For her 7th birthday, my daughter got an alarm clock, and you might be surprised by how it left us a little less than “regulated.”

Let me back track just a little for context. My 7 year old has been asking for an alarm clock for a while and honestly? I forgot. So naturally she was thrilled to receive a unicorn alarm clock from one of her grandmothers. So what’s the problem? It doesn’t turn off. Apparently Walmart products are a little less than regulated too… in a different way.

Her older sisters vividly recalled this same kind of clock from the middle sister’s birthday. She tried to warn me. Did we listen? Of course not. The first morning I ran it out of the room and onto the front porch, where we somehow still heard it. I thought I pushed the “OFF” button, but that definitely didn’t work. An embarrassing amount of time passed before I realized I could just take out the batteries (we’ll talk about why later).

Feeling regulated isn’t just about meltdowns or the kid who seems to be unable to complete that ONE THING you asked him to do at the school table.

But it really is a concept worth grasping because it drastically impacts your ability to do what matters to you and show up in relationships in a way that you can feel good about.

What is Self-Regulation?

Depending on who you ask, you’ll get a slightly different definition. Some focus more on certain aspets of self-regulation– especially the emotional regulation or attention part. But if you want an all-encompassing definition of self-regulation, try this one out:

Self-regulation is “flexibly activating, monitoring, inhibiting, persevering and adapting your own behavior, attention, emotions and cognitive strategies in light of internal and external feedback to attain personally relevant goals (Wesarg-Menzel et. al, 2023).”

Sound complicated? It is! The pre-frontal cortex gets a lot of attention, but really there are many areas of the brain involved, even subcortical areas. If you want to learn more about the specifics of self-regulation, including what it is and what are some reasonable expectations, be sure to check out Season 2 Episodes 10 and 11 of the Sensational Moms Podcast.

Fight, Flight, Flee, Freeze…

My son looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I only realized on day 2 that I could have just taken out the batteries. I know… it seems so straightforward. But when I was rushing to just keep my kids from waking up and fighthing on day 2, all I could think of was “get it outside!”

When you have a stress response, you aren’t exactly in your prime problem solving mode. So why do we ask our kids’ thought providing “why did you…” questions when they’re dysregulated or overstimulated? OR… why do we do that to ourselves?

An Unrealized Remembrance

The body and brain remember. It’s a dense book, but I’ll never forget how eye-opening it was when I first read The Body Keeps the Score. We don’t really get to define what our body and brains interpret as trauma. And no, I’m not suggesting an alarm clock traumatized her, but it does remind me of how some of us are so much more sensitive to our experiences of the world around us.

My highly sensitive kid? She’s the one who remembered that last alarm clock vividly. She’s easily startled by sound and slow to rouse in the morning, so her experience with that clock was hard from a sensory and alertness regulation standpoint. But also? She was really disappointed. The clock looked so pretty but just didn’t deliver what it promised. That’s a hard lesson to learn.

Our own personal experiences shape and mold our sense of what “regulated” is– usually without us even noticing.

And y’all. She tried to warn me, I should have listened. Which leads me to my next point…

Co-Regulation: Do We Listen?

Or do we push through?

Because if we don’t listen, things will snowball. After I was warned (and didn’t listen), two mornings of fighting ensued. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. That clock played “Red River Valley” in 80’s video game tones. Not exactly what a kid with auditory sensitivity wants to hear first thing in the morning. As annoying as that was, what bothered her most?

“Mom, you didn’t listen to me! I told you.”

I could have started with the arguing and hitting, but that wasn’t really the issue was it?

Do we seek to understand the triggers and see behavior as communication?

Amanda Diekman breaks down felt safety nicely in this article as well.

This concept of listening goes for ourselves too, not just our kids.

Co-regulation is meant to support moms, too, as I discuss here.

Wanting an “OFF” Button?

Why doesn’t that clock just have an “off” button?! My goodness. But here’s the thing…

Can we regulate ourselves through the overstimulation of our kids’ dysegulation? Because let’s be real… if our kids are loud and pushy. From a sensory standpoint? That’s a lot. Not to mention feeling a little less than emotionally regulated, right? It’s HARD and no one is looking for perfection here. Talk about dysregulating…

Finding Common Goals

The clock can’t stay. Not as an alarm clock anyway. So where do we go from here? Working through this situation reminded me of a few of the general principles that help me and my kids flex our self-regulation muscles.

–What’s the real goal here? If she wants an alarm, it looks like we get to regulate through the emotions of disappointment because it won’t be this unicorn clock. But really, if you’re in a situation like this, get clear on the goal. Sometimes it’s not what you or your kid think it it is. Think about my middle kid who just wanted me to hear and trust what she said.

–Support yourself through the stressful moment. You’d better bet we’ll be talking about this outside in case one of my kids gets loud. I’ll be pushing my hands together, chewing some gum, or doing alternate nostril breathing.

–Problem solve outside the moment of stress. We need all the prefrontal cortex acitvation we can get…

-Last, in the words of my father-in-law: “Try easy.” I admit, it’s not much in my nature… but we will look for the path of least resistance. And I will absolutely flex where I can.