Parental self-regulation and co-regulation explained

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts or check out the fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I interview Kahlila Robinson and Sarah Gerstenzang about self-regulation, co-regulation, repair, and what realistic emotional expectations look like for children ages five to eight. We discuss why parent self-regulation matters so much, how to support kids through big feelings, and practical strategies families can use together.

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We talk about:

* 00:00 — Meet Kahlila Robinson and Sarah Gerstenzang

* 03:00 — The book and self-regulation. What self-regulation is and why it starts with parents

* 06:00 — What’s realistic for kids (ages 5–8) and why big emotions are normal at this age

* 11:00 — Co-regulation: What it is and how parents support it

* 15:00 — Supporting kids through big feelings: Why feelings shouldn’t be rushed or shut down

* 20:00 — Revisiting hard moments and why conversations after the fact matter

* 23:00 — Repair: How and why to repair after conflict

* 29:00 — Practical tools and simple regulation strategies

* 35:00 — When strategies don’t work: Why practice and flexibility matter

* 38:00 — Where to find the guests

* 39:00 — Final reflections: Advice to their younger parenting selves

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* The Self-Regulation Workbook for Ages 5-8

* Kahlila’s website and IG @kahlilarobinson

* Sarah G’s website

* Yoto Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Evelyn & Bobbie bras

* Strong-Willed Kids Workshop

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xx Sarah and Corey

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Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s guests are Kahlila Robinson and Sarah Gerstenzang, who wrote The Self-Regulation Handbook for Kids ages five through eight. Although their book is aimed at parents of kids these ages, the truth is that so much of what we discussed applies to parents of kids of all ages, toddlers to teens.

A lot of the themes we discuss today will be familiar to you as listeners because you’ve heard me talk a lot about self-regulation, co-regulation, and repair. Listen into our conversation to learn why these are important for us as parents and why they are so crucial for teaching kids self-regulation no matter what age they are.

Let’s meet Kahlila and Sarah.

Sarah R: Hi, Kahlila. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the podcast.

Kahlila: Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for having us.

Sarah R: Yeah. We’re going to be talking about your book, The Self-Regulation Workbook for Children Ages Five to Eight. But before we dive in, maybe if you could each introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Kahlila: Sure. I’m Kahlila Robinson. I’m a licensed clinical psychologist based in New York City. I have a private practice where I see kids, families, and adults. I’m also a mom myself of two kids, and I’m very happy to be here talking about the book and sharing more about our process and some of the highlights from the book.

Sarah G.: Yeah. Thank you. So I’m Sarah Gerstenzang. I’m a licensed clinical social worker here in Brooklyn, New York. I also have a private practice, which focuses on adoptive families and complex developmental trauma. I’m also the board chair of the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York, and the parent of three children, two by birth and one who we adopted through foster care.

Sarah R: Welcome. Yesterday, when I was doing my preparation for this podcast, I came across an online copy of your book, Another Mother: Co-Parenting with the Foster Care System, and I started reading it, and I kept having to go, stop, stop, go back to the—it seems to—I kept it open on my laptop. I’m really looking forward to getting back to it. It seems really interesting. I grew up with some foster kids in my house when I was really young.

Okay, so back to the book that we are here to talk about. Maybe just tell us a little bit about your book and, just while we’re all on the same page, what’s your definition of self-regulation?

Kahlila: Our book is written for parents of kids age five through eight. So it’s called The Self-Regulation Workbook for Children, but it’s a slight misnomer. It’s more directly written for parents and focuses on the importance of parents being able to self-regulate so that they can be calm on behalf of their kids, and really teaching parents strategies for how to do that through really stormy times with their kids.

Because what we’ve seen, time and time again, is when parents are able to remain calm, for the most part, it benefits the child. It provides a model for the child. It supports a child’s own self-regulation. So there’s a lot in there in terms of parent guidance on how to support themselves when their child is having a hard time or when they’re having a hard time. And then there’s also a lot of strategies in the book for kids and parents to use together to support self-regulation in both of them.

So that’s the overview of the book.

Sarah R: Yeah, it’s a really helpful book. I notice that just in my practice of coaching parents, parents always come with this idea of, in short, “fix my kid,” right? So we kind of talk about that as the inroad, but then after a session or two, parents always say to me, “This isn’t even about my kid. This is about me.” And I think that’s—yeah. Nobody, though, wants to come into it thinking that. They always want to come into it thinking, “Fix my kid.”

Kahlila: Yeah.

Sarah G.: It’s kind of confusing for them also, because most parents parent the way that they’ve been parented, and they can’t really take that bird’s-eye view and see, often, how they are impacting their own child’s sense of safety and calm and capacity to be in charge of their own emotions. So yeah, it’s confusing.

Sarah R: So self-regulation—just give us a definition, what you think of as self-regulation, so we’re all on the same page.

Kahlila: Yeah.

Sarah G.: Throwing yourself.

Kahlila: Yes. In short, yeah. It’s the ability to identify feelings that you have within yourself in terms of how they come through. They could come through physically, they can come through as thoughts and as emotions. So, being able to identify those feelings and then find ways to contain them within yourself so that they don’t end up spilling out and creating more disruptive experiences for yourself or others. So: identifying, managing, and containing your own emotions.

Sarah R: Yeah. And that’s hard for kids, though. I guess that’s, you know—hence the book, right? It’s hard for kids, and it’s hard for adults too sometimes. I think that’s why you spent so much time on different—we’re going to get to that—but strategies for parents to use themselves for their own emotional self-regulation.

Before we talk about sort of what we’re working toward, what do you think typical self-regulation in kids looks like? Because what I find is that the parents I work with have higher expectations than kids are capable of, you know, sort of—we’ll talk about the under-eight set—in terms of what is a realistic expectation for how kids can manage their feelings?

Kahlila: Yeah. I think there can be a slight range, right, in terms of variability, as human beings. Five- through eight-year-olds are going to be expressing emotion. A lot of times it’s a full-body experience for them, right? So they’re sad, they’re mad—they’re going to feel the charge in their system, in their full physical system. It could come out in ways that are more physical than it would be for an adult. They actually feel the emotion physically in a way that I think is more powerful than adults.

They also, like we were saying earlier, don’t necessarily have that perspective on what’s a big deal, what’s not a big deal, what can be fixed, what can’t be fixed, how to solve certain problems. Things can feel much more overwhelming to kids because they don’t have that experience and perspective on how to solve problems, why certain things are certain ways, much less of an understanding around things like time and how things function and all of that. So a lot less information on how things run. And because of that, they can have bigger, stronger reactions to things than adults.

Sarah G.: And I would add to that, actually, that most children live in environments that are not very natural anymore. Kids five to eight—humans were meant to spend many, many hours, most of the day, outside in a natural environment, which is calming: walking, exercising, playing, learning from adults just by watching. So, number one, that would help their regulation. And if they did become dysregulated, I don’t know if you’ve ever been outside with a 6-year-old screaming, but it’s not nearly so terrible as it is with one in the grocery store.

So, yeah, I think that also contributes to the misalignment of expectations and capacity.

Sarah R: That makes sense. And I think it’s a tricky age too because, in my experience, both as a parent and a coach, I remember with all three of my kids, I think the hardest time for my husband with them was when they were around six. It was because they were so capable in so many other ways. They could learn how to play chess, they could talk to you about the stars, they could—you know, in some ways, intellectually, they’ve made a big leap and they seem so mature in some ways, but they also could have a meltdown where they’re a crying mess on the floor because they wanted to press the elevator button and you pressed it instead, right?

So there’s, I find, especially in this five- to eight-year-old set, a real asynchronicity between how developed they are in some areas and how emotional regulation is still super tricky for them in other areas. And I find that hard for parents. It does raise their expectations for how regulated it’s possible for their child to be in those difficult moments.

Sarah G.: Especially when HALT—hungry, angry, lonely, and tired—comes into play. I remember getting so annoyed at my husband. I had one child who’s super vulnerable to being hungry, and I’d be like, “What? You forgot the snack?” So they don’t have the capacity to overcome those things yet.

Sarah R: Yeah, and I love how you brought that acronym in, and you talked about the “L” as being—the “L” for an adult might be lonely, but for kids as seeking connection or feeling a lack of connection. I think that is really important to think about.

We’ve already talked a little bit about parental self-regulation. I want to just touch on that again, and also co-regulation. So self-regulation—when we can manage our own big feelings—can you talk about what co-regulation is? Listeners to this podcast hear me talk about it all the time, but because you do talk about that a lot in your book, if you could just talk about what co-regulation is, and also why parental self-regulation and co-regulation are so important in the context of kids’ self-regulation.

Kahlila: Yeah. So co-regulation happens in infancy, right? When we are an infant and we are hungry or sleepy or need soothing of some kind, ideally a calm, available, consistent parent will meet that need for us, and we have a way of calming our body down. So that’s when we first learn that a high-arousal, really active, really uncomfortable bodily state can actually shift. It can actually shift to something calmer. We figure that out. We learn that over time as infants, and that’s our first experience of co-regulation. It comes from outside of us, and then we learn that’s something that our bodies and minds can actually do.

Sarah R: So that’s like soothing a baby. That movement, holding them, making those calming noises. That’s something we do, I mean, a lot of us do that intuitively with babies. Maybe that’s not fair to say, but we’re—it’s easier for us, I think, to do it with an upset baby, a lot of the time, than it is with an upset five- to eight-year-old. Why do you think that is?

Kahlila: I think it has a lot to do with what you just said, Sarah, about the asynchronous development, which is typical, right? We’re supposed to be asynchronous at five through eight, but I think it’s that false sense of, like, “They’ve got it.” They have these capacities. They are in school. They’re on a sports team. They’re learning how to read. They’re making friends. They’re doing all these things that you’re amazed by and that show this type of emotional maturity and growth and development. So maybe there’s a false security there around, “Well, they can do it themselves.” And so it can be frustrating, right?

Sarah G.: Also, they can talk and babies can’t talk. There’s a great documentary called The Dark Matter of Love about some kids who are coming in from an orphanage into a family. Early in the film, there’s a lot of chaos, the kids acting out, but the dad can’t understand because they’re speaking in Russian. And you stay so calm—these kids are shouting—and they have the translation at the bottom of the film.

And I think when you have a five- to eight-year-old, they seem bratty sometimes because of what they’re saying and the way they’re saying it.

Sarah R: Mm-hmm.

Sarah G.: Whereas a baby—we’re biologically programmed, I think, to have that—it makes the back of your neck feel uncomfortable when you hear a shrieking infant, right? “Somebody pick that baby up.” But with a five-, six-, seven-, or eight-year-old, it’s more like, “What’s that kid sounding so bratty?” Obviously they need stuff too. They need to be co-regulated, but—

Sarah R: Yeah.

Sarah G.: That’s part of our natural need to, as Kahlila was saying—it’s totally natural—our need to get these kids in order so they can be functional adults someday. But they also need to learn.

Sarah R: I think that’s one of the reasons why every day I teach, “Kids are doing the best they can.” And I think it’s hard—it’s easy to remember that with a baby, but it’s harder to remember that with a five- to eight-year-old.

So what does co-regulation look like for a five- to eight-year-old with a parent? What would you do to co-regulate with a kiddo? Because that’s how they also learn self-regulation, right? Through co-regulating with us.

Kahlila: Yeah. So in our book, we talk about co-regulation starting with the ability to self-regulate as a parent. So if you notice yourself getting activated in relation to your kid, that’s fine. That happens. An awareness of that is really helpful—like, “I notice myself getting kind of frustrated right now,” or just a tightening of my chest right now, or a furrowed brow. Just being able to have some awareness of where you’re at, what your baseline is, is a good place to start so that then you can take care of yourself a little bit and keep yourself contained.

That can be saying something to yourself like, “Okay, here we go. This is not a big deal. This is something we can do.” Or, “My only goal right now is to keep calm myself. Let me see if I can do that.” Or, “This is temporary. We’ll get through this.” So a little bit of self-talk you can do with yourself if you notice yourself getting a little bit heated and wanting to co-regulate.

If you need something a little more than that in terms of self-regulation as a parent, you could do a little bit of deep breathing. If you practice breathing when you’re not upset, when you’re calm, it can be really helpful in those moments that are more intense. It can be a strategy that’s actually really effective if you take a couple nice deep breaths in.

And if you have more time and you can do something else to calm yourself down in the moment, you can do many, many other things. Sarah talks a lot about strategies to use in the kitchen, right? Like washing dishes. If you have a window in your kitchen, or a window somewhere, staring outside—something sensory-based. Smelling something calm. We like to talk about sticking your head in the freezer, getting that blast of cool air, chewing on a piece of ice. Anything that you can do if you notice yourself getting a little too agitated to then engage with your child.

Because if you’re trying to calm your child—think of a conversation you have with an adult when you’re upset, right? If you’re upset and you’re talking to an adult that’s annoyed with you for being upset, or that is upset themselves, that doesn’t tend to help calm you down. So you want to use that same model and idea for yourself: see if you can calm yourself down, make yourself feel as present and emotionally contained as possible on behalf of your child. So that’s kind of step one.

After that—Sarah, do you want to add in anything about co-regulating?

Sarah G.: Yeah. So step two would be really a variation on what we do with infants. It could be patting on the back: “Hey, what’s going on?” Or, “You need a minute? Do you want to go get your stuffy? Do you want to…” Just kind of calm down—what’s going on? But using that same body, as Kahlila said. You need to be in a calm place. No child’s going to calm down with their parent very agitated.

Then I think just using your words. I make a lot of eye contact with my child who had the hardest time—I actually had two kids who had a very hard time regulating—so I’d say, “Look at me. Look at me.” And I’d start deep breathing and look in their eyes. I wasn’t angry, just like, “Let’s calm down together.” Around those ages, that was super effective for them.

Sarah R: I love that. “Look at me” as a grounding technique, not as a “pay attention to me while I’m talking to you” sort of “look at me.”

Sarah G.: Yeah, no. It was like, “Let’s get back together here.”

Sarah R: Yeah.

Kahlila: I think you also want to frame it a little bit—maybe we’ll talk more about this—the idea of co-regulation is to prevent as much as you can and contain a more disruptive, explosive thing. But it’s okay for the child to feel upset about something, right? It’s not like you want to say, “Stop, let me co-regulate this child so they can stop being upset because this is so annoying to me.” Maybe this is a very legitimate, healthy emotional expression that they’re having, and you’re just there to contain it and guide them and help them ride that wave of emotion.

So I think that’s the other thing that gets a little tricky sometimes for parents. Co-regulation is not necessarily about stopping the child from feeling what they’re feeling and stopping the emotional expression. It’s more about containing it and supporting it so that it can actually flow out of the child, right? If there’s a legitimate hurt or upset feeling that the child’s feeling, you don’t want to co-regulate so that it goes away. You want to co-regulate so the child can actually have their full wave of feeling without it being super disruptive or overwhelming.

Sarah R: Yeah, that’s a great point. Sorry, Sarah, did you want to say something?

Sarah G.: I was just going to say what our point is—what I remember saying to my kids many times—is, “I want to hear what you have to say, but I can’t do that right now because of this.” There’s too much emotion going on.

Exactly what Kahlila is saying. And I think we can use our words to co-regulate too. “Wow, you’re so angry right now, and I’m really sorry you’re so angry. I want to hear what you have to say. Let’s take a few minutes.” So acknowledging what they’re feeling—your words really do matter. “I want to hear what you have to say, but I can’t in this situation that we’re in.”

Sarah R: Yeah, in Peaceful Parenting we call it welcoming feelings. You talk in the book about how that’s a really important part of kids learning self-regulation. Maybe you just mentioned it, but can you expand on that a little bit?

Kahlila: Yeah. I think it’s very important to understand that in order for kids to learn self-regulation, they actually have to feel the full extent of their feelings. Kids age five through eight pretty much don’t have a chance—they don’t have a choice—but to feel their feelings fully, for the most part. And as parents, we can unintentionally sometimes cut them off from the full extent and breadth of their feeling because it’s annoying or disruptive or we don’t want to deal with it.

In that way, they don’t necessarily get to learn how to fully contain it and understand it themselves. If they’re getting prematurely kind of cut off by a parent saying, “Stop,” or even just a parent that’s trying to use distraction—sometimes distraction is effective, but sometimes a parent that’s just like, “Look over here. Stop feeling what you’re feeling”—then it cuts off a little bit of learning for the child to say, “Oh, this is how deep the feeling goes. This is how long it lasts. Okay, this is what it starts to feel like when it starts to go down.”

They get more of an internal knowing and understanding around what the intensity of the feeling feels like. So if you cut that off prematurely, then they don’t get the full extent of that kind of learning.

Sarah R: Yeah. I think sometimes we don’t have the bandwidth for it as parents necessarily every single time they’re upset, but I always talk about thinking of that as an intention. Your intention is to always welcome the feelings, but sometimes you do have to distract because you’ve got to get out the door for work and you don’t have 15 minutes—or 45, or whatever—to sit with them while they go through the feelings. So I think it’s just, over time, our intention is to welcome feelings whenever possible.

Sarah G.: And I think one thing we talk about in the book that I think is just crucial is revisiting. I always say to parents, Saturday morning’s a perfect time. You have pancake breakfast, whatever, if you can. Then you say, “Hey, on Wednesday, when you got so upset and we did get to school, but I was wondering—why were you so angry?” And just revisiting that time so you can understand what happened and then make different plans.

I think that matters. It’s great if you can do it in the moment. That’s often very challenging. I have the same thought as you, Sarah. Time these days for parents is really, really rough. The pressures on them. But to actually go back and touch on that moment, that really matters.

Sarah R: I love what you say about—you don’t have to address it in the moment. You can address it later. I often tell parents, you don’t have to address it in the moment, and often it’s not even as effective because kids are not in their learning brains or their thinking brains, and they can’t learn when you’re trying to address whatever the situation is.

Another thing you talk about is repair, and that goes on the heels of what we were saying—addressing something that’s happened that’s difficult for you or for them or for both of you. Can you just talk a little bit about repair? Whether you’ve kind of messed up or you’ve had some conflict with your kids, why is it important? And what are some best practices around repair?

Kahlila: Yeah. I think this is probably one of the most essential places to go as a parent. It’s such an important parenting tool, actually.

And I think it can be foreign to a lot of parents, the idea of repairing with your child, because that wasn’t how you were raised. You didn’t have a mom or dad come to you after yelling or losing their temper and say, “Hey, you know what? I think I lost my cool.” So it’s kind of like, how do I do this? This doesn’t seem right, to apologize to your kid. There’s all this discomfort that parents can have around it.

But I think it’s so powerful, and one of the reasons it’s so powerful is because we really have to acknowledge that our children are some of our most important attachment relationships, right? There’s a huge importance to how we are feeling about ourselves depending on how our relationship is going with our kids. So repairing is not only healthy and good for the relationship and for the child, but it’s also healthy and important and good for the parent to feel like, “I’ve done the best I could in repairing a situation with a child.”

So we’ve all been there. We’ve lost our cool, overreacted, done something that we regret with our kids. And so when we talk about repair, the first thing that we suggest is just taking some moments of reflection for yourself and repairing with yourself. So that means whatever the shame or the guilt or embarrassment or sadness that you have around what happened, be with that. Be gentle with yourself. See if you can self-soothe a little bit. Parenting is a really hard job. I do the best that I can. Even good parents make mistakes. So really, again, that self-regulation around calming yourself down, trying to contain your emotions before you engage with your child.

So the first repair is really with yourself.

Then you want to be the, in terms of secure attachment, bigger, wiser model of things emotionally for your child. So you go to your child and you talk about it as simply and directly as you can. “Hey, I apologize for yelling. I actually think I overreacted. And I’m sorry that my voice got so loud.” And that’s pretty much it.

Then you see how receptive your child is to that. If they’re open to a hug or a high five, that’s another way to affirm the repair. And then you see what it’s like to move on. But you try to handle it pretty directly.

Again, in terms of the timing of things, it’s nice if you can handle it kind of the same day that it happened, shortly after the event happened. If that’s too hard for some reason, I think there’s no wrong time. There’s never too late to say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about what happened to us last week, last month. It’s been on my mind, and I want to let you know that I apologize.”

Sarah G.: Yeah. And I think then on the other side of that is that children make mistakes as well, right? And that we can give them—some kids are very natural, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mommy,” and explain whatever happened. But at this age, it’s also unusual for them to do that. And so what one can do is give them an opportunity.

If they spilled, “Get the sponge.” Or say they had a big fit and the juice went everywhere—“Let’s get this cleaned up. You can help me by wiping up the floor.” Because we don’t want them to be stuck in that shame state of, “I’ve made this big mistake and my parent’s mad at me.” Even if you’re not yelling, you can be silently really angry. So you can just give them an opportunity to repair. If they’ve hurt another child, “Take this ice pack and go…” You can apologize by bringing over the ice pack, or drawing a picture, or something. I think it’s really helpful too to help them do it. It’s not like we just wait until they’re old enough to do it.

Sarah R: Mm-hmm. I always say repair helps the kid—when you invite them to make a repair, it helps them feel like a good person again.

And it’s an invitation because we’ve all heard that, “Say you’re sorry,” and then the kid’s just like, “Sorry,” and runs away. That’s not actually a repair. I always say, ask them, “What do you think you could do to help your brother feel better?” Which somehow is easier for kids, I think, than “Apologize” or “Tell them you’re sorry.”

But I love that you highlighted that it makes the person doing the repair feel better too.

And I just want to go back to what Kahlila said about doing your own repair with yourself first, because I think it’s really important that a parent making repair doesn’t turn into asking the child for forgiveness. That’s really what we have to do for ourselves first, because it’s not their job to say, “It’s okay, Mommy,” or whatever.

Someone in my life, who shall remain nameless, still has a hard time with doing repair because his mother did the “I’m seeking forgiveness” kind of repairs, and he just feels they’re empty because of that.

Kahlila: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah R: So you talk about tools. A lot of your book is really practical. You share a lot of self-regulation strategies for both parents and kids. So maybe you’ve mentioned a few already, but what’s your favorite strategy for parents from the book—one that you haven’t mentioned yet?

Kahlila: Yeah. I think my favorite strategy for parents—and this is kind of in the first half of the book, not in the strategies part, but you can think of it as a strategy—is actually playing with your kids most days when you can. It doesn’t have to be for a long time, but kids five through eight love to play, and it brings them so much joy and feels so good to them. I think it can be very regulating for kids, and I think it can be really supportive of the relationship.

Even with my older child, yesterday we had a day where it was parent-teacher conferences, he had a half day from school, and afterwards we did errands and it was kind of more relaxed and we had more time to hang out and chat. We just had an easier time with each other and enjoyed each other’s company. The evening routine was really smooth, and there was a lot of goodness between us and connection. The rapport was made even more solid between us.

I see that happen all the time when parents are able to devote even five minutes of undivided, no-screen, no-phone attention with their kid—playing with them, talking with them. It really builds this ease to the connection such that giving directives or following the routine just makes things smoother. So for me, an effective strategy is having a bit of play and fun connection time with your kid once a day, even if it’s only for five minutes. It really lubricates the whole system and makes things easier. It makes kids more motivated to keep that good feeling with you. So that’s one of my favorites.

Sarah R: Your book is really practical, and you do have strategies that parents can teach kids—things they can use in the moment. So what’s your favorite strategy? We’ll just call one out for the podcast here.

Sarah G.: Yeah, I would say, actually, taking a walk. Doing it with your child when—it’s a great way to regulate. Often once you’re calmer, you’re walking, you can repair. And it’s also something kids can really do themselves as they get older. It’s so simple. If things are really chaotic, it’s just like, let’s just start walking. Let’s walk around the—

Sarah R: I love that.

Sarah G.: Walk. Love that.

Sarah R: And that calls back to your “getting outside.” Everything feels better outside.

Sarah G.: Yes, exactly. And it’s funny—I just saw an article in the newspaper this morning about how now, having the phones that we have compared to not very long ago, landlines, people are actually spending so much more time on the phone. So if you can turn off that phone and take a walk—it’s really interrupting the parent-child relationship in a lot of ways. So we have to be very conscientious about doing that. So: a walk with no phone, I should say.

Sarah R: Yeah. I’m so glad that we didn’t have phones when my kids were little because I think about those hours and hours spent at the playground where, frankly, it can get a little bit boring sometimes. And there was nothing to do but interact with the other people or watch your kids. There were no phones to pull out and see what’s going on on Facebook or whatever.

Kahlila: Yeah. Can I have one more?

Sarah R: Oh, sorry. Yes.

Kahlila: Maybe for, you know, it’s a little harder for five-year-olds, but more for seven- or eight-year-olds: the idea of the child asking for a compromise when they are frustrated about something. You’re setting a limit and they’re not happy with the limit, and their response is frustration or anger.

To really help kids practice this as a strategy—it’s like a parent-child strategy—they can feel a lot more empowered when they say, “Okay, well this is the limit, but may I have a compromise?” And you can have a conversation with your parent that often gets you more into the thinking and speaking part of your brain versus the emotional part of your brain. You’re engaging and you’re trying to collaborate with your parent. That in itself calms things down a little bit. Again, it can be empowering for kids to say, “Wait a minute, I have a right to speak here and see if I can ask for a compromise here and work with my mom or dad and talk it through.”

So I really like that one too.

And then it’s not exactly a strategy, but we have this section in our book where we have, I think, about eight kids talking about a time that was hard for them and how they dealt with it emotionally. Kids seeing other kids deal with big emotions and learning from how other kids do it is actually really helpful too. I’ve seen kids really want to absorb that and use it for themselves when they see another kid using a breathing exercise or pretending to blow bubbles or doing something. A lot of kids are learning calming strategies at their school, and so a parent could also say, “Well, what have you been learning at school that helps with you feeling calm at school?” and have the child teach the parent what that strategy is—another nice way of integrating self-regulation practices for kids.

Sarah R: Yeah. I love that you brought up those calming strategies, like the ones that they’ve often learned at school these days, which is great—like blowing on a cup of hot chocolate, or pretending you’re doing that to do the deep breathing.

I love that your book is really more focused on the parents and what the parents can do in terms of self-regulation and co-regulation, because what I hear over and over from parents is, “Yeah, my kid can tell me five calm-down strategies that they’ve learned at school, but in the heat of the moment, they’re not interested in using it.”

So are there things that you suggest for parents when you have a kid who is resistant to those strategies that they know, maybe when they’re calm, they know they can use, but then when they’re upset they are refusing?

Sarah G.: Practice. They need to practice ahead of time. Then the parents have to catch them doing it, even a small amount. Like, “Oh, I saw you started the breathing, but then I guess you got so overwhelmed. That was amazing.” And so—but also, you know, the stop, drop, and roll that they do in schools for fire—you need to do the same thing with these strategies.

Sarah R: Mm-hmm.

Sarah G.: Practice ahead of time. Talk about, “This is going to be a really hard day for you. You’re so tired and we have these events, and what are you going to do when you’re feeling so overwhelmed? What do you think is going to work for you?” So forth.

Sarah R: Yeah, so prep ahead of time. And even afterwards, like, “Oh, that was so tough. You know, maybe next time we can try to do that calming strategy X that you learned at school when you’re feeling that way.” I think that probably reinforces some of the patterns too, just even talking about it later.

Kahlila: Yeah. And if you feel like there’s something that’s not working for your child and it—don’t use it, right? Think outside of the box. Try new things. Do some trial and error. Every kid is unique, and something that may work for one child may not work for another. So discover that over the years and kind of accept the reality of what works for your child and what doesn’t.

Some children may want a very tight bear hug. Other children might want to chew on a piece of gum or something like that, or take a walk. So be attuned to what is happening for your child and believe them when they say, “This doesn’t help.”

Sarah R: Yeah. Love that.

Thank you so much. This is really—I think your book is really great, and we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Any place you want to send our listeners before we let you go? Any best place to learn more about you and what you do?

Kahlila: I have a website. It’s kahlilarobinsonphd.com. So that’s my website. I have an Instagram account with the same name, Kahlila Robinson PhD. So you can find a little bit more about me and my practice there. We’d be excited to get feedback from people on the book and see how they’re using it and what’s been helpful. So we are so open to hearing back from people.

Sarah R: Awesome. What about you, Sarah?

Sarah G.: Yeah, so anyone can find me at sarahgerstenzang.com. And I echo Kahlila’s request. If people find something useful in the workbook, we just love to—we’re proud of the work, and we’d love to know how it feels to actually use it.

Sarah R: Wonderful. We’ll put those links in the show notes.

Before I let you go, there’s a question that I ask every guest at the end of the podcast. So maybe, Kahlila, you go first, and then I’ll ask you to answer the same question, Sarah. Which is: if you could give some advice to your younger parent self—go back in time and give yourself advice—what advice would you give yourself?

Kahlila: I would probably say: enjoy it more. There’s something about the intensity and the demands of scheduling and routines and pressure and all that kind of stuff. See if you can not sweat the small stuff as much and be a little bit more relaxed about things and enjoy it more.

Sarah R: I love that. That’s so important.

Sarah G.: So we used to have very long dinner hours, and I was just thinking as we were talking about repair today: I should have done more repairs after some of those dinners didn’t go—sort of erupted. We had a nephew living with us for a while, so had four teenagers at a table. Anyway, lots of it was fabulous and wonderful, but also sometimes things happen. So yeah, I think, “Oh, I should have done more repairs after those dinners.”

Sarah R: Well, take your own advice. It’s never too late.

Kahlila: That’s right. That’s right.

Sarah R: Let me know.

Sarah G.: I’ve apologized for everything. Don’t worry.

Sarah R: Oh, good, good.

Well, thank you both so much for coming on. It was a pleasure to meet you, and thanks for all the support you’re giving parents out in the world.

Kahlila: Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for having us. It was so nice to be here today.

Sarah R: Thank you.

Sarah G.: I really—

Kahlila: Appreciate it.

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