The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}

So many struggling and overwhelmed parents feel like their biggest problems are their kids' behaviors and the chaos that's taking over their family. This week's guest, a longtime Club member, talks about how she slowly came to realize that what she really needed to focus on wasn't strategies to change her kids' behavior, but experiences that would soften the shame she was carrying.

This guest bravely shares that her shame didn't soften on her own. It took showing up in community with other parents who were honest about their own mess and who received her without judgment, over and over, before she could start offering herself that same compassion.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why self-compassion is almost impossible to build alone
• How this mom's own regulation changed before her kids' behavior did
• What it sounds like when your kids start offering that same compassion back to you — and to themselves

Read the full transcript at: URL goes here

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

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

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

Screens. Sugar. Anything that feels really good. The advice to just "lower the demand" can fall really short because for some kids, more access brings real relief. But for others, more access actually causes more stress and we wind up asking kids to take on a responsibility that is beyond their developmental capacity.  

This episode digs into what's actually generating the stress underneath the behavior, and what it looks like when a kid needs to be held steady instead of shifting our expectations.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why high-reward things like screens carry their own built-in stress, and how that changes the question of whether to give more access or less
• What it looks like when a kid needs the burden of managing something taken off their shoulders entirely
• How to tell if a boundary is actually working: not whether your kid protests, but which direction things are trending over time

If this is landing for you and you want to map this out for your own kid, come join us in The Club. Our resource library and our members will help you map your child’s nervous system, troubleshoot things when they don’t seem to be getting any better, and show you how to take care of yourself in the middle of all of it. 

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Enabling vs. Low-Demand Parenting → RobynGobbel.com/enabling
• Exploring Low Demand Parenting → RobynGobbel.com/lowdemand
• Stress Response System → RobynGobbel.com/stressresponse

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/morestress

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

Every behavior. Every parenting moment that feels impossible. It all comes back to three sentences — the three core tenets that distill how relational neuroscience makes sense of behavior and give us a roadmap toward change.

This episode lays out the three truths underneath everything I do — this podcast, my books, The Club, the Immersion Program — and why they matter more than any single strategy ever could. Caring for kids with big, baffling behaviors is so overwhelming and confusing. Having an anchor is non-negotiable.

In this episode you'll learn:

• The three sentences that hold up this entire framework and sum up what behavior really is
• Why Social Baseline Theory says your nervous system was never built to carry hard moments alone
• How these three truths can help in the middle of a meltdown — with your kid, with yourself, with anyone you love who's having a hard time

You don't have to hold onto these truths by yourself. That's what The Club is for!

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Start Here Podcast: The 6-episode series built to go first → RobynGobbel.com/starthere
• Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior — free masterclass + ebook → RobynGobbel.com/masterclass
• The Owl/Watchdog/Possum, Stress-Brain-Behavior, and Parent Regulation roadmaps → RobynGobbel.com/downloadroadmaps

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/threethings

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

You know that kid who just can't stay in the therapy room? They leave, wander around, get into things that aren't theirs, or are maybe even destructive? And three therapists have already called it quits.

Maybe this describes your kid. Maybe this describes the kids you work with. This episode is for both of you. The helper who is trying to be with this kid, wondering what they're doing wrong. The helper who is working with a furious or checked-out parent — because it's the same question. But this episode is for the parent of that kid, too.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why saying yes to this work means saying yes to dysregulation — kid dysregulation, parent dysregulation, all of it 
• What it looks like to stay regulated next to someone else's protection mode, whether that's a kid on a windowsill or a parent saying nothing is working
• Why a helper- or a parent- can't do this alone; and how being met with regulation yourself is what makes it possible to offer it to someone else.

Come find your people — the ones who get how hard and how worth it this work is. 

If you’re a parent or caregiver, join us in The Club at robyngobbel.com/theclub

If you’re a helper and want to be included in my database of professionals trained in my framework, apply for the immersion program at https://RobynGobbel.com/immersion

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Reframing Resistance → https://robyngobbel.com/training/reframing-resistance/RobynGobbel.com/starthere
• Immersion Program → RobynGobbel.com/immersion

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/helperframework

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

When life is overwhelming and your kid's behavior makes no sense — and feels like it's getting worse — even the best resources get hard to use. You're too dysregulated to sort through 270 episodes or an almost 300-page book to figure out where to start. Of course you are.

This episode breaks down why you freeze in the face of new information, or end up just begging someone to tell you what to do — plus a personal story about learning that the hard way, and the actual order to work through instead.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Why "I don't even know where to start" is a regulation problem wearing a content problem's clothes
• Why more information stopped being the answer at a certain point, and what had to happen instead
• The exact order to work through first — and which of three free roadmaps actually matches where you are right now 

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Start Here Podcast: The 6-episode series built to go first → RobynGobbel.com/starthere
• Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior — free masterclass + ebook → RobynGobbel.com/masterclass
• The Owl/Watchdog/Possum, Stress-Brain-Behavior, and Parent Regulation roadmaps → RobynGobbel.com/downloadroadmaps

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/WhereDoIStart

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

For years, "the four functions of behavior" has been the go-to framework for understanding why kids do what they do: attention, escape, access to tangibles, sensory. It's not wrong, but it's not the whole story either. In this episode, we dig into where this model actually came from, what it leaves out, and what's underneath it once we go looking with a relational neuroscience lens.

In this episode, you'll learn: 

• Where the four functions of behavior actually came from, and why this is relevant
• Why naming a behavior's "function" and saying it started in the nervous system aren't competing ideas — they're just two different layers of the same truth 
• What's actually underneath attention-seeking, escape, tangible-seeking, and sensory behavior - and how to start identifying the missing skill that can be scaffolded

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast

• All Behavior Makes Sense ep. 198
• When it’s not Working ep 261
• The Club (membership community + troubleshooting worksheet)

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/behaviorfunction

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

We've been in a three-part series on sticky behaviors (behaviors that don’t seem to change, no matter WHAT you do!), and today we're doing the detective work: what is your specific child's nervous system actually predicting? 

In This Episode

• Three detective questions to help you identify what prediction might be driving your child's stickiest behaviors, and what those behaviors are actually protecting against
• Why you don't have to get the detective work exactly right, because the mismatched experience that changes the brain is almost always the same thing no matter what prediction is running
• How your working theory about your child's nervous system changes something in you first, and why this is so important (but also, no pressure. We’re all doing the best we can)

Resources Mentioned

• Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors — robyngobbel.com/bafflingbook
• The Club — robyngobbel.com/theclub
• Immersion Program for Professionals — robyngobbel.com/immersion
• Part 1 of this series: Why Sticky Behaviors Stay Stuck 
• Part 2 of this series: What Actually Changes Sticky Behaviors
  
  

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/predicting

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

Part 1 was about why sticky behaviors stay stuck. Part 2 is where the hope lives. We're diving into the two mechanisms that actually change sticky behaviors at the neurological level. This is the episode that makes the hardest ask of Part - shifting away from ‘fix-it’ and ‘this has to change’ energy- make sense.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why your child's dysregulation isn't the obstacle to healing; it's actually the doorway to it
• The two mechanisms that change sticky behaviors at the neurological level, why one creates the conditions for the other, and why neither of them will look like anything is working for a long time
• What it actually means to stay regulated during your child's hardest moments 

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/changesticky

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

If you've tried everything and a behavior just won't stop…that's a sticky behavior. Let's dive deeeeeep into the neuroscience behind the behaviors that feel impossible to change. We'll touch on how the brain stores predictions and how the most well-meaning response can actually, unintentionally, keep those predictions locked in place and perpetuate that sticky behavior. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series that brings new aha moments to your child's most baffling behaviors.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your child's brain holds onto certain behaviors so tightly, and why it has nothing to do with defiance or choice
• What neural glue is and why the behaviors encoded under overwhelm and aloneness are the stickiest of all
• Why the urge to make a behavior stop can actually confirm the very prediction the behavior is protecting

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• https://robyngobbel.com/immersion/

Read the full transcript at:RobynGobbel.com/stickybehaviors1

The Club is the only place Robyn works with parents and caregivers- and we are currently welcoming new members! The doors are open until Tuesday October 13th. We know The Club is the club you never wanted to join- but are so grateful you did...and we can't wait to meet you!

RobynGobbel.com/TheClub

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

Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion

Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram

Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)