How to “Reset” your Child’s Nervous System When They Seem Stuck: 3 Steps You Can Use to Provide a Path Back to Regulation
You’ve probably been in the place where it seems like your child is completely stuck. Whether they seem hyper-focused on a certain outcome like winning a game, getting a new toy, building or creating a particular item, or whether they seem stuck in a state of shutdown or activation such as inability to sit still, crying or raging without the ability to “downshift” out of that state.
When this is the case, you’re able to tell that they are not feeling okay and need something to help them move on, but you’re probably feeling just as stuck as they are. Here are 3 steps from neuroscience and child development that can help shift a stuck or activated nervous system back towards regulation.
Use your presence. Take a moment to ask yourself “how regulated am I?” If you need to take a moment to calm yourself, do so. Take a deep breath. Then, choose between moving near your child without speaking and getting down on their level (standing over your child, or anyone, while they are dysregulated can be perceived as threatening), or choose to stay in the room but not near your child if their particular nervous system prefers to re-regulate without close proximity.
Attune: Communicate safety through attunement. Reflect on what they might be feeling, without trying to logic them out of it. This could sound like “Your brain is telling you that you really need that toy right now. It’s super important to you right now.” or “Seems like you’re feeling awful right now.”
Resonate/Reset: Let your body and emotions resonate (think of resonance in its literal definition, to be filled with the sound of something): see if you can help your child feel felt! Can you feel or imagine how they are feeling? Show them. Then, shift to a reset–This means you’re going to activate a physical thing your child can do in order to change the state they are in.
Options for resets:
Movie from indoors to outdoors
Have a drink of cool water
take a shower or bath
Eat a small preferred snack (no, this will not reinforce tantrum behavior. It can teach that next time they feel this way, they can ask for a snack rather than acting out or before they feel so awful that they “lose it.”)
Put on some music
Push or carry something heavy
Hold or rock or spin your child (if preferred, and if this is calming to them)
Swing, if you have access to a swing
If you’re like me, you’ve probably got about ten more questions plus doubts as to how these types of resets will work, which ones will work for your kid, and reasons they will probably refuse a reset in the first place. When you have a child who is struggling with regulation, the complexity increases and we often need to have a full on conversation to dial in what will actually work in your specific situation. Message me if this is you, and we can see about getting you set up with some options!
