The Pause Button
This newsletter is dedicated to those in the world that care for children and others with "special needs." I invite you into this community where shared experience, support, encouragement, heart-connection and celebration welcome you. In this issue, I will share a story of an experience with my son who has Aspergers, highlighting how the processes of NonViolent Communication (NVC) and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) both inform and transform my parenting.
First a little background info. My son, Rylan, was given a math disability in the first grade. I didn't even know such a diagnosis existed until then. Part of the testing he underwent revealed a lack of working memory, which is critical to compute math. I didn't find out until the end of the school year that his ongoing experience learning math was sitting in isolation at a desk with a timer. The thinking behind this was it would help him focus on his math work because he was slower than the other students. No one was allowed to talk with him until he was done. His system was anxious to begin with, especially when separated from warm, caring relationships. Now, four years later, just hearing the word subtraction, he panics, setting off a deeply engrained pattern of overwhelming helplessness.
Let's look for a moment now at how his experience of stress affects him through the lens of IPNB and see what happens in the brain. The repeated experience ofpanic sends a flood of hormones, shifting him instantaneously into survival mode. One of the hormones released, cortisol, inhibits the hippocampus (the dark orange curving branches located in the limbic system). This part of his brain stores and organizes learned material and connects it with what he already knows. Also inhibited, and losing its power supply, is the logical and reasonable part of his brain where calm and resiliency prevail, the prefrontal cortex (the lighter circle behind the eyes on left side of photo). Rylan's whole nervous system prepares him for danger, turning on his emotional alarm system, the amygdala (the light orange almond shape), and it's very hard for him to stay calm and solve problems. His primitive impulse for fight/flight/freeze is activated, and his objective becomes to fight to physically survive.
Rylan and I have been practicing interrupting this pattern when his brain perceives he is in danger. We want to create new neural patterns using fresh experiences so the old patterns in time will fall away. The way this practice of "interruptions" looks is that I respond with spontaneity and creativity in the face of his triggered reactions, tracking what his needs might be in the moment, while simultaneously holding an intention for connection and presence. This is something I've gradually been able to begin doing after receiving lots of empathy and self-empathy that has helped me widen my own window of tolerance in the face of Rylan's stress/panic.
Once the pattern of panic is interrupted, Rylan's prefrontal cortex restarts and another hormone, GABA, calms his emotional alarm system. This brings his hippocampus back on line, which is also known as our cognitive mapper because it assembles bits of information into memories. With these pieces in place, Rylan is able to take in new information and learn. Now back to sharing my story.
So, we were sitting across from one another at the kitchen table and had just completed a section working with number families, adding to find the big number. Turning the page, I read to Rylan, "Number families also show you how to write subtraction problems." Hearing a loud gasp, I stopped reading and looked up to see Rylan's eyes and mouth opened wide. His eyebrows shot up as he lifted his arm to throw his pencil. Suddenly he paused. His eyes shifted momentarily to catch mine, and then with a mighty yell he hurled the pencil across the room.
Jumping off my chair with happiness and clapping my hands together (derailing the perceived danger), I asked, "Rylan! Rylan! Do you know what I just observed?"
"No," he replied, with a surprised and rather confused expression. I saw his body shift and relax a little, an indication his system was coming back to calm alert.
"I saw you pause for just a moment before you threw the pencil. I find that so very interesting, and I wonder what was happening for you then. Did you notice that moment when you paused, too?" I asked.
Reflecting silently for a moment, he answered with a frown. "Yeah, I paused, and then I threw the pencil anyway."
"Wow!" I said, "you noticed that you paused too? That is so exciting! You've developed your own pause button! High-five, dude!"
We high-fived, and I sang out "Yay Rylan, celebrate Rylan, sing it with an open grateful heart! Yay Rylan, celebrate Rylan, sing it with an open heart!"
As I sang, I danced around the table to take his hands in mine, inviting him to join me in celebration, and together we sang the celebration song again. Rylan spontaneously changed the lyrics to "Yay Gloria, celebrate Gloria, sing it with an open grateful heart..." and ended our dance with a warm hug.
I asked, "How do you imagine that moment might look different now?"
Rylan walked over, picked up his pencil, and sat back at the table. Lifting up his arm to throw the pencil, using the same facial expressions and noise, he paused. His face broke into a big smile as he calmly lowered his arm and said, "Now, where were we again, Mom? Subtraction number families?"
In the midst of difficult moments, we've been starting to experience that the repetition of this practice of interrupting makes more space for me to find connection and presence, and creates more compassion and self-awareness of behavior for Rylan. Our long-term goal is an on-going neuroception of safety so that Rylan will develop internal resources to slow things down and see options even while he is triggered. Once connection and presence link us together, we brainstorm a "rewind" of how he now imagines the experience might have been different, with all the parts of his brain working together, and we experientially play that out.
I'm loving how choosing to stay connected and present for my son provides him with a radically different model for learning, especially considering he has "special needs." Learning can only take place when there is both physical and emotional safety to take in new information and there is freedom to learn at your own pace. Creating an environmental neuroception of safety is only possible when consistent support is provided for children to find their way back to regulation when they become triggered.
