#382 - 5 Ways to Practice Co-Regulation (Without Saying a Word)

You can't pour from an empty cup. You can't put your child's oxygen mask on before you put your own oxygen mask on. And I know personally if I am malnourished, dehydrated, and have not Worked out, I am so much worse at co regulating, and I I just noticed that. significantly. So if you the parent are dysregulated, if your nervous system is all out of whack, this is gonna be really hard. So then we challenge you to really take it back and self-reflect, like Jessica said.

And look at what you have been doing to regulate your own needs too. If you haven't taken care of your own needs, there's no way you're gonna be successful with co-regulating. So think about that aspect as well. I'm Rachel and I'm Jessica and this is All Things Sensory by Harkla. We are both certified occupational therapy assistants and together with Harkla we are on a mission to empower parents. therapists and educators to help raise confident and strong children of all abilities.

On this podcast, we chat about all things sensory, diving into special needs, occupational therapy, parenting, self-care, overall health and wellness, and so much more. We are here to provide raw, honest and fun strategies, ideas and information for parents, therapists, and educators, as well as other professionals to implement. daily life. Thank you so much for joining us.

Hey there, welcome back to All Things Sensory by Harkla. We're so happy to have you here today. I'm Rachel. And I'm Jessica. And today we're talking all about co-regulation and why you need to be doing this if you're not doing it already. Yep. So if you're not already. Great.

Um I actually was thinking about this because a few weeks ago um one of my clients who I've been working with for the last probably year and a half And this client had a meltdown during our session, and it was the first full-blown meltdown that this client has had with me in the last year and a half.

You're out of the honeymoon stage. Out of the long honeymoon stage. Near stage. But it was the type of meltdown that the family has described. And so I was actually really and I always Joke about this with families, and like I get really excited when the kids have meltdowns because it allows me to see what the family is struggling with.

And provide actual strategies for what they're actually dealing with because I dealt with it. So was really excited. We actually had two sessions where this child had full blown meltdown and we used a lot of different tools and strategies. And one of the big things that I talked to the family about about was co-regulation. And so that's kind of where this idea came from. And I actually had an idea

when we were talking about this from a client that I recently worked with and it was different, but the thought was the the mom was like, You your kids are so lucky to have you. And I was like, Yeah, they are. But also I I'm not at home doing therapeutic activities with my kids all day long. I think the most impactful thing that I can provide for my children is co-regulating and using that information to help them then regulate their emotions. And that's kind of what my brain went to. I was like

Yeah, but I'm not just, you know Therapizing them all the time. I wish they would let me, but no, it's like I have learned to co regulate and I think we need to share that with

Everybody else? Alright, let's do it. So first what is co regulation? Quick definition. The process of two nervous systems sinking, where one person provides calm, safety, and guidance to help regulate the other person's emotional and Now this is So important for young children, babies, toddlers, early adolescents, because you actually need really good executive functioning to self-regulate and

We all know, we all know this, right? That your prefrontal cortex, which is where your executive function lives, isn't fully developed until your 20s. So for our babies, toddlers, early children, young children. Early children. Um They don't have the executive function skills developed to self-regulate. So they rely on us, the parents, caregivers, therapists, the adults in their life to co-regulate and teach them.

how to self-regulate. Because kids can't self-regulate without co-regulation first. And I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind. If you take something away from this episode Keep that in mind. If you're asking your child to regulate their own emotions on their own over there, go calm down. Go calm your booty down. They're not going to be able to have those skills if you have not already practiced co-regulation with them.

And this was really interesting because we are going to talk a little bit about mirror neurons which you know if you've ever I'm I think we've all experienced this where

somebody next to you yawns and it causes you to yawn. And that's actually because of the mirror neurons in our brain, not just because you also needed more oxygen, but those mirror neurons are at work there and you know there's other There's other studies that show during interviews where the p person being interviewed will actually start to mirror their interviewer in like m body like motions, mannerisms and movement.

Um, because those mirror neurons are working to be like, hey, you need to copy this person. It's important right now. And so those mirror neurons are at work when we're co-regulating with our children. They're able to not hear and copy what we're

saying, but to visually see what we're doing, and then their brain interprets that as, oh, I can do that too. And then they start also doing it. Yes. So fascinating. So really what it comes down to is you know, if you were to peep in on a household where someone is co-regulating, let's say the kiddo's having a meltdown.

and, you know, you're trying to like do all the things to get them, you know, in the swing and, you know, swing them and squeeze them and like do all the sensory things to try and regulate them. I think even before we do that, what we need to see is

just sharing that calmness that you have, that you should have, and get down on the floor, get down on their level. Sit against a wall and just be present with the child who is struggling, who's melting down. And you don't have to say anything, you don't have to do anything, you can just sit there and, you know, have a nice calm facial expression.

and just be calm with the child. And I think it's so much easier said than done. Now also as a therapist working with a client one to two times a week. it's easier to do in the clinic setting. when we have that limited time with the client, whereas at home for parents, it is more difficult.

So for parents, I think it's really important to make sure that you are identifying what your reactions are when your child is having a meltdown and what you can change about what you're doing. Like it takes a lot of self-reflection on us as parents and therapists. To say okay, what I'm doing is clearly not helping my child right now, so I need to do something different to help them co regulate.

And going along with that is you can't pour from an empty cup. You can't put your child's oxygen mask on before you put your own oxygen mask on. And I know personally, if I Am malnourished, dehydrated, and have not worked out or like exercised. I am so much. worse at co-regulating and I I just notice that significantly. So if you, the parent, are dysregulated, if your nervous system is all out of whack, this is gonna be really hard and you're probably thinking

Uh there's no way that I can just sit down and be quiet and not yell at my child like when they're losing their mind. Like it's just Not possible. So then we challenge you to really take it back and self-reflect, like Jessica said. and look at what you have been doing to regulate your own needs too. Have you been on the computer screen all day? Have you been on, you know, the phone all day?

Have you looked at the sun? Have you put your feet in the earth? Like if you haven't taken care of your own needs, there's no way you're gonna be successful with co-regulating. So Think about that aspect as well. And for therapists, it's really the same thing is you have to be able to keep yourself regulated for your clients. There's nothing worse than a mean therapist. That's true. You know, someone who's like short and snippy and like doesn't have that ability to like

Empathize with the child. Don't be a mean therapist. Don't be just don't be a mean therapist. There's our tip for the day. Yes. Um so I guess actually that's tip number one for co-regulation is to regulate yourself first. So figure out how to do that for yourself first. And then next is gonna be Focus on nonverbal communication. When your child, when your client is in a meltdown, they are not going to process language. It's just not going to happen.

So you have to figure out nonverbal ways to communicate them. You can get down to communicate them. To communicate with them. You need all the words here, I know. I know. Geez. You will get down on their level. You will speak quietly and calmly. You will change your body language so that you're not standing and towering above them. Um slower movements. What else? Quiet Exactly. Just

Anything non threatening. Yeah. However, you can make your body not look threatening at all. Yeah. Yep. And I will say too, you know, in those moments Sometimes you do have to say some things to the child, whether it's to keep themselves safe, to keep others safe, you know, if they're hitting and kicking, you can tell them That's not okay to kick me. We're gonna do this instead. And you can keep your language very short, very simple. You don't wanna

be it's not okay to kick, that's not okay, that's not nice. We don't talk or we don't kick like that. You want it to just be like, it's not okay to kick. You know, keep it really simple. Yeah, and I'm I'm thinking about the kids who are like either Trying to hurt me or trying to hurt themselves, and I'll just like help keep their hands safe, and I'll just calmly say, Nope, we're not gonna hit.

And I d I start with that, but if it continues, then I will typically help them to a safe place and then I will sit a certain distance away from them. Mm-hmm. Um And most of the time that works. Yes. Most of the time. Obviously the goal is to make sure that everyone is safe. Mm-hmm. And, you know, just keeping in mind like if you're raising your voice and saying like, Don't hit, don't hurt you know, that's like the yelling. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be harder.

in this instance. Mm-hmm. All right, tip number three is to practice predictability and safety and we love using visuals, visual schedules, routine boards, anything to help them with those unexpected activities or things. Obviously you can't make a perfect visual schedule every day, but you can practice that flexibility and you can just help them understand like first we're going to do this, then we're gonna do that. And

And staying consistent with that. If you say, I'm thinking of my own kids, if you say You know, first we have to finish our dinner before we're gonna have dessert. Like that's just a rule in our house, you know? And they're having a meltdown because they really want ice cream and you're like, I I get that. I would feel the same way. But yeah, what's the rule in our house? You know, and and just just say it in a positive, kind, slow. calm way. Like the quieter you can be,

the more impactful it's going to be. And the more they're gonna listen. Yeah, in those instances, if you start to get frustrated, which is understandable, um, just know that your frustration will carry over to them and make their meltdown more difficult. Yeah. For sure. Um, the other one here was safe a safe environment, right? So we've talked about this in a past episode about primitive reflexes and how your environment can impact regulation and reflex innovation.

integration but really you need to make sure that you know your environment is safe that you are a safe person for your child and then I always like to recommend that families have a sensory corner of some sort, whether this is a full room, which is what we have at the clinic, which is awesome, or if this is just like a pop-up tent where your child can go when they're having a meltdown and it has pillows, blankets.

whatever you need in it. I think we have some YouTube videos on this that we can link on how to create a sensory calm down corner. Um, but having a safe place where your child can go when they are in a meltdown is gonna be helpful too. Definitely. Yeah. Real quick, just want to let you know that we do have a brand new course that is launching soon. This is our sensory sleep course, and we're so excited to bring it to you just to make sleep more successful for the entire family.

The course is designed for kids ages two and up and it includes 0.45 AOTA CEUs or four and a half contact hours for our occupational therapy practitioners. We have a free live webinar on October 15th at 1 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. And this is the kickoff launch for the course. We really go deep into the holistic causes of some potential sleep challenges.

We give you sensory strategies that you can use throughout the day. This is a full day plan that we are giving you in order to make sleep as successful as possible. And we also have an expert-led discussion talking about safety beds. If that is an area that you're interested in learning more about, we are so excited to share this course with you. We've had so many customers reach out.

hoping to get more answers on sleep in order to make it more successful. We hope to see you at the free live webinar and you will get a discount on the full course. So we'll plan on seeing you then. And then we always like to pair movement with regulation. So things like rocking, deep pressure, crossing midline, pushing the tongue to the roof of the mouth, um, going for a walk, any of those. You know, just basic movements, crawling, yoga, inversions, um, paired with

the connection with the the co-regulator, right? So you can do them together, you can support them. They might fight it at first. Um so just, you know, remind them when you're ready, I'd love to go for a walk with you. Um, just just making sure that you are not using like the screen time to help regulate. Like, oh you're sad. Oh, okay, let's go watch let's watch your favorite show and that'll make you feel better, you know? We don't wanna use those external

tools like screen time because kids will learn that that's how they can regulate their nervous system. And we we want them to be able to regulate ideally independently without something like screen time. So try and pair movement with regulation rather than like Screen time.

And if you have kids who hit or kick or have those big physical reactions with their meltdowns, you can teach them safe ways to do that, whether that's with a punching bag, with a pillow, with a giant bean bag, medicine balls as long as they're safe with the medicine balls. But you can teach them, hey, we don't throw the lamp when we're angry.

You can throw this when you're angry. You don't get to hit me when you're mad. You can hit the punching bag when you're mad. Things like that to teach them what is safe and not safe, what It's you know, expected and unexpected. And then if they do choose to use those safe options when they feel all of that aggression in their body, it's actually gonna be helpful for them. Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Alright, and the next tip is to model, model, model, right? Anytime we are feeling a feeling. we can verbally talk out loud like what are we doing with this feeling? What strategies are we using to regulate? I use this with my kids all the time. I'm feeling really frustrated right now. I'm gonna go hop on my vibe plate. I'll be back in a few minutes. Your welcome plate. I actually like that. I mean, start calling it that. Because like vibration plate is such a long

Yeah. Thing smelly. It's vibe plate. It's my vibe. I'm gonna go hop on the vibe. I'll be right back. But really just modeling those regulation strategies. Anytime I send a family home with the zones of regulation, I'm like Don't even talk about them with it. Like you just put it on the fridge and you start recognizing and saying, hey, I'm in the yellow zone. I'm gonna take a few deep breaths.

Hang tight, you know? Mm-hmm. Modeling. If you aren't modeling self-regulation strategies, then how on earth is your child gonna learn to model sales? Or how are they gonna learn to self-regulate if we're not if they're not seeing that?

Yep. And then the next step from there is gonna be to start identifying what tools and activities your child enjoys and what helps them feel happy. And so, you know, after we've practiced labeling our emotions and your child is able Able to accurately identify some different emotions in different situations, then you're gonna start identifying tools and strategies.

to match those emotions. So you you know, when I'm mad, I can take a break in my swing. When I'm feeling sad, I can go ask for a hug. Um and identifying those things that they can do, whether that verbally during a conversation, whether you role-play it, um, you practice it. Um, you make a social story, different options for different kids. And just making sure that we are validating their emotions and we're not using these tools as like

it's a bad thing to be mad. Like we want them to know like, dude, we all get mad. It's okay. But there are things that we can and cannot do when we are mad. And just making sure that all feelings are valid. All feelings are valid. Oh God. Yep, it's it's always and this is what I tell families too. It's like we don't want to try to fix our child's

fix them when they're mad. We want to co-regulate and help them through that anger and provide them tools that they can someday use independently. But we're not trying to fix it. It's not a oh my gosh, you're so mad. Let's You're mad. That's that's okay. That's I can understand why you're mad about whatever the situation is. Let's go to the calm down corner. Let You know, grab a breathing tool, vibrating stuffed animal, let

Let's go be mad for a couple minutes and then let me know when you're ready and we'll go for a walk. Whatever it is. Yeah, and that's a big one too, is I will say that is let me know when you're ready. Like I'm here for you. Let me know when you're ready to, you know, make a good choice to go do X, Y, and Z.

when you're ready for me to give you a hug, like let me know when you're ready. Put it on them. Just let them know that you are there, you are present with them, you're on their level, and they're in control, they can tell you. Hey, I'm ready now. Yep. Yeah, there you go. Or is my daughter? She just opens her arms and runs to me. I love you, mommy. I'm so sorry I was being a little bezo. I love.

That's the best. So sweet. Okay. Let's share a few bonus strategies, a few product recs that we love, we use that can be helpful to either Add to your daily routine, add to your sensory corner, add to your toolbox on the go. Number one, the glow pal sensory bin. We love these because they're little um light up ice cubes that you put in water and they have different colors and you can like put'em in a little

um calm down jar and you can look at them and spin them and move them around and throw glitter in there. Just a really cool tool. Yep. The next one is the Weeb Calm, which we've talked about before. This is the one where you blow and the ball goes up. Up and down and it helps you really work on those deep breaths.

and really expanding the rib cage, filling up the lungs, when we're stimulating that vagus nerve, we're gonna feel more regulated. The next one is a breathing ball or a pinwheel to blow, to simulate, you know, deep breathing, smelling the roses and blow out the candles. I did just find out

out that the breathing ball is called a Hoberman Sphere. In case we we learned the real name of it. We always call it a breathing ball, but um if you Google Hoberman Sphere, hope yeah, Hoberman Sphere, then you will see what this thing actually looks like and it's definitely a must have. Mm-hmm.

Yep. Uh next are vibrating cushions, vibrating pillows, vibrating stuffed animals, um a vibrating oral motor tool like the Z vibe. That vibration can just be really regulating. And then a projector lamp is really really cool too or the pillow that like shines stars on the ceiling.

Another cool way to just change the visual field, which can be very calming for a child. Musical instruments of any sort, unless Unless you are a parent and you are easily overstimulated by auditory input, make sure that you have some noise-cancelling headphones available so you don't get overstimulated, but allowing your child to make noise with those musical instruments.

Can sometimes be regulating. I would say use some caution though'cause it could be overstimulating for some kids. And my thought on this, I just got a panda drum, which is like a meditation drum. So it's like when you drum, it's not like a drum. It's like a meditation, like a singing bowl type sound, so it's very

regulating and it's interesting. Okay. Great. Yeah. So use caution on the instruments that you choose. Yeah. Cause those are not my favorite, but they're also regulating. Very overstimulating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, massage rollers, um those like vibrating massagers, sometimes those like spiky balls to hold on to fidges. I love my little magnetic ball fidget, something too Hold, manipulate, feel in the hands. Yep.

Um a compression swing. This is one of our favorite tools in the clinic, but also probably our number one recommended product to have at home if possible. The compression swing provides the vest. Vestibular input with the swinging, but simultaneously that deep touch pressure because the swing just like envelops you. Um and I've met very small number of kids who are hesitant initially with the compression swing simply because they have poor postural control and when they get into the swing it's

it's unsupported but once they do it a couple of times they love it and it's very regulating. Yeah, and then the last thing is a grounding mat or a beanbag pillow or like some sort of cushy, comfortable um, bean bag to sit in or a grounding mat, you know, to to really ground your nervous system if you're not able to get outside. So

those are some bonus things if you want products, but you don't necessarily need the products. No, I think if you're gonna get products for co regulation, I think it's gonna be the products needed to make a sensory corner. I think that's what's essential. Yeah. Um and just keep in mind, therapists, parents, whoever you are, that co-regulation requires you to be regulated.

uh you to model strategies, identifying emotions, but just always remember that your child, your clients will learn self-regulation from you. Mm-hmm. So there you go. If this episode was helpful, let us know. Let us know your thoughts. If you need some more strategies on how to regulate your own nervous system, let us know. We could do another podcast episode on that.

If you have questions, you can always put those in our little form that we have in the show notes. And we'd love to help you out however we can. There you go. Okay, well, we'll be back with another episode next week. Okay, bye. Thank you so much for listening to All Things Sensory by Harkla. If you want more information on anything mentioned in the show,

Head over to harkla.co slash podcast to get the show notes. If you have any follow-up questions, the best place to ask those is in the comments on the show notes or message us on our Instagram account, which is at Sensory podcast. If you just search Harkla, you'll find us there. Like we mentioned before, our podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla. Whether it's for one of our digital courses or one of our sensory swings, the discount code Sensory will get you 10% off.

That's S-E-N-S-O-R-Y. Head to Harkla.co slash sensory to use that discount code right now. We're so excited to work together to help create confident kids all over the world. While we make every effort to share correct information, we're still learning. We will double check all of our facts but realize that medicine is a constantly changing science and art. One doctor or therapist may have a different way of doing things from another.

We are simply presenting our views and opinions on how to address common sensory challenges, health-related difficulties, and what we have found to be beneficial that will be as evidence-based as possible. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or your child. Consult your child's pediatrician or therapist for any medical issues that he or she may be having.

This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Thanks so much for listening.