Coparent Academy Podcast
Lifechanging Coparenting
Coparent Academy Podcast
#153 - How to Calm Your Upset Child
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/qRtXCKc3qOI
Are you struggling to connect with your child during emotional meltdowns?
Feel like nothing you say helps them calm down or understand what went wrong?
In this video, we break down the powerful 4 Rs method — Regulate, Relate, Reason, Restore — based on the work of Dr. Bruce Perry (3 Rs) and trauma-informed parenting techniques. This simple, science-backed approach helps you de-escalate emotional outbursts and guide your child with empathy, connection, and calm.
✨ What You’ll Learn:
How to stay calm when your child is dysregulated
Why connection must come before correction
How to build trust even after conflict
The exact steps to create a safe, emotionally supportive environment for your child.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:42 Regulate
03:23 Relate
05:55 Reason
07:31 Restore
If your child will stay on a new field completely helpless, like nothing that you do actually helps, then this video is for you. I'm Ron Gore. I'm an attorney who serves as a guardian ad litem, a parenting coordinator and a mediator. I provide co-parenting education to parents and to other attorneys.
Speaker 1:Dr Bruce Perry has what he calls his NeuroSequential Model. That is designed to help children regulate, learn from situation and move on. Dr Perry's model has three R's regulate, relate and reason. There's a fourth R that Louise Bloomer has put in place. That is restore. So we're going to talk about Dr Perry's three R's plus restore.
Speaker 1:First, what does it mean to regulate? If your child is experiencing heightened physiological response to the situation, that their heart rate is going, their breathing is going, they're all over the place psychologically, they're in fight, flight, freeze or fawn then they're not in a place when you're going to be able to help them learn anything. You're not going to be able to help them accomplish anything. The first thing that needs to happen is they need to be regulated. Now, depending on the age of your child, depending on the trauma that your child has experienced, they may not have good skills to be able to self-regulate and so you're going to have to assist them. The first thing that you have to do before you can help regulate them is to regulate yourself. You're gonna need to take a moment yourself to make sure that your response is correct, that you have calmed yourself. You've taken a moment to maybe meditate, take some breaths before you engage with them and attempt to regulate them. An unregulated parent is not gonna be able to regulate a child. How do you know when you're sufficiently regulated yourself to be able to regulate a child? How do you know when you're sufficiently regulated yourself to be able to help your child? Well, you're going to be calm. You're going to be mindful, you're going to be compassionate and empathetic about what they're going through. You're not going to be upset. You're not going to be looking to punish them. The first step that you're going to be doing is looking to feel calm and as relaxed as possible so that you can relate to them from that comforting place.
Speaker 1:Once you're in that regulated state yourself, then you start to help regulate your child by approaching them with calm, soothing words not too many. You're not trying to lecture them or have a big conversation, just some calm, soothing words to let your child know that you love them, that they're safe, that everything's going to be okay. If there is an audience if this is at a party, for example, if there's other children around then help remove the child from that situation. So there's not an audience that they're concerned about that will just jack up the stress that they're feeling Instead of giving them a timeout. That would isolate them and perhaps increase some trauma response that they have. Sit with them. You don't have to have the conversation right then. You just sit with them, breathe, just be a model for calmness so that they know they're not alone, you're not yelling at them, you're not giving them angry faces, they're not being embarrassed in front of their friends, they're not being isolated. You're sitting with them, breathing, being calm and giving them a chance to calm down themselves.
Speaker 1:Once you're both calm, once you're both regulated, now you need to attempt to relate to the child. This is important. This sequence is important, right? You can't relate to the child before you're regulated and you can't reason with a child until you have related. This order matters. The reason we go from regulate to relate to reason, to restore, is because these things have to happen in that sequential order. Our brains are hierarchically structured. Immediate physiological response is the high heart rate, the body temperature, the blood pressure. All of that is in our brainstem Building on top of that we get to the limbic system, then we get to the cortex. We need to travel all the way up through that hierarchical structure to be able to reason with our child. Before we can get there, we both have to be at that higher level of functioning, that truly human level of having some abstract thought, be able to communicate lessons that we want our child to learn, to truly discipline them by teaching them about what we want them to understand, about the situation and what we can avoid in the future.
Speaker 1:Too often parents are attempting to start off with the reasoning. We're trying to impose our thoughts about the situation on a child who isn't ready to receive it. You first have to get them regulated before they can learn anything. A screaming child who's't ready to receive it you first have to get them regulated before they could learn anything. A screaming child who's having a tantrum or a child who's broken down in sobbing and tears is not ready to receive a life lesson from you. So we start with the regulation, then we relate. Now we need to relate because you always have to connect.
Speaker 1:Before you can direct or connect a child, they need to feel that connection with you. And you may be thinking well, of course we're connected, this is my child, but they need to feel connected in that moment. They need to feel that you're on the same page as much as possible, so you start to relate with them. You can use language that indicates to them that you're noticing how they're feeling. You can help give them words to label how they're feeling, which will help calm them down even further by helping them understand that you see what they're going through, without judging how they're feeling. You're going to be able to have that relation. You're going to have that next level of connection that you need before you can get to the reasoning. Now that you've gone through the first two steps of regulation and relation, now you can start to reason, and the best thing to do is not to start lecturing your kid about what's occurred and what they've done wrong. The best thing to do is to start getting their story, asking them you know, tell me what was going on, how were you feeling then? I noticed that you did this. Help me understand how that happened.
Speaker 1:This is an opportunity to use the PACE acronym that I've discussed in other videos, to interact with them in a way that is appropriately playful, accepting, curious and empathetic. So you're asking them questions because you're curious, you're being radically accepting of their emotions, even if you're not accepting their behaviors. You're showing empathy for what they're going through. Once you've gotten their version of the story, once you understand what they were thinking through, once you've gotten their version of the story, once you understand what they were thinking, if they were thinking, and how that led to their actions, now you're ready to give them the information that you want them to receive so that you can maybe avoid the situation in the future. Now they're ready to receive and incorporate new information that they'll actually be able to understand and remember going forward. As you're having this conversation with them, you're teaching them to understand their feelings. You're helping them to understand how they can reframe some of the negative thoughts that they've had. Perhaps You've helped them understand better what the proper boundaries are for their behaviors, even when they're having certain feelings. This is the true learning experience for them. So now you've gone from the regulate to the relate to the reason, and now it's time to get to the restore.
Speaker 1:This last step of restoring a repairing relationship is building bridges for the future, helping your child remember that, even though things may sometimes get a little bit difficult, that you still love them, that you're not going anywhere, that just because maybe they misbehaved in a way that they really knew they shouldn't have, that you're not going to throw them away, that you're their safe place that they can always come back to, even when they've messed up. This doesn't mean that you're going to be a permissive parent. It doesn't mean that you excuse all of their behaviors. What it does mean is you meet them with empathy and you let them know that you're always there for them, no matter what. That helps build trust. It helps rebuild trust between the two of you so that your child can go forward not feeling like they're just labeled as a bad kid because of how they've behaved, knowing that they're loved and that they're safe.
Speaker 1:Try this out the next time your child gets dysregulated. You've fallen all over the floor. First, make sure that you yourself are regulated, that you're calm, centered, empathetic, curious about what's happening, not angry, not judgmental, not coming in hot. Then help your child regulate themselves. Separate them from whatever the situation is, remove them from an audience. Give them the chance to calm down. Offer few concise, encouraging words, without giving them a lecture or trying to teach them any lessons.
Speaker 1:Already, as you're doing that, you're relating to your child. They're seeing that you're with them. That helps you get a connection. You can co-regulate your child. They're seeing that you're with them. That helps you get a connection. You can co-regulate your breathing. You can just sit there and be with them. Instead of giving them a time out, you're giving them a time in. Once you've regulated and related, now you can start to reason with your child. Be curious with that PACE acronym. Be accepting and curious and empathetic. Get to understand what their perspective was. Then move on to repairing and restoring that relationship, letting them know that you always love them, that they haven't ruined the relationship with you, that they can go forward confidently knowing that you're going to be there. Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great day.