Attunement in the Moment: De-Escalation, Delight & Micro-Repair (with Karen Yingling)

Renae: there's two points in here that I want to highlight. One is, and we've had this conversation before, in in a couple of different ways, is, if your relationship to yourself is just as important as your relationship to your child. And so when you think about relationship over task, it's for yourself as well. Sometimes there are tasks that you do that help you to be reconnected to yourself. If you have taxes looming, you're going to be distracted. It's going to be really hard to relax. So sometimes, sometimes this that part of part of self care is doing taxes, it is doing laundry, it is meal planning. I'm taking care of my future self with that. And so for people who are? Are like, Oh, no, we're not. I don't think either of us are saying that you don't do the task. What it is is, is this task taking care of future me, and is it creating connection so I can be, have capacity to be with my kid, right? And then the the second piece of that is when you talked about going and spending time with your child and enjoying them. I have learned more about attachment over the last five years, and a piece of it that had not been in any of the books that I had read or any of the trainings until 2020, before covid, was that it's not just that we're meeting the needs, physical and emotional needs, but there is a piece of attachment that actually includes delighting in, and that part of that, when we are delighted in, that is A big part of our seen, heard and valued, and when that is exactly right for when, if an in charge adult does not have a a an open of affect is is not showing delight in progress, In the existence, in the presence of a child, it sends a message that affects them. And so creating that margin to say, you know, like I want to, I want to make rice krispie treats with my kid. I want to do a puzzle. I want to sit I want to, let's make tempura paint and paint the sidewalk, like, Let's do dishes together, standing next to each other, let's sing a song, whatever the thing happens to be, and then delighting and saying, I just love doing this. I love being with you. I love seeing this in you. Or I noticed when you did this, and it was really sweet. It was really cool when you did that, or that was really funny. You. Know, any of those things help them to be seen, but it was such points we can't do that if we're distracted.

Karen: Yeah, it's a really interesting I mean, my two of my middle people, the they are travel bugs and they are foodies, and so we just when we do that, that is what we do. We go places, we eat. That's what we do. You know, we are definitely not an Eat to Live Group. We are a live to eat. But it is that delay. It's when you know. So my daughter, who just, I just took her to college, and I get no photographs from her. Okay, she doesn't take selfies. I don't know what she's I mean, I can track her on like through, but what I get from her are pictures of the cool food that she's eating. So she went into Boston on her own on Saturday, and she went and found some Chinese food places. And I get this bowl, this big picture, this big bowl of soup. And that's, that's how she is, that like, that's her thing, and it's great. And so I will do the same. I like, Oh, she would love this. I sent her that, that picture, or something like that. And it is that, it's not that, it's not that I don't like food. I just don't take pictures of my food. I'm a people, but I pictures of people. I have people pictures. She's not that's okay. It's understanding. It's meaning that my other daughter is an art person. So I get pictures of pictures of museums when she's in school. And so just again, that, that cool thing they love to do, even if you hate it, yeah, which I Hm, I'm not good at stuff like that. I was never the, I never the mom to sit on the floor and play with Barbies. And I can remember our therapist saying, You need to sit on the floor and play dolls. I'm like, I just like, there's nobody asked me to do that. And she's so then she went, Well, how come you don't like to do that? And I'm like, Oh, how I never did that as a kid. Ah, you know. So there's always something. And again, holding that with openness and not judgment, I think on ourselves is really important, and being able to be okay with it and for us and for them, absolutely, and that makes a big difference on that. And I think that's where, you know, to move into, sort of, my professional piece of it for a little bit, is that, you know, I can get into, and I, when I get into an IEP meeting, I can very quickly tell if the teacher delights in that student. And it doesn't mean, you know, my, my poor sixth grade teachers, because they have a lot of pressure. They've got these babies who are elementary kids, but they've got to get them ready for junior high, which can we just say junior high is the worst years of anybody's life. Ever, ever, worse, ever. If you, if you know, people say, I'll go be kindergarten again. My glory days were high school. No one ever says Junior High was their glory days. So I'm still looking for that. If you are out there, if you are listening, if Junior High was your glory days, I want to talk to you about that. I'll talk to you about that. But, you know, so these poor sixth grade teachers, they have these kids who are squirrely and terrified, right? They're terrified, and they gotta get them ready for junior high. So they're very structured, and they're very, you know, their general patent, we are going to do this. You are going to do, I have a charge, and you are going to be ready. And what they have is a group of kids who just want to have their hand held, right? That's, that's really what they need. So finding that space where those two things meet is really challenging, yeah, really challenging my daughter, my young my 18 year old, had a teacher like that, Miss galvis, you rocked him. She really did. She got them ready, but she loved those kids, and they knew it and and it is that. It is, I heard it described as, you know, general patent structure with wearing a Mister Rogers cardigan, right? And I have, I love that visual, and I use that a lot with parents and with teams, especially for kids who really, really need that structure to feel safe, but really need that high nurture, high connection, high structure. It's a hard space to balance. I do it about 10% of the time with my kids. Neither one i And now the nice thing is, when you're co parenting or CO teaming with someone, if you can get it so one of you is high structure and one of you is high nurture, and you use you can, you can move back through them, as long as no one you're not both in the same space at the same time. You're okay, hey.

Renae: Right, well, and I, and I that to me, that is part of co-regulation. co-regulation is the the experience, the high structure, high nurture. I've created this environment. I've created this container where you're going to get your needs met. And again, I just want to reiterate, for any parents are like, I don't. Do that very well, or a great percentage of the time. I think both Karen and I are here to tell you, you know, what's more important than you getting it right? Is your repair, right? It's the creating a pathway back into relationship, and that does start with you. And so it's, it is, you keeping a very short tab, short accounts at the day, working on your stuff and being willing to apologize and take responsibility, and I know that's painful, especially if it wasn't modeled for you, not you, but general you, if you're if you're a parent, and that was not modeled in your own caregiving experience when you were growing up. It feels foreign. It you really are learning a new language. What you're learning is a new language of humility that says, I'm going to show you humanity and model for you that there's always a way back. And that's really

Karen: hard. It's very hard that, and it's the the I'm sorry period, all right, not I'm sorry, but not I'm sorry and I'm just sorry. We talk a lot in our family, and I talk about it sometimes with teams, with the the difference between intent and impact, and that's really important. My intent is not to harm, but I but and the repair really comes in, in addressing the impact, not the intent. My kids know I'm sorry when I yell, well, okay, maybe they don't, but they should, but they don't. I don't know Anyway, when I lose my temper with them, or when I am short with them, or when I disappoint whatever, whatever, whatever misstep I do right, whenever I miss the mark, which is a lot, and it's not necessarily just the intent of saying, I'm sorry. It's the I know I hurt your feelings, and I'd like to fix that, and that's really hard. Um, it's really, it's and I have adult friends who are my age who say to me, I've been waiting 50 years to hear my mom say I'm sorry, and now I'm sorry, and I did the best I could, or I'm sorry, but the circumstance just I'm sorry, when we have a daughter who has severe burn injuries, and when we brought her home, one of the things that she was really frustrated with was that, like, why didn't you come for me sooner? Cuz we brought her home when she was nine, and she was injured when she was two, and she had a great she she really did for what, for what she went through. She had a tremendous support system in her orphanage. But she's like, I don't, I don't understand, you know, why? Why didn't you come sooner? If you loved me, you would have come sooner. Yeah, and I'm like, I didn't know like, as soon as I came, like, as soon as we knew it like I came, I did the best I could, right? And our therapist said, you know, just say, Man, I'm sorry. I should have been there. And I'm like, But I No, no, no, I'm sorry. I should have been there, even though my, my, you know, left side of my brain, right is like, there's logically no way I could have been there's nothing like all of those. It doesn't matter. I'm appealing to that right side. I spend a fair amount of time with teams and with parents saying, You need to figure out what quadrant your child is working from. Are they in their prefrontal cortex, or are they in their limbic system first? Are they in their upstairs or downstairs brain? You know, Dan Siegel that that image that he has and gave us that very visual, they're either upstairs or downstairs. If they're downstairs, is the gate locked to upstairs? Like, can they even get there? Right? But I think for why, I always found for us it was, it was not just prefrontal versus limbic system. It was also, are they operating from their logic side of their brain in that up or down, or their emotional side of their brain? And in order to figure that out, that was my pathway for that co-regulation. So I have a child who is she's beyond black and white, if there is such a thing as beyond black and white. This is this child gray. Just the mention of the word gray or uncertainty can spin her like she just can't. So when she was little, I would have to figure out where she was, because if she was in her emotional side of her brain, which is where she lived most of the time. But if she was in her downstairs brain, I needed to figure out which side of it was she was in in order to unlock the gate. If she was in her in her right side and just her emotions were swirling, that was me coming in, co regulating her with words like, you're safe. It's going to be okay. Me, I'm right here. I'm not leaving. She was the other side of her brain, her logic side, but her emotional brain. It was, tell me what two plus two is, tell me what four plus four is. I had to, I had to to, to engage that part of her brain through that. Now, if I got those wrong, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, if she was in her logic side of the brain, and I was like, you're going to be fine, you're going to be safe, she would be like, I I mean, it would just like, I would know that I got it wrong by the reaction. Because we would go from, you know, we were at 100 miles an hour to 200 miles an hour, but it's and that requires me to stay co regulated to be able to figure out what that and that's what I tell teachers. So I tell teams, when you have a child who's in a room and you can and they are starting to get agitated, they are starting to like ready to throw things, you need to stay extraordinarily regulated. Mm, hmm, cuz you need to figure out how you're going to deescalate, how you're going to co-regulate this child. And if you start talking to them, and that's the worst thing for them, yes, they're going to throw that book at you. Yeah, if you're if you're giving them words, if you're silent, and what they need to hear you say is, you're okay, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, and you don't they're going to feel loved. So you have to have that ability to not get yourself freaked out, you know, don't, don't call the radio. Bring 15 people into the room, if that's going to make this child, you know. And you can't do that if you're not regulated. So what do you need as the adult to stay regulated? And there's no formula for that, you know. I mean, maybe it's a deep breath, maybe it's singing a song in your head, maybe it's a drink of water, maybe it's a shot of whiskey. I don't know. I'm not here to judge do whatever it takes to stay regulated.

Renae: And again, that regulation is not calm. And I think that that's something that because sometimes when we talk about regulation and people equate it to calm, what they end up doing is dissociating. They do little dissociation so that they and they go stone face, and it's just, there's nothing. It's because they're like, Well, I wasn't emotional. That's not regulated. You can actually be, you can actually have lots of energy and be very regulated. I'm very regulated right now. I'm also high energy. So I if I was, if I was calm and had this conversation, I have the type of voice that people would fall asleep. It just happened. So I actually have to have levels, which means I bring energy to it. That's what I need. That's the right

Karen: if you were calm right now, I'd be a little worried something was wrong, absolutely well, it because you know me, because you know you you're talking about the thing that makes your that makes your heart happy. I feel like, Oh my God, what's wrong? But that is that relationship, that is that being attuned and seeing and hearing people, and that's what we have to do with our children. We have to look at them and be able to you know the same daughter who's in Boston. She facetimes me way too much right now, and the phone rings and she gets on and I can tell in an instant by looking at her face where the conversation is going to go. Yeah, I know her really well, yeah, and I can't if she's going to cry. I can't get all up in my feels about it, right? You know, it's why she can't talk to her father right now, because he's like, Come home right now.

Renae: Levels of stress. We are hearing stress. We're increasing your stress tolerance.

Karen: Everybody's gonna be okay. Just hang in there.

Renae: Okay. Well, I really appreciate the wisdom and experience that you brought for for this was probably a very good chance that we're going to need to turn this into two different talks, because I do think that we did a good job of talking through two different pieces of it. But if you are going to, if somebody was only able to listen to a tiny bit of what you have to share today for for your trauma, wise parenting Wisdom, what is it that you would want them to walk away with?

Karen: You're in the long game here. Okay, you're in the long game. So if you are parenting littles right now, or pre teens, and especially if you're parenting teens, you're not seeing the payoff of your work, but I promise you, it's there. So stay regulated. Don't let your brain take you to whatever is happening in this moment is defining the rest of my relationship and the trajectory of this child's life. It is not. Um, it. We had a summer in our house where it was the summer we didn't leave the house. Kids were little, and they just we weren't going out in public, because no one could handle it. Me, them, nobody. And now those are kids who are flying around the world on their own and with me. So it's the long game, and major in the majors, those those little things that you're getting tied up on, truly are little things. They truly, truly are

Renae: beautiful. Well, thank you again. So much, Karen, thank you for everything you bring. It's awesome. So glad to have you. I love it.

Karen: I love it. So good luck everybody