Good morning. Can you hear me? All right, so being tied to a microphone is going to be a little bit
different for me. But thank you for staying for this session. My name is Robin Donaldson, and I am the
Chief Impact Officer at Indiana Youth Service Association.
We are a statewide association that provides state funding for our Youth Service Bureaus across the
state, Safe Place. We have an Indiana Trafficking Victims Assistance Program. We do youth development,
youth worker development through our CYC credentialing as well as the Journey. We do lots of different
things. I have been there for 12 years and going on
It will be 13 in June. That will mark the longest I've been at a single place in my career. The second
longest actually was YSB of Monroe County. I was there for 12 and a half years. I left there to go to
National Safe Place and then came back home mostly because I wanted to focus on the work of Indiana
and my youngest was 12.
His third oldest, yeah, third oldest, he was getting ready to move out of the house and I thought 12
was too young to be home by himself and it was time for me to move back, well, I never left Indiana,
but work back in Indiana. So I've been doing this for a little while.
I do have a doctorate degree in industrial and organizational psychology. I have a background in counseling
and social psychology. This has been my career. Youth work has been my career for over 30 years
professionally. And if you count raising children, almost 40, because my oldest will be 40 in July.
So we are gonna talk about brain-based strategies for regulation and connection. When I was at IYSA,
I'm sorry, at the YSB, I became very, very interested in neuroscience. It was about the time that my
oldest was getting ready to enter adolescence. I was working with adolescents all of the time, and I
went to a conference called Learning and the Brain in Boston, and it was like,
the skies opened and you heard the hallelujahs because that just kind of explained everything in terms
of youth behavior. And so really kind of pursued this because it makes a difference. I came back, I
taught this to our staff at the YSB and really saw a change in how our youth workers were interacting
with young people. So have since kind of just really dived into the neuroscience. I have a graduate
certification in applied neuroscience, it just makes sense. And this is the thing that makes me happy.
This is what I get energized talking about.
Probably when I get done, my cheeks are going to be red because I get all excited about this. And I
hope to make you excited about this as well. My goal is that you leave with some really practical strategies
that you can use in order to engage with young people. So I do have some very specific objections. So
if you see this, we're going to do a very brief review of stress and trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
I want to talk about the neuroscience of the stress response because I think that a lot of times kids,
or even adults, when they are in crisis and they are responding out of crisis, we can label those behaviors
as problematic when really they are a stress behavior. So I want to spend some time talking about that
and then just really look at how we can engage the
appropriate parts of the brain when someone is in crisis so that we can help them calm down so we can
calm down ourselves, because everything I'm going to talk about will apply to us as well, and then how
we can engage and then activate the thinking part of the brain once people are safe and once people
are calm. Now, this is a two-hour session, normally. I have an hour and 15 minutes.
So we're gonna tax my superhuman, or my superpower, which is being able to talk in the given time that
I have. Man, we're gonna tax that one today. All right, so I'm gonna talk really fast. I wanna leave
some time for question and answers. So if you have something, write it down. Hold that so that if you
have a question, we can answer that at the end. But we're gonna go ahead and just jump right in. And
we're gonna... Oh, oh, wait a minute. There's an announcement.
Before she jumps in real quick, the papers that we passed around, those are the session evaluation forms.
The evaluation form that is in your program is for the day overall. So at the end of the session, we
will ask that you please fill out the session evaluation form and give them to your room host, which
is Ruth over there. If you have anything that you need during the session, please feel free to flag
down Ruth or myself. I'll be sitting here at the front. She'll be kind of over here to the side. And
thank you so much. Sorry about that. All right. All right. Evaluations, very important.
All right, so we'll just start with a very brief overview of stress, which is really anything that taxes
your ability to cope. And there are good types of stress and there are negative types of stress. Good
types of stress is called estrus.
And typically speaking, we need a little bit of that in order to perform to our best ability. So it
kind of works on that upside down curve, right? And a little bit of stress. You get up here and it's
good. It means that you're focused. It means that you're kind of energized and ready to go. You're ready
to kind of marshal all of your abilities to meet the challenge, whatever that challenge is. But once
we get to the top and it starts to go down, that's too much. And that's where we enter distress.
This is when the stress is going to interfere with our ability to behave, to cope, and to perform. So
there is good stress. Good stress is what I experienced right before I got up here.
And I was like, just a little bit nervous. I've done this thing a million times. But it's really important
for me that you get something positive out of that so that it's like, OK, let's go. We've got to get
ready for that. And then, of course, where we often are engaging with folks is when the stress is too
much and it is actually distress. We know that trauma is prevalent.
Adverse childhood experiences, are you, is everyone familiar with the adverse childhood experiences
study? Okay good, I hate when I go to something like this and I don't see a lot of hands.
But this early study has been replicated. So it was first done in the late 1990s. It has been replicated
almost every year since and in multiple countries. And the research is very, very consistent. So anywhere
from 61% to 67% of the population has at least one stressor. Those 10 that are very, very common, so
the five types of abuse, whether it's physical,
or sexual or emotional abuse or physical or emotional neglect, and then the household dysfunctions,
those are pretty common. 67, around 67% have at least one, and when you have one, 87% of the time, there
is a second one.
So we're dealing with folks who have histories of stress and trauma. And this is important because it
changes the way the brain functions. It actually changes the way the brain develops, especially if this
happens before the age of five. We know that it has lifelong impacts. And so it will increase
the individuals. It has a chance to, because I want to say this,
Adverse childhood experiences increases your likelihood to develop social disorders. It increases your
likelihood to develop health disorders such as cancer and heart disease, but it's not written in stone.
What's super interesting to me, you'll hear a lot of things that are super interesting to me, especially
as we talk about the neuroscience, is that in the field of social work,
In the field where we're actually helping others and working with children, we as a field experience
higher percentages of adverse childhood experiences. So it's actually higher than what the normal population
is, but what is the good news is that we also experience higher percentages of resilience.
and resilience can offset those negative impacts of trauma. And so that's why I like to focus on that
resilience piece. I want you to understand the neuroscience behind this because it really does explain
behavior. But we're gonna really kind of focus on those strategies that will help bring folks down and
give them the safety and the connections that they need to actually learn and grow. All right, so this
is my favorite slide ever.
I want to make sure I don't spend too much time on this, but I will spend a little bit of time, because
I think it's really important, like I mentioned before, when someone is in stress, when they're in crisis,
there is a specific way that they behave. And that is that stress response. We have a tendency to behave
one way or the other. Now, for a lot of us who have, you know, we have good coping skills, if we had
good parenting where,
Our parent was consistent and appropriate in meeting our needs. We had the ability to get upset, but
then calm back down. And where we learn.
where we connect with other people, where we experience empathy, where we can really be mindful is down
here in this green section. And this is where the parasympathetic nervous system is in control. So the
parasympathetic nervous system is gonna control all of the things that are automatic to us. So things
like breathing, heart rate regulation, blood pressure, digestion, all of those things that we don't
have to think about that are just kind of automatic. Body temperature control, all of those things.
Parasympathetic nervous system is the one that's kind of in control. It's just automatic, and this is
where we're safe, right? We have to feel safe, and we have to feel connected. And that connected piece
is just knowing that somebody in this room has my back. No matter if something happened, I have no doubt
that someone would respond.
And so that allows me to really focus, it allows me to marshal my thinking part of the brain and be
able to share this information with you. But I have to feel safe and I have to feel connected in order
to do that. I'm living down here in my parasympathetic nervous system. When I get stressed, when a person
gets stressed, whatever that trauma is, it kicks us into the pink part. And that pink part, the sympathetic
nervous system.
When the sympathetic nervous system kicks in, the brain says something is dangerous. And that dangerous
thing can be physical, it can be an emotional danger to us, it can be a social danger to us. And what
is absolutely fascinating to me is that the brain does not distinguish between the type of pain.
that pain response, whether it's social pain because someone is calling us names, whether it's an emotional
pain because we are depressed, or whether it's a physical pain because we experience injury, the brain,
the tracks in the brain, that neuroscience, the neural pathways, it's exactly the same. So when we experience
something that is threatening,
tiny, tiny structure in the brain called the amygdala that basically kind of reads information coming
in, says, hey, this is a threat, and I need to pay attention. And we need all hands on deck. So it's
going to activate other parts of the brain, specifically the brain stem. And it is going to engage in
behaviors. So it will elicit behaviors that are meant to help us feel safe again. So these
are neurobiological responses. They're automatic. We don't think about it. We can't control it.
because it is automatic and it is neurobiological. And for most of it, it's fight or flight. Now,
I believe, based upon research and digging into this stuff, that we have a tendency to be one or the
other, because again, it's automatic and we don't think about it. So if we are a fight, kind of prone
to fight, then this is where we will usually do something like this.
Right? It looks like anger, it looks like frustration, it looks like irritation, it can look like rage
as well. And if you are, and when we are in that fight position, it's the muscles up here, so your arms
and your neck that are activating shoulders, because we're gonna do something like this, right, to respond
to that. We're gonna fight whatever that threat is, we're gonna fight it off, we're gonna keep it away
from us. If you are a flight person,
Flight people tend to experience the muscle tension down here in your lower backs and your buttocks
because we're getting ready to run. We're getting ready to take off. That's what's activated. Now, how
many times can you either fight something off or run from our daily stressors? Not very often.
Not very often, but evolution hasn't caught up yet. And those muscles are still activated. Flight looks
like worry.
It looks like anxiety. They may be nervous. So it looks a little bit different, and the emotional experience
is a little bit different. And oftentimes, flight also can be hiding. So they may not run, but they
may try to hide. Now, littles might crawl under the table. They might go back in a corner somewhere.
They might hide behind something. Typically, adolescents,
are going to pull their hat down. They're wearing a hat, the brim comes down. If they have a hoodie,
the top comes up, and they might even shrink it, because that's a hiding behavior. That is a flight
behavior. This doesn't mean that they're being disrespectful. It doesn't mean that they're being lazy.
It doesn't mean that they're not paying attention. It means that something in that environment has made
them feel unsafe.
and they are trying to do what they can in order to feel safe. Now, as I mentioned, this is automatic.
You have an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing. You have an increase in oxygen to
your muscles so that you can actually do something about it, whether it's run or whether it's fight.
You have an increase in muscle tension so that we can meet that threat and we can do something about
it. We can either make it go away by fighting, we can run away from it.
Because it's automatic, it is beyond our control. And I want to make that clear. And in fact, it's so
automatic that we respond before that information ever gets to the thinking part of the brain, ever
gets to the prefrontal cortex. Now, we recognize faces and facial expressions and emotion in the prefrontal cortex.
Now let me give you an example about how automatic this is. And those of you who work at YSB will have
heard this story before, but that's okay because I think it's a really good example. I am a mom of four
boys and my shortest kid is six foot. I'm five, four and a half. I'm proud of that half, right? But
I'm shrinking. So by middle school, all of my boys were taller than I was. They were bigger than me.
Now, I was still in control. I was still the boss. That was very, very clear. They all knew that. But
they all went through this phase where it was fun for them to hide and jump out at me because they get
a big reaction when they do that. But this is where this automatic piece comes in.
come home from work, whatever, they're hiding, they jump out. And this is what I do because I am a fight
person. So something big and unexpected is coming toward me. My brain says, this is a threat. We need
to keep this thing away from you. So this is what I do. And I do this before I ever recognize that it's
one of my kids, that it's a child that I have given birth to. This is what happens before I recognize that.
So did they get hit sometimes? Yes. Was it their own fault? You bet, right? Don't jump at it, Mom. That's
not good, right? Automatic, though. This happens before the information ever gets to the thinking part
of my brain, and I recognize that this is one of my kids. So when we have those reactions, when you're
working with individuals that have those reactions, it is very important for us to understand that that's
beyond their control.
And it even changes how I feel, right? Because at first it's fear, and then when I recognize it's one
of my boys, it's irritation. Now, what are you doing, right? So it changes even that emotional part
of us. This is a neurobiological. The last neurobiological response to stress is the freeze response.
So the freeze response is when the brain says, this is just too much. I can't handle this. At this point,
the body is going to shut down,
and where you're going to basically conserve energy until that stressor is over. Now this can happen
actually from the green. We can go from parasympathetic where life is good, we're happy, we're connected,
we're safe, and then something happens that's dramatic enough, that's threatening enough to send us
up into that freeze response. So this could be a physical attack.
It could be being in a car accident. It could be a fire or tornado. It could be someone who, your best
friend, who all of a sudden is cutting you out of their life and talking bad about you. It could be
any of those things, but the brain reads it as too much, then it's gonna shut us down. And when that
happens, we tend to disassociate, which means that memory,
is not consistent. It can look like helplessness, hopelessness, depression, very often shame is a part
of this because they feel like why didn't I do anything about it? But here's the key and I think that
this is really important for us to share with people who are experiencing, who have experienced freeze
and may have some shame around I didn't run away, I didn't try to fight them off, they could not do that.
Because at this stage, the body says, nope, we're not fighting. We're not running away. In fact, blood
pressure, heart rate, and breathing actually decrease. Our ability to engage emotionally with others
is pretty much gone. We're not going to be able to empathize or connect emotionally with someone else.
Our body is saying safety is most important, therefore we are going to conserve our energy and we lose
muscle tone. So that ability to respond, that ability to fight, that ability to freeze has decreased
because we lose muscle tone. The body says, we cannot fight this. The brain's like, it's too big. Let's
just live through whatever that is. Helping people understand that they couldn't fight
that they couldn't run away can help decrease that shame. Because their body just said, nope,
it's too much. Now, we understand when this happens during a physical attack, when this happens with
a car accident or that kind of thing. But if you have someone who has a history of trauma, especially
when it happens early, before the age of 12, and their life is just chaotic,
and they don't have anyone who makes them feel safe, and they don't have anyone connect to, they hardly
ever get down to that green. They mostly live in the pink, because they're always on guard. They're
always on alert, because their world now is unsafe. And in fact, we know through research that someone
who has a history of trauma sees the world as a more dangerous place.
and they don't trust individuals. So if they're living there in the pink, then one more thing can send
them into the freeze. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be someone asking them to take their
seat. It can be someone asking them to sit down and study.
It can be someone asking them to help clean up the living room or whatever it is, but one more thing,
it just becomes too much and can also send them into the freeze response. Now, our fight and flight
kids are pretty easy to recognize because their behaviors that go with that. With our freeze individuals,
and because I tend to say kids because that's who we work with, but we're talking about all age groups.
With our freeze individuals, they just really get quiet.
They kind of disappear and they don't really, they don't attract a lot of attention, but they are sitting
there in a very, very unsafe situation as well. So a lot of times these individuals get termed lazy.
They get accused of not paying attention. A lot of times they're just trying to survive. Any questions
about this particular slide? Yes.
because that is a learned behavior. So these are, she said she didn't see Fawn, so that friend befriend.
Those are learned stress response behaviors. I am talking about the neurobiological. And the neurobiological
will kind of take precedent, because safety is the brain's number one priority. All right, when we think
about this in terms of what's going on in the brain,
then what we see is down here in the brain stem, and the brain stem is what is activated when we are
in crisis. When we are in crisis and we are dealing with something that is threatening to us, 60% of
the brain's activity is in the brain stem, 60%. This is about surviving. This is about being safe. This
will initiate those behaviors that in the past have helped us feel safe. So if you think about why do
kids fight, why do they
Why do they hide? Those are the things in their home that have helped them stay safe and survive in
those threatening situations, and they kind of become ingrained. We see anywhere from 20 to 30 percent
of the brain activity during stress in the limbic system. That is the middle part of the brain where emotions
are assigned. We take an information, and we decide whether or not it is important to our survival.
If it is, whether it's good or bad, then we're going to be assigned a motion. If it's bad, then we activate
that brain stem, the threatening part. But even good, we want to pay attention to that. This helps me.
This is important to my survival. I want to be around that person. I want to see that behavior. And
so it still will kind of activate some activity if it's positive.
Now the thinking part of the brain, which appears labeled cortical, so cortical, prefrontal cortex,
cortex, all of those things, is really the thinking part of the brain. There's only 10 to 20% activity
when we are stressed. So do you think it's helpful to ask someone who is in a fight or flight or freeze
response mode
Do you think it's helpful to try to have a conversation with them? Try to talk logically. Think rationally
about the situation. Calm down. When you ask them to calm down, you're asking them to do something that
they cannot do. Therefore, it is a stress. When people ask us to do something we can't do, that activates
our stress response system. And if we're really, really upset, someone asking us to calm down is only
going to make it worse.
So understanding that the thinking part of the brain is only 10 to 20% active when someone
is in a threatening situation, when they feel stress, regardless of what that is, we have to understand
that we have to speak to the appropriate part of the brain. So we're going to talk about the different
parts of the brain, but I do want to talk about challenges to both self-regulation and engagement and
connection before we get to the strategies.
So every day, every day, there are challenges to our ability to self-regulate. Now, my guess would be
we are, I see a room full of people who help, a room full of, whether they're your teachers or social
workers or youth care professionals, whether you're in Department of Child Services, probation, you're
here because you care about kids and you want to have a positive impact, you help.
Right? And so, hopefully, you have learned strategies that allow you to self-regulate. If you're successful,
you have to have those, otherwise it gets you in trouble and you don't stay in the field. But there
are challenges every day, even when we have those skills, those coping skills to self-regulation. And
the first, the very first one is the fact that our stress response is automatic.
So it is unrealistic, regardless of how long you've been in the field, how long you've practiced meditation
and yoga, how long you have practiced really good coping skills, to think that you're gonna do this
every time that you face a stress. Because it is automatic, and the more dangerous, the more threatening
it is, the more likely that automatic response is gonna kick into gear. And so you see behaviors that
maybe aren't typical of you,
but still are going to happen. They're still going to happen because that's an automatic response. I
have a great story, but I don't have time to tell it, which is really, really sad. So not only do we
have that automatic response, but anything that threatens our safety is going to trigger our stress
response. And for adults, having our capacities questioned and having our authority challenged is viewed
as a stressor. And the brain goes, how dare they? I have a doctorate degree in industrial and organizational
college. How dare they challenge me? Yeah, no, the brains get, it is like, it's that social kind of
piece, you know, because we do strive to connect and to bring meaning to whatever group that is. And
so having that stuff questioned is going to activate that stress response. All right, so any safety
threats are going to do that.
Any person who is dysregulated, guess what? They're gonna dysregulate us. We read dysregulated people
as a threat. And that is because the brain likes to be in control. The brain likes to know what's gonna
happen next because if we know what's gonna happen next, we can prepare for that and we can be in control.
And a dysregulated person is unpredictable.
And so they will dysregulate us as well. And it doesn't make any difference how big that person is or
how small that person is. It will dysregulate us. So understanding that, just know that. And if you
have to take time, you have to take time. Because we have to regulate ourselves. If we have a trauma
history, there will be certain things that are going to be more triggering than others. And then in
this field, we do experience secondary trauma.
I don't care what you're doing. If you care about kids and you're dealing with kids who come from a
difficult background, that is hard on us. And it can create secondary trauma as well. So these are all
challenges to our ability to regulate ourselves. We cannot regulate someone else unless we are regulated.
Anyone know who Dr. Bruce Perry is?
Nobody knows it, okay, good. So if you don't know him, go look him up because he's absolutely fabulous.
I fangirl over Dr. Bruce Perry because he is amazing. He has worked with youth all of his professional
career and he explains this in terms that everyone can understand. He is amazing. And he says that a
dysregulated person cannot regulate someone else. And that is so very true. Because if we're dysregulated,
we're a threat to someone else.
also know that we have challenges to engagement. And so the first one really is that we are, our brain's
number one priority is self-preservation. And it will override everything else. If I feel threatened,
then my brain says, I don't care how that person's gonna feel if you do this. We need to make sure you're
safe. And so it's gonna override our ability to engage with other people because we wanna be safe. The
brain's priority is safety.
that makes us, in these times, egocentric. And egocentric is that it's really just turning inward and
thinking about yourself and taking care of your needs. Now, we see this in adolescents. It's a very
typical response in adolescents as they develop. But we can be egocentric when we feel threatened because
we want to kind of reestablish that safety piece. And when we are egocentric,
We're self-focused and we're not other focused, so that can get in the way of those relationships. We
also have, again, if the person has a trauma history, they have a very negative worldview. It takes
less for them to be activated, to activate that stress response, and they simply don't trust others.
And this research is consistent and it is prevalent.
that they just have a more difficult time seeing the world as a safe place and trusting in other people.
Understandably, that's going to get in the way of relationships. We also have certain innate and learned
engagement strategies. So if you're an optimistic person, yay.
That's not up here, but that's also because optimistic people think, oh, it's going to work out.
It's fine. You know, challenges is something that's just to be overcome. Whereas a pessimistic person,
that's the end of the world. There's no other question. And it's challenging. Also, if you're an introvert
or an extrovert, because introverts, so here's the thing. With introverts, we get our energy. I say
we because I'm an introvert with a capital I, capital I, because we get our energy being alone.
We have to be alone and we have to be able to kind of fill ourselves back up by being alone. Now it's
not to say that we can't engage with other people because we can, you know, I teach, I do this, I love
doing this kind of stuff. Most people think, gosh, she's an extrovert, not at all, not even close.
All right, this I love, this energizes me, but if this was just a networking session where I had to
go around and talk to individual people, I could do it
And you wouldn't know that I'm dying inside, as I do, that it is absolutely exhausting. Extrovert people
get their energy from that engagement with other people. They don't like to be alone. So it's just really
how we get that energy. Well, obviously, if you're an introvert and you need that time alone, that can
get in the way of relationships. My youngest son says he's done peopling.
And that even applies to family members and family get-togethers. He's there for, if we're lucky, an
hour and a half, and then he's done. Because we've zapped all of his energy. So that can get in the
way of relationships. Attachment styles also, I don't really have a lot of time to go into attachment
styles. What time am I supposed to be done? What time?
Oh, yay. Good. All right, 1045. So attachment styles, again, these are learned. Anyone familiar with
Mary Ainsworth and the strange situation? All right, this is developmental psychology 101. This is about
how a child's needs are met and whether or not that caregiver is meeting them appropriately and consistently.
The good news is that most of the time, about 60% of people have a secure attachment. Secure attachment
is when that caregiver understands the needs of the baby, and we are talking infants, newborns and infants,
and they consistently and appropriately meet that child need. So when they're hungry, they get fed.
When they're tired, they get rocked to sleep. When they're wet, they get changed. And when they're bored,
they get played with.
And that happens over and over and over again. And that baby learns two things in that situation. The
first thing that they learn is that they can depend on other people, right? Because if I need something,
they can't do it themselves, and someone else is coming and taking care of me. So now I can rely on
other people. These tend to be the folks who can stay in that green from that previous slide.
because they learn the world is safe and you can trust other people. But they also learn that they can
do something to get their needs met. Because what do babies do when they need something? They cry, right?
I cry, and lo and behold, this big person comes and takes care of me. I can summon this person.
to come and meet my needs. So they learn to trust in other people, and they learn to trust in their
own abilities to get their needs met. That's a great place to be. These babies tend to want to make
sure that that person is there, but they'll go off and they'll explore and they'll learn. They're not
really happy when that person leaves, and they're really, really happy when that person comes back.
I always had to remind myself of that when I left my youngest with a babysitter because he would cry
when I left, but that just meant he was securely attached. And he would quit as soon as I walked out
the door because he was securely attached to the babysitter as well. But always really happy to see
me when he came back. These folks trust other people and they can have healthy relationships.
The rest of the attachment styles are insecure attachment styles, and that's basically because the caregiver
has not been consistent or hasn't appropriately met their needs. And this can be because the caregiver
has a mental illness that's not treated. It could be because there's substance abuse. Maybe they never
learned how to parent appropriately, because parenting is a learned skill. There's no such thing as
the maternal instinct. We would be out of jobs.
if there were, right? And so it can be a number of different, maybe they're working all of the time,
maybe they have two jobs and they're simply exhausted. But if they don't consistently meet that child's
need, then it's going to interfere with their ability to attach. If they never appropriately respond,
then the avoidant, or it's like most of the time they don't appropriately respond, then avoidant personality
or avoidant attachment is going to develop, which basically means that the kid, the baby, a baby,
learns that they cannot trust other people, and they're pretty much on their own. I do training for
foster parents. A foster parent couple came up to me, and they were talking about a baby that they got
at four months old. He was, I mean, the parent was just gone for lots of different reasons. They weren't,
even though they were physically present, they were never there for the baby. And at four months old,
he had learned that it didn't make any difference to cry.
So he didn't cry. And then with that consistent, appropriate care, at about 12 months, he was beginning
to cry and express himself again. So he could make those changes. But at four months old, this child
learned that it didn't make any difference to cry. So he was just on his own.
Another type of insecure is ambivalent. Ambivalent attachment is when needs are sometimes met. So the
baby cries because they're wet, and they get changed. And then sometimes they're not. The baby cries
because they're hungry, and the caregiver tries to rock them to sleep. Sometimes they respond appropriately.
Sometimes they don't respond at all. And again, that's for a number of different reasons. But these
individuals don't know what to do to get their needs met.
So they may be overly attached. They may be overly dependent. You'll see lots of different behaviors
when it comes to this, because they just don't know what it is that they need to do to get that good
relationship. They know what it looks like. But as infants, when they cried, sometimes it worked, and
sometimes they didn't. So they have no clue what they do, what they need to do to get that. The last
one is familiarity. The more that we are around people, the more that we know them.
Again, this goes back to that predictability. I know what you look like when you're happy. I know what
you look like when you're angry. I know what behavior is gonna happen when you're angry. I can predict
what's gonna happen and I know what I need to do to be safe around that. So again, if we know people,
if we're familiar with them, then that will increase that ability to engage. If we're unfamiliar with
them, again,
they're unpredictable because we don't know how they're going to respond. And we will, regardless of
how you're going to respond, we will kind of go back to that old pattern and say, this is how the world
usually is, and this is what they expect out of you, right? Because that's what they've learned. All right.
So we're gonna dive into, I'm so glad that I have all this time to talk about the strategies, right?
Because we're gonna dive into the strategies and what we need to do to talk to the appropriate part
of the brain, right? So when we are gonna, we're gonna talk about this in terms of the survival brain,
and that is that brain stem, that's the part of the brain that is overly
that's the most active when people are in stress. So when people are stressed out, when they're obviously
anxious, they're obviously angry, it is the survival brain that is in charge here because they don't feel safe
And they're engaging those behaviors that have helped them survive to that point. So that's the survival
brain. Then we're going to talk about the emotional brain. That is the limbic system, the mid-part of
the brain. The mid-part of the brain controls not only emotional kind of, I guess, recognition, right?
So this is where we assign emotion. This is where the threat.
That fight or flight response is activated. This is also where our learning center is. The hippocampus
is in the limbic system that is responsible for learning and memory. This is also where the reward system
is the most ingrained. That neural pathway for our reward system is in the limbic system. So that's
the emotional piece where we engage with other people. And then the last is the thinking brain.
cortex. I tend to talk about the prefrontal cortex because that's where we do most of our higher emotional
and cognitive learning. That's where it controls things like decision making, impulse control, higher
emotional control is in the prefrontal cortex. This is the thinking part of the brain. But remember,
the thinking part of the brain is not going to be activated until we feel safe
and until we feel connected. So let's talk about what these look like. And we're gonna start with the
survival brain. So again, when we are stressed, when we feel unsafe, it is that survival brain that
is most active. And this is the part of the brain, when we talk about strategies here, we're gonna talk
about what's called focused attention strategies. These are strategies that allow us
to calm that stress response. They'll allow us to kind of bring that back down to calm the activity
in the survival brains so that we can engage the emotional brain and we can engage the thinking part
of the brain. And the survival brain really responds well to breathing, movement, and our senses. So
we're going to talk about strategies that will incorporate those.
So the easiest, the cheapest, none of these things cost money, which I think is absolutely fascinating.
I love that. But the easiest thing to do to calm our stress response system is to deep breathe. And
when I talk about deep breathing, I am talking about belly breathing, right? It is the stomach that
rises, the chest does not.
Typically, you're not going to get a whole lot of movement in your chest if you're deep breathing. Now,
newborns deep breathe. We are born into this world breathing the way that is best for us, which is deep
breathing. And how many of you as parents went and checked that baby because you didn't see their back
rise? It's like, oh my god.
Can't see any movement, right? Now your stress response is activated. But yes, they're breathing because
it's the belly that's doing it. They're deep breathing because that's how we're supposed to do it. So
there are lots of different strategies for deep breathing. My favorite is the 474, and this is why.
90 seconds of deep breathing is enough to turn off our stress response system.
90 seconds. All right, but when we are stressed, practicing deep breathing and trying to keep track
of 90 seconds is kind of beyond our ability. That's just too much. We can't do that. I can't breathe
and focus on my deep breathing and keep track of time, but 474 allows us to do that in a really easy
way, because four plus four is eight, eight plus seven is 15, and 15 times six is 90. Whoa, you have
to do this six times.
Right? And then you can calm that. So what this is is, and I'm gonna say this, with deep breathing,
it is belly breathing, because it's not gonna work otherwise, and your exhale has to be longer than
your inhale. Okay? Those are the two kind of key components, is that it's belly breathing and your exhale
is longer. So four, seven, four is a breath in for four through your nose,
and exhale out through your mouth. So we breathe in through our nose, out through our mouth, and then
if it is comfortable for you to do, hold your breath for four seconds. Because we can trick our brain
into thinking everything's okay. And if we're not breathing, if we can hold our breath, then it must
be all right. We don't even need to breathe. We're so safe. All right, so we can even just kind of use
that trick. So again, it is the stomach that rises,
in for four, out for seven, and then hold your breath for four. And if you do that six times, that's
90 seconds. And typically, you feel pretty good afterwards. All right. Sometimes, especially if we've
gotten away from deep breathing, it is really difficult to slow that exhale. We tend to, all right,
and there's nothing left. So there are a couple of tricks
for slowing that exhale until you're used to doing that. The first is snake breathing. So again, it's
a big inhale. And then sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
And I would say if you're going to teach this to your littles, you have to do it first, because it looks
silly. And you have to be willing to look silly before they do. But again, it's that big inhale.
All right, and you do that first. Now, I have a harder time doing that for seven seconds. I like the
snake one.
Balloon breathing is actually going to incorporate movement into that. And so you tell your kids, okay,
we're going to inflate the balloon. And when we do that, we're going to take a deep breath in and our
arms are going to rise. And then we're going to let it out slowly like you do a balloon and make that
sound that a balloon makes. Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Did a lot of virtual trainings. If you have animals and you're doing this, they will come and check
you out. It's like, what is she doing? Look at you like you've lost your mind. It's so funny. I don't
know if it's the sound, I don't know, but they're really fascinated by that. There are lots of different,
you've heard of box breathing, which is hold your breath for four, inhale for four, hold your breath
for four, exhale for four. There's lots of different ways.
That doesn't incorporate the exhale being longer than the inhale, so that's why a 474, I don't like
math, so this one's easy for me, to be honest with you, right? It is something that you can do,
excuse me, something that you can do and nobody has to know that you're deep breathing. If you are sitting
in a staff meeting and someone is just being a fool,
And saying really stupid stuff that gets you going, you can deep breathe and calm yourself down and
nobody ever has to know that that's what you're doing. Middle schools love this one, middle schoolers,
because they can do this and nobody sees it. They don't like that attention, so it's something that
you can incorporate.
Movement is also really, really great. And so anything that is going to activate our muscles is working.
Are you guys familiar with deep muscle relaxation, which is the tensing and then the release? When you
release, it should be an automatic release. I will say that typically you will either move from your
toe to your head or your head down. I don't know why, but I always start with my toes and you just kind
of flex them. You can curl them under, you can flex them
put them up, typically hold for three seconds while you're flexing, and then that immediate release,
and then just work all the way up your body. Again, unless you're doing your face, because your face
makes it, all right, you tense your face, people are going, what is she doing, right? But everything
else, again, you can do this and nobody has to know. It is that release. Now, in the animal kingdom,
they do this automatically. Anyone ever notice what a dog does after a stressful response?
or a stressful situation, what do they do? They shake, right? We see gazelles do this when they've been
chased by that predator, and they get away, and it's finally safe, and they do a whole body shake. So
if you're in a place that you feel comfortable doing a whole body shake, then shake it off. That's where
the term comes, shake it off.
Shake it off. We're shaking off. We don't do that. We hold tension in our bodies, and we don't, on a
regular basis, release that tension. And this is what all this is about. So shake it off. That's a song,
right? By some, I don't know, some singer. We also can do stretching or yoga. I mean, that's the beauty
of yoga, is that it really is stretching. That's all it is.
Now, a really good yoga program is going to incorporate deep breathing, which is awesome and amazing,
but stretching, again, is going to release that muscle tension where we hold it. It is purposeful, and
you can do it anywhere that you are. Now, maybe people notice, but so what? I think it's practicing,
you know, it's good self-care and sharing, what are you doing? Man, I'm really tense, and I just need
to relax my muscles.
Just need to stretch it out. With kids, there are certain ones. So you can swim it out. Swim it out.
But you're releasing those muscles. And then there are specific exercises. They're called either tension
or trauma release exercises that target a specific body part. So if you are a fight person and you hold
your tension in your arms and your shoulders, then you just press your palms together as hard as you can.
And eventually, they'll start to shake. Now, if you can hold this for 90 seconds, again, that 90 is
what's ideal. You will sweat. I'm starting to sweat, so I'm going to quit. It's hard to do if you do
it for a long period of time. But then just release, and it's going to release some of those muscles.
If you are a flight person and you hold your tension in your back, your stomach, and your buttocks,
and you want to get up against a wall, don't have a wall to do that.
You just lower yourself until your thighs are parallel with the floor and then your legs will start
to shake. And again, hold that as long as you can and release and that's gonna release some of that
tension that we hold in our body. We do that and we don't, and again, this is automatic, it's evolutionary
because we're still ready to fight and we're still ready to run away from those things and our stressors today
Those don't work. And in fact, sometimes they'll get us in more trouble, right? But we still hold that
body tension there. So we have to have those very specific ways of getting rid of that. Rhythm is also
something that works to calm that stress response system, our survival brain. So music is great. It
is like music soothes the savage beast, right? And there's neuroscience behind that saying now.
But it has to be below 80 beats per minute. Anything above 80 beats per minute is going to get us going.
So kind of slow. And typically, if you're using this as a calming exercise for someone that you're working
with, instrumental, because we don't know how the words are going to, people are going to respond to
words, we respond differently. So instrumental is always slow. Instrumental is going to be good. Also,
if they're just like really wound,
And, you know, just, okay, so you're upset. Is it okay if I just stand here to make sure you're safe?
And you might get this and you're standing there and then just... It doesn't have to be loud. I don't
know if you guys can all hear that. What does it sound like? A heartbeat. And it will calm them back down.
Again, it's slow. Make sure it sounds not that, but slow. And it will calm them back down. And then
anyone familiar with tapping? All right, so tapping also will include movement. There is some verbal
tapping. And I can send instructions if folks want this. But tapping is you kind of prime by hitting
this what you call the karate chop part of your hand.
and say something that's irritating and what your solution is. So I get really, really frustrated when
I have to wait on people, but I can be patient. And you say that three times, and then you're primed,
and then you tap in a certain order while saying that positive thing. I can be patient. I can be patient.
I can be patient. I can be patient. I can be patient. I can be patient. I can be patient. I can be patient.
I can be patient. I can be patient. I can be patient. I might have missed one.
So there's instructions. Someone's saying, no, you didn't. OK, that's good to know that. Now, I only
have to do that a couple of times, and that works. Some people might have to do it a little bit longer,
depending on how stressed they are. But these are all things that will calm that survival brain. The
last thing is senses, because the survival brain will respond to senses. So it can be, if you've got
a visual person, it can be coloring or doodling.
You know, and that's just like, did anyone color to calm down? Adult coloring books, they finally recognize
that, hey, this is a thing, and it works. Anyone doodle while you sit in a session like this? You know,
that actually increases your attention? It increases your ability to pay attention. If you're one of
those people, and I'm one of those people as well, it increases my ability to pay attention.
I had to educate my son's fifth grade teacher about that. He got in trouble for doodling. I sent an
article to the teacher. Kel wasn't happy, but he also didn't get in trouble for doodling anymore because
there's research behind the fact that doodling increases attention. Sometimes you're an auditory person
and things just get too much. So those noise canceling headphones, because this kids, we do this, right?
We do this when it's too much. And in fact, there are, y'all know how the auditory, it's a sound wave
and it hits the eardrum and it vibrates and it vibrates the bones in your middle ear. And then it goes
to the auditory nerve with that vibration. When we are stressed, when we are stressed, the muscles that
are in control of those bones in that middle ear stop, they stop the vibration.
They automatically turn off sound when we are overwhelmed. The body is absolutely fascinating. So noise
canceling. If you use scents, scents and touch can be good. So like a lotion, I typically suggest unscented
lotion because scents are one of those things that bypass
It bypasses the thalamus. It goes straight to an olfactory nerve in the brain, so it has an automatic
connection to a place in the brain that will activate. It's why scents activate those emotions so strongly.
And we don't know what scent an abuser is using. And the last thing we want to do is introduce a scent
that is stressful. So that's why I always suggest unscented touches. I mean, lotion is good, right?
You can just kind of get this going. Ask the people if you don't know if you want to use scents. Make
sure you ask them what they like, what they don't like. They're going to be able to tell you. You can
do a dry wash, which is get a loofah or a washcloth, a dry washcloth, and just pretend like you're taking
a bath. And that's that touch piece that's going to be calming. Because we typically don't bathe when
we're really stressed. That's not the first thing that we get. Well, some of us go take a hot bath.
But again, it's just that calming kind of thing. The key here is finding what works for you and finding
what works for the individual that you're working with. So there will be some trial and error. One of
the best ways, though, is just ask. What helps you calm down? Breathing is going to work for everyone.
That rhythm piece, that's going to work for everyone because those are automatic. Some of this other
stuff requires that we ask them what's going on. All right. When we talk about connections, connections
is that emotional part of the brain. So once people feel safe, they also want to know that there's somebody
there that has their back. Do we not just feel better in a dangerous situation if we have just one other
person with us?
We want to make sure that another safe person, I guess I should say, that we feel safe with. So connections
is that kind of piece where we are engaging with other folks. It does require that we feel safe first.
But we're going to talk about touch points, and we're going to talk about noticing. And then again,
positive modeling here. We want to make sure that whoever it is that you're working with has someone
that cares about them, that's always gonna be there, call them personal cheerleaders. And this is important
because there is a brain chemical called oxytocin. It is our bonding neurotransmitter. It is what connects
us to other people. And this follows the same neural pathways that cortisol does. Cortisol is the stress
hormone. It is the hormone that is released when we are in danger, when we feel threatened.
Oxytocin follows that same neural pathway and it will override cortisol. So it just calms that down,
right? And it can be someone, so if you have, if you're working with individuals, find out who makes
them feel safe. Find out who they connect with, who they feel loved and again, safe with. And when they're
really having a hard time, give them the opportunity to connect to that person.
It doesn't have to be in person. Talking to them over the phone will work. One of the beauties of these
things is we can FaceTime, and they can actually see that person, just seeing that person will help
them calm down. And if you can get a hug, that's that kind of, I call it an oxytocin fix, nine seconds
of a really good hug,
is going to calm your neurotransmitter. Now, my youngest is very empathetic. At three, he was called
an old soul by his preschool teacher. And I would come home from work once he got into, I mean, he always
knew, and I always got a hug from him. Now, once he got bigger than me, and he's also my biggest kid,
he's six, three and a half. So when I get a hug from Cale, I get a hug. I always have to make sure my
face is this way, otherwise I can't breathe, right? But I get one of those really
Strong, deep, nine-second hugs. And he could tell by me walking in. You need a hug? He'd always ask.
You need a hug? But yeah, I need a hug. And that's when his oxytocin kicks in, and all of a sudden,
the world is a manageable place. And a little bit better, too, right? So find those oxytocin fixes.
We also are gonna role model things. How many of you guys ever go into work hot? You come in hot.
For whatever reason, you'll woke up late, the kids wouldn't get their shoes on by themselves,
whatever it is, the car wouldn't start, traffic was bad, the line at Starbucks was extra long, and you
were running late, you come in hot, and there's nothing wrong with saying, guys, I don't know about
you, but I have had a morning, or I've had a day, and I just need to deep breathe.
I just need to calm down. You are invited to do this with me. You don't have to. If you're totally fine,
then just take 90 seconds to kind of just be quiet. But I need this to breathe. And you're invited to
do this along with me. When we do that, yes, vulnerability is on here. When we do that, what we are
doing is we are modeling vulnerability. Vulnerability builds trust.
When we model vulnerability, it models one, that it's okay not to be okay. That everybody is human.
And the other thing that we model when we show vulnerability is that there's an appropriate way to handle
it. Right? She's really stressed. I can tell. Just by her body language. Just by the tone of voice.
But she's not yelling at us.
She's not taking it out on us. She's actually doing stuff to take care of herself and to calm back down,
and she's asked us, because I would, I don't mean to be irritable, I'd go home, okay, I've had a day,
and I do not mean to be irritable if I snap let me know, because it is not about you, and I will do
what I need to do to make sure that we're okay. That lets them be vulnerable with you. If you are in
a position where you have any type of authority whatsoever, and you always have it together,
and you never show vulnerability, and nothing ever gets to you, you've always got the right answer,
people will not come to you. Even if they really trust and admire you, they will not come to you because
they don't want to disappoint you. She's always got it together. I don't want to look like I don't.
So that vulnerability allows them to come to you. Those interactions, so anyone familiar with 10 by 2?
So 10 by 2 is a really, really great way to connect with an individual. It is talking two minutes with
someone 10 days in a row. Two minutes, 10 days in a row, whatever they want to talk about. If they want
to get into the deep stuff and you don't feel kind of confident in handling that stuff, you might say,
oh, let me connect it to someone else. But that 10 by 2 piece is they get to talk about whatever it
is that they want to talk about.
You will probably learn more than you ever want to know about Fortnite or Marvel or whatever it is.
But they feel heard in that feeling. We all want to feel heard. We all want to be noticed, and we all
want to feel heard. So that 10 by 2 allows them to do that. If you're in a group setting and you have
a kid that's really, really difficult, then take turns. Rotate the adults who do the 10 by 2 so that
this kid feels connected.
So don't forget the secretary if you're in a school setting. Don't forget the custodial staff. We can
connect to everybody. And that 10 by 2 allows them that connection piece. If you have shared interests,
that's great because then it's something to talk about. It's not a forced 10 by 2. It's something that
happens automatically. And laughter.
Again, I have all these sayings. Laughter is the best medicine. But guess what? It is. It really is.
There's medical benefits. There are medical and psychological benefits to laughing. Even if it's forced
laughter, it tricks our brain into thinking everything's OK because it fires off different.
When we laugh, your face changes when you laugh. And those muscles send messages to the brain saying
everything's OK.
We're good. We're happy. We're happy. So that laughter is really good. Do it naturally. That's fine.
In my household, the boys always had chores. As teenage boys, what do they do when it's time for chores?
They complain. So there was an article in the paper about a mom who stabbed her 13-year-old son because
he didn't do the dishes. And I cut it out, and I put it on the fridge. And when the boys complained
about doing a chore,
I would say, go read the fridge. Oh, mom. And I get the eye roll and the ugh. But guess what? They went
and did their chore. We can use that to our benefit. We can use that. When we laugh, it increases. It
releases endorphins. It activates our reward system. And then we feel good about the person that we're
laughing with. And it builds that connection. That's why we like to be around people who make us laugh.
All right, noticing and validating. Again, easy, easy stuff. Just saying hi to people as they come in
the door and making sure you say goodbye when they leave. If they have a haircut, new shoes, a new top,
if they look down, if they're extra happy, if they look anxious, just say something. Just notice, because
we need to feel noticed and validated around those things. And then active listening.
of listening is a challenge in today's world, mostly because of this thing, right? But it gets put down,
and even if it goes off, we're not looking at it. That person has our undivided attention, and we're
asking, clarifying questions to make sure that what they're saying is what we hear. Not to respond,
but to understand. And then there are specific strategies around building empathy and expectations.
If you work with a group over an extended period of time, start by establishing
Emotion norms. What do we want this to feel like? What do we want this classroom? What do we want this
group? What do we want this to feel like? What's important to you? So you brainstorm, you popcorn out,
and then everybody agrees on probably five to seven.
With that agreement, it's easy to remind them this is where we're going to be so they understand what
this space is going to feel like when we're together. You could do a couple of things like in their
shoes or commonality contest, which is especially if you've got kids who might be butting heads, pair
them together on purpose. We're going to do the exercise and you pair them together on purpose and you
give them two minutes to come up with everything that they have in common.
And then whichever group has the most, they get, you know, whatever, they get a prize. Candy's always
good. If they're not diabetic. If you're allowed to give it out, whatever. They have that. Another version
of that with the older kids is never have I ever, right? Y'all know never have I ever. It's like musical
chairs except one person's in the middle and they say never have I ever driven a tractor. And anyone
else who hasn't driven a tractor has to switch seats
And the person standing has to find a seat to sit down and whoever's left has to come up with a never
have I ever. It is fun. I do this with adults because it is fun. You get to know about people. It's
energizing. It's one of those things that really build those connections.
Okay, so the last thing we're going to talk about is responding to or activating that thinking part
of the brain. Again, we need to feel calm and we need to feel connected. Once we do, we can activate
this through what are called brain intervals, brain interval exercises. This is good for transitions
and breaks. It's also good when they're getting ready to do something that requires their focus.
talk about this in cross-lateral, coordinated, and kind of symbolic activities. What all of these things
have in common is that they activate all of the brain. And that's what we want to do. Once they feel
safe and once they feel connected, we're going to activate that thinking part of the brain. So if you
have a pen in your hand, or if you have a pen, pick it up and write your name on anything that you have.
Just write your name.
Once you're done, put it in your other hand and write your name. Okay, so what I'm noticing is it takes
longer and people are concentrating a lot more because it's out of the norm.
Anything that is, so if you're dominant, whether it's left or right, just do other things with your
non-dominant hand, and that requires more attention. It's new. All of the brain is activated when we're
doing something that's new. And it's the other side that's kind of in control. So those are gonna work.
It can also be things simply like taking your left hand and touching your right knee, right hand,
left knee. You can do all the different body parts, but that cross,
it's called cross-lateral piece, is gonna activate both hemispheres and get us ready to focus. Coordinated
activities can be something like patting your head and rubbing your belly. Can y'all do that?
So as adults, we got really good at doing this. It's fun to do this with kids because they have a really
hard time. Now switch. Can you do it the other way around? Sometimes people have more of a challenge
doing that way, that coordinate. Or, and I cannot do this one, I need to practice.
Peace, and okay, and then switch. Right? Okay, peace. You have to think about doing that. And being
able to do that, again, is going to activate both sides of the brain. Things that are outside of the
norm, again, I think, I don't know why the tongue is tied to activating all parts of the brain,
but it is. So you can do a tongue stretch, like that.
It activates, I don't know why, but it does, it activates. Or you can do, I mean, or funny talk. And
funny talk is this. So my tongue is behind my teeth at the top part, and I'm just talking. Now y'all
can understand me, right? But I also have to enunciate a lot more. So that's gonna activate that. And
then anything that's symbolic. So you can do mental math, have them count by threes in a group. You can do,
Alphabet by animal and not by letter. And what's interesting is you do it as a group. And ABCD is pretty
good, but once people get to EFG, you start to see people stop and think about what letter comes next
before they think of the animal. It's really kind of, I mean, you see it, you see it. And then symbolic,
so like air drawing. So what am I drawing here? Okay, how about this?
tree yeah and you just get harder and harder but you can do that in pairs what we're doing is we're
making people focus we are doing things that require both hemispheres to do that okay so it is 1043
and looky there
So we have two minutes for questions. I know I ran through this really quickly, but I really wanted
to get to the exercises. Recognize when you're working with someone which part of the brain you need
to connect with. You now have strategies to do that. And then once you do that, you can use this to
your ability. So we have questions. We just have two minutes. There's a question back there. She's going
to grab the microphone.
They need a microphone for the video thing. Okay, go ahead.
Okay, so she's talking about when you are working with someone who doesn't have any connections, when
they can't name that one person who makes them feel safe, and then it becomes our job to find that person,
right? So it could be a teacher, it could be a neighbor, maybe it is the parent of
you know, somebody in their classroom. It could be a coach. It could be janitorial staff. It could be
anybody, but it becomes our job to find that person. It could be you. Here's the caveat. It needs to
be someone who's going to stick around. The reason in mentoring that you require a year-long commitment
is because if you don't stick around at least a year, you do more harm than good.
So it has to be someone who's going to be there and who is willing to make that commitment to be there
for that person. Help them understand why that's important. Help them understand how to, I mean, they
need to self-regulate so that they can co-regulate. So you're talking about developing skills.
But it is looking in their environment that they're in and then finding that one person, one or two
people that could be there. I hope that's helpful. It's challenging. I understand that. But we really,
that should, I mean, if I had a magic wand, what I would do was give every person, at least one person
who believed the world revolved around them, that was that kind of support because that is so powerful.
All right, I'll be willing to stick around. It is 10.45, so I'm gonna turn it back over, but I'll stick
around if you have other questions. Thank you much for sticking with me in this one, and I appreciate
your attention.