244. Understanding parental dysregulation: How to identify and manage your triggers with Dr. Amber Thornton

Join me for a deep dive into the essential aspects of emotional regulation in parenting with clinical psychologist, Dr. Amber Thornton. 

In this episode we explore:

  • Cognitive, emotional, physical, and physiological regulation – the differences between all four and how this knowledge can help you feel more grounded.
  • Dr. Amber shares her PCR Method that parents can use to identify and manage their own dysregulation.
  • How to understand your parenting triggers (because we all have them!) so you can use more effective strategies tailored to your unique nervous system.
  • Gain practical approaches for reparenting yourself to meet the needs of your younger self.
  • Why being an imperfect parent is actually beneficial, and even optimal, for your child’s development!
  • How understanding the scientific principles of attachment theory can help reduce fear and lower the stakes we feel in parenthood.

Discover practical strategies to help you navigate the challenges of parenthood while fostering a healthier connection with your children.

LEARN MORE ABOUT DR. AMBER:

https://www.dramberthornton.com

READ DR. AMBER’S BOOK:

📚 A Parent’s Guide to Self-Regulation: A Practical Framework for Breaking the Cycle of Dysregulation and Mastering Emotions for Parents and Children

WATCH DR. AMBER ON YOUTUBE:

💻 https://www.youtube.com/@dramberthornton

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND RESOURCES:

👉🏻 Click HERE for my workshop, Be the Calm in Your Child’s Storm: How to Keep Your Cool When Your Child Loses Theirs, to get the exact therapeutic interventions I use with my patients that can change the way your brain and body interprets your child’s dysregulation to help you stay cool in the heat of the moment.

👉🏻 Click HERE to download my free guide, The Four Pillars of Fostering Secure Attachment, helping you parent with a focus on attunement and trust.

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM:

@dramberthornton

@drsarahbren

CHECK OUT ADDITIONAL PODCAST EPISODES YOU MAY LIKE:

🎧 The psychology behind dysregulation with Cara Goodwin

🎧 Teaching children emotion regulation skills through coregulation with Dana Rosenbloom

🎧 What to do before, during and after we lose our cool: Helping parents navigate their own big feelings with Dr. Cindy Hovington

Click here to read the full transcript

Dr. Amber (00:00):

This last part of the framework is called the realistic framework. I think I kind of wrote it really for millennials who struggle with this because essentially it’s we’ve done the work in the practical framework of trying to find better skills, find our triggers, find the patterns, implement the solutions. We did the work in the second part of the framework by being more consciously aware of our emotional experience, our inner child, we’re re-parenting, all that. Now, this final part is just for us to radically accept that we will continue to be imperfect. Yes, you will do all of this work. It doesn’t mean that you will be perfect, and that’s actually not required at all.

Dr. Sarah (00:46):

If you feel like you are always falling short in parenthood, it could be a sign that you’re holding yourself to unrealistic standards and maybe even striving for perfection. The good news is that our kids don’t need perfection. They need you in all your realness. So here to help us shift away from some of these perfectionistic goals and meet our child’s developmental needs without losing sight of our own needs is Dr. Amber Thornton. Dr. Amber is a licensed clinical psychologist and the author of A Parent’s Guide to Self-Regulation: A Practical Framework for Breaking the Cycle of Dysregulation and Mastering Emotions for Parents and Children. Together she and I break down what emotional regulation and dysregulation look like in parenthood and how understanding this can help you feel so much more grounded. Plus, Dr. Amber shares her unique method for identifying and managing dysregulation before it spirals. We also discuss how parenting can trigger old emotions and offer some practical approaches for re-parenting yourself, finding balance and embracing all the feelings.

(01:57):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights so you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(02:26):

Hello, welcome back to the Securely attached podcast. We have a delightful guest with us today, Dr. Amber Thornton. She has written an awesome book and if anyone’s familiar with this podcast, we know we talk about regulation all the time. So a parent guide to self-regulation. This is my kind of book. Welcome.

Dr. Amber (02:49):

Thank you. I’m so glad to be here. So excited for the conversation.

Dr. Sarah (02:53):

Me too. I’m really looking forward to it. First, before we dive into talking about self-regulation, can you share with our listeners how you got into this work and why this was a topic that really spoke to you?

Dr. Amber (03:11):

Yes, and so I like telling this story because it’s a bit of, it was a surprise to me that I would write this book, and so I’ll say I’m a clinical psychologist. I’ve been licensed as a psychologist for about 10 years now, so my focus has always been child and family. I’ve always worked in settings where I’m serving children and their families or working with adults about issues regarding their children, but a few things happened to me. One, when I became a mom, the nature of my work shifted a bit just because my brain just thought about it differently. Before my work, I was so child focused, so focused on, okay, what can we do for the child? How can we support the child? And that’s important, but when I became a mommy, I just really realized, whoa, I think parents need more support because I need a lot of support.

(04:03):

It just really changed my mindset on all that, and so ever since my journey of motherhood began, my work as a psychologist has shifted to be a lot more parent focused. So that is what really led me to start talking about motherhood and parenting and writing about that, and even my practice working with moms a ton more. But the funny thing about the book is I actually was approached to write this book about this topic, and I almost said no because I secretly was struggling with emotional dysregulation myself. I am happy to admit that as a psychologist, I think I am able to support parents and mothers in this topic, but I personally have also really struggled with this, and so I think that’s why the book really resonates. But I was asked to write the book. I courageously said yes, and here we are now. And so I think it was really actually a gift to me to be able to dive into this topic in a much deeper way to face something that I needed to face, but then also to learn so much more about parents and what they’re struggling with when it comes to emotional dysregulation.

Dr. Sarah (05:17):

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that story so much because one, I think it illustrates obviously that it takes a lot of bravery to look at one’s own regulation and dysregulation, but also that we all have it, even psychologists who specialize in helping parents and children regulate, we get dysregulated. I yell at my kids, I don’t like that I do it. I feel shame and guilt and all the stuff that comes afterwards when I do it, and I’m a human being who absolutely loses it. And I also think, and I wonder what your thoughts on this is, obviously the goal of your work and mine too is to help parents become more regulated and help their children become more regulated. But I think it’s really critical to stay, the goal is never to never be dysregulated. That’s just not possible. And if we think that that’s the goal, we’re going to feel like we’re failing all the time.

Dr. Amber (06:19):

I literally said that a very similar thing recently. I forget who I was talking to. I think it was maybe another podcast, I don’t know. But we were talking about this topic and I said, the goal is, the goal is not to become this perfect parent. The goal is not to never be dysregulated. For me, the goal is to help improve your ability to be regulated. But a lot of that is around enhancing your self-awareness about what impacts you in your day-to-day or equipping you with more tools. But that doesn’t mean that you will no longer be dysregulated because that’s what a robot is. That’s not possible. We are humans, we are imperfect and that we have to accept the reality of, but the goal will never be perfection ever.

Dr. Sarah (07:10):

And our kids need to see us lose it to understand that losing it is a part of being human, and that when we lose it, practicing that awareness, that subsequent calming ourselves down and then our reconnection and repair with our kid, if our dysregulation was resulting in us yelling at them, that’s going to teach them regulation skills. So our dysregulation actually can be a tool if we use it well, if helping our kids with their own regulation.

Dr. Amber (07:49):

I talk a lot, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this in this conversation too. You’re essentially talking about modeling, which I talk about a lot because ever since the book was published, this question I always get is, okay, how do I now teach my children these skills? And I always say, okay, well, how confident do you feel in your ability to master these skills or to manage your emotions? I want you to start there, and the more that you practice, you will have ample opportunity to model this for your kids. And so our kids learn so much from us even when we’re making mistakes or when we’re having tough days or hard moments.

Dr. Sarah (08:33):

I think that’s so helpful to hear. I’m curious, so if parents are listening and they are not familiar with, we’ve been saying regulation and dysregulation a lot, and it’s only been like five minutes, if they aren’t familiar with what we’re talking about, maybe they’ve heard the term but they don’t really know what we’re really talking about. How would you orient parents to this idea of regulation?

Dr. Amber (08:55):

Yes, thank you for reminding me of that. We dove right in. And so yes, the definitions to begin would be great. So the way that I would describe regulation for someone who is completely unfamiliar with these terms, regulation to me is when you’re composed, when you are feeling balanced, when you’re feeling centered, when you’re feeling grounded, I like to use that word baseline where you’re just kind of at your normal state. It can be a neutral state, even just I’m feeling I’m present, I’m calm, not too high, not too low, right in the middle, I’m feeling okay, that’s regulated. You’re feeling regulated, but dysregulation is the opposite. And I like to describe that as feeling unbalanced. You might be having trouble composing yourself. You might feel like you cannot manage your feelings or other things happening around you. You might be feeling like your emotional state is very high or very low, or there might be a lot of shifts in that for you.

(10:05):

And so it’s a moment where you feel like that balanced, calm, composed state is disrupted and now you are dysregulated. That happens to kids a lot. Clearly, I think we often use these terms with children, especially toddlers, but I think the book is highlighting this fact that this also happens to adults and especially parents. We also can become dysregulated. And then if you throw in that word emotional, so emotional dysregulation is when your emotions are feeling no longer composed, no longer balanced, no longer at baseline, there’s a lot of shifts or you’re having trouble managing it. So that’s what those terms mean.

Dr. Sarah (10:49):

Yeah, that’s such a helpful orientation because I think my guess is, I mean, there could be people listening to this podcast who are relatively new and haven’t heard me get on my soapbox about regulation, but if people have been listening for a while, they definitely have heard the term, but I definitely think that it warrants kind of unpacking it. Right. You talk about in your book sort of the cognitive regulation, emotional regulation, physical regulation. I talk a lot about physiological regulation, like that nervous system in parenthood. It’s a very sensory, stimulating, very activity, and we can get overstimulated and dysregulated just from being around kids climbing on us, screaming and needing us all the time.

Dr. Amber (11:40):

Absolutely, yes. And I felt like it was, I’m glad you talk about physiological dysregulation and overstimulation. I just think many times for some mothers or parents, that is the opening of the door for them where they’re like, okay, there’s something going on, and that’s the first thing they notice or the first thing they realize. But I do think it’s important to talk about just the differences in dysregulated states. So there can be emotional, there can be cognitive, and so cognitive is more I think of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideas. So if someone is cognitively dysregulated, there might be a lot of anxiety, a lot of ruminating thoughts or a lot of anxious thoughts or just rapid thinking, rapid ideas. But then the physiological or the physical is exactly what you said. Just your nervous system being completely out of whack. You can’t rest. You feel restless, you feel overstimulated. Just sensory overload is the term I use in my book too, just not able to feel calm in your body or your nervous system at all.

Dr. Sarah (12:50):

And then I think understanding this is this foundational piece because, a lot of times because of the nature of dysregulation, we don’t even notice what’s happening because we’re so flooded and overwhelmed and thrown and unbalanced, and so we kind of move. We’re in the eye of the storm. We’re not actually, it’s not until after the explosion that we even often realize, oh, wait a minute. I was increasingly dysregulated before I actually exploded. But I find that parents, when I first start talking with them about this idea is they only notice because there was the explosion, there was explosion, and then it’s like we have to work on building the awareness earlier. We know when we had a nine to 10, when we went from nine to 10, we don’t always notice when we’re going from five to six.

Dr. Amber (13:46):

Yep. Yes. And so you’re saying everything I love, we’ve got to go backwards a bit because everyone remembers the big explosion, but it’s hard to pinpoint, okay, when did I go from two to three or five to six or even seven to eight? That is a little fuzzy what you said. It made me think of the fact that I think so many parents, and especially mothers, we live in this autopilot where these dysregulated states are normalized. It feels normal because we’re either too busy to self-reflect and to realize what we’re feeling, or we’re too busy or feeling too overwhelmed to even make a shift or make a change. It’s easier to just keep up with what we’re doing because that’s what we need to do. And so I’ve just found that for many, many mothers, this is just normalized. I’m supposed to feel this way, and I would argue that I don’t think we’re supposed to feel this way, even though it’s common. But also what you said reminded me, spoiler alert, for anyone who hasn’t seen inside Out two yet best movie ever, the anxiety scene when she was like, it just reminded me of that too, just the spinning that can happen. And it’s like you said, we don’t often realize how dysregulated we are until we’re in that moment where we’re paralyzed but spinning all at the same time.

Dr. Sarah (15:14):

So okay, we can agree coming back, noticing it earlier, being kind of plugged into the changes in your nervous system and your thinking and your mood earlier in that arc of dysregulation is helpful. What are things that you help parents do to get there earlier that seems like a good place to low hanging fruit?

Dr. Amber (15:40):

So this, it’ll start the process of the framework that I use in the book. So I’ll talk a little bit about that and we can kind of work through the first part because the first part essentially answers your question. In my book, there’s a framework called the PCR method, and that framework is designed to help parents who often struggle with DYS regulation to become more regulated. It’s broken down into three parts because I believe there’s three phases of the work that need to happen. And I also believe that at any given moment or any season of your life, you might need one phase of that framework more than the other. Ideally, I think it’s great if you put them all together, but we have to start where we are. And so what I just heard you say is what if there’s a parent who they’re having trouble maybe taking the time or pausing or even just to notice it?

(16:39):

So the first part of the framework is the practical piece, and in that practical approach, I really help parents to essentially pause, reflect, slow down, and really give them the tools to self-reflect about their experience. Many times it is that big explosion that we talked about. That’s a really easy thing to select, Hey, let’s take some time to really just dissect and dive deeper into this big moment that maybe happened between you and your child. It might’ve been a blow up after a tantrum, or maybe you were at your wits end and you yelled, let’s really dissect that moment. And so in that practical approach, I teach parents to take some time to just reflect on that moment, how were you feeling in that moment? What were the things happening for you in that moment? If you were a fly on the wall, what might that moment look like?

(17:31):

Just really take some time to think about it objectively, but then also a little bit more subjectively too, to really just see how did they feel for you in that moment? In that I also try to get them to take that moment and extrapolate a bit to how that moment be similar to some other things for them. So that then brings on a conversation about parenting triggers. I like to talk about parenting triggers a lot because let’s just be honest, as parents, we will all be triggered by something or something happening around us or that our kids doing, and it’s not a bad thing, it’s just the reality. For some parents, it’s crying. For some it’s tantrums. For some it’s saying, no, I don’t know. For you it might be something different, but it’s important to talk about those moments because they will continue to come and we want to be aware and really informed about those moments, how they impact us, and then what we do when we see them coming. So that’s essentially what I try to do. It’s a lot of how do we stop and reflect? How do we dissect the big moment? How do we think about our parenting triggers? How do we recognize the triggers around us so that we’re more prepared when they come? And then also how do we practice utilizing our tools and our skills when that moment is upon us or when that trigger is right next to us?

Dr. Sarah (18:50):

Yeah, I like that. I think that’s so important because I think in identifying the patterns. Because when you are in it, it’s very hard to feel like, how could I have predicted that this was going to be the thing? But when you are out of it and looking at it, it’s often easier to start to notice patterns and to say, oh, you know what? Every time my kid stalls right before it’s bedtime, I get really impatient. And maybe in thinking about why I don’t get that way in this time or this time, but it’s just bedtime, maybe reflecting on that, I might identify, oh, you know what? I have a need that feels like it won’t get met because I’m banking on that. I am done with parenting at eight 30, and if they delay, I have to extend my workday. I’m working overtime and feeling like I’m working overtime can be triggering for me. It’s like I needed that. I needed end and now I’m not going to get it or it’s getting delayed. So that’s where my urgency or my impatience comes in. It’s hard in the moment to be able to look at that and identify you got to step back when you aren’t activated, because also one thing we haven’t talked about is that when we’re dysregulated, our prefrontal cortex is going offline, which is the part of our brain, our thinking brain where all of our parenting skills and critical thinking live. So when we’re dysregulated, it’s so hard to parent and it’s also so hard to do that sort of reflecting. We really don’t have our reflecting brain available to us.

Dr. Amber (20:31):

No.

Dr. Sarah (20:31):

So I imagine a lot of the work you’re helping parents do is outside of the hot moments.

Dr. Amber (20:35):

Oh, absolutely. We can’t do anything when we’re in the hot moment.

Dr. Sarah (20:39):

To survive, just reduce the collateral damage and get to the other end of

Dr. Amber (20:42):

That. You can’t do anything. And with kids too, you can’t try to preach to a kid when he’s in the middle of a tantrum. He can’t hear anything you’re saying. So similar for you, when you are dysregulated, that logical brain is gone. It’s gone. And so that’s why I just find it so helpful to help parents to take these moments that they remember and let’s look back on it. And then from that, let’s, like you said, try to track some of the patterns, pull out some of the triggering moments and identify when they might come again. I think that’s very, very helpful.

Dr. Sarah (21:24):

So if parents are starting to look at patterns, and like we said, we’re doing this outside of the moment, we’re identifying patterns, we’re reflecting on why that happens to be a trigger for me. When you identify a trigger, how do you help parents unpack that? It could be something happening in the moment, I just really need bedtime to be over with so I can relax. I just need to be done for the day. Or it could be a whole lot of other stuff, other stuff that’s not maybe related to what’s happening with you and your kid in this moment.

Dr. Amber (21:55):

Absolutely. So that really shifts us perfectly to the second part of the framework, but what I will say about the first part one more time is the practical approach is the first part for a reason. It’s very solution oriented. So for one parent, it might literally just be, Hey, we might need to start bedtime earlier so that I can end my shift. I like to say at eight 30 or whatever it is, let’s find some practical solutions to the things that are distressing us. Or it might be, Hey, for me, I just need a little more support around bedtime, so my partner’s going to tag in. We’re going to tag team. We’re going to split this up differently. That practical approach helps you to identify the moments where you maybe need a different type of support or more support or maybe need to shift things around just more practically.

(22:44):

But to your point, for other parents or maybe even that same parent, there might be something more behind that in it. It could be a whole host of things that sometimes we’re not as consciously aware of. And so the second part of the framework is actually called the conscious approach For that reason, that part of the framework is let’s go beyond all of the solution oriented things and actually just go a little deeper and into our own emotional experience with this conscious approach. My goal is for parents to become more self-aware of their own emotional experience and how that’s impacting their parenting journey. And a lot of the times it has a lot to do with some of their own childhood stuff. Sometimes I might use the word childhood traumas because for many parents, they have experienced really hard things in their childhood, and when that is the case, when there’s a past history of trauma or abuse or neglect or whatever it is, that absolutely can come up when we’re a parent, even if we think we’ve addressed it, it can show up in these new ways.

(23:52):

But for other people, that word trauma might feel too strong because it could literally just simply be, and I think this might be the case for most of us, my parents tried their best, but there’s still some mild unmet needs. Maybe my mom just wasn’t the best at listening or wasn’t the best at being patient. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t loving or wasn’t any of that. It’s just that, hey, for whatever reason, this part of me being a parent is a trigger for me because of something that happened to the little version of me, maybe something she’s still missing or something that she’s still hoping for. So in this conscious approach and element, for some people, I think it can feel a little woo woo, but it really caused us to go deeper and honestly get to know that younger version of you, that younger version of you that maybe still has a need that is now being triggered by your experience of you being a parent. I use the term reparenting often, and essentially for me, that just means you learning how to meet the needs of the younger version of you that were not met. It doesn’t mean that your parent was terrible, it doesn’t mean that you were traumatized. For some people it does, but for others it just means that, hey, our parents are imperfect, just like we are imperfect parents. And so sometimes things just go missed and it’s fine.

(25:18):

So what does that look like? So that might look like if we’re sticking with the bedtime example at bedtime, I really struggled because when I was a child, my parents weren’t available to put me to bed or didn’t tuck me in. Maybe they had to work late, maybe they weren’t around, or maybe my parents just didn’t want to do these things. I don’t know, it could be anything, but that’s just one example of how sometimes our own childhood memories, issues, traumas our past can really show up in our parenting journey.

Dr. Sarah (25:51):

Yeah, I think that is so important of a distinction that you make to include both truly traumatizing experiences as a child and also really nont, traumatizing, normal loving families who just can still leave us with unmet needs. Just like as a parent right now, we will never meet all the needs of our child, and we are not necessarily setting them up for a traumatic unpacking of this when they become parents. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and I do think this is related to dysregulation because when we put a ton of pressure on ourselves to be kind of always meeting our kids’ needs, often at the expense of our own needs being met, we can only do that for so long until we flip to the other side, until we lose it. When you talked about balance earlier, regulation depends on that balance of us being able to be flexible and meet our kids’ needs, even when it’s hard for us to do that and also be flexible and meet our needs, even if it means our kids might be frustrated by that in the moment.

Dr. Amber (27:01):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (27:03):

I wonder what advice you have for parents who struggle with that space of I am a ping pong ball. I’m never meeting my needs until I get so frustrated with my kid that I just lose it because I must get my needs met right now and I’m frustrated that they’re asking me to have to meet any one of their needs.

Dr. Amber (27:25):

Yes. So I think sticking with this conscious approach is also really helpful for that parent too, because the conscious approach also helps you to investigate your own beliefs and expectations around parenting or motherhood. And so for that person, I would probably say there’s something about what you believe should be true about your parenting experience or the expectations that you have that we maybe need to realign. We know, like you said, there needs to be this balance. The children’s needs need to be met, but our needs need to be met as well. And that also means that no one’s needs will be met 100% of the time. Again, that doesn’t mean that people are being neglected, but rather it just means that there needs to be this give this take in this dance that we’re doing in our parenting journey in relationship with our kids. And I think for mothers specifically, there’s these beliefs and these expectations about how much we need or should be sacrificing as mothers.

(28:31):

There’s a lot around our identity and worth being tied up in motherhood, so much so that we often get very lost and confused about our own needs and desires once we become mothers because they just kind of disappear. And I think that’s a problem. And so this part of the framework can also help you to investigate. Maybe it’s not something that happened way back in your childhood, but rather messages or beliefs or things that you brought with you along the way to this point that we now need to rework a bit so that it’s a little bit more adaptive for you.

Dr. Sarah (29:06):

Yeah, I think that is really helpful. I love that. So we’ve covered, okay, what do we have to kind of look at what’s happening? We have to become aware of what’s happening to us in the moment so we can do something about it. We have to be able to, outside of the heat of the moment, reflect on that to try to figure out some practical strategies to just make it easier. We have to take a look at what we’re bringing from the way past, what our inner child might be needing and how to support that inner child with some compassion and some true kind of parenting. And then we also are going to look at what we might be bringing into this moment from our adult lives of just absorbing societal, cultural, internalized expectations of what we’re supposed to be doing or what we’re Notre not allowed to be doing so that we can be a little bit more able to care for ourselves in the service of our regulation, which supports our children to, I love everything about what we’re talking about.

Dr. Amber (30:13):

Oh, me too. And it’s so full circle, like we’re talking a lot about ourselves, but then also in that conscious approach, I talk a lot about how the ultimate goal is to ensure that our kids feel safe and loved. That is the goal. And sometimes when all this other stuff is going on in our heads or around us, unfortunately, what can unintentionally happen is that we are so dysregulated that somewhere along the way our kids no longer feel safe, or maybe they start to internalize like, oh, it’s something I did, or I’m making mommy upset, or there’s something going on with our relationship when that’s not the case at all. This is about me as a parent and nothing that my child isn’t doing anything wrong. And so I think what I’m saying is the more that we really care for our inner child address all of our past traumas, dissect our beliefs and ideas about motherhood or parenting and really make sure that they’re aligned well, the better supported our children will feel because we will be more present. We will be better able to connect, we will be better able to communicate, and also then better able to model more healthy coping skills.

Dr. Sarah (31:31):

Yeah, I think that’s so hopeful. There’s a third phase right of the, so can we talk about the R?

Dr. Amber (31:41):

Yes, the RI love the R. So you had said something actually about, I forget what it was, but it was making me think about this generation and the anxiety that we often feel about having to meet all of our children’s needs. Not talking about basic needs, but just every single need and desire. I have also found that I think there’s something around the millennial generation where there’s a lot of heightened anxiety around parenting and wanting to get everything. And so this last part of the framework is called the realistic framework, and I think I kind of wrote it really for millennials who struggle with this because essentially it’s done the work in the practical framework of trying to find better skills, find our triggers, find the patterns, implement the solutions. We did the work in the second part of the framework by being more consciously aware of our emotional experience, our inner child, all that.

(32:39):

Now, this final part is just for us to radically accept that we will continue to be imperfect. We are human, we will continue to make mistakes. So the realistic approach is really just you accepting the reality that yes, you will do all of this work. It doesn’t mean that you will be perfect, and that’s actually not required at all. So a huge concept in that realistic approach is radical acceptance. We have to radically accept some of these hard truths around our parenting experience or our motherhood experience. Yes, be frustrated sometimes. Yes, your children will continue to have tantrums even when they’re 18, yes, when they’re 30 and in therapy they probably will maybe complain about you and some things you did, but perfection is not required. Mistakes will continue to happen, and it is reframing our idea around making a mistake and realizing that it doesn’t mean harm. It doesn’t necessarily mean trauma for our children. It just means that we are human, but also we get to utilize these opportunities to support our children and model for them how to repair or how to rebound after a mistake or what to do when mistakes happen. So really it’s just, Hey, you’re imperfect, you’re a human. Mistakes will continue to happen, and that’s okay.

Dr. Sarah (34:08):

Yeah, I think that makes me think of a couple things. One is the concept of good enough mother and how that’s, I think misunderstood. A lot of times. I think people think of, they hear the phrase good enough mother, and they think, well, I can’t be perfect, so I guess I’ll settle for good enough. Whereas in fact, the good enough mother is a concept that was posed by Wincott who’s a psychiatrist back in, I want to say the sixties or fifties, who’s basically saying actually from a developmental perspective, good enough, parenting is optimal. It’s the goal because in mising to your child in these inevitable, organic, naturally occurring misattunements, your child actually is able to begin to understand that they are separate from the parent. It’s part of their development, actually helps them develop their sense of self and other, and it’s critical for their development being completely meeting every need of your child actually prevents that separation.

Dr. Amber (35:16):

It could be harmful, yeah.

Dr. Sarah (35:19):

It can create merging and codependence.

Dr. Amber (35:21):

Absolutely. And so yes, I love that. How do we get parents who struggle with that to see that there is benefit to these imperfect moments and these imperfect situations in relationship to our child? And I think a lot of it is just so there’s a lot of fear and anxiety underneath it. And so that’s why I try to have a lot of compassion around it. And so it’s like how can we reassure parents that it’ll be okay and address the underlying fear and anxiety that’s there that I think is probably sending us into overdrive thinking that we need to be a thousand percent or beyond good enough. We can’t even understand that good enough is optimal. I think many of us hear good enough and think suboptimal, but that’s not it at all.

Dr. Sarah (36:12):

No. Yeah. I think it’s so empowering to actually be told No, no, messing up is actually the part of what makes your child develop these healthy aspects of their identity. And what’s more important is that when we miss attune, when there’s what we call rupture, there’s repair.

(36:41):

And so that was the other thing I was thinking when you were talking. One is good enough mother and the other is rupture and repair. And another thought that I’ll just throw as a quick tangent is the idea that I think this speaks to your, I think, very accurate perception of millennial parents being uniquely anxious. And I think that has a lot to do with social media and their parenting industrial complex that has emerged over the last decade that keeps parents anxious on purpose to keep them buying things. But also I think there’s this misunderstanding of a lot of concepts because they get fed soundbites. They don’t have the ability to get more depth in what it’s about. So people hear about attachment theory and then they don’t really understand all of it. And so there’s this misunderstanding. Attachment’s really fragile. If you mess up a little bit, your kid is going to have an insecure attachment, and you’ve totally ruined your chance at raising a healthy child and succeeding at parenthood, which is so terrifying and also completely not true. Attachment is not that fragile attachment is, it’s a deeply rooted, evolutionarily based system inside of our species that’s been around and developed for the history of our humankind. If it was fragile, we would have a big problem.

Dr. Amber (38:04):

Yes. So big. Yes, yes, yes. I think that part, why do we think that attachment is so fragile? We do so many of us. I’ve talked to so many parents because part of this book, I did some research in the summer of 2023 to better understand parents’ experience around dysregulation. And so I got to talk to them about their fears and their worries and how they think about themselves. But the thing that was so wild to me is that so many parents are afraid. They literally so many say, I’m afraid of messing my kid up.

(38:43):

I’m afraid of messing my kid up, or I’m afraid that I’m going to make so many mistakes that they won’t want to be in relationship with me anymore. And that is my heart so heavy to carry. And I loved these conversations with them, but it also just made me so sad to hear that so many parents are, we know parenting is a big job every day requires so much of you. And then to do all of that and carry all of these heavy hard feelings, parents were feeling so much doubt, so much frustration with themselves, so much shame, so much embarrassment. Many parents felt like they would isolate themselves because they were ashamed of how they viewed themselves. And so it’s so heavy of a burden to carry, and yet so many parents do. And maybe that’ll be the next book. How do we get our generation and hopefully the next generation to no longer carry that big burden that is really so fear-based around our attachment with our kids being so fragile and being so afraid of and making mistakes. There’s something there that is so damaging and just so hard to watch parents go through.

Dr. Sarah (40:03):

And it creates a very, I guess, ironic self-fulfilling prophecy because the more we parent out of this place of white knuckle anxiety, that one wrong move and we’re going to mess up our kids forever. And even that’s a very hyperbolic, that’s a very extreme, but even take that down 10 notches, even if it’s just a mild worry or doubt, because that’s probably more realistic. I think more parents are like, I’m not terrified of parenting, but I do on some deep level worry that the stakes are high and I have to parent perfectly in this moment. I got to have the exact right thing to say in this moment. Or I’ve got to make sure that my kid is really happy in this moment for fear that there’s going to be some damage. And when we do that, the thing that’s sort of tricky is it makes us far more vulnerable to becoming dysregulated and actually doing the patterns that actually really are going to be more problematic in terms of attachment security and relationship health and wellbeing for the family.

(41:12):

So we kind of have to examine that worry and that doubt and that fear. And do that releasing of that pressure so that we can be more balanced and centered and a little more nonchalant about every little thing. So we could say, oh, you know what? That was a tough moment. I mean, literally you hit your sister, which to a lot of parents can feel like, oh my God, my kid just hit his sister. If I don’t respond immediately and perfectly in this moment, my child’s going to believe that it’s okay to hit and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The catastrophic domino thing happens. And then they’re parenting from a place of fear in that moment versus obviously we don’t want our kids hitting each other. We don’t want anyone to feel hurt, to be hurt. But also in that moment is a time for us to maybe go in being like, oh, you need help to keep your body safe. I’m going to keep you over here so that you can’t do that. You know what I’m going to talk to you about hitting later? I’m going to file that away as something I need to come back to. It’s a skill I got to build not to hit because when your kid at a 10, they’re going to hit the skill I want to build is how do I help them not get to a 10? How do I help them get what they need so that they don’t get that frustrated and then hit?

(42:41):

And so all of this is connected to this larger picture of how do we parent? We want our kids to learn these regulation skills and behavioral regulation skills, and yet when we are so nervous that we’re going to miss an opportunity to teach them how to be regulated, we freak out when they’re dysregulated and do something that’s objectively not safe or not or upsetting to us. But actually those are moments when they are dysregulated that they need our calm more than anything.

Dr. Amber (43:21):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (43:21):

So that they can get to that place of turn their thinking brain back on. We could teach later. I feel like timing is so important, an undervalued, missing piece in the parenting strategy when it comes to regulation.

Dr. Amber (43:40):

Yeah. Yep. It is. And I think again, it’s because when you’re so afraid, everything feels urgent. Everything feels urgent. This is an emergency right now when really what we’re saying is, Hey, let’s take a moment. Let’s calm. Because while this is important, it’s not urgent right now. So if we, again, and it’s just so funny how these lessons that we want to teach our kids, we really have to apply them to ourselves first. We have to reassure ourselves that in this moment we are safe, the children are safe, everything is safe. Give ourselves some grace, some compassion to be able to handle that moment well. Because like you said, our kids cannot become regulated if we are immediately becoming dysregulated the moment they make a mistake or do something wrong, it just doesn’t work that way. So it’s all full circle. And what I really want for parents, especially parents listening today, is to trust the process a little bit more. And I think that’s also part of this realistic approach is trust the process of this parenting journey. Remember that no one was born with the handbook, no one was born with all the keys and all the knowledge.

Dr. Sarah (44:53):

Not even the people who write the handbooks.

Dr. Amber (44:57):

Oh gosh. Especially not me. Right? Absolutely not. And so that’s a part of the journey is learning and growing. And to that point, I guess talk about repair just a little bit. I do talk about repair and what it means to repair and apologize in that portion of the book too. Because if I’m essentially saying, Hey, you’re going to make mistakes, I also want parents to feel comfortable knowing that we can repair any mistake that’s made. And it’s also okay.

Dr. Sarah (45:29):

Yeah.

Dr. Amber (45:30):

So I talk a lot about what it means to apologize to your child or to even a model apology or just to simply acknowledge when something didn’t go well. And I think so many of us get caught up because I don’t know about you, but my parents didn’t really apologize much to me at all. And some of us are like, well, that’s not what our parents did. So it feels so odd to do, but I think now we’re kind of coming around to this idea of like, yes, when we make mistakes, we should apologize. Or if something does happen between myself and my child, it doesn’t mean the end of the world we can repair that. We can acknowledge what happened, we can talk about how it felt for both of us. We can talk about what we’ll do moving forward. And that is healthy and healing and really helps to cultivate important growth for our kids and for us too.

Dr. Sarah (46:18):

Yeah. I think that’s such a valuable thing for us to really remind ourselves. And in doing so, to teach our kids, nothing is unfixable nothing. We aren’t glass.

Dr. Amber (46:31):

Exactly.

Dr. Sarah (46:32):

Our relationship isn’t going to shatter. When we have a bad moment, we will always come back together and we’ll come back to each other. And to know that gives you that flexibility, that agility in parenthood, because like you were saying, the urgency fades, time expands. We can slow down and we can just know we’re doing something that again teaches our kids the modeling. When I repair with my child, I’m showing my child one, that our relationship isn’t fragile. It can handle bumps and bruises and that when you do have a moment with someone else, this is what it looks like to come back together. These are the skills we’re actually practicing these core skill for regulation and relationships. So that’s so amazing.

Dr. Amber (47:36):

I love it. Yeah, I love it. It brings down all the, not all the worry because again, life never will, nothing. It feels good to know that, hey, this tough moment that we just had is actually really helpful for us and it just helps us learn. It’s a really great modeling opportunity, a great teaching moment. And that is good. We need these moments too.

Dr. Sarah (48:02):

I love that. If people want to get your book, learn more about your work, where can they connect with you?

Dr. Amber (48:09):

Yes. Well the book is called A Parent’s Guide to Self-Regulation. And you can purchase a copy wherever books are sold. Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble, wherever really. I am on my website is dramberthornton.com. But I’m also a lot of the time on Instagram, so people can find me there @dramberthornton. I’m pretty accessible. Send me a message. If you have a question, you can DM me and I will definitely respond back. But happy to connect with people on Instagram and then also my YouTube at Dr. Amber Thornton too.

Dr. Sarah (48:44):

That’s amazing. We’ll link all that in the show notes. And then I just want to thank you so much for coming on. I loved hearing all of your insights into this. I think this is such a valuable and very, I read the book, it’s a very easy, you broke it down in a really digestible way. It’s not overwhelming. The last thing you need when you’re trying to work on regulation is to be overwhelmed by the plan.

Dr. Amber (49:09):

Oh, exactly. And I’m so glad you said that. Thank you. Because I wrote this book, I wanted to talk to the parent who was so dysregulated and you can’t, can’t have something that’s going to overwhelm them even more. So I wanted this to be easy, to be conversational, to feel like, Hey, I’m going on this journey with you. We can go slow if you want to, but at the end I want you to feel more comforted and to feel a little bit more confident in your ability to be the parent you want to be, but then also to achieve self-regulation too.

Dr. Sarah (49:38):

Yeah, I love that. Alright, well it was wonderful talking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And we’ll stay in touch. Yes, thank you.

(49:52):

We’ve talked a lot about dysregulation in this episode. When our child is dysregulated, our own brain interprets that behavior as a threat, often causing our fight or flight response to kick into high gear. And this can start a vicious cycle, adding more dysregulation to the mix and fuel to our kids’ fire. But if you learn strategies that you can use to help yourself calm down in the heat of the moment, you can interrupt that cycle. And something really profound shifts your ability to stay regulated signals to child that they are safe and their nervous system starts to calm down. And this is the foundation of a concept called co-regulation. And that is why I created a workshop just for you. It’s called Be the Calm in Your Child’s Storm: How To Keep Your Cool When Your Child Loses Theirs. And in it, I teach you simple but powerful steps to change the way your brain and body interpret your child’s dysregulation, and arm yourself with the tools that you need to quiet your own fight or flight response to get instant access, to be the calm in your child’s dorm, a 60 minute workshop with the exact therapeutic interventions that I use with my patients.

(51:10):

Go to drsarahbren.com and click the workshops tab. That’s drsarahbren.com/workshops. Thanks for listening and don’t be a stranger.

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