Tag Archives: dysregulation

Girl reading and colouring in den

How to Navigate Transitionitis

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July is a rock hard month. Every year. The end-of-term routines are chaotic, unpredictable and with all the changes ahead, children often feel adrift. They are overwhelmed and dysregulate at levels unprecedented in the other eleven months of the year. Whilst we haven’t found a magic wand, there are some things we focus on to help our children cope:

  • Things that minimise out-of-school overwhelm
  • Things that calm and soothe
  • Things that engage their bodies in sensory activities
  • Things that de-stress them

Here are a few ideas from me and my twitter friends:

Lean On Your Routines

Make home a haven of normality and routine

  • Say no to parties, trips, and out-of-the-ordinary events. Children are already coping with so much in school, they don’t need even more piled on top at home
  • Create a predictability at the weekend with a routine if you don’t already have one – a mix of sensory stuff, laughter, exercise and calm time

Calm and Soothe

  • Reading together – we’ve recently begun reading together before the school run (walk), as that provides a very calming environment, where we are sat or cuddled close together and sharing an activity
  • Chewing gum – that chewing action on school pick-up can really help them to cope. And research has even proven it. If you don’t like gum, then raw carrots or toffees or bagels are all chewy alternatives
  • Sucking on hard boiled sweets, lollipops, or on drinks through straws. Choose a thick (but not too thick) liquid like a thick milkshake as it both lasts longer and has a stronger sensory impact
  • Singing nursery rhymes or simple songs. Sure, you might be fed-up of Daddy Shark or the Narwhal song but your kids might just need that repetitive and funny song to centre them

Engage Their Senses

  • Bashing, sucking or melting their favourite Lego or plastic characters out of ice-cubes (with hot water pistols)
  • Digging for dinosaurs or unicorns that you have buried in the garden – with their hands or spoons
  • Water fights or paddling pools if the sun is shining
  • Baking together – with lots of tasting and testing and licking of bowls and spoons and then eating something delicious at the end of it all
  • Bouncing – trampolines and bouncy castles can be great at relieving stress and creating a rhythmic sensation
  • Games that include blowing are great for regulation as it helps control their breathing (long exhales are the key)

Chill – Maximum Downtime

  • Avoid homework or bringing school home in any way – its stressful enough without invading their home life as well
  • Relax, alot – movie nights, games, reading in their bedrooms, playing Lego together, painting, drawing – whatever is relaxing for them
  • Dens and small spaces are often heavenly for children who find the emotional and sensory overwhelm exhausting – even a small tent in the garden can be a real respite for them
  • Get outdoors – there is something inherently calming about big open spaces, nature, trees, beaches, sand, soil.

Let It Go

At this point in the school year, the focus in our house is on regulation. Keeping everything calm.

So I might help them dress, put their clothes away (rather than insisting they help), accept that one minutes’ teeth brushing is enough for today, pick up more of their stuff than normal. I also tend to back off insisting they contribute to household tasks – I tend to tidy a bit more, put their laundry away when they are at school.

This is not about creating a precedent or even letting them get away with it. It is about accepting that at this time their capacity is reduced, so I adjust my expectations to avoid tipping them into an amygdala hijack (or meltdown).

Some children need plenty of exercise and extra sleep. It is about knowing (and experimenting) with what works to help your young people to cope with a very tricky time of year.

In the end, it’s all about making everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

Just until term is over and we can all breathe again.

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Fight or Flight?

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When you are stressed, your body creates a number of automatic reactions, over which you have little control.

What used to be known as the fight or flight response can also include freeze and flop. But my children stick to the original line-up.

Flight

Bubbles reacts with Flight. When her emotions, when her world becomes too overwhelming for her, when she doesn’t know how to cope with what she is feeling inside, she runs and hides. In tiny dark corners or under beds, out of reach.

I want to get close, to stroke her back or hand, but mostly I have learnt to keep my distance, until she is ready. Sometimes I stay well away, more often I am close by – sometimes inside and sometimes outside her room.

“I’m right here when you need a hug“

She needs silence and space. Neither of which are easy for me, when I want to envelope her in a big comfy hug and tell her how much I love her.

With time (a few minutes mostly), she calms down, comes out of her room and we have a big hug.

Regulation in Flight

I might want to talk. To soothe away her fears with words and reasoning and more, but I have learnt to be patient. There are 3 stages to helping any child struggling with their emotions:

  1. Regulate
  2. Relate
  3. Reason

(This trilogy comes from Bruce Perry and here is a good graphic about it from Beacon House to print out and put on your fridge.)

Until Bubbles is calm and happy (and it’s up to her to decide when that is), I keep my vocalisation to comforting murmurs:

  • No discussion nor debate
  • No ‘helpful’ suggestions
  • Not even empathic words that tell her we know how she feels
  • It’s best when I say nothing at all

Fight Club

Nibbles reacts with Fight. When he can’t process his emotions and feelings, he raises his fists, frowns and growls, and starts hopping about like a boxer trying to pick a fight. The other day as he raised his fists, he said “Do ya wanna piece of me? Do ya?“

What do I do?

  • I can’t walk away, for that makes him angrier – he will drag on my clothes and up the fighting ante to keep me in the ring with him
  • If I talk to him, most things will anger him even more
  • He hates if I try to be playful (“Stop laughing at me!!“)

It used to be that Nibbles’ rages were few and far between, but they’ve been steadily increasing in the last eight months. Last summer (on my birthday!) he spiralled into a massive rage, surprising the heck out of my husband, who’d never experienced a full-blown rageathon before. Let’s just say neither of us handled that day very well.

Regulation in a Fight

Here’s what we are trying at the moment:

  1. Breathing deeply and staying super calm (blank or concerned facial expressions)
  2. Staying near, but out of arm’s length
  3. Reflecting his own experience in firm, clear words (similar to the tone and pace of his goading) “You must be really cross right now.”

Sometimes using the Theraplay paper-punching game helps him calm. Sometimes asking him to push against our hands with his, to use some of the rage in a more physical manner, works.

Sometimes he needs to get control of a situation, as his rage is often sparked by being told to do something. Clearly, since he is flushed with adrenalin, all choices need to be simple and limited (this OR that). For instance, when he stormed off as we walked to the shops, I sat on the pavement and calmly gave him a “Go Now and get something from the bakery for lunch, or Go Later and the bakery will be shut” choice. Within seconds he had calmed and chosen to Go Now.

But we haven’t got it right all the time yet, so this is definitely still a work in progress.

Becoming An Expert

Mostly what we have discovered is that what works with one child, doesn’t work for the other and what works on one day, backfires spectacularly on the next.

We are learning as we go, refining our approach, licking our wounds when we get it wrong, discussing, debating, reading books (like Sarah Naish’s A to Z) and trying to navigate through the fight and flight world of our children.

Let me know if you have any top tips to shortcut the process….

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High-Energy Breathing Games for Regulation

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I’ve read that you can calm an agitated nervous system with an out-breath that’s twice as long as your in-breath.

That sounds simple enough. But is it?

A slower breath can help our children (and adults when our buttons gets pressed) to regulate, or stay in control.

(Read my blog on Regulation for more information about emotional states.)

Much of the time, I keep at least one eye/ ear on my kids, watching and listening for clues as to their emotional state. Sometimes they tip from regulated to hyperarousal in an instant, but other times it builds more gradually (via dysregulation – read my blog on Regulation for more information about emotional states.)

When it builds slowly, I have an opportunity to help them practice de-escalating their emotional state, to learn how to bring themselves down into their window of tolerance and avoid hyperarousal.

Since breathing is so simple and important, surely that is a winning approach?

And Breathe…

Well yes and no. I have tried (and failed) many times to use low-energy breathing exercises (e.g. suggesting they breath deeply to a rhythm I am clapping) to regulate their state.

The issues is the disconnect between their energy levels and what I am suggesting they do. When a child is on the giddy-excitable energy level, asking them to butterfly breaths doesn’t actually work.

  • They don’t want to calm down – they are enjoying being giddy
  • The step from giddy to calm is too steep to take in a single leap
  • Worse still, it can aggravate a situation through a lack of empathy (“you are spoiling our fun!”)

So instead, I use high-energy breathing games. Games that include the giddy-factor as it were. Here’s a list that the good people of twitter and I have created to give you lots of different ideas and stave off the “not again!” and “boring” responses.

Go Anywhere Games

These are games that can be done anywhere (although excessively loud roaring in confined spaces like cars and public toilets is not recommended):

  • The SHHH!! Game – see who can do the longest shhhhhhhhh without taking a breath (create a story about A Sleeping Lion or Creeping past a napping Grandma to get biscuits, or being a Ninja Stealing the Crown Jewels to make it fun)
  • The Opera Game – tell the story of a note that can break a glass and then ask everyone to practice with a long note at any pitch or volume
  • The Zoo Story – ask the kids to play the part of animals in a short story about the jungle. The animals need long and loud noises (roaring lions, trumpeting elephants, hissing snakes) with/without actions to match their energy levels and age
  • The Hot Chocolate Game – ask the children to describe their favourite hot drink (or soup), then create an imaginary tea party. Breathe in the smell (in long slow inhales)? Blow on the soup or chocolate to cool it (long slow breaths as it is very very hot). Take a long slow sip that makes the best / most disgusting sucking noise
  • The Lion Taming Game – the child plays the roaring lion; you time how long they roar (again a non-stop roar works best) and give them an inventive Lion Name based on how long they roar (Everlasting Roar of Africa, Supersonically Loudest King of the Jungle etc)
  • Dragon’s Breath – each person does the best fire-breathing dragon impression and you see how big a cloud of smoke they can create (best outside in cold winter months)
  • Blow Me Over – you can use the 3 Little Pigs as inspiration, or just ask them to blow your fringe out of your eyes/ blow so hard you have to close your eyes/ blow you over (lots of pretending being blown over and laughing to maximise playfulness)

You can also use any version of humming, singing, roaring, whistling and shouting to encourage children to create long out-breaths and hence calm their nervous system.

Games With Straws

Straws (reusable are most eco-friendly) are excellent blowing and sucking props – you can even buy foldable metal straws that fit in your pocket.

  • Blowing bubbles in a small amount of milk – getting the bubbles to the top of the glass (tall, wide glasses make this game last longer)
  • Blowing bubbles in a washing up bowl with washing-up liquid in it (only if the child is unlikely to suck it up)
  • Sucking thick milkshake through a straw or using “flavour straws” with milk
  • Blowing paint pictures (see photo above) – mix paint with water (thick card words best) and blow it to make fireworks, or splodges or alien pictures (add googly eyes for spectacular aliens, glitter for fireworks)
  • Assault Courses – using a mix of blowing and sucking to move lightweight items (see list below) around a mix of tunnels and walls. Sucking can be tricky with youngster (<5 YO) so test them out first to avoid making it too hard. Can be as simple as moving ten Maltesters from one plate to another by sucking them onto the straw and lifting them over with the power of suction alone
  • Blowing lightweight items around a track – e.g. a mini-golf course made of Lego or wooden bricks, or through a wooden tube (toilet roll), or along the floor/ to one end of the table in a cotton-wool footie game

Games With Lightweight or Ball-Type Items

Cotton wool balls are lightweight and very easy to move by blowing (hence lots of pride-inducing success) that can form the basis of lots of games. You can also use feathers, Maltesers, round grapes, and Poppets (or other similar round edible items) for these games.

  • Table football using a piece of cotton, wool or masking tape to divide the table (you can only blow from your end of the table). Use one or more cotton wool balls (lots = highest energy, aim is to blow them all off)
  • Blow a cotton wool ball between you and child whilst lying on the floor (best on wooden floors without too much dust especially if one of you is asthmatic). This is a Theraplay Game that my kids love
  • Light as a Feather Game – keeping feathers in the air by blowing underneath them and seeing how long you can keep them up. Try with leaves or helicopter seeds outside
  • Mazes – building mazes from bricks, Lego, whatever you can find and then blowing cotton wool balls, feathers or similar around the maze (with or without a straw)

Other Blowing/ Sucking Games

  • Musical instruments – harmonicas, kazoos, whistles, recorders etc work for long out-breaths
  • Inflating and releasing balloons is a huge favourite with my kids – chasing them around and then blowing them up gradually calms their arousal state
  • Blowing bubbles (preferably outdoors) and then chasing/ popping them helps when they are the ones blowing them
  • Bubble Gum – both the chewing action and the attempts to blow bubbles calms them down
  • Party Blowers – the ones that make a funny noise and unravel are great for long slow out-breaths
  • Lying down and placing a favourite teddy on your tummy. Then taking really big deep breaths to knock the teddy or dinosaur or Lego mini-figure off your tummy.

The next time you notice your child heading out of the regulation zone and towards hyperarousal, then why not try one of these high-energy breathing games?

Instead of clashing with their energy levels, you can exploit their enthusiasm and channel it into a game that will gradually lower their arousal and keep them in control.

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Regulation and Dysregulation

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A few years ago I neither knew the word dysregulation nor did I use it frequently when answering my husband’s ‘how was today?’ question.

Yet as I began to learn about adoption, trauma and what drives behaviour, these words crept into my vocabularly, helping me to express my experiences as a mum.

But it turns out that I was not entirely correct in the words I was using to express the behaviours of my children. I believed that regulation and dysregulation were an either/or situation:

  • My child is/ I am regulated – calm, happy in control
  • My child is/ I am dysregulated – out of control, angry, fearful, responding with fight or flight, shouting

Yet as I read in Helen Oakwater’s book “Want to Adopt?”, I learnt that there is more to learn about trauma and emotions than a simple on/off, regulated/dysregulated emotional state.

What Is Regulation?

Regulation (when people are operating within their own unique ‘Window of Tolerance’) is a state where a person is sufficiently in control of their emotions that they can make conscious decisions.

Whilst frequently associated with calmness, we can be excited and regulated, shouting and regulated, running and regulated, sad and regulated.

Dysregulation is a state of emotional agitation, which may be uncomfortable, but the person is still in control, as in they act and respond from their thinking brain.

Hyperarousal

Hyperarousal is a state beyond dysregulation, when the thinking brain is shut down and people respond with from their autonomic nervous system (or ANS) with typically a fight or flight reaction.

There is a similar hypoarousal state, where a child is physical numb and shut down, which some parents might experience (but not me).

This helpful diagram lays out the relationships between regulation, dysregulation and hyper/hypo arousal that you might like to print out for reference.

Hyperarousal (that I have erroneously called dysregulation in this blog) is where our automatic reactions of flight, fight, freeze and flop come into play. In this state, we are unable to think and able only to react in a very basic survival-based way.

When children are in hyperarousal, we use Bruce Perry’s approach, focussing first on regulation. Because until the children (or adult) is calm and regulated, their thinking brain is turned off. So there is zero point to reasoning with them, as they are simply unable to listen or process what you are saying. It’s like trying to light a fire by putting a match to a log, the sequence is all wrong. (See Regulate/ Relate and Reason.)

Whilst I have been using dysregulated in my blog and tweets, what my children were experiencing was actually hyperarousal. Thank you Helen for adding much needed depth and nuance to my understanding.

I hope this blog and description will help you understand some of what goes on in the emotional state of yourself (when you leave your window of tolerance) and the stages to look out for.

You might also find this article on windows of tolerance helpful: https://www.attachment-and-trauma-treatment-centre-for-healing.com/blogs/understanding-and-working-with-the-window-of-tolerance

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