You’ve heard that it’s important to co-regulate with your child—but what does that actually mean, and how do you do it? In this episode of The Autism Mom Coach, Lisa breaks co-regulation down to its core: the biological process where nervous systems sync up, so your calm can help bring your child’s stress down. She clarifies what co-regulation is by spelling out what it isn’t (appeasing, absorbing, or suppressing), then walks through five practical steps for steadying yourself first so your child can borrow your calm. Because regulation starts with you, and so does co-regulation.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What co-regulation really is—hovering just below your child’s heightened energy with your own grounded calm—and how to recognize the three things it is not: appeasing, absorbing, and suppressing.
- Five concrete practices for co-regulating in the moment: pausing, checking your face, checking your voice, validating your child’s emotions, and repeating it consistently over time.
- Why validating the emotion (without validating the demand) and acknowledging arbitrary-feeling rules with “you’re not wrong, but…” can take the bite out of a moment and lower the temperature for you both.
Related episodes:
- The Autism Behavior Barometer: A Better Way to Understand Meltdowns (Ep #130)
- Being Unbothered: How to Stay Regulated When Your Autistic Child Pushes Your Buttons (Ep #197)
- The #1 Meltdown Mistake Autism Parents Make (And How to Stop) (Ep #200)
Resources mentioned:
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast. I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, the full-time single mother of a teenager with autism.
In this podcast, I share the tools and strategies you need to fight like hell for your child without burning out.
Let’s get to it.
You’re listening to Episode 185 of The Autism Mom Coach: Co-Regulation.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. I am so glad you’re here, and I hope you’re doing well.
Last week, we talked about how regulation starts with you. This week, we’re going to go deeper and talk about co-regulation.
You’ve heard it before: “It’s important to co-regulate with your child.”
But what does that actually mean? And how do you do it?
Great questions.
Last week, we talked about the fact that you are your child’s environment. Your child picks up on your energy and responds to it. That works whether you’re anxious and overwhelmed or calm and grounded.
Your regulation impacts your child.
Co-regulation is the biological process through which nervous systems sync up.
Imagine your child is at an eight out of ten. They’re upset about losing a video game, frustrated by homework, or angry because their sister took their favorite headphones.
You walk into the room, see that they’re upset, and immediately jump in.
“What happened?”
“Why are you fighting?”
“What’s going on?”
Now their eight becomes a ten, and you’ve joined them there.
You’re co-regulating, but you’re going up together.
What we want instead is to hover just below our child’s level of intensity. We want to bring calm, grounded, steady energy into the situation so they can begin to match us rather than the other way around.
That’s the big-picture definition of co-regulation.
One of the best ways to understand it is to understand what it is not.
Let’s start there.
Co-regulation is not appeasing.
This is tempting.
Your child is upset, and you want to fix it. You want to reassure them. You want to give them five more minutes on the iPad. You want to let up on the chores or the consequence.
You want to give them what they want so the problem goes away.
That is not co-regulation.
Appeasement doesn’t work because children are designed to test boundaries. You give an inch, they ask for a yard.
More importantly, what happens to you when you’re appeasing?
You’re not calm.
You’re frustrated.
You’re resentful.
You’re annoyed.
Maybe you’re even angry.
So while it may look like you’re solving the problem, your nervous system is actually escalating.
You might give your child what they want, but your energy is going up, and they’re responding to that too.
Co-regulation is not appeasing.
Second, co-regulation is not absorbing.
Absorbing is when your child gets upset and you get upset right along with them.
Their stress becomes your stress.
Their frustration becomes your frustration.
Instead of your child regulating toward your calm, you’re regulating toward their chaos.
Technically, that is co-regulation.
It’s just happening in the wrong direction.
And third, co-regulation is not suppressing.
Suppressing is when your words say one thing but your body says another.
You’re telling your child everything is fine while your jaw is clenched.
You’re telling them to calm down while your shoulders are practically touching your ears.
You’re moving from room to room like a tornado while insisting you’re perfectly okay.
Your child notices all of that.
They are paying far more attention to your energy than your words.
That’s why suppression doesn’t work.
The energy is still there.
Your child can feel it.
The kind of co-regulation we want—the kind that lowers stress and supports regulation—starts with us regulating ourselves first.
We want to be the people who set the tone.
Not the people who follow our child’s emotional cues wherever they lead.
When our child goes high, we don’t have to be perfectly calm.
We don’t have to be zen.
We just need to stay a little lower than they are.
We want to bring steady, grounded energy into the interaction.
We want to be the person they can borrow regulation from.
Now let’s talk about how to actually do this.
I’m going to give you five practical tips.
But really, they all come down to two things:
Slow down.
And become aware of the signals you’re sending.
Because your child is constantly taking in information from your face, your voice, and your body language.
The first step is to pause.
Pause.
Then pause again.
The pause is where the magic happens.
Your biology wants you to react.
Jump in.
Fix it.
Argue.
Explain.
Correct.
The pause interrupts that pattern.
The pause creates choice.
Take a breath.
Then take another.
Give yourself a moment before you respond.
Second, check your face.
Our faces communicate a tremendous amount of information.
People can tell when we’re angry, frustrated, relaxed, worried, or happy before we ever say a word.
Many autistic children are highly attuned to facial expressions.
I know my son is.
If I walk into a room with a neutral expression, he’ll immediately ask if something is wrong.
Nothing may be wrong.
But that’s not what he’s reading.
So check your face.
Is your jaw tight?
Are your eyes narrowed?
Are your brows furrowed?
Relax the muscles in your face.
One simple trick is placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It naturally relaxes your jaw and softens your expression.
You don’t need to walk around smiling.
You just want to release some of that tension.
Third, check your voice.
Are you loud?
Do you sound rushed?
Does your tone match your words?
Because your child may not be hearing what you’re saying in a moment of dysregulation.
But they absolutely hear how you’re saying it.
Your tone communicates safety long before your words do.
Your face, your voice, and your body language often matter more than the actual content of what you’re saying.
Before your child processes your words, they’re processing your energy.
So pay attention to it.
Fourth, validate their emotions.
Notice I said validate their emotions—not necessarily the thing they’re upset about.
Those are two different things.
Your child may be upset because they have to brush their teeth.
You can acknowledge that it’s frustrating without removing the expectation.
Validation sounds like:
“I know this is hard.”
“I can see you’re frustrated.”
“I get why you’re upset.”
When people don’t feel heard, they escalate.
And that applies to children too.
Many autistic children are especially sensitive to feeling misunderstood.
One thing I often say to my son is:
“You’re not wrong.”
That simple phrase can change everything.
For example:
“You’re not wrong to be upset that the entire lunch table got in trouble when only two kids were causing problems.”
That doesn’t mean the school is changing its decision.
It simply means you’re acknowledging reality.
You’re letting your child know you understand why they’re frustrated.
I used to spend a lot of time explaining things to my son.
Explaining why the teacher made the decision.
Explaining why the rule existed.
Explaining why he needed to accept it.
He didn’t care.
He wasn’t looking for an explanation.
He was looking to be understood.
Validation helps your child feel emotionally safe.
And emotional safety is what makes regulation possible.
Finally, number five: rinse and repeat.
Co-regulation is not a checklist.
It’s a practice.
You pause.
You breathe.
You check your face.
You check your tone.
You validate emotions.
And then you do it again.
And again.
And again.
If it feels awkward at first, that’s normal.
If it doesn’t work immediately, that’s normal too.
Keep practicing.
The more consistent you become, the more your child learns what to expect from you.
They learn that you are steady.
They learn that you’re safe.
They learn that you’re not going to get swept away by every emotional storm.
Remember, we cannot control our children.
We can support them.
We can influence them.
But we cannot control them.
So instead of asking, “How do I make this stop?”
Ask yourself:
“What is one thing I can do right now to lower the temperature by ten percent?”
For me, the answer is often fewer words.
More space.
And sometimes walking away.
You will learn what works for your child.
You’re the expert on your child.
Pay attention.
Get curious.
Notice what helps and what doesn’t.
Notice how much space they need.
Notice when your involvement helps and when it hurts.
That awareness is where the learning happens.
All right, everyone.
That is it for this week’s episode.
Everything we’ve talked about today sounds simple.
But it is not easy.
In fact, learning to regulate ourselves may be some of the hardest work we ever do.
It requires us to rewire old patterns.
To anticipate triggers.
To make decisions ahead of time.
And to show up differently in moments that have historically been difficult.
If this is something you struggle with, or if you simply want support as you practice these skills, I would love to help.
In my one-on-one coaching program, I work directly with autism moms to help them apply these tools in real time so they can transform their parenting experience.
If that interests you, book a consultation through the link in the show notes.
You can also visit TheAutismMomCoach.com to schedule a consultation.
And if you’re not quite ready for that step, send me an email at Lisa@TheAutismMomCoach.com.
All right, everyone.
I will talk to you next week.
Thanks for listening to The Autism Mom Coach.
If you’re ready to apply what you’re learning in these episodes to your own life, it’s time to schedule a consultation.
Podcasts create awareness.
Change comes from implementation.
That is exactly what we do in my coaching program.
Visit TheAutismMomCoach.com/work-with-me and take the first step toward taking better care of yourself so you can show up as the parent you want to be for your child with autism.
