The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}

Эпизоды

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  EP 287: How to scaffold "accepting no" 06.10.2026 48мин

  Does hearing “no” or “not right now” or “stop doing…” seem to bring your child’s back-off watchdog or shut-down possum out? Or even worse?? Almost every family I’ve ever worked with has had some sort of struggle with their child tolerating frustration, or disappointment, or not getting what they want. These kids look ‘spoiled,’ and the judgment from others is REAL. But accepting no and tolerating frustration are owl brain skills that can be scaffolded. There’s a pretty lengthy ‘sk...
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  EP 286: A Checklist for BEING, not doing 29.09.2026 43мин

  I know how intensely we want a checklist. Do this, this, and this, and the dysregulation will end, and your kid will be OK. This episode is the story of chasing exactly that list (Dr. Sears' Attachment Parenting checklist that I worked to check off one by one) and finding something else entirely in Dan Siegel's Parenting From the Inside Out. He didn’t give a checklist at all, just a way of being. So, I can’t give you a checklist, but this episode is the closest thing I can give you: a s...
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  EP 285: Triggers & Beliefs Only Parenting Seems to Activate 22.09.2026 46мин

  Sometimes it’s the little moments that overwhelm us more than the big, scary ones. The "whatever" muttered under their breath, the stash of snack wrappers under the bed, or they flatly deny something you're 99% sure they did. Sure, these things are frustrating, and it makes sense you’d have a reaction- but for some reason, you find yourself in zero to fury before you even had a chance to think. It can feel so perplexing. There was no meltdown, no real crisis- why is the reaction oh so b...
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  EP 284: Wherever You Are is Exactly Right (me too) 21.09.2026 40мин

  I know you are working so, so, so hard to hold onto your owl brain. Maybe you're at the stage where you don't even notice you've flipped your lid until hours later. Maybe you're at the stage where you can see it happening and still can't stop it. Either way, there's probably an old, familiar voice telling you that you should be further along than you are by now. I was once exactly there, too. Hollering- literally - at my own therapist for the reality that I wasn’t changing faster....
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  EP 283: What if I'm too burned out to do any of these things? 15.09.2026 43мин

  Almost always when I’m teaching or presenting, a parent is finally brave enough to ask: “What if I'm too burned out to do any of this?” And then at least half the other parents in the room look expectantly at me because they, too, are wondering how they could possibly conjure up enough energy to use playfulness. They aren’t even sure they like their kid enough to offer enough cues of safety. This episode looks at the physiology of burn out, why the strategies you already know feel compl...
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  EP 282: Parents & Practitioners Need the Same Thing- and it's not more tools 08.09.2026 47мин

  You've called every therapist in town and heard the same thing back: not taking new clients. Or you're the one on the other end of that call, staring at a kid whose behavior you can't make sense of, wondering if you're just not cut out for this. I get it. I intimately understand both sides of this struggle. In this episode, you'll learn: Why a dysregulated parent needs the same thing from their practitioner that a child needs from their parentWhat actually changes behavior long-te...
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  EP 281: What I Wanted Every Kid in My Office to Know 01.09.2026 39мин

  My guiding north star when I was a therapist working with kids (and grown-ups) was always helping them not just get to know their brain and how it works, but actually to develop a relationship with the parts of themselves that seemed to always be getting into trouble. It's not really just brain facts that are helpful to kids. Teaching them about their brain creates the possibility that they can develop a new relationship with their brain- and that’s where the real magic starts to happen.&nbsp...
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  EP 280: Either You Co-Regulate or You De-Escalate: An Interview with Chrissy D’Agostino 25.08.2026 59мин

  You've probably heard "a dysregulated adult can't co-regulate a child" a hundred times. But if you've ever been stuck in a store with a screaming kid — or a classroom with 17 screaming kids — and zero bandwidth left, you know how useless that advice can feel in the moment. This episode is a conversation with Chrissy D'Agostino, co-author of the new Early Years Guidebook from the Regulated Classroom, about what to do when you're with a dysregulated child, and you're dysregulated too. You’ll he...
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  EP 279: Is There a Behavior Intervention Flowchart?? 18.08.2026 43мин

  You want the flowchart. Of course you do! If X, then Y would be something to follow when there's no bandwidth left to think it through in the moment. But there isn't a flowchart, and this episode gets into why: stress capacity shifts by the hour, different nervous system states pull different memory networks online, and two nervous systems are shaping each other in real time, not just one. What there is instead is a map. Knowing both how to read it and how to adjust when something unexpected ...
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  EP 278: So Many Services! How to Prioritize? 11.08.2026 45мин

  OT on Tuesday, a speech eval callback on Wednesday, play therapy on Thursday, a school meeting on Friday that's really just another appointment in disguise. When the calendar starts looking like a second job, the question that actually matters isn't a number — it's whether all of it is moving your family toward regulation, connection, and felt safety, or quietly draining it. This episode walks through how to prioritize when everything's been recommended, and nothing fits, when it's genuinely ...
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  Ep 277: This Kind of Shame Doesn't Heal Alone: A Parent Guest 04.08.2026 55мин

  So many struggling and overwhelmed parents feel like their biggest problems are their kids' behaviors and the chaos that's taking over their family. This week's guest, a longtime Club member, talks about how she slowly came to realize that what she really needed to focus on wasn't strategies to change her kids' behavior, but experiences that would soften the shame she was carrying. This guest bravely shares that her shame didn't soften on her own. It took showing up in community with other pa...
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  EP 276: Cues of Safety: How to Help when Nothing is Ever Right 28.07.2026 38мин

  Every morning (or afternoon or evening) feels like just one long stream of complaints. Breakfast isn’t right, the bowl isn’t right, SOMETHING is always not right, and no matter what gets fixed, it’s never right enough. ^That perfectly describes a nervous system stuck in protection mode. This week’s episode explores how and why nervous systems get stuck and practical ways you can help- even when NOTHING you do seems to help. In this episode you will learn: Why your child's reaction...
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  EP 275: Does Lowering Demands Ever Cause More Stress? 21.07.2026 45мин

  Screens. Sugar. Anything that feels really good. The advice to just "lower the demand" can fall really short because for some kids, more access brings real relief. But for others, more access actually causes more stress and we wind up asking kids to take on a responsibility that is beyond their developmental capacity. This episode digs into what's actually generating the stress underneath the behavior, and what it looks like when a kid needs to be held steady instead of shifting our ex...
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  EP 274: The Only Three Things You Actually Need to Remember 14.07.2026 49мин

  Every behavior. Every parenting moment that feels impossible. It all comes back to three sentences — the three core tenets that distill how relational neuroscience makes sense of behavior and give us a roadmap toward change. This episode lays out the three truths underneath everything I do — this podcast, my books, The Club, the Immersion Program — and why they matter more than any single strategy ever could. Caring for kids with big, baffling behaviors is so overwhelming and confusing. Havin...
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  EP 273: What this Framework Asks of Helpers 07.07.2026 42мин

  You know that kid who just can't stay in the therapy room? They leave, wander around, get into things that aren't theirs, or are maybe even destructive? And three therapists have already called it quits. Maybe this describes your kid. Maybe this describes the kids you work with. This episode is for both of you. The helper who is trying to be with this kid, wondering what they're doing wrong. The helper who is working with a furious or checked-out parent — because it's the same question. But t...
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  EP 272: Where Do I Even Start? A Brand New Listener's Roadmap 30.06.2026 44мин

  When life is overwhelming and your kid's behavior makes no sense — and feels like it's getting worse — even the best resources get hard to use. You're too dysregulated to sort through 270 episodes or an almost 300-page book to figure out where to start. Of course you are. This episode breaks down why you freeze in the face of new information, or end up just begging someone to tell you what to do — plus a personal story about learning that the hard way, and the actual order to work through ins...
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  EP 271: 4 Functions of Behavior, FBAs, and a Nervous System Approach 23.06.2026 49мин

  For years, "the four functions of behavior" has been the go-to framework for understanding why kids do what they do: attention, escape, access to tangibles, sensory. It's not wrong, but it's not the whole story either. In this episode, we dig into where this model actually came from, what it leaves out, and what's underneath it once we go looking with a relational neuroscience lens. In this episode, you'll learn: Where the four functions of behavior actually came from, and why this is r...
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  EP 270: What is Your Kid's Nervous System Predicting? (Part 3 of 3) 16.06.2026 47мин

  We've been in a three-part series on sticky behaviors (behaviors that don’t seem to change, no matter WHAT you do!), and today we're doing the detective work: what is your specific child's nervous system actually predicting? In This Episode Three detective questions to help you identify what prediction might be driving your child's stickiest behaviors, and what those behaviors are actually protecting againstWhy you don't have to get the detective work exactly right, because the mismatch...
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  EP 269: What Actually Changes Sticky Behaviors (Part 2 of 3) 09.06.2026 39мин

  Part 1 was about why sticky behaviors stay stuck. Part 2 is where the hope lives. We're diving into the two mechanisms that actually change sticky behaviors at the neurological level. This is the episode that makes the hardest ask of Part - shifting away from ‘fix-it’ and ‘this has to change’ energy- make sense. In this episode you'll learn: Why your child's dysregulation isn't the obstacle to healing; it's actually the doorway to itThe two mechanisms that change sticky behaviors at the neuro...
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  EP 268: Why Sticky Behaviors Stay Stuck (Part 1 of 3) 02.06.2026 51мин

  If you've tried everything and a behavior just won't stop…that's a sticky behavior. Let's dive deeeeeep into the neuroscience behind the behaviors that feel impossible to change. We'll touch on how the brain stores predictions and how the most well-meaning response can actually, unintentionally, keep those predictions locked in place and perpetuate that sticky behavior. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series that brings new aha moments to your child's most baffling behaviors. In this episode, you ...