to helping them have perspective after they're regulated enough to hear it. Because what happens in that moment of stress is their language centers go out the window. So when we're trying to teach in the moment or even telling kids to breathe in the moment, it can be dysregulating because their system might be totally bombarded, overstimulated. And then if we're saying, "Hey, take a deep breath," they're not ready to hear it. So their brain is trying to process the language now and then it feels more stressed because it's already overloaded by the sensory world. And so really looking at what they need in that moment might be that co-regulation process which is sending safety signals or saying less, doing less. And we can talk about practically what that looks like, but it's such a good point. Like the disproportional— it makes a lot of sense if you look at our neurobiology and how things are stored and for us, that is one of the biggest ways that I have noticed my own things to unpack and trauma and wounds and things that showed up along the way.
Fallon Lee Okay. So Katie, I'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretation here. I know that for many of us kind of in our generation, in this generation, we were sort of raised in a way where maybe emotions weren't always honored and they weren't always understood. And I think that there has kind of been a lack of this sort of teaching of emotional comprehension, emotional fluency in kind of our generation, where we weren't raised to actually honor— you know, if you're angry, that's okay. And if you're sad or frustrated, that's okay. And there are ways that we can deal with that in a way that's still honoring to the people around us and still respectful to the people around us. And I think that— I mean, I can say personally that I feel like I was sort of raised in a way where emotions were sort of suppressed. And it wasn't really something that you talked about. And they often came out in different ways as I got older because they weren't honored when I was a kid, that I could have space to cry or space to be frustrated. It was kind of like, stop being mad or stop crying or stop— you know, and I think that's the model that a lot of us grew up in. And so I would love to talk through how can we change that with our own kids? How can we leave space for our kids' emotions to be healthy, for them to understand them, to validate them? I feel like I'm constantly doing a check base with my kids, kind of like a pop quiz where I'm like, "Hey, is it okay to feel angry?" And in their younger years, they would kind of be like, "No?" And I'm like, "No. Yes, it is. It's okay to feel angry," and like, "Is it okay to feel frustrated?" And they're like, "Yes." And I'm like, "But is it okay to dishonor or hurt other people when we're angry or frustrated?" and they're like, "No." And so I think that's kind of an important piece of the conversation that we have to both teach and model to our children. And so I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on this. And how can we as parents really give our kids the tools to handle their emotions well? To honor them, to not suppress them, and to still kind of be respectful to both themselves and the people around them as they're sorting through those emotions. Does that make sense?
Katie Crosby Absolutely. Yes. And I think I'm really speaking to this lens of what is most effective for us to show up in the world as mentally and physically healthy as we can? So looking at the spectrum of this authoritarian based way of being, which says emotions aren't in the story at all. We should be able to control our emotions and control our behavior, and they aren't considering the importance of emotion or that emotion is totally core to being a human being. And we are literally emotional beings that think—I forget who said— versus we think of ourselves as thinking feelings who show emotion. But we're— 80% of our emotional and body information is sending signals to our brains and our thoughts. So if we're feeling dysregulated at the core or we have emotional stress there, no matter how much we try to control our thoughts, it will be defeating for everybody because 80% of our circuitry is telling us what to— if we feel unsafe or we feel that stress, then our brains will go into overdrive or overthinking or shut down. It's really hard to override that, I would even argue impossible, and it will come out in other ways or health issues. And I definitely have that where I relate to that feeling of suppressing or showing up the way that we needed to and being good and nice and quiet and easy and just like a little adult. I started babysitting when I was nine. I was walking myself to school and doing laundry by five. So we can adapt and cope in this system of emotions aren't necessarily good things. Like that's the authoritarian view. And then the other side of that might be permissiveness, where emotions are the whole story. So some people— I think we are then afraid to be power, control, compliance. That's probably authoritarian would be like spanking for big behaviors, which is a super controversial, sensitive thing to talk about. But this lens that we can kind of punish kids out of behavior, which would be really great and convenient if it was effective. And it can be effective in the short term, but it's thinking at what cost? What does that do to that emotional cycle? It doesn't really move through and allow them to create these pathways to self-regulation. It's kind of a maladaptive way to get around them and to suppress behavior. And then we see the other side, which is permissiveness, where emotions are kind of the whole story. So this might be if kids are nervous about going to school, you might just be like, "Okay, we won't go. It's fine. We'll never— we'll drop out of that school or switch classes. No big deal. You can do whatever you want." Kind of the emotions become almost— they take over and rule the roost. So kids might feel. And then the outcomes of both of these are actually that kids learn that emotions aren't really secure or safe because then if they feel something— which again, they're in that irrational, illogical place. So if they say something, I am as an occupational therapist, I'm taking it more as insight to their emotional experience versus literally. So if they say something like, "I don't like you, Katie," or "You're the worst," or "You're the worst mommy," or, you know, we hear kids say these things all the time, and it is so far from literal usually. Not that it can't be literal, but it's usually that they're in a state that they're just crying out for help and need support. So the goal for us is to be in that middle ground, which is this authoritative way of taking in and saying, "Hey, you don't want to go to school? I wonder what's going on?" Or "This is a new school. We just started the year. This is a new teacher, new kids. There's lots to adapt to," or maybe getting curiosity, normalizing, validating. Like thinking, oh, it's like when I started a new job. I remember that. New boss, I didn't know what to expect. Or where my lunch was. Or maybe the cafeteria smells funny, like, whatever. Who knows what it is, where those nerves are coming from. So we're pulling in parts of that emotional world and also maintaining high expectations of, "Oh we do need to go," or maybe the school is not a great example because school systems can be all kinds of challenging. And sometimes I feel like it's like whistle blowing that they're like, this isn't an ideal system for many kids right now. So just a side note on that one. So it's like, what are the messages there? What are they bringing up that could be valuable, even though it can look really messy? And that's where our judgments as adults really come in. We can't be empathetic and curious if we are judging. So noticing our rawest judgments which will come out because often when we've repressed our own emotions, we are stuck in that cycle. And I can't tell you how many times I've been totally blindsided, caught off guard from this nervous system level because something has happened with a family. So my work that I do is with kids and families in session. And so it's all play based and there is often meltdowns, and it's like in the moment, the rawest things that can happen. And so often I would be shaken up after certain situations. And it's going through this whole parallel process of pulling in both sides versus getting caught up in my own reaction, my own judgment of like, oh my goodness, here we go again. Or they are being a little brat or entitled or this is ridiculous. I think as humans, we all have these initial reactions that come up that like— or I just don't want to do this today. What I hear from parents, you know, it's like I'm exhausted. I don't have the capacity for this. There's all these things that block us from being curious and developing the ability to just see kids in the moment. So I think the old paradigm is either missing emotion all together or— that's probably more the tendency. And now we're in this new world of, okay, what is coming up for me? What is my nervous system communicating to them? And Kori, you mentioned their behavior and how it can reflect the dynamics of the family. And I can think of so many times where kids were dysregulated, and then I realized that I was dealing with stuff that I wasn't accessing in the moment, and I would be so irritable and reactive to this child. It's a little kid and it's so easy to see from the outside. And then when you're in it, it feels so intense and so real. It feels so real because our limbic system is just, amygdala is hijacked, basically, and it throws us into this emotional flashback of a time that we felt powerless or out of control or typically insecure in some way, unsafe. And then we're not available to help them develop that pathway and co-regulate. And behavior doesn't always make sense. And as humans, we want things to make sense and be clear. And it can be really messy, which can make us all feel that insecurity and reactive as a result. Like 0 to 100 comes when we feel most stressed, insecure, powerless, whatever it is cooking under the surface.
Kori Meloy That's so good. I think that what this echoes a lot is this idea of kind of in the West— actually, you just even said what I was thinking as you were speaking. You were talking about how we want an explanation or we want the logic, we want the reasoning. And it really does reflect more of that Western culture because even when we look at— for those of you that are listening that are interested in maybe more of like what is the biblical model of parenting? And I'm not about to tell you what I think that is. I truly believe everyone's on their own journey of seeking that out and I'm not about to be like, "I have authority on telling you what that is." But I think it's interesting when we look at the Eastern, I guess, original ideas of connecting with God—which is where the Bible originated in the first place is within Eastern culture—they believed in this idea of the age of accountability. And when you look at the age of a child, it wasn't until boys and girls are around age 12 whenever they start to have more of that responsibility placed on them to be able to understand the concept of sin even within their culture. And then we look at neuroscience and books like the Whole-Brain Child or No-Drama Discipline from Dr. Daniel Siegel, I believe is who is who wrote it. He's confirming these things with science of our children really are not capable of being in this logic sense where they can understand impulse control, where they can understand the consequences of their behavior. And so it's so interesting how in the West we believe that the right way of parenting is really just, I guess, obedience in the sense of children understanding the consequences of their actions as just a natural human capability. And yet it's so interesting how when we remove ourselves from the Western culture, we're able to see so much more compassion and grace and understanding for the child of what is developmentally appropriate for their bodies. And so when we talk about dysregulation and take the labels of bad behavior off of it and look at it for maybe what it actually is, essentially what they're asking for is help, right? Is that kind of what your perspective is, Katie?
Katie Crosby Absolutely, yes. So it's their— their first reaction is actually really supportive to develop what they need to. And even if kids are— for example, I was just working with somebody where the kid kept coming up and hitting the mom if we were talking. And I think it'd be so easy to shut it down and be like, "It isn't okay to hit." And that can still be like, "I'm not okay with you hitting me." But in that moment, when their language centers are offline and they're trying to articulate what they want, really seeing behavior as the communication. So behavior is sometimes the only thing that they have access to in the moment. So they're learning to process so much. And I think it's so easy to forget how little they are because they're capable of so much. So then we have high expectations, but in novel environments, in a transition, if they're feeling a little bit stressed, their capacity can be way lower because their brain is really in this kind of really primitive development and everything is organizing and coming together. But it takes time. Especially kids that are prone to shame. I was definitely a more shame prone kid. Still a shame prone human. But I think when we give feedback and kids start to notice that, oh, that's not appropriate or that's not something that will get me approval, rather, then we can easily shut down needs. So instead of communicating needs at all, we might just stuff those so far down that it's hard to even articulate what we need. I see that all the time now with people in our generation. And so we think about the kid hitting the mom and it's like, oh, you're wanting something. Or you can say, "We're talking. We're talking," using cues and affect because that's what communicates with that emotional brain state is our affect, our gestures. And that's really the co-regulation aspect is how do we communicate with the parts of their brain and body that are available at the moment instead of coming in at this two brain states too high and trying to teach them about hitting in that moment? And I am always an advocate of sharing boundaries. And I think this is such an idyllic way of talking about interaction and then in real life it can look much different. So I really think about it as even doing this a fraction of the time or being intentional for even 5% more than we are today can go so far when it comes to supporting them to actually communicate instead of using that behavior. So we want to convey that emotion is okay. Behavior is something that we can shift and sculpt. So if it's outward, it's much easier to sculpt than if it's inward and more internalized and kept away.
Fallon Lee I feel like this idea was really revolutionary for me as a parent because, again, I was kind of raised in a much different model than I'm sort of raising my kids in now. And I'm sure my kids after me will find things that they want to do differently in their parenting. But just this concept that what the world may see as a disobedient child or a child that needs more discipline— and like, sure, I think discipline in the true sense of the word of kindly teaching and structuring, I think that can be a beautiful thing. But I think we've, of course, kind of skewed the definition of discipline in kind of this generation and some past generations. But just this idea that a kid who is sort of "out of line", it may not be that they need more discipline in the sort of colloquial sense today. But they need probably something internal and more support. And this has just been really fresh for us. We are in the midst of a move right now and we literally are living in two homes. We have two homes right now, and so our kids are like, "What is happening?" I mean, life is so weird. And I had this moment a couple of days ago where I'm just like, all of my kids are so dysregulated. All of them. And they have all suddenly become very high needs. And perfect example, we were playing football outside. My husband loves to play football with my older boys, and one of my kids dropped a pass or something. And I kid you not, within 30 seconds, he was like, "My life is boring and I want to run away from home." And we were like, "What? How did you get to that from dropping a pass?" And it just was this like eruption all of a sudden of all these things that he had been suppressing and carrying that came out in that moment. Again, like with the banana, where it's like it wasn't about the football, but all of a sudden he let all of this stuff come out and I was like, oh, my goodness. The reason why he has been "acting out"—probably what most people would call it—is because he has had all of these underlying emotional needs that have not been met. He needed more time with mom and more time with dad and more focused time in the midst of all of this transition. And so I think that it's just such a grace to be able to exist in that headspace of like, okay, my kid needs something that they may not be getting as opposed to like, okay, my kids need some more timeouts or some more consequences. And sure, those things can— boundaries can be helpful. Right? Like you were talking about, Katie, there's this extreme where parents can jump to that it's like, "Well, emotions just rule and that's just how we determine things." Yes, boundaries are beautiful, but there's just so much grace in acknowledging your kids' needs, and this kind of— I wanted to ask you about this. There's kind of this idea— I don't remember where it originated, and I'm sure it's from several different platforms at this point. But I saw I think it was a reel on Instagram a couple of weeks back or feed post that was talking about how a lot of kids who are really well-behaved and they're really submissive and they seem from the outside like super well-mannered, that they're actually just kids that have been suppressing their emotional needs. And I don't want to say that that's across the board true. What's interesting is that I had another friend find that same content and was like, "Oh my gosh, I feel like this is not always true because I feel like I have poured into my kids for them to have the ability to be obedient and respectful and kind." And so it's just funny. I think there's kind of a lot of argument around this right now of like, okay, when we see really obedient, submissive kids, how much of that is maybe them suppressing things that they need? And how much of it is kind of evidence of just respect and character? Does this question make sense? I feel like— because I am very much a kid who now— I'm not a kid. Oh my gosh. I am an adult who as a kid was that like, I obeyed everything. I was raised in a moralistic home, and so I obeyed everything. And I don't know that it was an intrinsic motivation as much as just like, oh, well I receive punishment if I don't obey. And so I ended up being the student who was trying to overachieve and the employee who was trying to overachieve. Like that has been my whole story, because I was that kid who probably was really obedient and regulated from the outside, but really wasn't having a lot of inner needs met, if that makes sense. And so what is kind of the difference here? And what do you think about all this for kids who maybe— like, how do we spot a kid who maybe had a bunch of needs that weren't met? And then how do we spot maybe a functioning, healthy adult who has their voice but still respects authority? What are the difference between those two scenarios, if that makes any sense after all that said?
Katie Crosby Absolutely. Yes. I love this question because, again, I think it's so easy for us to kind of fly under the radar if you are doing what is needed. And our whole system is built around these external things. So if we look a certain way, if we're acting a certain way, or if we— not even acting, but if we look a certain way, if we're getting good grades and we have maybe a successful job, or if societally we look okay, then people tend to think like, "Okay, they're successful." But really what we know about that is there aren't a lot of ways that that aligns with mental health, physical health outcomes. So we can be really maladaptive coping. Maybe it's workaholism or controlling food. That's something that I've definitely tried both of those things and it's societally rewarded as like, "Oh my goodness, you're so thin”, or "Oh my goodness, you're so driven," when actually it's coming from a place of that sympathetic survival energy. And it's really not healthy and it's not sustainable. And that's why I ended up with thyroid and autoimmune issues. And that was really a big window into like, hey, this is that suppressed stuff coming up. It's not sustainable. It's super energetically draining. So when we have this what I would call emotional suppression or emotional control, self-suppression is not self-regulation. So self-suppression might be where we have a reaction or we have an emotion come up and we don't show it, don't express it, don't do anything with it. So we might develop this kind of auto-regulate system that allows us to suppress it, but it's really energetically demanding to do that because we're social beings and we're wired to maybe go to others when we're most intensely stressed or seek support. And especially as kids, they need adults to develop those parts of the brain. Like it's a totally developmental social process that goes way back to people organizing and orchestrating hunting for a whale, for example. There used to be all this gestures and affect and signaling and ability to move through these really, really stressful situations. And then we got away from it and had this idea that we can control behavior and we can— kids that are good, we get good feedback and how that results later. So something I say often is that the nicest kids may tend to become anxious adults because there's all this energy that we haven't moved through and made sense of and learned how to feel secure. And so the goal is that kids feel secure no matter what is coming up. So if they're saying like, oh, I just want to give up this whole thing, kind of like you mentioned the example with football and how we can be reactive like that. And it's so human, and it's so normal. So if we can talk about feeling really low or feeling like— you know, who hasn't wanted to just chuck everything and go live in a cabin in the woods for a while? Maybe that's just me. But it's like when we have these stressful moments and it's like it's so human to just have these big reactions. And the idea is that we can learn to respond and have the brain development to respond versus react. But signs I look for with kids that are suppressing is there's no range of emotion. So ideally we want kids to have a full range of emotion. Whether that is the ability to be joyful and be excited. Even honed down excitement, being excitable is still something that I'm like, it's really vulnerable. Sharing joy is such a practice because I have this in me of like, don't get too excited or don't be silly or this looks ridiculous. So learning to play again was a big deal for me because being spontaneous and silly and goofy and non-purposeful was a total practice. So kids that are just kind of maybe flat affect or smiling all the time or maybe they're nervous and they're smiling— we all do this. I used to laugh all the time if I was nervous, if I was afraid, it would just come off as like laughter. And it didn't align with what I was actually feeling. I would say something really serious and then laugh. So it's that modulation doesn't match. It's like our inner experience isn't matching and we often see it show up in other ways. So maybe stomach issues that are continuously coming up or not wanting to eat, wanting to eat a lot. So all the food things that can come up. Again, the sleep issues. It's surfacing in other ways and our system tends to go to a quick fix versus look at the environment and the interaction and what's helping, what's hindering. But it's often way easier to see the externalized behaviors versus the internalized behaviors. So rather than blaming other kids or hitting other kids, we're directing anger at ourselves. So shame, self-blame, guilt, fear. It's just this— it's all directed inside versus out. And so it can be trickier to see it for sure.
Kori Meloy Yeah. All of this rings really true for me. And when I became a parent, there were definitely some things that I had developed an awareness by then based on this one event that took place when I was 18 years old. And I remember so clearly I had— it was my third speeding ticket in a row where I was going over 95 miles per hour. Should I be talking about this? But it was my third in a row that I'd received in one month, and I was speeding over, I think it was like over 30 miles per hour more than the speed limit. And I was sitting there with the ticket and the cop had driven off. And I'm sitting there in my car and I'm shaking and crying and so scared. And in that moment, I was like, what am I afraid of right now? I was afraid of my parents' reaction. And I did not care at all about the actual law, breaking the law, being unsafe, putting other people's lives in danger, putting my own life in danger. There was that whole big picture awareness that did not actually exist in my mind or my body at that point. And I was 18 years old. I think I was already out of the house at that point. I think I was driving home from college one day. And I remember at that moment being like, this is interesting. Like, this is interesting that my fear is that strong of my parents' reaction and nothing else matters. My parents' disapproval, my parents' discipline. And that really impacted me to understand, like, what is that and what was that? And going into parenthood, I felt like this veil was kind of lifted off my eyes and allowed me to just pursue what that is and what nervous system regulation is and just this understanding of authoritarian and behaviorist parenting principles. I adore my parents, but I remember my dad—and there's not even a but; it's more of like a I can laugh about this with him—but my dad was actually an advocate for behaviorism and really spoke really highly of it. And I remember whenever I had a child, he was like, "There's this amazing thing called behaviorism." And I was like, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense on why I was such a great kid. I was just an angel child. I also think my parents raised us with just so much love and respect. And I also lived down the street from both my grandparents and just had a really incredible upbringing. And at the same time, I can recognize some of that fear was from that behaviorist model of just fearing that adult so much that it kind of shuts down everything else. So I just relate to this so much. And it was one of the things that kind of just helped me have a little bit of a different perspective. Not from a "I'm right, that's wrong," but just a different lens. And I wanted to go into just— on that note, if you're sitting here and you're like, "Okay, wow, I relate to a lot of this, and I've realized that maybe I have some regulation to pursue on my own as a parent." Or maybe you're listening and you're not quite a parent, but you're interested in this conversation, what are some ways that we can get started? Just like examining our triggers, examining our own ability to regulate.
Katie Crosby Thanks for sharing that, Kori. I feel like the body reactions even don't need to make sense with our situation really. And it can definitely with our parental upbringing and how safe or comfortable we feel going to them under stress. But sometimes there can be internal pressure, too, that comes from— maybe it's intergenerational. I'm really into looking at intergenerational roots of just how safe we feel under stress and the reactions that can come up. And yes, feeling that attachment or connection is so core to who we are. So when we are sending kids to time out without any emotional support— and I definitely think breaks can be helpful and, you know, take a break. But we're so wired to go to each other under stress. So when we haven't had that, it creates this kind of ruptures in our attachment system. And when we're stressed, we develop different coping mechanisms. So I think understanding your attachment style is fascinating. That's often a first link to— and it's so individual, but I'll share some just generalized ideas. So understanding our own stress responses. So do we tend to shut down, isolate, rely on people not at all? Like asking for help— is that super hard, super challenging? Or do we kind of maybe over rely on people where we can't make any decisions without going to others for support or we don't have any kind of like self-awareness in that, right? And understanding that attachment tendencies are really our regulation tendencies. So there's a lot of— I don't know about a lot, but newer work that is looking at not just attachment theory but how that shows up as— it's really a regulation theory. So we look at different work like Allan Schore, who has awesome stuff out there that people have adapted in different ways. But really looking at, okay, what is our response to stress? What are our coping mechanisms? What is our attachment system? And then seeing our triggers as our teachers versus something that's wrong with us or something that we just need to stop at all costs. Because when we have ruptured that attachment system, and we really don't have a pathway to feel connected to people in a deep way or it doesn't feel safe to go to people— and I had this experience where my whole life, I never really went to people when I was stressed. I just kind of figured it out or felt like it wasn't supportive. Or I did get a lot of kind of like maybe unintentional shaming or like, "Oh, you'll do better next time," or "You should have been more careful," or "Figure it out. Just figure it out. It's not a big deal." A lot of invalidation can stop us from going to people under stress because it's actually intensified the stress versus dissipated it, which is the goal. So we want kids to be able to feel stressed and go to adults. And working with teenagers or even just nieces and nephews that are in the teenage realm now, it's like, oh my goodness, there's so much social pressure that is keeping them from going to adults under stress or can. So I see this as like how can we model that stress is something we want to go to people with? And I really think that, for me, it was having just even one safe, trusted enough person. So a mentor or even my husband was the first person— I had issues with like rage in my intimate relationships. Like I would just flip and flip a switch and it was like a whole—now I know—emotional flashback, amygdala hijacking and some of my early stuff was coming out in my relationships. And he was the first one that— like I would kind of push people away or say to leave or just, I want to be alone, I just want to be alone. And I hear this with kids all the time, and I'm like, "You don't want to be alone. I know it's not really what you mean," because we are wired to be with people if it feels supportive and there's a sensory match, and it can be tricky to find that. But when we are thinking about starting with ourselves, I think that relational healing is really how to restore relational wounding. So just finding whether it's a trusted enough friend, a therapist, a counselor and restoring some of those pathways. And I think that we talk a lot about nourishing the body and food, and I think that's super important. And if we can do it in a way that feels supportive and nourishing, awesome. Some people I think— like for me, it was like, I don't need another— like I'd gone through all these different, you know, Whole30 or kind of orthorexia, hardly going out ever with friends in college even because it was a way to control. So I think meeting people where they are. Is it supportive or does it feel like we're trying to figure out all these things to control in a different way? So I'd say figure out your stress responses, your attachment regulation tendencies. There's attachment quizzes online. Even Diane Poole Heller has a good one. And then finding somebody who isn't going to judge. If we're stressed about something and we go to somebody and they're like, "Oh, really? Well, did you try this, this, this? Were you doing this?" Or like invalidating or fixing, it can be hard to feel secure. So just even being there and trying to regulate yourself can be really supportive. And then also, I think there's so much that you can do in practice with kids. So I have— it's like a nervous system workout being with children, right? Especially I can imagine it's like your own children that you're with all the time because so much— so I say co-regulate in eight is a kind of framework of eight different things we can do to co-regulate. So a few are breath, tone of voice, body position, facial expression. So our facial expressions are linked to that vagus nerve. So if we have flat affect, it might be that our vagus nerve is feeling on edge, on alert, and is telling us that things are unsafe. So if we even just smile or use our wrinkles in our forehead, our eyes, they're sending safety signals to kids. But they also send safety signals to us internally. So I think, if you're like, "I don't have time to go to a therapist or get support in that way right now," or resources aren't there, there's so much that can happen through interaction with kids. So varying our tone of voice is another one. I used to talk a lot more like monotone, flat, kinda robotic, and doing this and seeing how effective it is. So we're sending signals to them. If we speak in a flat voice, we're sending kind of threatening signals moreso, because the inner ear has mechanisms and auditory system and it's all linked together that if we have prosody— so like mother-ese is linked in this, you know, talking to babies in a certain voice or a higher pitched voice. And the way that we vary our own voice can really influence our own state. So our state can be shifted by the way that we're talking or even whispering. If I'm feeling stressed and I can add prosody and bring down my voice, it's like regulating our whole system, saying "I'm safe. I'm secure." And I think having that framework when you're in a kid with a meltdown and it can be so intense. I work with kids with affect vulnerability. So maybe opposition defiance disorder or conduct disorder, all these disorders that are just not aware of the nervous system. But a lot of it can be so intense if somebody is physically going after you. And so really thinking about the ways that we can—through our interaction—we can influence our own state as well. And there's so much that you can do there. So I'd say tone, pacing, and speaking at half the speed and volume you might normally. So even just as I talk about it now, I notice my state shifting, and playing around with that because some kids might need a more firm like, "Hey, I am not okay with you hitting. What's going on here? What are we upset about?" Some kids might feel more security if you're like the strong leader and you're like, "Hey, this? No, not okay. We cannot hit." Especially the safety. It's like some of that security can feel so— like I remember feeling mean, and I think this is why boundaries work in the context of being with kids is so healing in many ways because it's not mean. It's not mean. If you are— I just had this situation with a kid kind of hitting their baby brother, which is such a common thing. Right? It's like the little baby that's taking a lot of resources and rocked the world, and you want to hit the little baby. So really connecting with boundaries from an embodied place that is coming from love and respect for them and helping them understand the world. Like it isn't okay to hit the baby, right? So maybe you give a warning or try to co-regulate what's going on underneath, being available. But that doesn't always happen. So sometimes they just need to know that there's a secure adult that is trying to help my body be in control when I'm totally out of control. So I think it can be surprising sometimes the way that I interact with kids because it feels more intense or like mean— my self judgment coming up. I'm being mean, oh my goodness. So really looking at sometimes that's what kids need to feel secure, and it can be really supportive and it's really ideally healing for us as the adult and our systems. Like no, we can— we do have agency, we do have limits. We're not powerless to this kid continuing to hit. We are a fully grown adult now, that amygdala hijacking is lying, and we can set limits, we can set boundaries. And it's not coming from a place of power, control, anger, hate of developmental or kids in this vulnerable state. It's coming from a place of like, I care about you enough to say this isn't okay, and we'll figure out a different way. We need to figure out a different way, right? So getting a system in place for some type of relational support. So ideal, we used to have that ingrained in a village or community, and we don't anymore. So having compassion when it's hard to find, and then doing it in interaction in real life with kids. Great places to start.
Fallon Lee I love those tips so much and it really hits home because I don't know how much I've fleshed this out on the podcast necessarily, but I've had quite a journey over the past few years of my own regulation pursuit and own healing pursuit. And even a few years ago, I was in a state where I almost felt nervous to be with my kids because I was so dysregulated, dealing with so much anger and trauma from all of the medical things that we walked through. And again, suppressing things as an adult that I never dealt with. And I was so, I mean, truly dysregulated is the perfect word for it that I just got to this point of feeling like I have to find healing. I've got to seek healing. And to piggyback off what you were saying, Katie, I mean, the first thing I did was go to a biblical counselor. And I think that was one of the things that really set me on this journey of evaluating all of the underlying things that were kind of trying to come out. And so through working with her, I learned about how much shame I was carrying, and how I was kind of stuck in these shame spirals of convincing myself that I wasn't a good mom or a good friend or a good wife or a good whatever. And that was such a big healing part of kind of coming out of that really dark season of feeling like I couldn't control my responses. And I wasn't the person that I wanted to be or the mom that I wanted to be. And I love that you just really touched on it's really such a multifaceted approach to finding our own healing and our own regulation. Kori, I know you mentioned fascia care with your own family. And I think, to me, like if I had to pick three things in isolation— which there are more than that. But if I had to say three things that transformed the regulation skills that I have, it would be biblical counseling— having that safe relational space where I could communicate and process and not be judged for it and be encouraged and supported. Fascia care—I started going to a— we actually have a fascia massage therapist local to me at Our Well House if you're anywhere near Frisco. Dr. Courtney Kahla's Wellness Collective. I know we've talked about that quite a bit, but they have an incredible team there. And I've been seeing a girl who does massage and bodywork and fascia care all at the same time. I mean, I could almost immediately tell the difference when I started actually releasing those things from my body in a physical—and then paired with that—emotional, spiritual sense. And then, of course, we can't skip the nutrition part that once I started eating enough and focusing on minerals and nutrients and being aware of that. My magnesium burn rate and how quickly was I working through things like potassium? And I mean, that was the other big piece for me. And it's just wild to look back to even a couple of years ago and it's like I'm a different person than I was then and praise the Lord for that because it was just dark for a long time, and it felt like, I don't know how to get out of this. And so just to kind of be a walking example, Katie, of what you are sort of recommending is that I'm like, "It works." Like it really changes your life to go process with somebody that you trust, whether that's a counselor or a trusted friend. Working with someone I think is great if that is something that you can swing and then the bodywork piece of it and the nutrition piece of it. I mean, all of it is just so important. And so I just love all the advice that you shared about tone and expressions. And I mean, it just makes so much sense. I remember that— I know we talk about the brain rewiring program I did quite frequently, but it's so funny the connection here. I remember when— you know, you kind of say these phrases and the instructor would tell you you need to smile while you say these and you kind of feel like a crazy person because you're like trying to smile while you tell your body in your limbic system to kind of chill out. But it truly is impacting the way that you feel about it, causing yourself to smile. And I love that you broke down how that affects our kids. Like when we change the way that our voice sounds, our face is responding to them. I mean, those things matter. And they really show up in the way that our kids can co-regulate with us in those moments. I feel like we have a million more questions we could ask. Maybe we can sort of rapid fire over the last few. I feel like this is where we get to in most of our episodes where we're like, we talked so much. Can we rapidfire the last couple of things? But I would love to hear, Katie, if you have any encouragement for parents who do feel like they're trying to embody emotional respect with their kids. They're trying to support them in the best ways that they know how. They're trying to regulate and heal themselves so that their kids can then be regulated and healed. And I wonder if you have any advice for the parent who kind of feels like I'm doing everything with my kid, right? Like I'm doing all the things that I should be doing. And I'm supporting their sleep, their nutrition, their emotional well-being, their environment. I'm doing everything. And my child is still really struggling with dysregulation. I wonder if you have any advice. If at that point it's like, hey, maybe find someone to work with. What would you say to a parent who's kind of in that spot where they're like, "I've done it all and I don't know what the next step is."
Katie Crosby I think absolutely getting other eyes to just an evaluation. Maybe it's an occupational therapy evaluation, and somebody that's really ideally versed in a lot of this. So there are different ways to talk to people. Maybe just asking like, "How do you support emotions?" Or if it's a sensory-based OT, are they understanding that sensory and emotion are directly linked and they influence one another all day long? So we really need to be coming from this whole holistic developmental path and recommending bodywork. So that's something I recommend all the time, whether it's chiropractic or cranial sacral kind of alternative physical therapy or reflex integration. That's something that I do, too, with kids that I work with from some extent, and then if they need a lot of it, we'll go in because sometimes there can be intergenerational trauma. I really believe that sometimes we don't know where things come from, and it's in the DNA. And then the birth trauma, medical trauma, as you mentioned. It's not all in our control. And then also leaning into that spiritual connection. I think this whole path has led me just deeper and deeper in trust with my relationship to God and understanding that there are some things that we can't— when we get in that kind of fixing, doing, it's like so often a signal to myself— and not to invalidate take all the steps that we talked about, but also resting in just the being of the co-regulation that comes from this path that we're on and really understanding that sometimes things are there that are sculpting and shaping us in different ways that we may not understand and always might not like. But finding that support, like you mentioned the counselor that you spoke with. Somebody that can really be with you in the hardness because sometimes it's just challenging. And I've seen some really painful things and experienced some really painful things that sometimes it's like just being with somebody in that challenge can be really powerful because we'll inevitably have that at times.
Kori Meloy I also love that even just the word "being" is really important for, I think, women to be able to grasp and embody because even the doing versus being are two completely different mindsets and our hormones respond to them alike. The doing is a lot more of that masculine performance of like I'm doing all the things versus being is being able to actually embody the way that God actually designed us differently as women to be able to be receptive and allow things to transform within our own bodies. Like even those two mindsets, our bodies respond to them. Our thoughts are that powerful. So I love that you talked about that. And then just to wrap things up, can you tell us what kind of resources you offer, what kind of work do you offer as far as people actually working with you?
Katie Crosby Yeah. So right now I'm actually taking a break from live programs, but I have a meltdown method program that has been a live group program. So we're going through a course program and then also meeting live to talk about and process things in a group. So kind of daily practical issues, situations that are coming up. And it's been really awesome, the live programs, but managing my own capacity this summer and fall, I've kind of taken a step back from that. So you can still get all the program replays for the most part, many online. And I also have tons of masterclass replays on how to play for regulation. So we didn't talk about that, you know, accessing all this regulation through play, joy. But really I often suggest starting with some type of that because it can be such a benefit and such a huge powerhouse of potential when it comes to engaging with kids and moving them through these pathways and stress cycles and easing things for everybody. And then lots of free content on Instagram. So almost five years to the day of content and posts and lots of blood, sweat, and tears in that Instagram account. So check out all of that. And if you want to work with me directly, I do do one-to-ones in a limited capacity, and it's more intensive work. So really processing through triggers, things that are coming up. And then we do play sessions with the kids involved. So I kind of get a glimpse of how to support, what's going really well, and add and expand on that, and then how to point out different areas of the kids' profiles and how that matches or mismatches parent profiles and go from there. So my email is Hello@ThrivingLittles.com, and my Instagram is @ThrivingLittles, so there's lots there.
Kori Meloy Katie, thank you so much for being on. This was so enlightening and I love that it was kind of this introduction into people being able to go into deeper if they want to. And you have such a gentle spirit about you and you have such a warm presence. And I love how inviting this conversation is in like kind of just like guards down, walls are down, people are able to just, like, sit and listen and reflect instead of being maybe triggered or things being harder for them to, I guess, like examine honestly. So I just appreciate the presence that you hold for people. And thank you so much for coming on. And we will link all of your resources in our show notes and we will see you guys in the next episode.