Start Here: Get to Know Your Nervous System

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain minor errors or inconsistencies. Please refer to the audio for the most accurate representation of the conversation.

Alyssa (00:00.086)

You're listening to Voices of Your Village. And honestly, if you're gonna listen to one episode of this podcast ever, I hope it's this one. This is so key to understanding self-care, to understanding self-regulation, to understanding how your child regulates and what's regulating versus dysregulating for them, for you. You get to hear the beginning of one of my workshops.

and it's really gonna break down the nervous system and how you can understand yours and the humans around you. And then Rach and I have a discussion at the end in the breakdown all about this jazz. Please share this episode with a friend, share it with your child's teacher in school. Let's help everyone understand how the unique nervous system works because it is a game changer for moving through the world

with more intention and less reaction, more response, and overall more regulation or access to it. All right, folks, let's dive in.

Alyssa (01:12.984)

Hey there, I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co-creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing Method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together.

Alyssa (01:35.146)

We talk so much about the nervous system and I feel like it's really in the zeitgeist. The nervous system is having a time right now. And I feel like with that, a lot has gotten lost. Like what does it even mean? What are we really talking about? We know that kids are not one size fits all and so our approach to them can't be either. But there's not a lot out there that helps you understand like

What's the approach for my unique child? How do I work? Let alone how does my kid work? Enter our work here at Seed. So much of what we focus on is exactly this. It's breaking down the nervous system, helping you understand how yours works, how the humans around you, how their nervous systems work. And so I want to chat about this a little bit and then we'll get into the nitty gritty of it. First of all,

There's not a human on the planet who's in a regulated state all the time. You are meant to cycle in and out of regulation and dysregulation. We look at this where you might find yourself in a dysregulated state where you're kind of subdued. This could come with like sadness, embarrassment, maybe feeling guilty. My son calls this being a turtle where you wanna like hide inside your shell and...

Then we have dysregulation that can show up where you're maybe energetic, where we see kids and we're like, oh, they're starting to kind of bounce off the walls a little bit. This could be excited. It can be happy. We just had folks over at our house this past weekend. And my son got up to like 11 out of 10 and then had a hard time coming down from that. And...

When we're looking at that, it can also be frustrated. It can be angry, it can be mad. There can be hard emotions that happen in the yellow as well. And then we look at the red. The red is the part we're trying to avoid. The red is where we are in distress. This is where in babies you can hear that like, or like young kids and they're like so worked up where it's that different cry.

Alyssa (03:59.486)

or my son was about two and a half when we went to the local fair after a nap, we pop him in the car, we're meeting friends there, so we give him a snack on the way to the fair. He does not eat any of that snack in the car. We get to the fair, there's all the stimulation. He's having fun, he's jazzed, but also he's like getting bonkers. And then we pause fair life to have fair dinner.

and he's got a hot dog that he's not touching and everybody else is eating and he's not. At which point my husband looked at me and was like, what do we do now? Like he hadn't eaten food since before nap and now it's like 5.30 PM. So Zach was like, what do we do now? And I was like, well, buckle up because a meltdown is coming. And sure enough, like 20 minutes later, we are.

in the like area where these families are having fried dough and just enjoying each other's company and sitting at these picnic tables. And my son is laying on the ground, flailing as close to these picnic tables and humans who are trying to enjoy each other's company as possible. And he's just screaming, go away, leave me alone, stay away to like me and my husband. And we're just in it. I'm looking around and like, well, the book is tiny humans, big emotions, if anyone would like it.

I'm your author over here. And he's just in full meltdown mode. And at that point, there's no amount of emotion coaching him that's going to bring him down. There's no amount of talking about his feelings or offering a hug. He's hungry. He is not going to come down from this until he eats food. And you cannot make a kid eat poop or sleep. And so we are just...

in this until he accepts food. And now we're offering it, we're offering safe foods, foods we know he likes. I mean, at this point, I don't care if he eats fried dough, just like get something in this kid. And he was just screaming at us to go away. And so we kind of set our own personal, like how long can we handle this before we're gonna lose our cool? And when we were getting close to that time, we let him know, hey, bud, in a couple minutes, we're gonna pick you up.

Alyssa (06:23.094)

and go to the car and we're gonna head out. And he's just screaming, no, don't touch me, go away. And so then when we hit that point, we're like, all right, we go over, my husband picks him up and he's not like, okay, dad, carry me to the car, I'll chill in your arms. No, he's like flailing and screaming and saying, you're hurting me, put me down.

public that you're hurting me.

it's the worst. It is the worst. But I'm in the background like, we're not, he's just hungry. We're just going to the car. Please don't call DCF on us. And it's like getting to the car is its own disaster. We get there, buckling him in is another fun adventure. And then we haven't even like left the fairgrounds yet. And he goes, I need rice and beans. And we're like, yeah, you do. This is correct.

And so we give him the snack that he had refused on the way in. We give that to him. He pounds it. He like comes back to life. It's like watering a dead plant. Like he just sprouts right back up. And by the time we got home, he was like, can I go in the basement and play with my tools? And we're like, yeah, but also I need a minute. Like what? And he had gotten to that red zone. That is what we're trying to avoid. But the rest of dysregulation is not avoidable.

and you're gonna cycle in and out of it. And then there's the green zone. The green zone is where we're regulated. This is where we can access problem solving skills, we can access emotion processing skills, we can talk about what we could do differently next time or maybe what we could have done. All those sorts of conversations, conflict resolution, accountability for your actions, any of that comes in the green zone in a regulated state.

Alyssa (08:18.048)

If I'm in a dysregulated state and you're like, Alyssa, you need to go apologize for how you talked to Zach, now I'm just snapping at you too. Because I can't access that when I'm not in a regulated state. So when we're talking about the nervous system, we're gonna be looking at cycling in and out of regulation and dysregulation all day long. You're gonna have hard feelings, you're gonna feel too hot or too cold, you're gonna hear too many sounds.

you're gonna get hungry, you're gonna get tired, and this is gonna pull you in and out of regulation and dysregulation, and same with your kids. So there's not a world in which you're gonna, quote, do all the right things, and now everyone's regulated all the time. And I feel like that message has gotten too pervasive, that like, you're gonna do all these things, and then you're gonna just access regulation all the time. That's not true. If you are living on planet Earth, and you don't have like a hormonal imbalance,

you're going to cycle in and out of regulation and dysregulation and so are your kids. There's going to be hard moments. There's going to be hard feelings. There is going to be reactions instead of responses. There's going to be disconnection. What we're looking at is how do we navigate this cycle so that we can come back into regulated states and so that we can allow kids to be in dysregulated states and help them learn what that feels like in their body so they can learn how to come back.

to regulation when they're ready and not spiral into the red. So for instance, with my child, it's teaching him, what does it feel like in your body when you're hungry so that you can have that snack instead of not having it, not having it, not having it, and then being totally in the red where you're hangry. In order for our brain to do this work all day long, it's checking all the stimuli around us.

How do these clothes feel? Are they too tight? Are they too itchy? Is my body too hot? Am I too cold? Do I have to go to the bathroom? Am I hungry? Am I tired? What is that sound that I'm hearing? Is that a fan or a clicking sound that's going on? Or, my gosh, what is that smell? This morning I dropped my daughter off at childcare and I walked into the room and I was like, oop, somebody pooped in here. Immediately my nervous system is picking up on the stimuli around me. Anytime somebody stands up and moves, if you're,

Alyssa (10:41.064)

in the grocery store and somebody walks into the store, your brain's gonna notice, somebody just walked in, but it's gonna say, not important, you don't have to pay attention to it. If the fire alarm starts going off in the grocery store, your brain's gonna say, that's important, I have to pay attention to it. Now for all of us, our brain is doing this work a little bit differently. Some of us really notice those details in the space. Where you notice, recently I...

cut my fingernails and my husband was like, I noticed you cut your nails. I was like, my gosh, thank you, I feel seen. And he was like, yeah, you put the nail clippers back in the wrong spot. And I was like, that's not where I thought that was going. And for the record, just like a little bit to the left, but he's a details person. So he notices when something changes in his environment. It drives him nuts when there's like clutter and piles all around and I don't even clock it. In fact, I sent Rach a video this weekend that Zach, my husband took of

him getting recycling ready to go outside, which was like broken down boxes folded neatly in a pile. And then me piling unbroken down boxes all in a recycle bin, just hoping that magic will happen and they'll all of a sudden get broken down and fit. And it's our visual stimuli. He notices those visual things more than I do. He picks up on those cues and...

For me, I'm sound sensitive. So I hear a lot of like sounds in my space. Clicking, tapping like drives me bonkers. And I really pick up on those. But apart from sound, I don't pick up on a lot of the stimuli in the way that he does. So my husband is what I would call a small funnel hole person. And I am a big funnel hole person. If you imagine a funnel that's the same size, but that bottom of the funnel, the spout of it, one is big and one is small.

and you're pouring sand into both of those at the same rate, the one with the small funnel hole is gonna overflow faster. The one with the big funnel hole can handle more sand before it overflows. It's gonna filter sand out faster. The small funnel hole people, these are our details people. As you pour stimuli into them, they kind of go through it like a fine tooth comb. They're noticing how the clothes feel on their body.

Alyssa (13:00.334)

Things can be too tight or food and flavors of things or smells or sounds of stuff around them or that visual cue of the clutter in your space can really start to add up for them. And they can get overwhelmed faster with that stimuli. Somebody with a larger funnel hole might miss all those details. In fact, my nightmare is I'm like called in for a criminal investigation.

And they're like, Elisa, what color was the car? And I'm like, was there a car? And Zach is like drawing the car. Like he can draw it for you because he remembers all those details and I don't even remember if there was a car there. And so when we're looking at this, what's so key to note is that our nervous systems are taking in the stimuli differently. What's true for one person isn't necessarily true for the person next to them. We have nine senses.

We often hear of our first five, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. There are four more that are super important here. So we have our interoceptive sense. This lets us know if our body is hot or cold, if we have to go to the bathroom, if we're tired, if we're hungry. It also lets us know if our heart's beating faster, like what we're feeling from an emotions perspective, what's happening inside of our body, those internal cues.

If somebody is introspective sensitive, they might really notice these things. This can come up with feelings or our introspective sensitive humans, when they experience an emotion, they don't feel it just a little bit and they can just move on. They feel it so big that it can feel almost overwhelming to experience the feeling. This becomes really important when we're looking at things like guilt, shame, embarrassment,

accountability. These humans who are interoceptive sensitive can have a hard time saying sorry or admitting when they did something wrong because the act of that feels so vulnerable that it's overwhelming for them. We have our proprioceptive sense. This lets us know where our body ends and something else begins. For me, I have a lower proprioceptive awareness.

Alyssa (15:21.46)

My bed has not moved in years. It's been in the same spot, but I run into that sucker all the time. I like turn the corner and I've got another bruise on my leg because I bumped into something. For kids, this can look like hugging too hard, pushing too hard, going to sit next to somebody, sitting on them, or when they like can't stop climbing and jumping and moving. These are our proprioceptive seekers. Their body is saying,

where do I end and something else begins? And this is located in your muscles and joints. And so they're constantly looking for that feedback and input. And they might not get that message into their joints until they have more pressure. So if you think about like lifting weights, for some people, they might lift a five pound weight and they're like, okay, I can feel that in my muscles and joints. And then another kid lifts a 10 pound weight and they're like, now I feel that in my muscles and joints.

And so when we're looking at this, we're going to see our kids who really like to snuggle up next to somebody or be close to them. They might have a hard time with body awareness, like understanding their body in relationship to things around them. These are our kids who have lower proprioceptive awareness. So they show up as proprioceptive seeking because they're looking for this input, which can be heavy work. It can be lifting heavy things. can be...

pushing heavy things, can be climbing, can be jumping, it can be hugging or squeezing, it can be snuggling up versus our kids who have higher proprioceptive awareness, they're gonna tire more quickly from physical activity, they don't need as much to know where their body ends and something else begins. They often will only snuggle up to their people, they're like safe people. Outside of that, they're like.

Yeah, no, you're good over there. This is a good distance for me, thanks so much. These are kids who at school might have a hard time if they're sitting next to somebody who is the opposite from them on this sense, or they have a kid who is all up in their space and they're like, for the love of everything, holy, please move away. When we're looking at our next sense, these ones can go hand in hand sometimes. This is our vestibular sense.

Alyssa (17:41.506)

This is located in your inner ear and it's responsible for your movement and balance. It keeps you upright. Sometimes these get confused for each other, vestibular and perperceptive. Your vestibular sense is activated through moving the plane of your head. So it could be dipping upside down like in a yoga pose or my son will watch TV hanging upside down on the couch or spinning around like on a sit and spin or in an office chair that swivels. It can be swinging on a swing.

is something that if you were to ride on an amusement park ride or you go on the swings and you get motion sickness, you might be vestibular sensitive. This is me where I'll get that motion sickness. So for me at work, I sit in a chair that is stationary, it stays still, or I walk on my walking pad, which gives me proprioceptive input. My husband sits in a chair that swivels all day long. He can get that swivel in.

If I sat in his chair and swiveled all day long, it would be draining me and I would probably throw up at some point. For our kids, we can sometimes just see movement as movement. And what we get to do here is break down what type of movement are they really doing? And this is one thing that we work with schools a lot on because they'll be like, yeah, that's a mover and a shaker. They need this type of seat, this like per perceptive activity when really it might be vestibular input.

that's gonna be regulating for them. And then we have our neuroceptive sense. Our neuroceptive sense is what I call our spidey sense. It lets us know if there's danger in this space. So it's constantly reading the energy of the room. Like, know, if you walk into a room and two people have been in conflict, but they stop fighting, but you can feel the tension, that is your neuroceptive sense at work. It's saying like, ooh, something's off in here.

Our neuroceptive sensitive kids are constantly like listening to the tone of voice or they're noticing people's facial expressions and body language. As they get older, we see this a lot in our like big kids, bigger feelings range, the neuroceptive sensitive kids start to really notice how other people feel about them. So they're like, I don't feel included in that group or I don't think that person likes me.

Alyssa (20:07.564)

Now a real doozy is if you also add interoceptive sensitive to these kids and then they feel that and they feel it so big. So they're like, I'm not included in that group. I feel left out and this is now the end of the world. I'm never gonna be included anywhere for the rest of my life is how that feels. When kids are not on that sensitive side for neuroception, they might notice, that person's face changed or their tone changed and

they can keep about their day. So my two kids, I have one who's neuroceptive sensitive, and if my tone changes, he'll get defensive. And he gets into this reactive state. And he cannot regulate as long as I'm not regulated. My daughter, she'll say, you frustrated, mama? You're not happy. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not feeling happy right now. You sad, mama? You're not happy? Yeah, I am not feeling happy right now.

And she'll go, feel better soon. And I'm like, yeah, I will feel better soon. And she can go right back into playing. She's like, all right, cool. I see that you're having a hard time. She doesn't take it in as a safety cue in the way that he does. And nothing is, it's not like I've lost it on him and he's not safe. It's just how his nervous system is built. So when we're looking at these nine senses, for all of us, we're sensitive to some, which means it drains our nervous system.

And then we're seeking some, which means it regulates our nervous system. We put together a free questionnaire for folks. You can take it for any age. Adults can take it for themselves. You can take it with your kids. Ideally, if they're like seven plus-ish, you take it with them, or you like ask the questions with them, and then you can dive into the answers with them. And you get to learn.

What is draining them? What are they on that like negative two or negative one side as you look at results versus the plus one or plus two on the spectrum, which is the seeking that means that recharges them. This lets us know how do you parent the child in front of you? What is draining them? What is recharging them? Lets you know how do I respond to them? My son is sensory sensitive. For him,

Alyssa (22:28.45)

He's a negative one or negative two on almost all of them, except for his tactile was a zero and his vestibular is a plus one. And so for him, he's vestibular seeking and his tactile's in the middle. Now, if he's dysregulated, the tactile is then dysregulating for him too, that like touch. But if he's not dysregulated, he's like putting on his socks in the morning. He doesn't care if that's inside out.

or if it's not all the way on or whatever. My daughter will say, mama, my sock feel funky. And she's been saying this since she's like 20 months old. My sock feel funky. And it's if that line on the top by her toes is not perfectly lined up, she does not like how it feels. She is tactily sensitive. But for her, she's seeking on most of these. Or she is seeking sound input. She's seeking visual stimuli. She is seeking per perceptive input.

She's sensitive to vestibular input. So for her, if she's on the swings too long, she'll throw up. There is no too long for my son on the swings. He could live on them, especially because the world around him is dysregulating him. So he'd just try and come back from that all the time. And when we understand this, when we can understand the nervous system and see that for all of us, it's like a fingerprint. It's different. It's unique to us.

It can A, help us know how to respond to the child in front of us, and B, it gives me more compassion for them of, it's not that he is just trying to be a pain in the butt and not follow the rules. It's that this is really overwhelming for him. This dinner where four grandparents are at our house right now feels like a lot for him. It's loud, it's chaotic, there's so much stimuli. That's overwhelming him. And for her, she's like, let's party.

because she's seeking all the stimuli, 100%. She is like, never wants to leave the hang, all that, because she's seeking that stimuli. And when you look at her results for the questionnaire, seedquiz.com, it's totally free, there's a paid version that gives you some other insight and info, and you can look at your results for your whole family, kind of in a portal. There's also a paid version that we use with schools. In fact, when we're working with schools,

Alyssa (24:48.958)

It is one of the implementation tools that we mark as mandatory if we're gonna work with the whole school. And I'll tell you why. When we do work with schools, we have families fill out this questionnaire, we get it for the entire school, and then it lets us know what type of seating does this kid need or what tools are gonna be helpful for them to be as regulated as possible in the classroom. And when we do this, just this alone, we focus on first,

We see about a 60 % reduction in behavior support calls just by supporting everyone's nervous system proactively, and it requires us understanding each kid's unique nervous system. All right, Rach, hit me with questions about what I just said, because you get to be the audience voice here and highlight things that are like, yeah, let's go deeper into this, or hmm, this question came up for me.

Okay, yeah, so I'm thinking about Nora who is a sensory seeker, but she also has high proprioceptive awareness. So like she'll seek proprioceptive input sometimes, but it's not ever with another person. Like she doesn't want, so maybe this is tactile. I don't know, let's break this down, but like she, I think is proprioceptive sensitive in some ways, even though overall she's like high sensory seeking.

huh.

Rachel (26:13.218)

So can you talk about like use this as an example to kind of explain the complexities of this?

Totally. Well, and I wonder for her, I wanna go through the questionnaire actually, I wanna see her results, because I wonder for her if she's really vestibular seeking and might be like a zero on perp reception or even like a plus one. I wouldn't peg her as a plus two because she's not climbing all over people's bodies. But this also might come into play, Rach, with her neuroceptive sensitivity, where she's always reading everyone's body language so much that she might seek out perp reception in ways that

don't interfere with that. Honestly, similar to Mila, Mila's proprioceptive seeking. So she's my climber, you like turn around, she's climbing on the side of the stairs and always climbing something everywhere she's going. She cannot stop moving. And she is aware of people's reactions, right? Where she's like gonna read the room, she has really great social awareness because she's a high connection seeker.

And so she's like, I wanna connect with you. She knows if she climbs on somebody's body, that's gonna lead to disconnection, which would crush her. She will do anything to be connected, exactly. And so I wonder if Nora's like neuroception, her ability to read the room and the energy of the space and her high connection needs has led her to seek out proprioception in ways that don't involve a human body, but are still like, I'm gonna climb, I'm gonna push.

Do you even think of her when she was younger and you had like the swing and the rings and stuff in the living room? She would often be swinging or on the rings. Like she sought out this.

Rachel (27:54.742)

Vestibular? A Even still, she does. Even still, she does.

So I feel like she's probably higher on the vestibular.

I definitely think so, but I also think, as I'm thinking more about this, physical contact with other people can be really vulnerable. And as a neuroceptive person, she feels vulnerability really intensely. And so I wonder if that's part of the puzzle too.

Mm, sure, sure. And what's her, like, interception?

She's not introceptive sensitive. So that shows up as like she gets hurt and acknowledges that it hurts, but like it doesn't really dysregulate her versus like Abel if he has a hangnail that can truly send him into the red zone depending on like where we're starting at. So yeah, those differences or like it's never been difficult for me to.

Alyssa (28:25.71)

of.

Alyssa (28:29.974)

and higher pain tolerance.

Alyssa (28:42.638)

100%.

Rachel (28:49.942)

remove splinters from Nora. She has had situations at the doctor that were really uncomfortable or painful and has navigated it pretty easily.

We just had Mila's hemoglobin anemia iron check, whatever, and did the topric and then they're squeezing blood out to get on this thing. They did the topric and she flinched I was like, yeah, it hurts for a second. They're gonna squeeze it and blood's gonna come out so the scientists can check your blood and see if it's healthier, if it needs anything else. And she's like, okay. And then she was like, it's blood and she's watching it. And I was like, yep, that's your blood.

There's not a world in which Sage gets a toe prick and somebody's squeezing his toe and he's like talking to me.

Absolutely not. Okay, the other day Abel pulled, he must've pulled a muscle like in his chest playing. So then when I picked him up, it hurt him. And he was like, it hurts where my heart is. And I was like, okay. Like maybe you pulled a muscle because it started when I picked you up under your armpit. He started crying and shaking and was like, I don't want to have to go to the doctor for this. Just the thought.

of potentially having to navigate anything at the doctor for him that could potentially, he's like, what if I need a shot? What if I need my blood drawn? Just that thought was enough to send him versus Nora, if I'm like, yeah, we might have to get this checked out by the doctor. She's just like, okay.

Alyssa (30:16.034)

100%. In fact, when we were going to Mila's appointment, said to her, was like, you're not getting any shots today, like I'm pre-teaching her. And I realized at one point, like, she doesn't care. This is what I do for him. And if I told him you're not getting any shots, that he really needs to hear.

And then if there was a draw after you said that, it's over.

Thanks for lying to me, Luckily, my doctor has a dog at the office. Oh, it's so good for him. So regulating. He just will go lay on her. In fact, he was having a full meltdown the last time we left because he, it wasn't even him. I think he was just there for Mila's shots. And we are like leaving the office and he wanted to say goodbye to Maddie dog.

Exactly.

Rachel (30:44.393)

that's awesome.

Alyssa (31:05.55)

The Maddie dog was in one of the offices with somebody. correct. And he was devastated to the point where he FaceTimed Kylie to just look at her dog. Tried to convince Kylie to drive 20 minutes to our house so he could snuggle Penny. We gotta get a dog.

Yeah, the other thing that I thought of during this was how it influences parenting decisions and

Mm, or relationships.

But I'm just thinking of an example. So there was a basketball tournament this weekend and the championship game that my nephew was playing in was at 8.30 PM. And let me back up a little bit and say there was a game at 5 PM and then like a game that didn't involve my nephew and then another game at 8.30 PM. So we went into it just kind of like, we're going to see where this goes with Abel. And obviously me, Nora and Cody really wanted to stay. So at one point I had given Abel my phone to like play a game.

And Nora came up to me and was like, I want dad's phone. And I was like, no, you can hang it with your friends. And she was like, what? Abel's on a phone. I'm like, no. This environment for Abel is his nightmare because of his nervous system. This environment is your dream because of your nervous system. So the supports that I'm going to give you are going to be different. And right now you're not going to use a phone when you have in-person connection, which will fill your cup.

Rachel (32:31.432)

And she was like definitely irritated, but she's heard this enough times that she was just like, And I was thinking too, because there were people sitting next to us hearing this conversation. I was wondering, are they judging this as an unfair situation with my kids where one has access to a phone and the other one I'm saying no to?

Yeah, fairness and equity are different, right? Yeah, they're like, get what we need. And that is where it comes into the parenting decisions, right? Of like, get what we need. Sagey has a sit and twist seat that twists 120 degrees back and forth that sits on his chair at dinner and bring it anywhere else he wants. And then he has one at school. Mila doesn't have one. It would make her sick. She should not be twisting back and forth. She gets to stand.

if she wants to in her chair and she will often she'll like go between sitting and standing in her chair. And even if she's like, I want to see like Sage's, I'll let her try it when he's not using it. And we let her know, yeah, when Sage's body twists and spins, it helps his body feel calm. When your body twists and spins, it makes you throw up. And that's it right now. Like that is how that works, right? I also think though for myself of we...

got this Thomas the train toy when Sage is like two for his birthday from somebody and it turns on. You can like flip the switch and it within 14 seconds of being turned on inevitably hits a corner and it's like click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click,

the worst

Alyssa (34:14.466)

When Thomas

Or like, Zach, who bless him, lovely, is a drummer. And so there's always a song in his head. He's always tapping on stuff around him. And when he's tapping in the morning and I've rested and things are going smoothly, fine. When he is tapping the song in his head at like 6 p.m. and I've heard mama on repeat seven million times and everyone's hangry and melting down, then I want a divorce. Then I'm like, this is it. I'm gonna murder you.

Okay.

when I can understand this about myself and then also he can understand this and I'm like, I stopped tapping. That's usually how it comes out in that moment. Stop tapping. He can be like, all right, yeah. This is, she's heard mom too many times. This is the best she can do right now is to say in this bratty tone, stop tapping.

Mm-hmm.

Rachel (35:33.87)

Yeah, it's same for us except it's I need less talking. That's what I'll say to Cody because the kids talk to me so much, right? And then he comes home and wants to like debrief his day or like ask me questions about stuff. And I'm like, you have got to be kidding. Read the room. This is not the time. I need way less talking. Also like kids remember the fact that you have a dad. You can stop saying my name if you feel like it.

my gosh, so many times when they're like, mom, mama, mom, mom, watch this. I'm like, you have a dad, try dadda.

They will follow me into the bathroom when Cody is like readily available.

Yes, 100%.

And I'll be like, yeah, able to follow me into the bathroom. And I'll literally be pooping. Like, I'm gonna be in there for a while, buddy. And he'll come in and be like, I need a snack. And I'm like, cool, your dad's in the kitchen.

Alyssa (36:18.68)

Yeah. And do you have like a kind involved father?

He wants to spend time with you and take care of you. Get out of my hair.

Get out of here. Yeah, no, it just like gives me compassion for the humans around me when I understand their nervous system. And I can see that lens, right? So I can see, oh, Mila will nonstop talk. She will just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. She also like wants a song on in the background and wants to listen to music in the car and is so.

sensory seeking in that way. And Sage is like, why is somebody talking to me all the time? And so for us, it's been really helpful to talk to the kids about how their brains and bodies work and then how everybody else in our family's brains and bodies work that will say things like, yeah, Sagey, you know how you really like to watch TV hanging upside down that feels good for your body? Mila.

really likes to snuggle up when she's watching TV. That feels good for her body. So she keeps getting closer to you, not because she's trying to drive you crazy, or not because she's not listening, but because her body is trying to do what your body's doing when it's flipping upside down. If you don't want her to snuggle up next to you, you can say, Mom, I need help. Mila's snuggling me. And we can come in and we can figure out what's going to be helpful for her. We actually have a little chair that

Alyssa (37:54.478)

she got from my parents for Christmas last year that everyone fights over because it's the comfiest chair in the house. And it is like a child's chair, but it's cozy. And like you snuggle right into it. Like it like envelops you. It's great for her proprioceptive sense. Kind of like a bean bag would be where she'd be like snuggled into that. And that is her preferred place. And she'll ask for a blanket and she wants to be kind of like tucked in there.

Yes.

because it's gonna give her that proprioceptive input. And then sometimes she wants like stuffed animals all around her too, where she's like as packed in as she can be. And it's really like that's what she needs. Or when she's dysregulated, she'll wanna sit on my lap at dinnertime. She wants that touch and that closeness. And I know that I also want that touch and closeness. And so I can bring her into my space. And I know that Zach.

is dysregulated by that. And so when it comes to sitting on somebody's lap at dinner, the kids come to me. They know that I'm the one who wants that type of input. And when they want to play a game where they're like spinning around or dipping upside down, they know to go to dad because I will get nauseous and I'm just gonna say no. Or if it's like gonna be an annoying sound related thing, go to dad. He has a higher tolerance for that than I do.

Absolutely. I have found too that understanding my kids sensory profile and needs gives me compassion, but that's not actually enough. I have to understand my own in order to like have the capacity to respond from that compassion. Cause I can know like, she's sensory seeking. That's why she's doing X, Y, and Z. But if I'm low capacity, I'm just like, you're the most annoying person I've ever met. I don't know how somebody can want to move and make noise as much as you do.

Alyssa (39:45.486)

Oh, you made a good point there about the noise that I want to say about sound sensitive folks. A lot of times sound sensitive humans will make a lot of sound because they want to be in control of sound. When sound feels out of our control, we are looking for how can we be in control of it. So I'll give you an example. One way to just like decrease.

Sound would be like noise canceling, headphones, or I'll pop in my loop earplugs, and then my battery's draining slower, but it's still draining. To recharge my battery and give me more capacity, I would pop in my AirPods, which are noise canceling, and I would listen to a song that I'm choosing, or listen to an audiobook, or listen to a podcast, where I'm then choosing the sound. Like recently when we were on the way to school and Mila and Sage were just like driving each other nuts.

classic in the car, in the car prison. they're yelling at each other. And I turned and snapped at Sage and I was like, why are you being rude to everyone around you? And he was like, actually, mom, that was kind of rude. And in like a sassy tone. And I was like, he's not wrong. And I said, I'm going to pop in my headphones and I'll be back with you in three minutes. Now, when my headphones are in, I'm listening to a song, popping on some Taylor Swift.

I'm jamming out. They're not like chilling. It's not like they stop arguing and fighting in the backseat. Their whole thing's still happening. I'm just recharging enough to be able to have the capacity for what's going on so I can respond with intention. So when we're looking at this, when I'm in control of sound, it's gonna recharge my battery and give me more capacity. When I'm not in control of sound, it's gonna drain me. And then the like loop earplugs will just help it drain slower.

Yeah, I see this in Abel. He sounds sensitive, when Nora, Nora is sound seeking, so she's making sound because she just likes it, loves it. It's just like, my word, I don't understand. That mouth does not stop moving. But Abel will then compensate and he will be playing with his cars and all of sudden it's like a car battle where they're crashing into each other and he's shouting in this crashing game and it's really loud and he's doing it to try to tune her out and take some control back over.

Rachel (42:07.17)

which for me as a sound sensitive parent, that combo is a real hot combo of like, I literally don't wanna be, I don't wanna live here right now. But yeah, so it's interesting because sometimes I think people think that kids are sound seeking, but they're actually just trying to take control because it's so dysregulating for them.

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa (42:29.164)

Yes, exactly. And it does look confusing. It's like, why is this sound sensitive human so loud? Yes. Because the rest of the world is so loud that they are just trying to be in control of noise. We're working with this in a classroom right now with a kiddo who's sound sensitive and he's so loud and he's so distracting for the kids around him and trying to help the teacher see he's loud because it's loud. And when we can reduce his

auditory stimuli or give him an option for listening to something and being able to have a break from sound he's not in control of, he actually gets quieter.

Yeah, which feels so like.

not. counterintuitive

It does, it's like it doesn't feel logical, but it is.

Alyssa (43:17.986)

Yeah, yeah. Well, I hope that this is helpful for folks. The first part of this is part of a presentation that I do, and I really feel like it's a missing piece when we're talking about kids and behaviors and us and self-care and regulation and self-reg versus co-reg. We have to know what we're working with. How does your nervous system work?

How do the humans around you work? It's not one size fits all. And so if you're just trying to do this, like, we're gonna take deep breaths or we're gonna go to the calm corner or whatever the hell it is. If it's not going to support your unique nervous system or their unique nervous system, it's not gonna be effective. And in terms of self care, self care is how do you take care of yourself throughout the day? And so for you as a...

more sensitive human to stimuli. It's looking at where can you be in control of sound? What are you doing throughout the day to recharge your battery knowing you got two kids in the house who are a sensory mismatch and they're not just gonna stop existing in the way that they live and move through the world. And so what do you have access to all day long that recharges you so that when they show up as their full selves, you have more capacity for that and for that.

Not that everyone's regulated all the time, but that we have more capacity for navigating dysregulation so we don't go from the green to so quickly the yellow and then the red.

Yeah, and we have an understanding of like, this is why I feel this way, and here's how to help mitigate it instead of just being like, I'm stuck in this cycle of rage and I don't know how to get out of it.

Alyssa (45:01.998)

So I'll repeat it again, seedquiz.com. Take that questionnaire and start to dive in. You can take it as many times as you want for all the humans in your life to see where they fall in this and start with your household and get to know who they are and how they work and learn what self-care really looks like for you and how to regulate with your children. Thanks, Rach. Love you.

Love you.

Thanks for tuning in to Voices of Your Village. Check out the transcript at voicesofyourvillage.com.

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