Think of Big Behaviour Like Smoke From a Burning Building. Here’s why, and what to do.

Boy in behaviour and response


Think of behaviour like smoke from a fire we can’t see. The behaviour we see is the smoke. The fire is a brain that has registered threat, and needs to be brought back to a felt sense of safety. The question isn’t, ‘How do I stop the smoke?’ but, ‘What’s causing the fire, and how can I stop it burning?’

The ‘fire’ is being fuelled by a felt sense of threat. ‘Threat’ isn’t about what is actually safe or not safe. It’s about what the brain perceives. For any of us, ‘threat’ might be anything that comes with any risk at all (real or perceived) of missing out on something important, separation from friends or you or their important people, judgement, humiliation, failure, disappointment or disappointing their important people, interruption, waiting, unfairness or loss. ‘Threat’ can be physically driven (sensory overload or underload, pain, exhaustion, hunger, possible physical danger), or relational (not feeling seen or heard, not feeling valued, feeling replaced, not feeling welcome, feeling disconnected from you or someone important).

Young ones have the added force of nervous systems that haven’t got their full adult legs yet. When brains have a felt sense of threat, they will organise bodies for fight (this can look like tantrums, aggression, irritation, frustration), flight (can look like avoidance, ignoring, turning away) or freeze (can look like withdrawal, hiding, defiance, indifference, aloofness). 

When big behaviour happens, we often focus on the ‘smoke’ – the behaviour we can see. This would be like noticing the air thick with grey smoke, but rather dealing with the burning building that’s feeding it, we focus on the smoke and try to disappear it with a big fan. This might get rid of the smoke for a short while, but if we haven’t dealt with the burning building, it’s not going to be long before the sky fills grey with smoke again. Something else that might happen by focusing on the smoke rather than the building, is that the big fan we’re using will actually enrage the flames and make the fire hungrier. The answer is to focus on the cause of the problem (the fire / the lack of felt safety), not the effects (the smoke / the behaviour).

Bringing this back to big behaviour, the priority is to support our children back to a felt sense of safety. We can do this most powerfully through relationship and connection. Breathe, be with, and validate. Validation can be with or without words. We can validate the need, ‘Yes, you really wanted to stay in the park. I wish we had more time so you could do that,‘ validate the feeling, ‘I know how angry you are at me. I would be angry too,‘ or if words are annoying for them, just feel what they feel but stay regulated – they will feel you with them. 

Of course, sometimes our boundaries will create a collision that also sets their nervous systems on fire. When this happens, cycle between holding the boundary, and tending to the relationship. Let the limits be on behaviour, not thoughts or feelings. You don’t need to fix their big feelings. They aren’t broken. The idea is to be an anchor presence – strong, steady, connected, and surrendering the need to ‘fix’ anything while the emotional storm passes. To do this, you might need to cycle between recalling the boundary and tending to the relationship: Flag the behaviour, ‘It’s ok to be angry. It’s not okay to call me names. I know you know that,’ and then shift focus to relationship, ‘I’m right here,’ or, ‘Okay I can hear you want space. I’m going to stay right over here until you feel better. I’m here when you’re ready.’ Think of this as love and leadership together. We can lovingly hold the boundary, and loving them should not be without leadership.

When their brains and bodies are back to calm, then the transformational chats can happen: ‘What happened?’ ‘What can I do to help next time?’ ‘What can you do?’ ‘You’re a great kid and I know you didn’t want this to happen, but here we are. How can you put this right? Do you need my help with that?’

But holding with love and leadership can be tough sometimes!

When our children are in distress, we might also go into fight or flight. This is a very normal response and happens for an important reason. It happens to make sure our bodies are physiologically ready to protect them, should they actually be in danger. The brain doesn’t care that they aren’t actually in danger. It will ready us, just in case. This means that rather than fighting for them or fleeing with them, our own fight or flight response might see us wanting to fight with them (which is why their anger, frustration, irritation, anxiety might drive the same in us), or flee from them (by walking away for a moment, ignoring). This is not bad parenting. It’s a really normal response from a brain that is readying you for ‘fierce protector’ mode, just in case. The problem isn’t the response, but that there is no actual threat for us to deal with – just a young brain that feels like there is.

Responding to big behaviour with relationship and connection does not mean we are ‘rewarding bad behaviour’. Far from it. What we are actually doing is bringing their brains back to a learning-ready state so they can be open to our guidance and influence. The brain can only learn when it has a felt sense of safety. Supporting our children to feel validated, seen, and loved in the moment brings them back to calm and felt safety. It lets us be guided by the true north of our parenting hearts, and brings us back to what discipline was always meant to be about – to teach, not to punish.

2 Comments

Shevi S

I love this post. So true and so well explained. Thank you!
One thing that I hope you write more about, is in your last words “to teach, not to punish”. “Teaching”, unfortunately, has become synonymous to schooling or a top-down model of transferring information. I would love your take on what true teaching is all about.

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Hello Adelaide! I’ll be in Adelaide on Friday 27 June to present a full-day workshop on anxiety. 

This is not just another anxiety workshop, and is for anyone who lives or works with young people - therapists, educators, parents, OTs - anyone. 

Tickets are still available. Search Hey Sigmund workshops for a full list of events, dates, and to buy tickets or see here https://www.heysigmund.com/public-events/
First we decide, ‘Is this discomfort from something unsafe or is it from something growthful?’

Then ask, ‘Is this a time to lift them out of the brave space, or support them through it?’

To help, look at how they’ll feel when they (eventually) get through it. If they could do this bravely thing easily tomorrow, would they feel proud? Happy? Excited? Grateful they did it? 

‘Brave’ isn’t about outcome. It’s about handling the discomfort of the brave space and the anxiety that comes with that. They don’t have to handle it all at once. The move through the brave space can be a shuffle rather than a leap. 

The more we normalise the anxiety they feel, and the more we help them feel safer with it (see ‘Hey Warrior’ or ‘Ups and Downs’ for a hand with this), the more we strengthen their capacity to move through the brave space with confidence. This will take time, experience, and probably lots of anxiety along the way. It’s just how growth is. 

We don’t need to get rid of their anxiety. The key is to help them recognise that they can feel anxious and do brave. They won’t believe this until they experience it. Anxiety shrinks the feeling of brave, not the capacity for it. 

What’s important is supporting them through the brave space lovingly, gently (though sometimes it won’t feel so gentle) and ‘with’, little step by little step. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they’re forward.♥️
Of course we’ll never ever stop loving them. But when we send them away (time out),
ignore them, get annoyed at them - it feels to them like we might.

It’s why more traditional responses to tricky behaviour don’t work the way we think they did. The goal of behaviour becomes more about avoiding any chance of disconnection. It drive lies and secrecy more than learning or their willingness to be open to us.

Of course, no parent is available and calm and connected all the time - and we don’t need to be. 

It’s about what we do most, how we handle their tricky behaviour and their big feelings, and how we repair when we (perhaps understandably) lose our cool. (We’re human and ‘cool’ can be an elusive little beast at times for all of us.)

This isn’t about having no boundaries. It isn’t about being permissive. It’s about holding boundaries lovingly and with warmth.

The fix:

- Embrace them, (‘you’re such a great kid’). Reject their behaviour (‘that behaviour isn’t okay’). 

- If there’s a need for consequences, let this be about them putting things right, rather than about the loss of your or affection.

- If they tell the truth, even if it’s about something that takes your breath away, reward the truth. Let them see you’re always safe to come to, no matter what.

We tell them we’ll love them through anything, and that they can come to us for anything, but we have to show them. And that behaviour that threatens to steal your cool, counts as ‘anything’.

- Be guided by your values. The big ones in our family are honesty, kindness, courage, respect. This means rewarding honesty, acknowledging the courage that takes, and being kind and respectful when they get things wrong. Mean is mean. It’s not constructive. It’s not discipline. It’s not helpful. If we would feel it as mean if it was done to us, it counts as mean when we do it to them.

Hold your boundary, add the warmth. And breathe.

Big behaviour and bad decisions don’t come from bad kids. They come from kids who don’t have the skills or resources in the moment to do otherwise.

Our job as their adults is to help them build those skills and resources but this takes time. And you. They can’t do this without you.❤️
We can’t fix a problem (felt disconnection) by replicating the problem (removing affection, time-out, ignoring them).

All young people at some point will feel the distance between them and their loved adult. This isn’t bad parenting. It’s life. Life gets in the way sometimes - work stress, busy-ness, other kiddos.

We can’t be everything to everybody all the time, and we don’t need to be.

Kids don’t always need our full attention. Mostly, they’ll be able to hold the idea of us and feel our connection across time and space.

Sometimes though, their tanks will feel a little empty. They’ll feel the ‘missing’ of us. This will happen in all our relationships from time to time.

Like any of us humans, our kids and teens won’t always move to restore that felt connection to us in polished or lovely ways. They won’t always have the skills or resources to do this. (Same for us as adults - we’ve all been there.)

Instead, in a desperate, urgent attempt to restore balance to the attachment system, the brain will often slide into survival mode. 

This allows the brain to act urgently (‘See me! Be with me!) but not always rationally (‘I’m missing you. I’m feeling unseen, unnoticed, unchosen. I know this doesn’t make sense because you’re right there, and I know you love me, but it’s just how I feel. Can you help me?’

If we don’t notice them enough when they’re unnoticeable, they’ll make themselves noticeable. For children, to be truly unseen is unsafe. But being seen and feeling seen are different. Just because you see them, doesn’t mean they’ll feel it.

The brain’s survival mode allows your young person to be seen, but not necessarily in a way that makes it easy for us to give them what they need.

The fix?

- First, recognise that behaviour isn’t about a bad child. It’s a child who is feeling disconnected. One of their most important safety systems - the attachment system - is struggling. Their behaviour is an unskilled, under-resourced attempt to restore it.

- Embrace them, lean in to them - reject the behaviour.

- Keep their system fuelled with micro-connections - notice them when they’re unnoticeable, play, touch, express joy when you’re with them, share laughter.♥️
Everything comes back to how safe we feel - everything: how we feel and behave, whether we can connect, learn, play - or not. It all comes back to felt safety.

The foundation of felt safety for kids and teens is connection with their important adults.

Actually, connection with our important people is the foundation of felt safety for all of us.

All kids will struggle with feeling a little disconnected at times. All of us adults do too. Why? Because our world gets busy sometimes, and ‘busy’ and ‘connected’ are often incompatible.

In trying to provide the very best we can for them, sometimes ‘busy’ takes over. This will happen in even the most loving families.

This is when you might see kiddos withdraw a little, or get bigger with their behaviour, maybe more defiant, bigger feelings. This is a really normal (though maybe very messy!) attempt to restore felt safety through connection.

We all do this in our relationships. We’re more likely to have little scrappy arguments with our partners, friends, loved adults when we’re feeling disconnected from them.

This isn’t about wilful attempt, but an instinctive, primal attempt to restore felt safety through visibility. Because for any human, (any mammal really), to feel unseen is to feel unsafe.

Here’s the fix. Notice them when they are unnoticeable. If you don’t have time for longer check-ins or conversations or play, that’s okay - dose them up with lots of micro-moments of connection.

Micro-moments matter. Repetition matters - of loving incidental comments, touch, laughter. It all matters. They might not act like it does in the moment - but it does. It really does.

And when you can, something else to add in is putting word to the things you do for them that might go unnoticed - but doing this in a joyful way - not in a ‘look at what I do for you’ way.

‘Guess what I’m making for dinner tonight because I know how much you love it … pizza!’

‘I missed you today. Here you go - I brought these car snacks for you. I know how much you love these.’

‘I feel like I haven’t had enough time with you today. I can’t wait to sit down and have dinner with you.’ ❤️

#parenting #gentleparenting #parent #parentingwithrespect

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