How is driving on the opposite side of the road like your kid hitting their sibling? *** My family recently moved to a new country. Now I’m driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road, instead of the left side of the car and the right side of … Read more
Sometimes success can’t be measured because in this instance, success literally means becoming unmeasurable. The meltdown that didn’t happen. The dysregulation that lasted only for a few beats before their safe adult was there. The day when “nothing getting done” was far superior to “everything going wrong”. The trip that was able to exist instead … Read more
Bedtime has been rough for… Well, let me back up. Bedtime has been out of whack in general for like, six weeks now. But bedtime has been especially bad and full of tears and yelling and dysregulation this whole week. I’ve been so tapped out myself by the end of the day that I can … Read more
We have been watching a lot of hotel TV these past couple of weeks. At home, we really only watch stuff on streaming services; the kids have never had live TV before, so there have been some new enthralling things to watch and some old favorites. I remain convinced that Bluey is genuinely in a … Read more
This is a Spanish language translation of this post, which is in English. Post traducido del original en Ingles. Veo peques en mi escuela que tienen tres, cuatro, cinco y seis años. Se comportan de todo tipo de maneras molestas para la educación tradicional. Tocan cosas cuando pasan por los pasillos. Se levantan de las … Read more
Imagine that you sit down to watch a movie. You pop yourself a bowl of popcorn to go with it…maybe your favorite toppings, whether salt and butter or marshmallow or Parmesan cheese or something else…you pick up the remote, hit play, and get ready to watch the movie while eating your popcorn. Then somebody takes … Read more
I’ve written before on here about my own strategy of enjoying yelling along to music, as a means of preemptively self-regulating. Because when I’m stressed out, I have a tendency to want to yell (at my kids), so I take that need, recognise it, and preemptively meet it in a non harmful way, when I’m … Read more
As more and more parents, caregivers, and adults start undertaking the work of helping the next generation of children feel safe to express their feelings rather than repeat unhealthy habits from the past, it can be hard knowing where to begin or which way is up. Co-regulation, self-regulation, interoception, what do these words mean? What … Read more
When I try to define the word “proprioception” I usually refer to it as “deep body sense”. The sensing part of it also has to do with your sense of body in space and your body in relation to itself and other objects. Proprioception is sometimes called the “universal regulator” in that nearly everybody in … Read more
A lot of public schools in the US, and at least some in the UK near where I live, have begun figuring out how they can teach social-emotional skills and things like self-regulation and coping skills to children. I need to say outright at the beginning of this that I am not *against* that. I … Read more