Everyday TBRI®
Levels of Response™
Level 3: Calming Engagement
Parenting 101: Know what signs look for indicating that your child might be about to fall apart. Maybe it’s that sudden burst of exuberant energy when they are spinning in circles, laughing a little too loudly, grabbing the cat’s tale repeatedly, and their listening ears seem to have gone deaf to your playful requests to pull it together. Choices and compromises? There is not a choice under the sun that sounds reasonable to them. What now?
First, find your stash of emergency chocolate. Eat one or five. Take some deep breaths. Look at this challenge as an opportunity for growth in parenting. Our goal here is still to get this train on the rails and ideally, for our kiddo to regulate for him or herself. Our motivation is avoiding a full on meltdown.
Second, get in your Zen frame of mind. Remember, if you’re feeling angry and agitated, your child (who is a mind reader) is going to know. Your voice is at DEFCON 3, which means firm, slow, and measured. This is not the time to exercise your ability to debate, or even a moment to educate your child. Don’t go there. Speak less. Listen more. Recognize that underneath all of that extra energy in the person sitting across from you is an amygdala that is operating like whoa*.
Third, take your child to a quieter place, which might be another room or outside. Remove the audience. Have your child in time-in near you until they can get back into their body. Practice breathing together (Let’s blow on our soup, and now, let’s smell our soup). Once they are calmer, go back to your choices and compromises.
Finally, when it’s over, it’s over. Time to be playful again. But of course, you already knew that!
*to the extreme
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What is TBRI®?
TBRI® is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. TBRI® uses Empowering Principles to address physical needs, Connecting Principles for attachment needs, and Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors. While the intervention is based on years of attachment, sensory processing, and neuroscience research, the heartbeat of TBRI® is connection.
TBRI® is designed for children from “hard places” such as abuse, neglect, and/or trauma. Because of their histories, it is often difficult for these children to trust the loving adults in their lives, which often results in perplexing behaviors. TBRI® offers practical tools for parents, caregivers, teachers, or anyone who works with children, to see the “whole child” in their care and help that child reach his highest potential.
