The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}

Content note: This episode discusses trauma, parenting stress, nervous system activation, and self-compassion. There are no graphic details, but please take care while listening. Parenting a child with a vulnerable nervous system can stretch your capacity in profound ways, especially when you have a history of trauma yourself. In this episode, we explore what it really means to nurture your window...

On February 3, I taught a live webinar online- Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior . This is the audio-only version of that webinar! To watch the full video webinar and to download the accompanying resources, head to RobynGobbel.com/webinar In this webinar, you'll learn the three core tenets that underlie behavior change what behavior really is how regulation, connection, and felt...

Content note: This episode discusses trauma, parenting stress, and nervous system activation. There are no graphic details, but please take care while listening. If you’ve spent years learning about the nervous system to better support your child, and now you’re ready to offer the same curiosity and compassion to yourself, then this episode is for you.  In this episode, you’ll learn: How core nerv...

This episode originally aired in 2020. It's a very popular episode that deserved being updated because so many folks are still listening! *** Lying is probably the behavior parents seek support with the most.  It's confusing.  It's triggering.  It's exhausting. We can use our x-ray vision goggles to get underneath the lying so we can respond in ways that actually sets the bound...

Content note: This episode discusses trauma, parenting stress, and nervous system overwhelm. There are no graphic details, but please take care while listening. Parenting a child with a vulnerable nervous system can stir up your own trauma in ways that feel surprising, intense, and deeply unsettling. In this episode, we slow everything down and make sense of why this kind of parenting can feel so...

Content warning: This episode includes discussion of severe trauma, abuse (including sexual abuse), dissociation, and suicidal ideation. Please take care while listening and pause if needed. In today’s episode, Robyn is joined by therapist, author, and adoptive parent Sally Maslansky to explore dissociative identity disorder through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology, attachment, and compassio...

Should we be talking about felt safety when so much is genuinely unsafe? I’ve been thinking a lot about this hard and honest question that so many parents are holding: when danger, injustice, and unmet needs are real and ongoing, does focusing on felt safety miss the point? Or can it actually be part of resistance, coherence, and long-term protection for our nervous systems? In this episode, you’l...

In part 3 of this series on Boundaries with Connection, Juliane Taylor Shore talks us through how boundaries work in relationships with our children - relationships where we have to show up every day - and why it is so important for us to have good psychological boundaries when our children are verbally aggressive.  In this episode, you’ll learn: What are psychological boundaries How do psychologi...

In part 2 of this series on Boundaries with Connection, we explore how to set boundaries that create success by providing structure and containment that offers safety, connection, and co-regulation. In this episode, you’ll learn: How boundaries can create physical and emotional safety How to create the kind of boundaries your child really needs for continued development How to set boundaries with...

Focusing on understanding what's driving behavior can sometimes make it feel like we aren't addressing the behavior at all. It can feel as if we are boundaryless and permissive. This episode sheds light on what boundaries really are and how focusing on regulation, connection and felt-safety increases compassionate boundaries in response to behaviors. In this episode, you’ll learn: What b...

In this episode, I unravel how to extend connection to our children while acknowledging that some might see this connection as a threat. I offer insights on toning down the demand for connection, enabling our children to relax in it, and thereby strengthen their stress response system. I also reference the previous episodes in this four-part series by talking about the science of opposition, some...

If offering safety and connection is the antidote to oppositional behavior, what do you do if connection isn’t experienced as safe or regulating by your child? In this episode you’ll learn: How connection and protection can get tied together How to keep offering connection, even when it’s consistently rejected by your child The science behind why YOU need to be receiving connection - and how you c...

Last week we talked about the science of oppositional behavior. This week, let’s look at strategies to help children rest into felt safety so their nervous system feels better and their oppositional protective strategies can decrease. In this episode you’ll learn: An invitation to consider some of our cultural beliefs around opposition in the parent/child relationship How to use our grown-up brain...

What if oppositional behavior is a normal response to feeling unsafe? In this episode, we unfold the layers of oppositional behavior and its roots in the nervous system. We look into the diagnostic complexities of Oppositional Defiant Disorder and dive into how our own state of the nervous system is important in helping our children navigate their Watchdog and Possum pathways. In this episode you’...

Cues of safety, danger, or life threat come from three places- inside, outside, and between. In part 3 of this series on felt safety, we are exploring felt safety from between- from relationship! In this episode, you’ll learn How availability of connection is a cue of safety or danger How neuroception can tell the state of the other person’s nervous system (connection or protection?) Why nervous s...

In this second episode of a three-part series on felt safety, we are going to explore all the ways our kids (and ourselves) are neuroceiving safety or danger from what’s happening in the environment. In this episode, you’ll learn Misconceptions about felt safety External (outside) cues of felt safety, such as the environment, sensory experiences, structure, and environmental demands What we do wit...

Let’s go back to basics! Last week we talked about seeing behavior through the lens of the nervous system and then took a deep-dive into co-regulation. FREE Downloadable Infographic all about Felt Safety! RobynGobbel.com/feltsafetyinfographic This week begins a three-part deep-dive into the foundational concept of felt safety. What is felt safety, what isn’t felt safety, and why it matters! Next w...

To celebrate our 5th birthday, I gathered 5 tips from our top 5 episodes. I’m revisiting important take-aways from episodes about boundaries, oppositional behavior, and how parenting kids with a vulnerable nervous system is traumatic.  Each of these episodes have a free downloadable infographic! You can find them all at RobynGobbel.com/FreeResourceHub In this episode, you’ll learn What ‘boundary’...

Ever notice how some kids just cannot talk about hard things- especially if it’s about their own mistakes or ‘bad’ behavior? Maybe they melt down the second you bring it up… or shut down completely. Let’s unpack what’s really going on when kids refuse to talk about mistakes or anything that feels “bad.” You’ll learn why their brain might be protecting them from feelings that are just too much - an...

Does your child get stuck in “buy me, buy me, buy me!” mode? Or maybe they melt down when they can’t have what they want right now? I know it seems selfish, manipulative, or even bratty- but we want to put on our x-ray vision goggles and get curious about WHY.  In this episode, we’ll unpack why delayed gratification and frustration tolerance are Owl Brain skills.  You’ll learn how to grow your chi...

Is your child suddenly quiet … but you can feel something bubbling under the surface? They aren’t yelling, running, or arguing like usual- but you can tell their system is still fired up and on high alert. Today, we’re talking about that “quiet volcano” version of watchdog energy. It looks calm. Still. Almost possum-like. But inside? Their nervous system is holding a TON of activation right under...

This episode originally aired in October 2024. All behavior makes sense and no behavior is maladaptive- in the moment that behavior emerges. Of course, the IMPACT of the behavior might be maladaptive and absolutely many behaviors need to change. But understanding that all behavior makes perfect sense at the moment it emerges is the lynchpin in offering folks co-regulation, connection, and felt-saf...

If you're parenting a child with a vulnerable nervous system, grief is an ever-present companion, whether we acknowledge grief or not. The holiday season often stirs that grief up a bit more. Our kids need more accomodations, they don't find the same things fun that other kids do, and sometimes it feels like special events aren't even worth it.  As November begins, I'm replayin...

Sometimes our kids look completely calm- even smug — while doing something that definitely isn’t a behavior of connection. But…they’re not melting down. They’re not screaming. They seem totally in control. Seems kinda like owl brain, yeah?  But- it’s not. It’s protection mode, even if the behavior seems calm.  In this episode, we’ll talk about how kids can use their thinking brain in the service o...

You ask your child what happened, and before you can finish the sentence, they’re already saying, “It wasn’t my fault!” Sound familiar? I know this is SO frustrating! But there’s a reason this is so hard, and it has everything to do with (of course!) the brain and nervous system. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why taking responsibility is an Owl brain skill that depends on reflection, regulation,...