Polyvagal-Informed Strategies For a Calmer Family Part 1
Polyvagal-Informed Strategies For a Calmer Family Part 1
This is a challenging time to be a parent, and our neurodivergent kids need us more.
Parents of neurodivergent kids are realizing the importance of nervous system regulation to help our kids to feel less stress.
Understanding our nervous systems is a game changer in parenting.
As a trauma-informed mindful parenting coach and yoga teacher who has been supporting parents for over 20 years, and raising my own neurodivergent kid for 13+ years, I'm right here beside you. It’s my mission to create a more inclusive world by partnering with parents who are regulated and ready for change.
Here’s the very first step:
Acknowledge How Much You're Carrying
This is a challenging time to be a parent. Parenting neurodivergent kids can add to that. Please receive this acknowledgment. It’s okay to admit that this is hard right now. It’s not a betrayal of your kids or the neurodivergent community to say so.
I want to help you tune your brain in to contentment, confidence, and connection, so that you can share that regulated state with your family.
Please allow yourself to settle back and receive this information.
When you're reading on a device, you may unconsciously end up being pulled toward the device, so your head comes into a forward position, and that can cause neck strain and impact your nervous system. So let the info come to you, and take breaks whenever you need to.
The part of our brains that keeps us safe communicates with our bodies in a flash, but it’s important to know that 80% of the information goes from our bodies to our brains, and only 20% goes from our brains our bodies. That’s why I’ll be giving you body-based tools.
When you do something with your body, including your breath, it helps regulate your nervous system more efficiently than thinking does.
Half the time, thinking got us into the stress. Not everything is an emergency, but it sometimes feels that way. If you feel anxious a lot of the time, you’re not alone. You might feel some heavy weight of responsibilities.
Do This Simple Practice Right Now:
Put one hand on your shoulder, or one hand on each shoulder.
Go ahead and do it. Humor me.
Think of one burden that you're willing to release temporarily. Then lift it off your shoulders and put it down.
I know, it's corny! Try it anyway. Actually move your arms, lift that burden off your shoulders, and put it down. You can pick it back up later if you want to. ;)
We evolved as mammals with adaptive nervous systems so that we can survive.
If you care about ANYTHING, you're going to have stress. Stress means you care, you're invested. It indicates that you're living a meaningful life. We don't really want a life that has zero stress. And we don’t actually want to be calm ALL the time. In some situations, we need the ability to react fast to maintain safety. But it’s important to have ways to discharge stress that builds up in our bodies.
Otherwise, we can get tense muscles, stomach aches, inflammation...
Pain and tension are not fun.
Positive Outcomes of Practicing Self-Regulation:
When you do those practices yourself, it will help your whole family. Here’s why.
Resilience Grows Out of Experience
We can grow and get stronger by overcoming stressful circumstances.
That resilience helps us to trust ourselves.
We've been through this, so we feel confident that we can do it again.
We can do more the next time.
We can help our kids because we’ve had the experience ourselves.
The Second Chicken
I learned this concept from the book The Opposite of Worry: The Playful Parenting Approach to Childhood Anxieties and Fears by Lawrence J. Cohen*. Imagine a chicken. It's pecking away. It hears a noise. When it hears a noise, it looks up and checks its surroundings.
If the the next chicken over is still casually pecking away, it'll probably just go back to pecking away and feel like everything's fine. But if the next chicken over starts squawking and running in circles, the first chicken will probably start running in circles too!
You are your child's second chicken. This is not a conscious decision. You're probably one of the closest people to them emotionally. So, for better or worse, when something unexpected happens, their nervous system will look to your nervous system for cues of danger or safety. That might be good news. That might not be such great news. Either way, they're going to look to you to co-regulate.
The best way to teach these tools I'll show you is to model them yourself.
Honestly, even if your kids never ever do any of the stuff that I'm teaching you, you can practice yourself, and you can have an impact on your entire family. In fact, on all the people you interact with, by letting them borrow your regulated nervous system.
The practices are very simple. If your kid's not open to trying them, don't despair. You can still do something that can have a huge impact on your child's stress levels.
Attuning to Your Sensory System
I invite you to pause and check-in. How are your eyes, your breath, your body?
Not all nervous systems are the same. Mine is hypersensitive. I keep everything quiet when I recharge, and I recharge alone. I invite you to attune to yours, and your family’s. Attune just means tune in. Like, pay attention.
I invite you to pause and check-in.
Ask, “What am I feeling?”
All feelings are welcome. There are no good or bad feelings. This gets easier with practice.
How Will This Help Your Kids?
You are their second chicken. You regulate your own nervous system, and it will rub off on theirs. Isn’t it great to know you can do something to help your kids feel calmer, even if they never do anything different?
This Polyvagal-Informed Strategies Series will help you tune your brain toward contentment, confidence, and connection, so that you can share that regulated state with your family.
Look forward to part 2 next Sunday!
Thanks for staying with me to the end…
You may have noticed that this post is coming to you Tuesday instead of Sunday. My sister got married on Saturday, and there was a lot of good-stress that pulled my mind away from this blog in the week before. Thanks for your understanding!
Here’s a picture of our little family at the wedding:
Are you seeking support?
It won’t always be this hard, AND you don’t have to figure it all out on our own.
I won’t tell you “exactly how to end meltdowns fast.”
I don’t have a one-size-fits-all proven method for every parenting situation.
I won’t promise to eliminate challenging behavior.
I’ll listen, and help you unpack the “why” behind whatever is happening. Together, we can make a simple plan. If we decide to work together we’ll go from there.
I’m here for you.
Private Parent Coaching Package of 6 Sessions
Ready to feel more present in your parenting? I’m a trauma-informed mindfulness coach who helps highly sensitive parents self-regulate so they can enjoy parenting their neurodivergent kids.
6 x 1-1 sessions with me for $445. We can tackle one big conundrum in your parenting life… or a few little ones!
Or, you can join us here for our subscriber group sessions! Anyone with a paid subscription gets access:
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