While your kid's nervous system controls whether they transition from screens to dinner without an epic battle tonight, you don't need to have a degree in neuroscience to understand what their nervous system needs from you to make things doable and smoother.
In simplest terms, it needs to sense safety internally, from the environment, and from the people in proximity in that moment.
While that's a simple concept, it's certainly not easy in practice. We can't just snap our fingers and create settled, steady kids (nor settled, steady parents).
I came to envision this interplay of our nervous systems as a dance as I discussed it with body-based nervous system practitioner Holly Bridges for this week's podcast episode. Holly really feels and embodies this in a way I've never seen. And her metaphor of a shutdown kid being like an octopus is pure genius. Why? Because it helps you feel it, not just understand it.
Your kid's nervous system isn't a machine you can just tell to calm down. It's more like an octopus, sentient and sensitive, that retreats the harder you push. This week, body-based nervous system practitioner Holly Bridges joins me to talk about why "regulation" might be the wrong goal, and what deep body safety actually requires instead. It's a deeper lens on meltdowns, shutdowns, and behavior as communication.
Stasis Kids is the first day-and-night nutritional supplement system built for children who take stimulants.
Stimulants are effective, and for many families they are essential. They also come with familiar daily realities: energy and focus tapering later in the day, evenings that can be harder to wind down from, and moods that shift as the day goes on. Until now, no supplement system had been built specifically for children navigating those realities: one designed to support a child's routine, rather than working against it. Stasis Kids was created to fill that gap.
School doesn’t have to devastate your kid and hijack your family.
Join me for 1 hour a week for 6 weeks to change your child's school experience and the backlash that school struggles has on your family. The work we do in SSB together is what unlocks doability and makes all the tools, skills and strategies finally work.
Carrie Bonnet has brought together 18 incredible experts to help parents learn more about Executive Function and how to grow your school-age child’s independence in this free podcast summit.
Executive Function can be complicated, but with a guide? It’s so much easier.
Topics discussed include: managing homework, emotional regulation, procrastination and time management, talking to teachers about EF challenges, when to step back and when to step in. And I'll be joining the conversation too!
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I help parents and teachers of neurodivergent kids trade escalation for regulation using my SIGNAL Parenting™ framework. Award-winning author of Boy Without Instructions and host of the Beautifully Complex Podcast. My core belief: behavior isn't the problem, it's the signal.