How Can I Help My Child Be More Flexible & Less Argumentative? (Listener Question)

Debbie Reber  

Hey everybody joining me for today’s Parent Lean-In episode is educator and friend of the pod Zach Morris of Alive at Learn. Zach specializes in working with parents and young adults who are navigating the complex dynamics of neurodivergent experience. Zach is uniquely equipped to serve families with profiles of autism, especially PDA families that are navigating trauma and families who are needing to heal and repair relationships. He’s also a parent coach and my differently wired club. I think he’s the perfect person to join me for this particular question. I’m excited to get into it. But hey, Zach, happy to have you here.

Zach Morris  

Yeah. Hey, Debbie. Thanks for having me. 

Debbie Reber  

Of course…alright. I think we should just get into it. This is a juicy question. Okay. How can I help my child to be more flexible and less argumentative? My eight year old child has ADHD, autism and is gifted. He thrives on structure, routine and schedules. He does well in school, but home life is less than ideal. Every time we go on a school break, such as Thanksgiving, summer break, everything unravels, everything has to go his way for him to be happy, and he melts down over the slightest disappointment. Telling him no seems to create a stress response, as does encouraging him to take deep breaths, go to his room or do any sort of calming activity. When I research emotional regulation, I often see tips like deep breathing and calm spaces. Unfortunately, these only seem to aggravate my son more and have the opposite effect. I believe that his extreme rigidity is his way of controlling his environment and making it predictable. While I understand his needs to do that I’m left at a loss of how to help him. How can you teach the skill of flexibility? Good question Zach. And yes, I’m gonna hand the baton over to you. 

Zach Morris  

Yes, I think it probably resonates for a lot of families. You know, and the first thing I want to say is that I see flexibility as sort of a manifestation of being in our social engagement system. And, and what I mean by that is that that’s sort of part of our nervous system, where I’m in my window of tolerance, I can attune to people in some way, I can be flexible, I can think abstractly, right, like all of these things. And, in order to be in that part of our nervous system, right, this social engagement part of our nervous system, we have to have a certain sense of safety online, right. And so. So, if we look at flexibility, sort of through that lens, I think it becomes sort of less about teaching flexibility, and more about helping our children experience more moments of co-regulation, and more moments of being in their social engagement system. And to develop a sense of, like, when I’m leaving that space, when I’m leaving that socially engaged space, and therefore being able to like, yeah, develop some skills to be able to get back to that, right. But this is all going to start from that co-regulation, right. So when I, when we think of even, you know, the example of asking them to take some deep breaths, or, you know, inviting them to take some deep breaths and binding them to go, you know, take some space in their room, things like that, what I’m hearing is this leading to co activation, actually, right, so what can happen in moments is we can either co activate, or we can co regulate, right. And so this is maybe a moment where that co-activation is happening. The activation is already online, I’m offering sort of a strategy kiddos gets activated, that probably activates my system a little bit, right, we’re co-activating right now. 

And, and I would guess that, that maybe doesn’t feel safe enough, where is leading to enough co-regulationfor me to go do those things like for me to do those things on my own, for me to take the deep breaths for me to go take the space? Right, that’s the self regulation, that’s very much the land of self regulation and self regulation is going to be more accessible once I have a lot more experience in the realm of co-regulation, right? And so we could talk about all kinds of different co-regulation strategies, right? This is definitely like a land for potentially more research and exploration for you know, the person asking this question other people sort of involved, but this might be the where I might not have access to getting this person to go to take their deep breaths, but I might be able to get this person to like share in a snack with me. And like us also both sharing a snack or or maybe maybe cuddle while I rub their back possibly, right? They might not at all that might co-activate them, right? 

So I’m not trying to give these as like you should do these strategies, right but this idea of like Like, how am I gonna sort of offer something that allows that system to come down? Maybe that’s me, just me creating a certain level of distance and space between us and just listening. And me trying to enter some breath in my own system. Right? And, and maybe that sort of slowly invites my kiddo into that sometimes we have to match our kiddos energy at times, right? Sometimes, maybe our kiddos like having bigger energy, or they’re, you know, talking very passionately about something. And sometimes if I come in super calm, or I try to get them to breathe like that, I can actually co-activate because it’s like, why are you so calm? Why aren’t you? Right? So sometimes the co-regulation, I almost have to like, match it. So we could come down together, that’s like, another aspect of this at times, right? So I’m, I really just think about the co-regulation piece. And I think about accessing flexibility is going to come from this place of social engagement. And in what’s just giving me more time, so that I literally am just building like memory in my body of what it feels like to be in that space, where I’m, I am more flexible.

Debbie Reber  

Oh my gosh, So there’s so much that you shared that I kind of want to dive into but even starting with this idea about kind of giving our kids practice of spending time regulated, right, even, that’s kind of where I went when I first read this question. I was thinking about, you know, what Dr. Mona Delahooke talks about a sturdy Nervous System Platform, and we know that nerdy neurodivergent kids have less sturdy platforms. And so how can we find ways to help our kids spend more time proactively in a regulated state. So, of course, that involves things like, you know, making sure they’re sleeping well, making sure they’re moving their bodies enough that they have that time outdoors or in nature, time to be silly, time to play things that soothe your kids’ sensory system. So if you know what really helps them say, calm, like stuffies, or weighted blankets, those kinds of things, listen in to book on tape while doing Legos, like, you know, trying to make sure that you’re building in lots of opportunity for calm, regulated time, so that the nervous system can like, enjoy that that break from being more escalated. So that’s one thing that I thought about. And then Yes, like that CO regulation and kind of lending our kids our nervous systems. The thing about that is, we have to really take care of ourselves, right, as you’re sharing this, you were sharing before I wrote about this also in differently wired when I, I distinctly remember a engagement I had with Asher when he was like nine, and was really dysregulated. And then I, with a very raised voice, like demanding that he do his calming strategies before I stormed out of the room. And, yeah, that’s before I really understood the power of the way our nervous systems were communicating with each other. So that was a big fail. We got there eventually. But I think that is a really big piece of this in the moment. We want to help our kids feel safe and seen and soothed and secure. Once they kind of flip their lid as Dan Siegel says, and those are the four S’s from Tina Paine Bryson and Dan Siegel’s book, The Power of Showing Up, safe, seen, soothed and secure. And in the moment, when you’re saying, you know, saying no creates a stress response, and he’s had he’s having these meltdowns in the moment, you are going to want to be that like very calm presence, in addition to co regulating and taking care of yourself and trying to infect their nervous system in a positive way with yours. Making sure that your child feels really validated, you know, for the big feelings and empathize with them. And you know, say what you observed, I learned this from my friend Simone Davies, who wrote The Montessori Child, you know, just saying very calmly Oh, you’re so disappointed right now. I can see that you’re really upset. That’s really hard. I’m just here with you. Like I’m just gonna sit here with you while you’re upset. Yeah, sorry. You’re having those big feelings.

Zach Morris  

Yeah, it make sense that you’re having the experience you’re having. Right? That’s where you’re sort of saying, and I think about Bruce Perry’s work, you know, around some of this regulation. And that’s, you know, he talks about regulate, relate reason, right. And that’s sort of like a chain of things. And I think what we’re talking about right now, is this relating place. And I think the relating place is actually an easy space to miss. I know, I miss it all the time as a parent, right, like, but this place where I’m, like, That makes so much sense like that, you’re that you’re having the experience you’re having right, like, like, we don’t just go from regulating to now reasoning about it’s like, can we also relate around the fact that that was, of course, of course, that was happening? Of course this? Of course, you don’t want to of course, you know, like, of course, this is hard to hear, right? Like, like, so that it can be normalized also, and I don’t have to have shame or confusion, or in addition to whatever other undesirable experience I’m already having.

Debbie Reber  

Yeah, that’s so good. So good. I want to mention one other thing that came up for me with this, and on the proactive front. So we’ve been talking about how to navigate this in the moment. But I also just want to say that, you know, it seems like it’s kind of predictable, when the stuffs gonna happen. You know, the person who wrote the question and said, it’s on a school break, it’s things unravel. So I’ve done an episode, I’ll put it in the show notes page. Maybe it was with Margaret Webb, I believe on how to survive and thrive over summer break, I’ve talked about holiday break and disruptions and schedules. So there are a lot of strategies for how to proactively plan and collaborate with your child so that expectations can be set, what is going to happen over the break? What is this going to look like? What are you going to have days built in that are just about the things you love to do? Do we have plans as a family that are going to mean this routine is off, so get very granular, and proactive in planning that for your kids. And then also, you can be, you know, per Dr. Ross Greene’s collaborative and proactive solutions, like if, you know, kind of the underlying, lagging skills, as he says, and the needs that aren’t being met, or the problems that haven’t been solved yet. Collaborating with your child to come up with some strategies for when those, you know, bump, you hit those bumps in the road? So I think there’s a lot we can do in the moment, but then also being proactive and getting curious about, okay, how might we make this go a little more smoothly in the future, can also help and, and help you feel less, you know, reactive, and you’ll be better poised to respond in the moment? Yeah, yeah, something you want to add,

Zach Morris  

you know, just kind of, you know, going off of what you were saying, you know, might be able to if those routines and structures, you know, we find to be really like aid in the safety aid and write all of this experience, we might be able to kind of build some some more of that kind of on on the front end before that’s coming up, right, in collaboration with our kiddo. Not not that Ben solves everything, and all of a sudden, we’re doing that, right. But as we can also, like, engage our child around them, getting to know what they need to sort of stay in that in that place of social engagement and flexibility, right, and all of this, and I just wanted to kind of come back and reiterate this, like, flexibility being connected to our social engagement system. And, I also think about flexibility as a part of our exploratory system, right? Like, when we’re flexible, we’re exploring, we’re exploring something like we’re entertaining, something that’s different from what we were originally entertained, right? Is, is very exploratory and an exploration is often coming from a place of safety. Right, so there’s just maybe allows us to get super curious around what really fosters safety for this person. 

Debbie Reber  

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. I’m going to add one last thing, and then we’re, we’ll say goodbye. And that is just, you know, we’re talking about an eight year old here. And of course, listeners have kids of all different ages. But I just want to, as I do often, remind us that we are playing the long game here. And there, there unfortunately, are no quick fixes to, to this, that we’re building skills. We know our kids are on a, you know, their own unique timeline. And so skill building can take a lot longer. It can look a lot messier. And so if we can just remember that this isn’t something that’s going to be solved overnight, but investing in this. What we’ve been talking about today is absolutely going to pay off over time. Yeah. Awesome. Well Zach thank you so much for joining me today.

Zach Morris  

Thanks Debbie, and thanks everyone.