WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Sensory Code Podcast.
00:00:02.479 --> 00:00:12.960
I'm Laura Pettix, pediatric occupational therapist, creator of the OT Butterfly, author, neurodiversity advocate, and a neurodivergent mom raising a neurodivergent kid.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:22.000
Each episode, I'll teach you how to view behavior through a sensory and nervous system lens because what you see on the surface is never the whole story.
00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:26.160
So pull up a chair, grab your favorite fidget, and lock in.
00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.920
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:34.000
Guess what's happening next week?
00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:34.960
Any guesses?
00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:37.359
I've been mentioning it the last few episodes.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:44.799
Next week, on October 6th, my book, The Sensory Code, is officially out in stores.
00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.679
If you pre-ordered it, it's gonna be delivered.
00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:54.240
I am so excited, I'm a little anxious, but mostly excited for this to be finally out in the world.
00:00:54.479 --> 00:01:00.799
There is still time for you to pre-order if you have not pre-ordered yet and you're listening to this live.
00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:12.079
The benefit to you for pre-ordering is that you get access to three of my bonuses that I worked extremely hard at because I know that it's something that will help supplement your reading.
00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:24.799
So the first freebie is that you get access to my sensory inventory, which helps you think through some of the common behaviors that your child might be having and how they might link to certain sensory systems.
00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:37.599
With that, you take what sensory systems they are noticing the most challenges in or need the most support around, and then you go to step two, which is exploring my sensory activity vault.
00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:54.159
This is a vault of videos with some ideas separated by the different kinds of sensory systems that they activate, and they give you some really simple things to try at home or in the classroom based on what sensory system your child needs help with the most.
00:01:54.319 --> 00:02:08.800
And then finally, in step three, which is gonna be the most helpful for parents, is taking that information that you just learned, what sensory system your child needs help with, what sensory tools work for them the best, and it's gonna help you build it into your daily schedule.
00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:10.240
So it's interactive.
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.000
You get to go in there and type in what your daily flow is, your daily schedule is.
00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:32.159
You're gonna go through some drop-down menus and click what sensory strategies you've tried that worked, what upregulates them, what downregulates them, and it's gonna build a plan for you so that you feel more confident implementing a proactive sensory lifestyle to support your child's regulation.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:34.000
I mean, is that not amazing?
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.240
That's free when you pre-order my book.
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.240
So hopefully you're hearing this at the right time.
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:45.599
Head to theotbutterfly.com slash the sensory code, scroll to the bottom to see all the different links to pre-order.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.199
Then when you pre-order it, take a screenshot and then go back to that page.
00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:57.680
And at the bottom of it, there's a link that allows you to submit a picture of your pre-order receipt, and then you're gonna get access to the bonus.
00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:04.240
If you're having a hard time accessing that, feel free to send me an email, LauraPetix at theotbutterfly.com.
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:06.479
But yay, one week away.
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:07.360
I'm so excited.
00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.360
Thank you for all your support thus far.
00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:15.039
Speaking of proactive sensory regulation, that's the topic today.
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:18.560
I'm gonna teach you about the nervous system budget framework.
00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:26.879
It's a spin off of the disability community's spoon theory, if you know what that is, if you know how people say, I don't have enough spoons today.
00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:41.439
It's a spin off of that to help parents, teachers, educators conceptualize how all of a child's sensory processing differences can affect their nervous system and therefore their behavior.
00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:49.120
And it allows us to know how we can proactively support them and how we can feel better about supporting them proactively.
00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:58.000
And I say feel better about proactively supporting them because I know it's really easy for us as parents to think, why do I need to make that easy for them?
00:03:58.080 --> 00:03:59.039
I know they can do it.
00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:00.240
They're a smart kid.
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:01.360
I've seen them do it before.
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:02.719
Why can't they just do it today?
00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:04.800
I don't need to make life that easy for them.
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:06.159
Like they can do it, right?
00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:14.879
And in my book, I do go more into depth into some examples and some details of applying the nervous system budget to different sensory profiles.
00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:19.600
But today I'm gonna give you a general overview to help you understand it and hopefully it helps you.
00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.519
So I'm gonna start with telling you a story of how I started thinking about this.
00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:34.000
Back when my daughter was in her toddler years, she had these incredibly big, massive, debilitating, explosive meltdowns.
00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:49.759
Not like crying and whining and stomping her feet, like I'm talking, pupils were dilated, she was really sweaty, she was hitting people, hitting things, kicking things over, slamming her head to the ground, and sometimes she would lose control of her bladder.
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:57.600
This day-to-day repetitive explosive meltdowns was paralyzing for us as a family.
00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:07.279
And at this particular time in her life, I already was accepting that she was differently wired because she was showing signs of sensory sensitivity.
00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:16.000
She was very particular about the sounds and the way things looked in her surroundings, and she really struggled to stay regulated.
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:20.560
Like she was more dysregulated than regulated in her everyday life.
00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:26.480
And so, suffice to say that parenting at this stage was anything but easy.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:34.879
But even if parenting itself wasn't easy, it was easy for me to understand her experience.
00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:44.160
I knew what she was going through because I'm an occupational therapist and my specialties in sensory processing and nervous system regulation.
00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:48.160
And on top of that, I also have a sensory-sensitive nervous system.
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So, like I said, it was easy for me to get what was going on.
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Now, my husband, on the other hand, was really struggling to connect the dots until we had this single exchange.
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We came home from some events that she did at a school, and she did great.
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She did great at the preschool event.
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And she was having a snack at home, just enjoying her snack one minute.
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And then the next, she was like pushing herself back in her chair, almost tipped it over, and she was in a level 100 meltdown.
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The trigger had something to do with like her snack that she was eating and how messy it got.
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Maybe it was an avocado sliding, if I'm remembering correctly.
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But that particular how that unfolded isn't really important here.
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It's later in the evening after we got her calmed down, she's put to bed.
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The first thing my husband said is like, man, I don't get it.
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We had such a great day.
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It's like she goes from zero to 100 and then bam, she's gone.
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And that's when I had to look at him and was like, Oh, you sweet, sweet, sweet thing.
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You think she's starting at zero?
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No, she is not starting at zero.
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She is constantly hovering around like a 90.
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She's constantly simmering at a 90.
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I had to explain to him the concept of cumulative dysregulation and how that works.
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It's not like you're boiling a pot of water and then you can like see it slowly start to simmer until it becomes a boil.
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It's just the simmering is invisible.
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So if you have a kid who also simmers quietly beneath the surface and then all of a sudden has this really big explosion, then you know what it feels like to walk on eggshells, right?
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And so I think that the nervous system budget is going to help you reframe how you think of that.
00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:39.120
So here's how I explain it.
00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:44.240
Our nervous system has a limit to how much stress it can tolerate.
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We're gonna call that the budget, how much stress your nervous system can tolerate.
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Every person has a nervous system budget, and our budget gets spent on all the cognitive, all the sensory, and all of the social demands that we endure throughout our day.
00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:08.480
Even the mundane kind of autopilot tasks like getting out of bed can deduct things from our budget.
00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:17.759
But some tasks or activities or environments are more quote expensive than others, and the price of them can vary from person to person.
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So let's say, for example, my daughter, who is sensitive to the way that socks feel on her feet.
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Let's say putting socks on for her costs her nervous system$5, but it might cost someone who isn't tactile sensitive only one dollar.
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The most important thing here to remember is that the actual dollar numbers are arbitrary.
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You can scale them however makes sense for whatever your economy system is where you live, but just assigning a dollar value to a task is what we're doing here.
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Then we can also consider the fact that we have hard days sometimes, and sometimes we're tired, sometimes we're sick, sometimes we didn't get enough sleep, sometimes there's something going on in the environment that just makes everything feel incrementally harder.
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This is what I call tax.
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So if let's say on a typical day, putting socks and shoes on cost my daughter's nervous system$5, then maybe on her first day of school with the anxiety and the nerves, there's an added$1 tax, and then it feels harder for her that day.
00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:25.840
Or maybe we're running late for school and I rush her, and that added rushing adds tax.
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So you can also think of things like bright lights or unexpected sounds like a dog barking in the environment as other ways that a task can become more expensive.
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Those things can add tax.
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Now, what happens when our kids have spent all their nervous system cash on things like putting socks on before school, dealing with the sounds of the school bell, sounds of the noisy classroom, having to maybe suppress their stims or fidgeting because the teacher says they can't.
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Maybe they have to deal with the sand that gets in their shoe at PE.
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What happens when your child spends all of their nervous system budget on those things just tolerating the school day?
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Well, you know what happens.
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They come home and then they have like a negative balance in their nervous system budget.
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This is when you start noticing dysregulated behaviors.
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They're irritable, they're grouchy, they might have a meltdown, maybe they start fighting with their siblings, they have a hard time settling down for homework or dinner, whatever it is, you know the drill.
00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:34.799
So here's the million-dollar question that I know you might be thinking about.
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How do we add more cash to their budget?
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How can I make my kid a millionaire in their nervous system budget?
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How can we prevent overdrawn budgets?
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These are great questions.
00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:49.360
And there are two main ways that I think of this.
00:10:49.679 --> 00:11:04.159
Proactively, if you know that a certain activity, again, let's go with the sock example for my daughter, if you know that a certain activity is going to be expensive for them, you might try to discount the price by offering accommodations.
00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:08.799
So perhaps you find shoes that she could slip her feet in without socks.
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Maybe you turn the socks inside out so that the seams aren't as bothersome.
00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:17.600
This can reduce the cost of the task to let's say like$4.
00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.320
Again, remember the numbers are arbitrary, so it's just to illustrate a point.
00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:30.720
But that would cost less to your child's nervous system budget and relieve some added budget that they can use on other things.
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:40.159
But you could also make deposits into your child's nervous system budget by integrating sensory strategies throughout the day.
00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:44.639
Maybe you manipulate their schedule a little bit so that they have more breaks in their day.
00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:52.240
So if we're gonna go back with the sock example, maybe again, it costs her$5 as a kid who's sensitive to tactile input.
00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:58.320
And we can discount this by making sure we find her sensory-friendly options, which takes it down to$4.
00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:06.000
But then let's say on school mornings, I know she's gonna have a really expensive day ahead of her with sensory triggers at school.
00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:10.480
Maybe it's raining that day, and I'm like, oh my gosh, she's gonna have a lot of sensory triggers at school.
00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:15.039
So I want to make some extra deposits to her budget before I drop her off.
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So I cuddle with her.
00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:20.879
We do some foot massages, two things that I know that she likes, right?
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:23.279
These are things that add to her nervous system budget.
00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:26.639
Maybe we stomp on some bubbles to get some heavy work in.
00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:37.919
Each of those sensory strategies proactively are adding 25 cents, 50 cents to her budget to help give her more room before school starts.
00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:51.919
So when we combine these accommodations or discounts with active sensory strategies or deposits, we're doing our best to set our kids up for success because once they're at school, we have no control over their sensory triggers.
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:00.799
So if we can do our best to set them up for success in the morning, then we might have a fighting chance of them coming home with some budget reserved in their nervous system.
00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:04.799
It's not going to be perfect, but again, when is anything in parenthood perfect?
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We're just aiming for good enough.
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We're trying to set our kids up for success and bless and release, right?
00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:22.720
I really like this framework because it helps parents have more compassion and sympathy when behaviors seem to come, quote, out of nowhere, like what my husband was thinking was happening with my daughter.
00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:27.360
Because now they'll know that the child might have been having an expensive nervous system day.
00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:42.480
And it also explains why we see kids experience chronic dysregulation, like when they're burnt out or impacted from weeks or months of overstimulation, like many of us experiencing this in January after the holidays.
00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:48.320
It's because the nervous system budget doesn't magically replenish every day when we sleep.
00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:49.840
There's no passive income here.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:59.519
If you go to bed with a negative balance, sleep might replenish some of it, but otherwise, your debt is just rolling over into the next day.
00:13:59.679 --> 00:14:02.159
So I hope that this framework was helpful for you.
00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:03.120
Let me know.
00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:07.759
Send me a DM, send me an email or a comment below wherever you're listening to the podcast.
00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:16.559
If you like learning about this and you want to hear more concepts and analogies that help you reframe behaviors, then my book, The Sensory Code, is definitely for you.
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:21.679
Go to the OTButterfly.com slash the sensory code to grab your copy.
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:35.600
Wait, before you go, I wanted to remind you that you can find more from me on my website at theotbutterfly.com, including all of my PDF offerings, courses, workshops, one-on-one coaching, and of course, my books.
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:40.879
If you want to do me a solid, please leave a podcast review on whatever platform you're listening on.
00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:43.840
It just helps people find my content easier.
00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.039
Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319
Welcome to the Sensory Code Podcast.
00:00:02.479 --> 00:00:12.960
I'm Laura Pettix, pediatric occupational therapist, creator of the OT Butterfly, author, neurodiversity advocate, and a neurodivergent mom raising a neurodivergent kid.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:22.000
Each episode, I'll teach you how to view behavior through a sensory and nervous system lens because what you see on the surface is never the whole story.
00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:26.160
So pull up a chair, grab your favorite fidget, and lock in.
00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.920
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:34.000
Guess what's happening next week?
00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:34.960
Any guesses?
00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:37.359
I've been mentioning it the last few episodes.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:44.799
Next week, on October 6th, my book, The Sensory Code, is officially out in stores.
00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.679
If you pre-ordered it, it's gonna be delivered.
00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:54.240
I am so excited, I'm a little anxious, but mostly excited for this to be finally out in the world.
00:00:54.479 --> 00:01:00.799
There is still time for you to pre-order if you have not pre-ordered yet and you're listening to this live.
00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:12.079
The benefit to you for pre-ordering is that you get access to three of my bonuses that I worked extremely hard at because I know that it's something that will help supplement your reading.
00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:24.799
So the first freebie is that you get access to my sensory inventory, which helps you think through some of the common behaviors that your child might be having and how they might link to certain sensory systems.
00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:37.599
With that, you take what sensory systems they are noticing the most challenges in or need the most support around, and then you go to step two, which is exploring my sensory activity vault.
00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:54.159
This is a vault of videos with some ideas separated by the different kinds of sensory systems that they activate, and they give you some really simple things to try at home or in the classroom based on what sensory system your child needs help with the most.
00:01:54.319 --> 00:02:08.800
And then finally, in step three, which is gonna be the most helpful for parents, is taking that information that you just learned, what sensory system your child needs help with, what sensory tools work for them the best, and it's gonna help you build it into your daily schedule.
00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:10.240
So it's interactive.
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.000
You get to go in there and type in what your daily flow is, your daily schedule is.
00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:32.159
You're gonna go through some drop-down menus and click what sensory strategies you've tried that worked, what upregulates them, what downregulates them, and it's gonna build a plan for you so that you feel more confident implementing a proactive sensory lifestyle to support your child's regulation.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:34.000
I mean, is that not amazing?
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.240
That's free when you pre-order my book.
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.240
So hopefully you're hearing this at the right time.
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:45.599
Head to theotbutterfly.com slash the sensory code, scroll to the bottom to see all the different links to pre-order.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.199
Then when you pre-order it, take a screenshot and then go back to that page.
00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:57.680
And at the bottom of it, there's a link that allows you to submit a picture of your pre-order receipt, and then you're gonna get access to the bonus.
00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:04.240
If you're having a hard time accessing that, feel free to send me an email, LauraPetix at theotbutterfly.com.
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:06.479
But yay, one week away.
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:07.360
I'm so excited.
00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.360
Thank you for all your support thus far.
00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:15.039
Speaking of proactive sensory regulation, that's the topic today.
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:18.560
I'm gonna teach you about the nervous system budget framework.
00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:26.879
It's a spin off of the disability community's spoon theory, if you know what that is, if you know how people say, I don't have enough spoons today.
00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:41.439
It's a spin off of that to help parents, teachers, educators conceptualize how all of a child's sensory processing differences can affect their nervous system and therefore their behavior.
00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:49.120
And it allows us to know how we can proactively support them and how we can feel better about supporting them proactively.
00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:58.000
And I say feel better about proactively supporting them because I know it's really easy for us as parents to think, why do I need to make that easy for them?
00:03:58.080 --> 00:03:59.039
I know they can do it.
00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:00.240
They're a smart kid.
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:01.360
I've seen them do it before.
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:02.719
Why can't they just do it today?
00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:04.800
I don't need to make life that easy for them.
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:06.159
Like they can do it, right?
00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:14.879
And in my book, I do go more into depth into some examples and some details of applying the nervous system budget to different sensory profiles.
00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:19.600
But today I'm gonna give you a general overview to help you understand it and hopefully it helps you.
00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.519
So I'm gonna start with telling you a story of how I started thinking about this.
00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:34.000
Back when my daughter was in her toddler years, she had these incredibly big, massive, debilitating, explosive meltdowns.
00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:49.759
Not like crying and whining and stomping her feet, like I'm talking, pupils were dilated, she was really sweaty, she was hitting people, hitting things, kicking things over, slamming her head to the ground, and sometimes she would lose control of her bladder.
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:57.600
This day-to-day repetitive explosive meltdowns was paralyzing for us as a family.
00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:07.279
And at this particular time in her life, I already was accepting that she was differently wired because she was showing signs of sensory sensitivity.
00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:16.000
She was very particular about the sounds and the way things looked in her surroundings, and she really struggled to stay regulated.
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:20.560
Like she was more dysregulated than regulated in her everyday life.
00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:26.480
And so, suffice to say that parenting at this stage was anything but easy.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:34.879
But even if parenting itself wasn't easy, it was easy for me to understand her experience.
00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:44.160
I knew what she was going through because I'm an occupational therapist and my specialties in sensory processing and nervous system regulation.
00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:48.160
And on top of that, I also have a sensory-sensitive nervous system.
00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:52.160
So, like I said, it was easy for me to get what was going on.
00:05:52.399 --> 00:06:01.360
Now, my husband, on the other hand, was really struggling to connect the dots until we had this single exchange.
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We came home from some events that she did at a school, and she did great.
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She did great at the preschool event.
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And she was having a snack at home, just enjoying her snack one minute.
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And then the next, she was like pushing herself back in her chair, almost tipped it over, and she was in a level 100 meltdown.
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The trigger had something to do with like her snack that she was eating and how messy it got.
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Maybe it was an avocado sliding, if I'm remembering correctly.
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But that particular how that unfolded isn't really important here.
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It's later in the evening after we got her calmed down, she's put to bed.
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The first thing my husband said is like, man, I don't get it.
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We had such a great day.
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It's like she goes from zero to 100 and then bam, she's gone.
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And that's when I had to look at him and was like, Oh, you sweet, sweet, sweet thing.
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You think she's starting at zero?
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No, she is not starting at zero.
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She is constantly hovering around like a 90.
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She's constantly simmering at a 90.
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I had to explain to him the concept of cumulative dysregulation and how that works.
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It's not like you're boiling a pot of water and then you can like see it slowly start to simmer until it becomes a boil.
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It's just the simmering is invisible.
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So if you have a kid who also simmers quietly beneath the surface and then all of a sudden has this really big explosion, then you know what it feels like to walk on eggshells, right?
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And so I think that the nervous system budget is going to help you reframe how you think of that.
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So here's how I explain it.
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Our nervous system has a limit to how much stress it can tolerate.
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We're gonna call that the budget, how much stress your nervous system can tolerate.
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Every person has a nervous system budget, and our budget gets spent on all the cognitive, all the sensory, and all of the social demands that we endure throughout our day.
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Even the mundane kind of autopilot tasks like getting out of bed can deduct things from our budget.
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But some tasks or activities or environments are more quote expensive than others, and the price of them can vary from person to person.
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So let's say, for example, my daughter, who is sensitive to the way that socks feel on her feet.
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Let's say putting socks on for her costs her nervous system$5, but it might cost someone who isn't tactile sensitive only one dollar.
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The most important thing here to remember is that the actual dollar numbers are arbitrary.
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You can scale them however makes sense for whatever your economy system is where you live, but just assigning a dollar value to a task is what we're doing here.
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Then we can also consider the fact that we have hard days sometimes, and sometimes we're tired, sometimes we're sick, sometimes we didn't get enough sleep, sometimes there's something going on in the environment that just makes everything feel incrementally harder.
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This is what I call tax.
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So if let's say on a typical day, putting socks and shoes on cost my daughter's nervous system$5, then maybe on her first day of school with the anxiety and the nerves, there's an added$1 tax, and then it feels harder for her that day.
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Or maybe we're running late for school and I rush her, and that added rushing adds tax.
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So you can also think of things like bright lights or unexpected sounds like a dog barking in the environment as other ways that a task can become more expensive.
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Those things can add tax.
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Now, what happens when our kids have spent all their nervous system cash on things like putting socks on before school, dealing with the sounds of the school bell, sounds of the noisy classroom, having to maybe suppress their stims or fidgeting because the teacher says they can't.
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Maybe they have to deal with the sand that gets in their shoe at PE.
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What happens when your child spends all of their nervous system budget on those things just tolerating the school day?
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Well, you know what happens.
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They come home and then they have like a negative balance in their nervous system budget.
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This is when you start noticing dysregulated behaviors.
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They're irritable, they're grouchy, they might have a meltdown, maybe they start fighting with their siblings, they have a hard time settling down for homework or dinner, whatever it is, you know the drill.
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So here's the million-dollar question that I know you might be thinking about.
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How do we add more cash to their budget?
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How can I make my kid a millionaire in their nervous system budget?
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How can we prevent overdrawn budgets?
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These are great questions.
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And there are two main ways that I think of this.
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Proactively, if you know that a certain activity, again, let's go with the sock example for my daughter, if you know that a certain activity is going to be expensive for them, you might try to discount the price by offering accommodations.
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So perhaps you find shoes that she could slip her feet in without socks.
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Maybe you turn the socks inside out so that the seams aren't as bothersome.
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This can reduce the cost of the task to let's say like$4.
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Again, remember the numbers are arbitrary, so it's just to illustrate a point.
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But that would cost less to your child's nervous system budget and relieve some added budget that they can use on other things.
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But you could also make deposits into your child's nervous system budget by integrating sensory strategies throughout the day.
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Maybe you manipulate their schedule a little bit so that they have more breaks in their day.
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So if we're gonna go back with the sock example, maybe again, it costs her$5 as a kid who's sensitive to tactile input.
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And we can discount this by making sure we find her sensory-friendly options, which takes it down to$4.
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But then let's say on school mornings, I know she's gonna have a really expensive day ahead of her with sensory triggers at school.
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Maybe it's raining that day, and I'm like, oh my gosh, she's gonna have a lot of sensory triggers at school.
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So I want to make some extra deposits to her budget before I drop her off.
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So I cuddle with her.
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We do some foot massages, two things that I know that she likes, right?
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These are things that add to her nervous system budget.
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Maybe we stomp on some bubbles to get some heavy work in.
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Each of those sensory strategies proactively are adding 25 cents, 50 cents to her budget to help give her more room before school starts.
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So when we combine these accommodations or discounts with active sensory strategies or deposits, we're doing our best to set our kids up for success because once they're at school, we have no control over their sensory triggers.
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So if we can do our best to set them up for success in the morning, then we might have a fighting chance of them coming home with some budget reserved in their nervous system.
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It's not going to be perfect, but again, when is anything in parenthood perfect?
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We're just aiming for good enough.
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We're trying to set our kids up for success and bless and release, right?
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I really like this framework because it helps parents have more compassion and sympathy when behaviors seem to come, quote, out of nowhere, like what my husband was thinking was happening with my daughter.
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Because now they'll know that the child might have been having an expensive nervous system day.
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And it also explains why we see kids experience chronic dysregulation, like when they're burnt out or impacted from weeks or months of overstimulation, like many of us experiencing this in January after the holidays.
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It's because the nervous system budget doesn't magically replenish every day when we sleep.
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There's no passive income here.
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If you go to bed with a negative balance, sleep might replenish some of it, but otherwise, your debt is just rolling over into the next day.
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So I hope that this framework was helpful for you.
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Let me know.
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Send me a DM, send me an email or a comment below wherever you're listening to the podcast.
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If you like learning about this and you want to hear more concepts and analogies that help you reframe behaviors, then my book, The Sensory Code, is definitely for you.
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Go to the OTButterfly.com slash the sensory code to grab your copy.
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Wait, before you go, I wanted to remind you that you can find more from me on my website at theotbutterfly.com, including all of my PDF offerings, courses, workshops, one-on-one coaching, and of course, my books.
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:40.879
If you want to do me a solid, please leave a podcast review on whatever platform you're listening on.
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It just helps people find my content easier.
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Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
