If you spend your days scanning for triggers and trying to prevent or control dysregulation, you are carrying a load that no amount of vigilance can actually lift. In this episode Lisa makes the case that regulation starts with you—the parent—and that your own nervous system is the most important variable in how meltdowns and dysregulation unfold.
But what does that really mean when your child is melting down in front of you, your body tightens, your pulse spikes, and your mind goes straight to make it stop?
This is not a mindset issue. Its biology. Your nervous system is wired to mirror your childs. When they escalate, your body reacts. You feel it. And thats why prevention and control, as much as we rely on them, only take us so far.
You can plan every detail, anticipate every trigger, and still find yourself in the middle of a storm, running on adrenaline. Because in that moment, what matters most isnt what you do, its how you are.
In Episode 184 of The Autism Mom Coach Podcast, I talk about what it really means that regulation starts with you. I share what happens when you meet your childs distress with your own, how your energy shapes the room before you say a word, and how to steady yourself when everything feels like its coming apart.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
- Why trying to prevent and control every meltdown is an exhausting, losing strategy.
- How your own regulation directly influences your child’s ability to settle.
- Why building your capacity to stay regulated is the foundation that other meltdown tools rest on.
Regulation is awareness. Its catching yourself sooner, breathing before you speak, and becoming the steady presence your child can lean on.
LISTEN HERE
RELATED EPISODES:
- Why Your Emotions Are Contagious to Your Autistic Child (Ep #122)
- Nervous System 101 for Autism Moms: How to Create Internal Safety (Ep #82)
RESOURCES MENTIONED
TRANSCRIPT
You are listening to episode 184 of the Autism Mom, coach, why Regulation Starts With You.
When it comes to meltdowns or dysregulation, how much of your time do you spend trying to prevent them or control them once they’ve happened? For most of us, it’s all of the time. You wake up, scanning the day ahead. What could trigger what to adjust, how to steer around the explosions before they happen.
You think through every detail, but inevitably. Dysregulation happens. And when it does, instead of standing back and assessing the situation, you jump in to fix it and control it. And before not only is your child escalated, but you are too. If this sounds familiar, this episode is for you.
Welcome to the Autism Bomb Coach Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Kra. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with autism. In this podcast, I am going to share with you the tools and strategies you need so you can fight like hell for your child without burning out.
Let’s get to it.
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. I am so glad you are here and I hope you are doing well.
In this episode, I wanna share with you a conversation I have been having a lot since my son turned 18 in September,
because with him turning 18, a lot of people have asked me, clients included, what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned or the most important thing you’ve learned about being an autism parent now that your son is turning 18? And while there are so many things that I have learned, the thing that really sticks out to me as the most important is that regulation starts with me Now. I did not always believe this or even understand it. In fact, I spent most of those 18 years trying to either prevent or control my son’s dysregulation or meltdowns.
I spent most of that time either trying to prevent dysregulation or meltdowns or once they happen, jumping into fix and control. There was not a magical moment where I came to really understand and believe that regulation started with me. It’s really the result of one, a lot of failure, and two, coming to understand what is really mine to control. And so with that, I want to talk to you about why regulation starts with us.
but before we do that, let’s talk about prevention and control, because it’s not wrong and in a lot of ways it’s really helpful. It’s an important thing for us to understand what our child triggers are, to be able to anticipate things.
To be able to put supports in place to best support them through those things so that maybe the meltdown doesn’t happen or the dysregulation doesn’t happen, or if it does, it’s short-lived. There is nothing wrong with that. But what happens is that prevention then just becomes a way of life to the extent that when something.
Does go quote unquote wrong? just a life happening that we interpret it as a bad thing or a failure because of all the time and energy we’ve put into the prevention add to this. all of the messaging that we get in terms of more is better with therapy and interventions.
And so when our child does get dysregulated or they have a meltdown, again, we’re looking at this as a failure and we jump to control. We jump into fix it, and a lot of times what that does is it escalates the situation.
Now why is that? Think about it. if you’re at the point where you believe that whatever’s happening should not be happening, especially because of all the effort that you’ve put into prevention, all the things you’ve tried, how old your child is, the fact that they don’t do this sometimes, but now they’re doing
This time and all of that social pressure that you have to show up as the good parent and not let this go
add to that, all the internalized pressure that you’re putting on yourself about what should and should not be happening, the pressure from outside voices in your head or people in the room, all of that combined, and then you go in to jump in and fix it and control it. That is the energy you are bringing to the situation.
So what is happening there is that you are meeting your child’s distress with your own distress. And when that happens, it’s like getting locked into the death row with your own child. You are both melting down, you are both dysregulated, and neither of you is in control.
And look. This is a normal reaction. This is really understandable. It’s very normal that when your child is reacting, that you are going to feel that in your body
And so in those moments where you’re jumping in to control it and fix it, it’s never just about the behavior. It’s about all of your effort, all of your expectations, all of that disappointment and that frustration coming to a head. And so of course, you’re not showing up as your most regulated self, even if you’re trying the best.
Because our kids. Can tell. Even when you’re trying your best to stay calm, the energy you are giving off betrays you. And our kids know that they can detect that from a mile away.
Whether it’s the volume of your voice, the tone of your voice, your posture, your kid is picking up on that energy and they are responding to it in kind.
and more often than not, this results in a prolonged period of dysregulation or meltdown and a meltdown hangover for both you and your child. And so it’s like even after the collision is over, you are still feeling the effects for hours and days afterwards.
That is what happens when you are solely focused on prevention and control. So what is the alternative? So what then are you supposed to do nothing to prevent your child from melting down?
Are you supposed to do nothing once they’re melting down or they’re dysregulated? No. But what to do is different than what you think. What you actually are doing is being dictated by that fight flight response that make it stop response, that fear drive. And when you’re in that mode of thinking, you are just in reaction.
Okay. And so again, you’re in reactive mode. Your stress is going up and they are feeling it. So what are you supposed to do when your child is getting dysregulated or they’re melting down and by this point the prevention hasn’t worked and you wanna jump in and control? this is where it’s really important to understand how you show up is not the what you say, but the how you say it.
This is what I mean when I say. Regulation starts with us because once our child is dysregulated and we can’t prevent it and we can’t control it, The most important thing that we can communicate to them in this moment is not with our words.
It’s with the most important thing that we can communicate to them in this moment. Is safety and regulation because we are their environment. They are picking up on all of our cues. If we can embody that grounded, steady, safe presence for them, we are going to have more.
When we are able to regulate ourselves and model a calm and steady presence for them, we give them the safety to do the same.
and one of the simplest reasons for this is when we’re reacting to their reaction, we are reinforcing to them that this is a big deal and that overreaction is appropriate when we are able to meet their dysregulation with a calm and steady hand, We are not reinforcing that idea that there are emotions or an emergency or that we should be worked up about this.
We are showing them that this can be happening and you can stay calm as well. So let me give you a couple of examples from my own life to demonstrate this.
when my son was younger, he would get really frustrated when he would lose a video game and he would often just yell or scream or stomp. and as soon as I heard that I would race into the playroom, I would start lecturing him about staying calm. And all that did was just aggravate him.
so he got more annoyed. He got louder. I got annoyed that he wasn’t listening to me and. what could have been five minutes of him in his room and being mad and stomping and yelling turned into 30 minutes of the two of us going back and forth like ping pongs. Because I was trying to control it because I jumped in and in that moment when I jumped in with my Stop it energy and you better stop, he was like, no, I’m mad and you’re not even validating my feelings. And so no, I’m not going to be calm.
I walked into his frustrated energy. I brought my own frustration and I elevated it after you do that, a few, I don’t know, a hundred times, maybe not that much, you start to learn.
And so what I would do is when I would hear him yell or stomp or get mad, I did nothing. I let him just resolve it on his own. I didn’t love it. Noise is a trigger to me. I really do have that urge to jump in and fix it, but because I knew that this was just what he did before, he just gave up and came downstairs and just was done with it.
I get that these things don’t always resolve themselves on their own. I’ve had times where I’ve heard him get frustrated and I’ve walked into the room and I’ve stood between him and the TV because we’ve all had the situation with the remote or the we controller hitting our TV screen.
But when I did it, it wasn’t in this angry. Controlling way. It was just in this sort of detached presence like we’re done here and that’s what I would say we’re done here. And that was it. But how that went so dependent on my energy. If I was coming in there with gritted teeth and angry, he was ready to go because again, he was frustrated.
And what’s more gratifying when you’re frustrated to have somebody else frustrated and that you can go back and forth with him? He wanted that energy exchange and I was just not giving it to him. So that’s what I mean when I say your regulation. Matters the most. And their regulation really starts with you modeling it for them and also providing them with that safe supportive environment that helps them deescalate.
Alright, so let’s talk about what regulation looks like in real life. it doesn’t look like being a zen master or as cool as a cucumber at any given moment. Regulation is all about being aware of your own emotional state and having the tools in order to bring yourself back to lower your temperature, just enough for you to stay in control and still be regulated.
You can be in a high energy situation with your adrenaline pumping, and still be regulated. If you have that awareness of what’s going on and you know what helps you stay in control.
so this could be as simple as pausing. Pausing is really our own way of practicing magic. When you pause, you are interrupting a pattern and a cycle when you’re triggered, your nervous system wants you to react, it wants you to do something. That pause is such a powerful way of just regaining your control over the situation, and when you pause, when you take a deep breath, when you relax your shoulders, when you stop talking to your child and maybe start talking more internally with some reassurance. These are like the simplest things that you can do to bring more regulation into your system in that moment.
Not you are again, chill and relaxed, but so that you are the calmest nervous system in the room because your nervous system is the one that your child is looking to and will regulate so I’m gonna give you three simple things that you can do to regulate yourself, but here’s the most important thing. I don’t want you to wait to practice these.
Not at the point where your child is dysregulated or melting down, or that you’re feeling stressed or anxious. I want you to practice them now. And on the regular, this is a muscle that you build. It’s like the deep breathing.
I remember when my doctors would tell Ben to deep breathe, and he would only do it when he was stressed, and so it actually sounded like he was hyperventilating. And it felt useless to him because it was, because in those moments he really didn’t know how to do it and he didn’t trust in it enough, and so it was like, sure, I’ll do this, but it doesn’t work.
If you feel that way about things like pausing and taking a deep breath or walking away, It is because you’ve probably tried them at the point where your nervous system was at its max, and maybe at that point it was like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic.
That’s why I want you to practice this regularly in your real life while you’re standing in line and someone is ordering a double Fra Kappa, whatever, and you’re like, oh God, please can this line just move. These are great times to just. Pause, take those deep breaths. Reassure yourself that you can handle this.
It’s not a big deal that you can be the calmest nervous system in this room. That is how you build the muscle and build the skill and build the self trust that you know how to regulate yourself when you’re feeling anxious and triggered. All right everyone. That is it for this week’s episode. I hope this was helpful, and what I want to say with you is I am sharing this with you after 18 years of parenting, and most of them doing exactly the opposite of what I am talking to you about now.
And so I say this to tell you that I know that this is not. Easy to implement in your real life. I get it. I truly do. and this is exactly why I offer the support and the coaching that I do to autism moms, because I didn’t have it myself. it’s what I needed. And so if this is something that you are struggling with, or quite simply, you just don’t wanna do it alone anymore, and you want someone to walk this journey side by side with you and providing you with tailored.
Comprehensive support, schedule your one-on-one consultation with me by going to the show notes or by going to my website, the autism mom coach.com. When you work with me, you not only get my one-on-one support, you get the benefit of joining my Autism Group membership where in addition to our weekly calls together, you will have weekly group calls with other autism parents who are having the same experiences that you are.
This has been such a game changer for my clients because of one, the ongoing support, and two, just being able to have face-to-face interaction with a group of people who. You can say anything to them and they’re not going to blink.
They understand you. They could finish your sentence. There is so much healing that happens when you have that kind of community.
So if this is something that sounds interesting to you, schedule your consultation and let’s talk. Alright everyone, I will talk to you next week where we are going to cover co-regulation. Take care.
Thanks for listening to the Autism Mom Coach. If you are ready to apply the principles you are learning in these episodes to your life, it is time to schedule a consultation call with me. Podcasts are great, but the ahas are fleeting. Real change comes from application and implementation, and this is exactly what we do in my one-on-one coaching program.
To schedule your consultation, go to my website, the autism mom coach.com, work with me and take the first step to taking better care of yourself so that you can show up as the parent you want to be for your child with autism.
