WHY CO-REGULATION IS NOT AN OPTION
I want to go over why the nervous system as your foundation is so critical for our children and the importance and impact of what happens if we don’t take this part seriously or implement it into their development.
I don’t want to add blame or shame to what I’m going to tell you truly is our responsibility as parents. There is no way around it.
You can try. And you can think you’re doing something, right now, because you’re using a band-aid. But if you’re not focused on the nervous system as the root cause to anything you want to label an issue. You are wiring your child’s system wrong.
It’s biology and it’s how our bodies were designed.
Every child is wired to need us for co-regulation until they can get to self-regulation on their own. Depending on how aware and attentive you are to that, will set up your timeline. It can’t be forced or controlled. It’s dependent on everyone’s system involved. But when you have the foundational pieces, the rest will work as it naturally should.
It is our responsibility. And I get it, it’s another one to add to the list.
It’s even scarier because we don’t feel equipped. We probably didn’t receive it, all for ourselves. We feel inadequate, like even from our body level. We’re not sure or confident in ourselves.
You can accept it and do it now and actually wire your kids for a healthy life and future. Or you don’t. It’s like when you can’t go back after you know something.
Or my favorite quote is, when you know better, you do better. Now you know…
Because of my own healing and how I like to default blame my parents for my stuff…
I know I'll be accountable to my girls one day. I don’t want to have any part in feeling guilt or regret for being the cause of their pain or blocks or time spent healing instead of living their beautiful life, because of my parenting. I'd just rather not!
And it’s really not this huge undertaking. Again it’s simple. You just have to get back to the place where your body can do what it’s supposed to do without you getting in the way. It’s the one answer to all the issues and to all the future problems you would have if you just got to the nervous system first. As soon as you embody this, it becomes innate again. You will have access to your intuition and it will all flow naturally.
It’s just a critical piece because it’s the one and only way they will ever learn self regulation. The only way you teach them is from your body.
You can’t just tell them or give them activities or have them read about it in a book.
It literally takes YOU. Your presence. Your body. And your regulation.
Their nervous system is attuned by your energy and presence.
Co-regulation is when your body helps them move their system back to safety through your connection. If they don’t get this their body has to adapt and find another way to find safety and they develop coping mechanisms.
Co-regulation is to be felt, seen, and embraced energetically by another nervous system.
When you’re not regulated and connected to yourself, then you aren’t present in your body, you’re not grounded to even what’s actually happening in front of you, so you’re not able to be present to them and their needs.
The only way you can give co-regulation is if you’re regulated.
If you’re not regulated, you can’t be responsive to them. You’re reacting out of fear. And then you continue to make decisions that may not be the best for the actual situation.
You can’t process what is around you. You can’t show up the way your kids need you to.
I’m going to give an example here and I want to refer back to how thoughts come from the state you’re in. Say your kid is sick or gets hurt. You want to be your best to be there for them. But you are dysregulated when something suddenly happens or maybe you’re like me and even the sound of a sneeze is a trigger.
So you’re not connected. You’re not in a clear head space to make the best decisions.
If you go into fight. Your thoughts are all over the place. Your energy is in your body and not your head. You can actually feel like you want to get away from the situation.
Or you shutdown and feel like you can’t move or think.
These are not places we want to be in, in a really crucial time that our kids need us.
And just to validate here…if we live in a chronic stress state in normal times and we already don’t have the capacity. Just to soothe them or give them the care and concern and attention they want when they don’t feel good. It’s hard. And that just feels horrible because again this isn’t a lack of love on your part, it’s just your body’s state and how you feel because of it.
So this is how this all works. Nervous systems read nervous systems.
All happening without us knowing or needing to be conscious of it.
It’s really why you have to be aware and connected to your body. Because it’s something you kind of always have to be on top of. It’s like dysregulation is contagious. And the way you keep from catching it, is how you take care of your energy.
A lot of times the main source of stress is actually having to adjust your energy to another’s dysregulation. Our bodies genuinely have this power over another’s body. So it’s very tricky and why baseline is really the most important part to staying regulated.
Their behavior can be your dysregulation.
In this example the child is attuned to the mom’s freeze response.
The mom is shy. So when she goes out she puts on a brave social face.
The child is labeled as being bossy, strong willed and loud.
Her intensity is in direct proportion to the mom’s freeze state. Since she isn’t able to connect with her mom, her loudness and intensity is an attempt to bring them into connection. And it happens more when they’re not at home. Because at home the mom is able to be herself. So when they’re out, her unconscious freeze response gets triggered and she acts out. Our children express what we are suppressing.
Another example of behavior. Have you ever triggered a meltdown because you gave them a blue instead of a green cup? Kids project their emotions onto safe situations so they can process them. It can feel like our kids act out more for us, it's because of this.You can feel like it’s manipulation or attention seeking, but they feel safe with us.
So I have to talk about co-regulation with the example of sleep training because it’s such a misled topic. Yes we all want to sleep. And you can try and justify it because it can be such a detriment to your health in the beginning. But unfortunately this is the place that we as moms have to sacrifice or to rearrange priority where we can. Putting more self care in place and as many things as you can to support yourself. I get it, not everyone can stay home and take naps or afford childcare to help.
But I just have to bring it back to the fact. This can’t be about finding an excuse or a loophole when it has the biggest impact on our kid’s development and everything that branches off from this not being wired right.
So when your baby is crying, that’s their communication that they need something. They need something. You can’t ignore this.
You also just need to know what you’re doing. You’re not training their body to fall asleep. Their body can’t be trained. Your baby can't self soothe. Period. The end.
So what happens is they cry. You don’t come to help. Their body then decides it’s too unsafe, crying isn’t working, they’re not going to survive this sensation or threat and it shuts down. So when you think you did it, you trained your baby to soothe themself. No you trained them to start wiring this as a coping mechanism to not receiving the co-regulation when they need it. And also just because they’re sleeping from exhausting their energy crying. They are now also stuck in a dysregulated state. They’re not safe and connected just because they’re quiet.
I want to add, because I’m sure as we’re going through all of this, the thing that keeps going through your head is why didn’t I know this?! Why didn’t my mom, some mom, any mom tell me this?! So I’m telling you…if you know anyone who is pregnant or is planning on it or is in their first year. Give them a book, just ONE book on attachment theory. I have a course called The Universal Spiral I had to put together for this reason. But again just to get this information and have the awareness will be better than not. Even if you just send them this series to hear these concepts.
Now I’m going to talk about what happens when your child receives co-regulation and starts to self regulate.
When your child is regulated. They behave. They naturally cooperate. Because they feel safe and they are connected.
If they seem to be against you or what you’re telling them to do. They’re actually listening! Not to you, but to what’s even more important than what we want. They are listening to their bodies.
The point here is we don’t want to stop, suppress or condition them away from listening to their intuition. That’s the first block we can cause.
The next piece I’m going to share is my favorite because my big thing is truth.
And it’s the difference between being calm and being authentic.
This can mess up so much and I don’t think many of us are aware of it at all, and the layers to it, for us and for our kids.
So this would be like when you’re really mad, but you put on a happy face to try to either fake your calm or just try to change the mood.
Going back to nervous systems read nervous systems.
Your good intentions, doesn’t really matter at all and actually can make it worse because your child’s system reads the incongruence as a threat.
Their body feels your energy and dysregulation, but they hear a calming tone of voice.
So this messes with their intuition because it confuses their signals. They feel something is happening internally for them, but it doesn’t match what they see externally and it’s very confusing to the body. And they will escalate to the degree that you’re not being authentic.
So this actually for some moms can be life changing. Even just for your wellbeing. This gives you the real permission to be authentic.
This gives them a deeper sense of knowing it’s ok and healthy to feel your emotions. And you’re modeling simply that your body doesn’t feel safe or good and you can share that and it can be safe.
My girls understand their nervous systems. They understand how their bodies work. We talk all the time about it. They bring up how it’s their nervous system in whatever situation we’re dealing with. They have this huge awareness.
They get to have this core knowing that they’re human and their nervous system is the main source of how they’re able to feel. And when you’re all living together with this as a foundational guide. You understand each other more. You can love each other more!
And this is the profound part. I know it’s still important to talk about things after they happen, to still go through the rupture and repair process.
But I also have the relief that my kids initially get that it’s not about them.
They know before I have to explain or apologize even, that my body was scared.
That I didn’t want to be mean or react towards them, but in that moment my body felt threatened by them. It’s the same exact way they feel. So they get it on a deeper level even than just my words.
Honestly living in this way of parenting by the nervous system, I can’t emphasize enough how many parts of your life, this will touch when you know it. It will find places that you had no idea where issues issues or that you just default and live on autopilot doing. It will all at some point come to your awareness and you will be able to parent in such different ways that come from your truth and intuition.
Say you yell and your child is regulated. They’re open and connected and they have this understanding that your body yells when it’s scared. And my girls are actually able to stop and try and help me. Just as I do for them.
When they have a stress response, I stop and point it out.
You’re yelling, does your body feel scared?
We walk around doing this all day long. So we’re connected to our bodies and each other and it’s this space of how do we move through this together. We all know it’s about getting back to regulation. How can we help our own body? How can we help co-regulate together? So we can get back to feeling good and enjoying life!
Another quick example of what you being dysregulated does under the surface.
So you tell your kid if there’s anything going on or something is bothering them…they can come to you. They can tell you anything! And you make them promise and you feel you have this great relationship and they will definitely come to you if they need to.
But your nervous system can totally block this. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell them, if you are dysregulated when they need you, they won’t come. If your nervous system is activated. Their bodies tell them it's not safe. Don’t be vulnerable, don’t be open, it’s not safe there right now. So again just highlighting these places where we never think our nervous system is messing things up!
So I want to bring up teenagers to highlight again what is our responsibility to begin with, but I think because at this age we think we can start shifting the blame. We feel they’re old enough to now act right and we hold them accountable for their decisions.
But I’m going to go back to what I said before about it being just a different age or stage.
What’s not different is you’re still the same adult that you were when they were babies and toddlers. Your system is still dysregulated. You never fixed the root cause, you just kept coping through all those years and now your kid is coping right along with you. And they’re also still developing. Their emotional and physical landscape is actually drastically changing and how are you supporting them through it? Are you using the power of co-regulation? It’s not enough to blame it on hormones.
Co-regulation is not self-driven and it’s not imposed by the other person either. It involves you and it involves someone else, but it is received through unconscious cues of safety.
If your child is dysregulated and they see you smiling at them. This sends a signal to help activate their safety pathways. You don’t choose or make it happen, they are simply activated with the correct input from the safe system.
I also want to point out that we all need co-regulation. We are social beings. On a very biological level, we need each other. We don’t do well as individuals in isolation. So as you build your capacity for self regulation, you will benefit from others. And this can be your kids. This is how you grow and heal together. You can create this real safety zone in your home of co-regulation being the center.
