EP 276: Cues of Safety: How to Help when Nothing is Ever Right

Every morning (or afternoon or evening) feels like just one long stream of complaints. Breakfast isn’t right, the bowl isn’t right, SOMETHING is always not right, and no matter what gets fixed, it’s never right enough.

^That perfectly describes a nervous system stuck in protection mode. 

This week’s episode explores how and why nervous systems get stuck and practical ways you can help- even when NOTHING you do seems to help. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why your child's reaction is almost never about the thing they're reacting to
• What it means for the past to show up as a "tsunami" in the present moment
• Three simple places to start dropping in more felt safety today, even before anything else changes

Next month in The Club we’re hosting a workshop so we can all get together, pull out the Grow Your Child’s Owl Brain with Cues of Safety workbook, and make a real plan for how to increase safety in your child’s stream of the NOW - which eventually does calm the tsunami in the stream of the past

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Why Sticky Behaviors Stay Stuck (Part 1 of 3)→ RobynGobbel.com/stickybehaviors1
• All Behavior Makes Sense → RobynGobbel.com/allbehaviormakessense

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/cuesofsafety

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Go now to RobynGobbel.com/apply .

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AND! If you pre-order TWO or more copies, you can come to Baffling Behaviors LIVE! - a day-long live event for parents and caregivers in Richmond, VA on September 21. 

RobynGobbel.com/LIVE

Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book

Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So when your kids' behavior is baffling, and yours is too, sometimes, yeah. I know. Let's take a break from all the man boozle. You're on the baffling behavior. All right, y'all. Imagine this. It's morning. You're tired. You have a little one. Mm-hmm, five, wants breakfast, and they say they want cereal. Okay, cool. Easy. Cereal. Super easy. So you grab cereal and you grab a bowl. And it's not the right bowl. Okay, no problem. Fix the bowl. But the milk's wrong. Okay. Deep breath. No problem. Fix the milk. Now it's the spoon that's wrong. They're really a deep breath. Okay, fix that spoon. And now the spoon. It's right. But now no longer wants cereal, wants toast. Then there's too much butter. And of course, by now you are not only way out of patience, but probably way out of time. Like it's time to go, right? And this isn't probably just a one-off either. This is starting to feel like every morning, week after week, bowl after bowl. And no matter what, it feels like you actually get right, which is a lot, by the way, you're getting a lot right. It feels like it's just never ever enough. And of course, it's feeling like rejection every single time. Welcome, y'all. Maybe this is another welcome back to another episode here of the baffling behavior show. It's me, your host, Robin Gobel, author of the USA Today best-selling book, Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors. And of course, my upcoming book, The Guided Journal for Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors. And here on this podcast, you and I, we get together and we make sense of the science of being relationally, socially, and behaviorally human. I kind of think of it like a partnership. I offer you what I know about the relational, social, and behavioral brain and nervous system. And you take that and integrate it with everything you know about your kiddo and yourself. And hopefully together, we are coming up with some more useful ways to help shift your child's nervous system into connection mode so that the behaviors that you're seeing feel way less stressful. So there can be more ease in your life and in your relationship. I'm imagining that most, if not all of you listening, can relate to that story about the morning and the bowl and the cereal and all of that. In some way, shape, or form, you know that feeling of no matter what, it just is never right. And now we're out of time. And so everything just really escalates at that time. It might not totally surprise you to hear me say that my best guess is that the real issue isn't about the right bowl or the right cereal or the right whatever. The real issue isn't even actually about you getting it quote unquote right. The real issue is your kiddo's nervous system being in chronic protection mode. Combined with some kind of belief. Now, this isn't the same for every one of you listening who is finding yourself stuck in this, like nothing is ever right. There is a belief underneath that in your child's nervous system. The belief I'm about to offer isn't true for every single one of your kids, but some kind of belief that's like it isn't possible to get this right, or nobody ever really knows what I need, or nobody can help me, or it even could be as broad as connection doesn't feel great. And so I'm gonna keep kind of creating an experience where syncing up and being in connection feels impossible. Now, again, I I don't know which one might be what's true for your kiddo. It could be one of those, it could be none of them, and it could be something different. There's a lot of different beliefs that could be underneath this kind of setup of nothing is ever right. Those are just a few options I'll toss out there. So it's not really about the bowl or the cereal or getting it right for real. It's about the chronic protection mode and about what the nervous system's belief is and what it is predicting is going to happen next. We talked about predictions a few episodes back. So scroll back into your podcast app if you missed um those episodes. It was a three-part episode, a few series, a few episodes back. It was a three-part series, a few episodes back. You can scroll back and check it out. Let's look at this morning scenario just a little bit more closely. Okay. So whether your kiddo is four or 10 or 14 or 24, or maybe you're thinking about yourself or your partner or someone else you know, every nervous system, every single one, kids, grown-ups, all of us, is continuously reading, taking in two streams of information at once. We go into this in depth in the episode All Behavior Makes Sense. Okay. So it's two streams of information that your brain and nervous system are making sense of. There is a stream that contains all the information about what's literally happening right now in the here and now. What's actually happening, like right this second, right? The bowl, the milk, the spoon, the toast, all those things. Then there's the other stream. It's the stream of the past. And that stream of the past contains like every single thing that the body and the brain and that nervous system has ever learned and experienced. Good, bad, safe, not safe. It's all there. The history, the memories. Things like can I expect to be safe or in danger? Is the world a safe place? Am I gonna get my needs met or not? And so many, so many more things are stored in that stream of the past. All of the memories are stored in the stream of the past. And they're coming together with that stream of the now to help predict what's about to happen and to make sense of current reality. Okay, so there's all of this information that's helping your kiddo make sense of what's truly happening in the here and now, and all this other information came long, long, long, long, long, long, long before this particular breakfast. Most of us, and I can get caught up in this too. Most of us are only ever thinking about that first stream. Okay, it's what we're kind of explicitly aware of. We're paying attention to what's in our stream of the now, and we're making some assumptions that that's what's in the other person's stream of the now. And we're not even aware of how our own stream of the past is contributing to us making meaning out of what's happening in the now. I mean, if we stop and pause and get really deliberate and thoughtful about it, we can be aware of it, but just on like a regular moment-to-moment basis, we're just trying to get breakfast and get out the door, we're really not thinking about those things. That's perfectly normal. Okay, so we're having our own stream of the now. Our stream of the past is helping us create, you know, our own now. And we're not really thinking about how our subjective reality is different than someone else's because we both have different streams of the past. And we're certainly not thinking about that other person's dream of the past. Not when we're like, oh my gosh, just eat breakfast. We gotta go. You're gonna be late for school. I'm gonna be late for work. Okay. So we're dealing with the thing that's happening, you know, the milk's not right, the bowl's not right, that this isn't right, that that isn't right. And we keep thinking about fixing the thing in the here and now, and we keep thinking about fixing the thing that's being asked to be fixed because of course we are. Like that makes a lot of sense, right? So it's like, okay, here's the different bowl, here's a different spoon, here's a different this, here's a different that. And then it's like, why isn't this working? Right. I've fixed what you've asked to be fixed, but it's still not right.

unknown 11:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

And you're probably also thinking about safety and connection and regulation, right? You've probably already done a lot of things to set up the morning to go as smoothly as possible. You've already made adjustments to what's happening to increase regulation felt safety connection for you and your kiddo. You're working so hard to meet, maybe even beat needs. It feels like you're doing all of the things. And my guess is you might actually be doing all of the things. Okay. And also, there is that very fast-moving stream of the past that for some folks, especially when there is a history of trauma and toxic stress, or some folks that stream of the past can actually kind of come together with that stream of the now more like a tsunami. Like it comes in fast and furious and it takes over so quickly that it's as if what's happening in the stream of the now is really not even relevant. Like everything is just kind of about the past and about expectations and predictions. So, yeah, of course, you know, the bowl, the cereal, the whatever was not quite right about the bowl of the cereal, right? Of course, it wasn't really ever about that. I mean, by all means, if it is about the bowl, then offer a new bowl. If you can fix a problem, by all means, fix the problem. But when you're being asked to fix a problem and you fix it and it's still not fixed, and that happens again and again and again, then now what you know is oh, this isn't actually about bowls or breakfasts. This isn't about that at all. This is about the stream of the past, my kids' prediction, and what they are essentially setting up to happen. Now, when I say our kids are essentially setting up to make this thing happen, it is not intentional. This is an implicit thing that actually all of us are doing. We're all setting up one another to behave in the way that we're expecting them to. It's not manipulative, it's not out of the normal, it's it's just a normal thing humans do. That doesn't make it feel good, but it is just a normal thing that humans do. Okay. And if you have a kid where it feels like nothing is ever, ever, ever right, then I'm pretty darn sure it's not about the bowl, right? Sometimes, y'all, that stream of the past does integrate with the stream of the now in the way we would expect. And actually, it is always quite a you know, a wonky ratio. Reality is really made up about 20% of what's happening in the here and now, and then 80% of our memories, of our past, of our history, of our expectations. Okay, that's normal. That that's for all of us. And then for a lot of y'all listening with kids with baffling behaviors, there isn't that 2080 thing happening. There's like a 199, right? It's this huge tsunami. Right? The nervous system has been carrying the that tsunami of the past along for a long, long, long, long time. And it's informing everything. It's not just a like a wave or a river that connects with that stream. It's this big old tsunami that just full force takes over everything. And we're looking at this situation that's like, how could a bowl be this wrong or a cereal be this wrong? Or like, oh my gosh, I know this isn't your favorite cereal bowl, but can we move on with things, right? That seems like such a reasonable ask. But the problem is, is that the cereal or the bowl is not the problem, right? It's that stream of the past that has learned and is now helping your child predict nothing will ever be right. Everything will always be wrong. Nobody will ever get it right for me. And again, let me just reiterate: this is not your child doing this on purpose. Okay, this isn't their fault, they're not choosing this. We have so much less control over our behaviors and we like to think that we do. And our kids with really vulnerable nervous systems have even less. Even less. Now it can absolutely get better. We can work to calm that tsunami. We can work to make more thoughtful choices about our behaviors. We absolutely, absolutely can. That can be true while also recognizing so little about behavior is really about choice. And your kiddo who's setting you up for this, like nothing will ever be right. I couldn't possibly get it right no matter what I do next. It will be wrong. That's about the stream of the past. That's about the nervous system doing exactly what it believes it needs to in order to be okay. It's not manipulation, it's not a bad kid, it's a stress response. Doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is use the past to predict the future. The next micro moment is the future. Use the past to predict the future to stay as safe as possible. So you're when you're parenting this kid and you get a new bowl and you get a different milk and you get a new spoon, and it's just never enough, and never enough, and it just keeps being never enough. It's not because you're actually never enough, it's because whatever's underneath what's happening here, it actually has really nothing to do with breakfast or bowls or cereals or anything like that. So the right bowl isn't gonna fix it because frankly, there is no right bowl. And if you take a breath, that might feel really true to you. There is no right bowl. So, what do we do? Well, there are two approaches to take here. One we're gonna talk about for the next few minutes is bulking up that stream of the now. Bulking up that stream of the now with as many cues of safety as is possible or reasonable without even really thinking about the bowl or the serial or the whatever or the whatever, but other ways to really bulk up that stream of the now. Now there is a second thing to think about here, which is how do we help our kids have a new experience so that they can eventually have a new prediction and kind of shift that nothing will ever be right. A prediction. That we're gonna keep talking about. I'm actually working really hard behind the scenes to create what is probably gonna be a multi-week workshop or program or something. I haven't quite figured out exactly what it's gonna look like that we'll do in the club to help parents recognize that moment sooner and feel more confident in what to do in that moment. And how do we feel confident in the moment of nothing I could do next could ever be right? Well, I do believe I have an idea about how we can meet that kid in that moment without you feeling like you're tap dancing all over the place and ultimately just getting it wrong. I do think I have an idea for that, but I'm still really flushing it out. And when I flush it out, then y'all, if you're in the club, what we're gonna do is like do something in the clubs to like really help with that moment because I know that's a moment so many of you all, y'all in the club just kind of keep coming back to you. That felt sense of like nothing I could do would ever be right. And then you ask yourself, like, maybe I'm the bonkers one here. Like maybe I'm like making this feeling up. And and I can basically promise you, you're not making it up. You're being um invited into that memory network. And it is true that you couldn't possibly get it right next. And there is still something you can do next. Okay, but I'm still fleshing that out. So let's go back to you. In this episode, we are gonna talk about and we're gonna look at how do we bulk up the stream of the now? Because the more we can get into the stream of the now, those cues of safety, the more we're actually gonna kind of slow down that tsunami. But also, y'all, the past or the now does become the past. So if we can add lots and lots and lots and lots of cues of safety in the stream of the now, eventually that means we are putting more safety into the stream of the past. So we can be real intentional about the stream of the now. See if we can, you know, calm the tsunami of the past down by have allowing it to meet a stronger stream of the now, like a stronger stream of the now with more cues of safety in it, right? That will calm the tsunami down just a touch, just a touch. And then also everything you put into the stream of now, of course, eventually becomes the stream of the past because that's how time works. That's just the linear nature of time is not a metaphor. I mean, streams are a metaphor, it's no streams in your brain, but we're actually talking about our six cortical layers, and it's not a metaphor. The streams are a metaphor, to be clear. But the way that our brains are processing and creating and reacting to reality, we're talking about just real science here. So, what do we do with a kid where there's always this felt sense of nothing is ever right, nothing is ever right, nothing is ever right? Well, first of all, remember that's about their stream of the past. This is a chronic protection mode. And unless your child is truly living in a state where there is constant danger, in which case, then we're not gonna change their behavior because the nervous system is imagining reality and then behaviors are matching the nervous system. But I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, you would objectively stand back and look at the moment you're serving your kid breakfast and be like, yeah, actually, not a life-threatening moment. And so all of this protection mode energy must be about the stream of the past. Okay. So because of that, let's really look at well, what could we do here in the stream of the now? Because I really can't do anything about that stream of the past, right? So, what's in the stream of the now? Remember, there are those three buckets: the inside, the outside, and the between bucket. Okay, we've got that inside bucket. Um, that's like um being hungry, being tired, being thirsty, not having moved enough lately. And so those inner sensory systems, like your vestibular sense of system and the proprioceptive system, are all like out of whack. Okay. So, how could we bulk up cues of safety in the inside bucket with meeting some basic body needs? Food, blood sugar, hydration, movement, illness, um, tending to illnesses, making sure kids' physical needs that go into the bathroom are met, that they're not hot or cold, things like that. Okay, we're gonna be as intentional as possible about that putting cues of safety into that bucket of the now. Okay, that inside bucket. Also. So, y'all, there's that outside bucket. That's the environment. So, what could we do to bulk up cues of safety in your kids' outside bucket? Well, maybe more structure, routine, or predictability in the mornings. Maybe um, you know, a clear guide, clear guidance about what's about to happen next in the morning. Um, I love talking about the idea of like a wild card, which I learned from trust-based relational intervention. But um, you know, have a routine, have a have some structure to the mornings, but also have it be known in your family that you use these things called wild cards sometimes because sometimes things just don't go as planned. And so if you ever do need to get off of the routine or the predictability of the morning, you can use a wild card. Um, so outside bucket, structure, routine, predictability. And then think about those five external senses, right? Like things you touch, smell, see, hear, and I'm missing the fifth one, but y'all can figure it out. What's the fifth one there, right? So those five external senses are also like that bucket of outside cues of safety. So are they sitting where they like to sit? What's the lighting like in the kitchen? What sounds are there? What does it smell like? How comfortable is their chair? What clothes do they have on? Things like that, those sensory things. Then there's the between bucket, right? That's the that that's where the cues of safety are danger, but we really want to add cues of safety. And the bucket that's like the relational space, the between you and your kiddo space. So that's about, you know, attending to your own nervous system, right? Thinking about how do I stay regulated enough to keep sending cues of safety. That doesn't mean I'm a pushover or I um don't get, you know, overwhelmed or frustrated myself. It means that when I have a feeling, I do it with my mindful owl brain, right? I can be frustrated. That's okay, but I'm gonna stay mindful and connected to myself in my own frustration. Before we get to the moments that are almost always frustrating, we could think about well, how can I bring like delight and play and that kind of energy to my kid, knowing that things are probably gonna get hard. And so if I could kind of bulk up those cues of safety before things get hard, that could really be helpful, right? So, like the moment you lay eyes on your kid that morning, there's a bright-eyed, oh, good morning. I'm so happy to see you. Even if you know you're probably gonna get like a snarl or some kind of rejection, right? The more that we can offer cues of safety, right, these teeny tiny, small, tiny little drops in these three different buckets in the here of the net the stream of the now, they accumulate. They absolutely accumulate. Now, I also know that when we are parenting kids who are in chronic protection mode and are regularly kind of setting us up for nothing to ever be right, it's really hard to think straight. It's really hard to want to move towards our kids with connection. It's really hard to remember, even like, oh, stream of the past. This makes sense. How do I get in some cues of safety in the stream of the now? Right. It's so hard to think about and so hard to remember those things. And so if you're a club member, y'all head to the resource library, okay? Because we've got that cues of safety. Well, wait, that's not what it's called. It's called Grow Your Child's Owl Brain with Cues of Safety workbook. It's really big, y'all. I mean, the actual parts of the workbook to fill in are actually quite small. It's only like three pages, very little work to do. Then the rest of it is all just a bunch of examples. Like what could be in your child's stream of the now, in their stream of the past, in the different buckets, inside, outside, between, safety and danger. So it's all of these examples so that we can kind of get clear about what is living in our kids' stream of the past. What is living in their stream of the now? And what are some what we would call like low-hanging fruit ways we could get in more cues of safety into the stream of the now. And the workbook gives like oodles and oodles and oodles. So many, so many, so many ideas. It's like a word bank practically. And we do this because we know it is so hard to think straight when we two are in chronic protection mode. So again, if you're listening and you're in the club, that exists in the resource library. It's there for you to grab all the time. Um, if you the resource library, y'all, it's it's like in that left-hand column. Um, if you're not in the club and you're listening to this the week that this episode comes out, you're golden because uh this is the week that the club's open for a few days. Um, August 4, 5, 6, and 7 of 2026. This episode's airing on August 4. We are uh welcoming new members to the club for those four days. And then not only would you get instant access to this workbook, but we're also doing a live workshop about the workbook in August. So we're gonna get together and we're gonna work through the workbook together because we all know that we all have great ideas and intentions and we're gonna go do this thing on our own time. But then it is so hard to actually do that. We forget there's a million other things to do, we get overwhelmed, we're distracted, there's a crisis to tend to. I get it. So we're actually gonna get together in the club and we're gonna work on it together. And I'm gonna help you through it and we're gonna also like lean into one another for help and ideas and suggestions. Okay, so if you're not in the club and that sounds awesome to you, come and join us. You can join us anytime August 4, 5, 6, or 7. And if you are in the club, go there right now, grab the workbook and RSVP for the workshop where we're gonna work on it together. Um, I think it's happening the second week of August, but I don't really remember right off the top of my head. I guess I should have grabbed that before I started recording. Okay, here's the summary. If it feels like your kid is kind of creating an experience where the only outcome is that you're gonna always get it wrong, it's very possible you're not imagining that. Also, it's it's definitely true that your kid's not doing it on purpose. That's not how implicit memory nervous systems work. But it is true that you're not imagining it. There are things we can do. Okay, we can bulk up the stream of the nav with cues of safety. And there are also things we can do to help your child's nervous system experience something different that could help them have eventually a new expectation, a new prediction that will eventually change their behavior. Both are true. But for today, we're really thinking about how do we bulk up the stream of the now with those cues of safety? And if you need help with that, there is great spaces to go get help with that. Come into the club, grab that workbook. You can do the workbook on your own. You can come join us as we do it together as a club, and then we'll support you with it. And if and then we'll support you with it in the forum, we'll just support you with it. It is not hopeless. There are things to do, and it does take time. It absolutely takes time. So I know that when you're parenting somebody with a tsunami of danger in their stream of the past, that there will always be something wrong with that cereal bowl. There will always be something wrong. And of course, it's leaving you feeling really rejected and it's leaving you really stuck in protection mode too. Of course, of course, of course. And there are things we can do about it. You gotta love a lot of ideas here in the episode. And if you need some more help, come join us over in the club. And if you're already in the club, go to the resource library, go to the events, RSVP for our workshop on how we're gonna do this grow your out child's owl brain with cues of safety workshop. All right, y'all. I hope this was helpful. I hope you've gotten some ideas about how to start doing this. And then definitely, I hope you know where you can go to next to get some more help. I will be back with you again here next week for another episode of the Baffling Behavior Show. Though I do hope that between now and then, maybe I'm gonna meet you because you're come, you're gonna come and join us in the club. All right, bye bye.