SHINE - Gwasanaeth Dull Ysgol Gyfan

0:14 Hi everyone. Um, just double checking that you can see and hear us. Okay. Um,

0:21 just quickly to introduce ourselves, my name is Mel. I am the team lead for Murtha and Cannon Shine Schools in

0:27 Reach. Greg, hello. My name is Greg. I'm the uh Shine Schooling Reach uh team lead for Ronda

0:33 and Taff. Okay. And we have been asked to deliver some material today about how to support

0:40 your young people with emotional regulation. Um we have got quite a funky

0:48 um you know nice funky little uh presentation, but you'll just have to take our word for it until we can find a

0:53 way to um to get that uploaded. So just bear with me. Just a few ground rules. What we would say is please feel free to

1:00 make this interactive and ask questions. We would ask um that you put your hands up respectfully that we all remember

1:06 that whatever is discussed here um is private and also if you can refrain from

1:12 using any identifiable information. So we do not want to hear your child's name, their age um or anything

1:20 identifiable about the school as well. Um, so if you could just bear that in mind and hopefully we can have a nice

1:26 respectful um and informative session. Uh, albeit it'll have to be terribly imaginative because I don't have the

1:32 slides as yet, but that might come in time as well. So, please just bear with me a second while I find them and we'll

1:38 be right with you. Greg and I are the worst at technology. So, in terms of user error, we will stay say that to

1:44 start with. Okay. So, here we go. We've already discussed this. Uh, to enhance your knowledge on emotions. Um, this is

1:51 what we're hoping to achieve for today, okay? So that you will have a better understanding of what emotions are and

1:58 how you can support your children and your young person to manage them. Um,

2:03 not to look at them terribly in a in a negative way. Um, to look at things hopefully with more of a positive way.

2:09 Emotions are something that we all experience many times during the day. I often say to people, we're humans, not robots. So therefore, we have the full

2:16 range of human emotions. Um oftentimes we have them quite close together. We can be happy one minute and sad the next

2:23 and you know so uh there's no strict rules on it but trying to look at the positive relationships there as well. Um

2:30 and again to develop our enhancing coping skills to manage any of the intense the more intense and the more

2:36 challenging or unmanageable emotions essentially.

2:42 Okay . What are emotions? I'm sure you've all heed of the analogy of the um of the

2:48 iceberg where you know I think it's I think it's used we used to refer to it as the clinical iceberg didn't we Greg

2:53 when they when they were um trying to teach us in nursing school essentially sort of that we see the top

2:58 third of the iceberg but you don't see the two/3s that are submerged. So we what we might see for an example would

3:04 be an angry outburst but what we don't see is what's going on underneath with the um with the iceberg there. Also as

3:12 we just pointed out all emotions are valid. Um we are essentially humans not

3:18 robots. Um so if we think about what are emotions they are nothing more or less

3:25 than a complex psychological state made up of essentially three parts. Now the

3:30 three parts um would primarily be part one would be a subjective experience.

3:36 What do we mean by subjective? So a subjective experience where it would be so maybe myself and Greg would have the

3:42 entire we'd have the same experience um and somebody looking in would

3:47 objectively say well you've had the same experience but my response or my reaction to that experience would be

3:53 entirely different from Greg. So say for example we were just talking about football so we go into a football match

3:58 Greg supports Chelsea. Um I don't really support anybody. Nick who do you support?

4:04 Manchester United. Manchester United. Okay. So, we're watching a match. Greg's watching. He's rooting for Chelsea. Nick's rooting for

4:10 Manchester United. So, we um it happens to be uh Give me a good score. What's a

4:16 good score? 3 Chelsea. Okay. 3-0 to Chelsea. So, Greg's experience, even though we both got this

4:22 experience, you know, we sat there watching the match, Greg's experience is euphoric. You know, he's really thrilled. He's there thinking his team's

4:28 done really, really well. So, subjectively, his response is and his experience is this is great. This he's

4:34 joyous. literally joyous. Uh our poor neck, who's behind the scenes at the minute, bless him, um would be having

4:40 less of a joyous experience. He would be having a subjective experience of feeling like, "Oh, my team didn't play

4:45 very well. The other team played really dirty. Um I feel angry. I feel robbed of

4:51 this positive experience. This was unjust. It's unfair. The ref is blind and all the other things that they say

4:57 during football." So again, thinking about things um a subjective experience.

5:02 Next, secondly, we would be having a physiological response. So, again, thinking of the football analogy. So,

5:09 Greg now his team is winning. They're 3-0 up at the end. He's on his feet. He's shouting. He's like, "Yes,

5:14 fantastic." His heart is racing because he's feeling really happy and joyous. He's there anticipating getting to the

5:20 pub to celebrate. Um Nick is starting to feel, you know, a little bit more like, you know, well, I'm feeling

5:26 disappointed. I'm feeling angry. I'm feeling despondent. So his physiological response would be slightly different in

5:32 that you know he um you what what would you see in that sort of response? You

5:38 know your head would be bent over. You wouldn't be you know when you joyous you're kind of like oh yeah that's that's great. Um when it's the opposite

5:46 you would have an opposite response to that. The third one then would be the behavioral um or an expressive response.

5:53 And what we mean by that is how you would see um the outcomes of your child. So essentially, your child's had an

6:00 experience, a subjective experience. You can't quite work out why they're feeling happy or sad or um anxious about that.

6:08 They've had a physiological response because your body responds in the same way. Um regardless of whether we

6:14 understand as parents or carers or or educators or clinicians, whether we understand or not, they still have the

6:20 same physiological responses, but it's how the behaviors are then exhibited which is um the issue. and and sort of

6:28 why I guess why we here today. So if you think about who is involved within the

6:33 the lives of your your young person, it would be your parents and carers, the child themselves, school and school

6:38 staff and often we think about peers and and friendship groups as well. I think jumping onto that scenario, it's

6:45 um one scenario but two very different emotional expressions. Um I think as a

6:51 parent you're there to help guide them, not eliminate them. So, you know, the fact that somebody's on a negative

6:58 emotional journey, you know, sometimes as parents, even as nurses, we feel like we've got to eliminate that, save that

7:04 distress, was actually it's quite a learning opportunity. Um, and even as a parent, there's a lot of pressure for us

7:09 to take that distress away instantly. Um, which is not to always a bad thing,

7:14 but it's about kind of being the guide for them and exploring both sides of it. So, we're not just modeling the

7:20 consistent positive emotion and go, well, actually, it is okay to be upset. your team lost, you're upset, that is perfectly fine. Um, we're using this

7:27 example because it's um, quite easy to understand. We know our little ones are even ourselves are quite more complex,

7:33 which we're going to go on to in a bit. Um, so yeah, that's the point of that is there's one scenario, two spectrums of

7:39 emotions, and it's just trying to see um, of how you explore it rather than trying to eliminate the the emotions of

7:45 what the little ones are experiencing or even try to rescue them from having those emotions and feeling those

7:50 feelings as well. So again, thinking about what we do to as Greg rightly said there to try and rescue them so that

7:56 they don't have to feel worried, scared, angry, upset, anxious. Um it can't

8:02 entirely be one-sided that we want them to have all the positive things like joy and surprise. Um so yeah, we'll discuss

8:09 that in a second. It's okay. How might I feel? We can describe uh emotion regulation by asking some of these

8:15 questions. um how do hormones affect my emotions?

8:21 We will see this increasingly as children get sort of uh

8:27 in recent years the uh sort of the age of puberty has come down a lot lower. So

8:34 essentially we would have seen hormonal implications within a secondary school environment but now we increasingly see

8:39 them within primary school environments. We notice that our young people are developing at an earlier age. Um, is it

8:46 normal that my emotions can shift from one emotion to to another? Why do I feel them so strongly? How can I control my

8:52 emotions and my responses? Um, and this last one, why do I feel as though my emotions are in control of me? This was

8:58 uh interestingly, we had a a young a young person in a primary school say to one of our clinicians quite recently,

9:04 she po he posed the question. He said, "Miss," he said, "Uh, are we in control of our emotions or do our emotions

9:11 control us?" I thought, "That's really introspective. That's that's a big question for for a young, you know,

9:17 8-year-old lad to be to be contemplating. And I I suppose the honest answer to that is at that age,

9:24 probably a little bit of both. As adults, we would say that we are in control of our emotions or at least we we ought to be in control of our

9:31 emotions by the time we reach adulthood. However, within childhood, it it definitely is that little bit of both.

9:37 When we think of our emotions as well, you know, we think about those those primary emotions. Um so we can have

9:43 primary emotions and secondary emotions but those primary emotions will be the things you will recognize them I'm sure

9:48 as characters from um inside out but they will be your joy, sadness, fear,

9:54 anger, surprise and disgust. Every other emotion kind of sits underneath those. So your jealousy, anger, all of those

10:01 things kind of sit underneath those and we call those secondary emotions. Again, we'll revisit that in a little while and

10:06 go into that in a bit more detail. some um some questions that that may crop up either with you as

10:14 parents or or your young people might be asking you why do I feel my emotions so strongly. Um okay so let's discuss that.

10:22 I think it's always good to know that asking those questions to yourself first is quite helpful because you know the

10:29 the range of age can be quite varied. um as can the answer I suppose and there

10:37 isn't an answer you know again you know just just cuz we're parents nurses we're we're not we're not meant to be experts

10:42 we're meant to get things wrong but it's about being able to have the conversation and have those kind of preloaded questions ready to go well

10:50 actually you know let's explore this together again it's kind of that positive modeling what you want to kind

10:56 of encourage with um with little ones because I I think we tend to find a lot of emotion is expressed in quite

11:03 extreme. So, from high to low, so they're either really appy or they're really angry. Um, we know there's a huge

11:10 range in between, but the behavior bit is is the most powerful bit, isn't it? You know, we've all seen our kids throw

11:16 stuff or um, you know, get verbally hostile sometimes. Um, that's the last

11:21 part of it. Um, and again, it's how we react to it. It's kind of doing some positive modeling about going, well,

11:27 actually, I've noticed you're a bit upset at this time. Maybe we can revisit this later. Rather than adding fuel to it. Um, and like that's why we put on

11:34 here that it's okay to feel your feelings. You know, we want these experiences. You know, if I always used

11:39 to ask when I did therapies was if you could take an emotion away, what would it be? A lot of kids would say anger, for example. But can you imagine never

11:45 getting angry? You know, I mean, that sounds great, doesn't it? But in terms of anger as its own uh uh superpower in

11:53 a way, because it makes you be able to look at something, go, well, I'm not really happy with that. But it's just making it control. And we know kids, uh,

12:00 adolescence do have extremes. Um, and it's just kind of making sure that they

12:05 they're safely managed in a way where they've got support. You can go back over it later. And equally make it that

12:11 they are allowed to be angry, they are allowed to be sad, they are, you know, that that's what we want. Otherwise, they'd be a computer.

12:18 Yeah. Exactly. Humans, we're humans, not robots. And feeling your feelings is really important. Um, I love what you

12:23 just said there about, you know, that some people would like to take away their anger. And when we think about it, every behavior or every outcome actually

12:31 has a function. So every behavior has a function. So if you think, well, my child is struggling with anger. Anger is

12:39 essentially an extreme way of expressing that they feel that something is not fair or injust. So you're right. If we

12:45 took away our anger, anger, and we never felt, but you know what, this is really unfair. this is really unjust. Then

12:51 probably women still wouldn't have the vote or uh people would still not be having access to education if you were

12:57 from certain lower classes. If we did not feel that certain things in certain components of our lives were unjust or

13:03 unfair, then we wouldn't have feel anger and then we wouldn't have the impetus to forge positive change. Um which is all

13:11 well and good. But again, you know, it's interesting to see that as parents, we're just like, are they so angry? How do we deal with that? Um and and within

13:19 schools as well, you know, there's 30 children in a class, maybe um behaviors escalate and then teachers then often

13:26 are not able or do not take the time to explore what's going on with these big

13:32 feelings. So we have to accept our emotions um and we have to ensure that

13:37 uh we particularly as parents, you know, because in in addition to being clinicians, we're also parents here as

13:43 well. Um, you know, it's really important to understand that we that our children learn more from how we deal

13:50 with situations than the words that we say. And pretty sure that mine my children pretty much disregard most of

13:57 the words that I say. But they see that consistency and that continuity in the

14:03 responses to tricky situations and that is the thing that they learn about. So again, if your child is suffering with

14:09 anger feelings, just take a step back and think, okay, when they're becoming angry, how do I respond here? Are they

14:14 mirroring me? Are we escalating each other? Exactly what's going on here?

14:22 Which brings us nicely on to talking about our brain. Whenever we're in any type of situation,

14:29 um then your brain responds accordingly. uh well it's actually your central

14:34 nervous system sends a message to your brain. You've got these little glands that sit on top of your kidneys. These

14:40 are called adrenal glands. And when we become um stimulated in any way, so for

14:46 an example, if we perceive that there is danger, whether it's real or a perceived danger, a real danger might be, oh my

14:52 gosh, I was just about to cross the road and then a car came really fast and I'm really adrenalized. a perceived danger

14:57 would be, you know, I just don't want to open my emails because I anticipate that there will be something unpleasant. Um,

15:03 I don't know that for a fact. My brain is having the same physiological response whether I've just almost got run over or whether I'm about to open an

15:10 email. So, essentially, your adrenal glands release this adrenaline um whenever we feel any sort of anxiety,

15:18 stress, anger, any of these other emotions. Um this chemical is absolutely

15:24 fantastic and I feel like it's really demonized within uh within today's society. I feel like you know this is

15:29 the this is the thing that helps us to you know if you've got children that love to play football. We've used football analogy or or rugby or play any

15:37 sports at all. You know this is how you feel before a game. This is where your muscles are getting stronger. Your

15:42 tunnel vision kicks in. your adrenal glands are going and it allows you to have the um

15:49 forget the word that I'm looking for. The focus. Yeah, that's a good one. Thank you. The focus and the stamina to

15:54 be able to play the game. So, it speeds up our heart rate and it provides us with uh all the things that we need to

16:00 be able to complete that task. In this instance, a game of rugby or um running

16:06 or any of these other things. So I feel like we often told that you know that these are negative things but again it's

16:11 let's reframe this and say these are the things these if you think of your body as being a computer these are the things that we are programmed with to keep

16:18 ourselves alive and to keep ourselves functioning um in in a positive manner.

16:24 Okay, now my computer's frozen again. You know when that happens.

16:31 Just having a bit of technical with the uh a minute. It's equally as slow as my brain. I think a fast I've had trigger finger

16:37 now. So we're likely to um

16:49 Oh, there we go. Thank you. I've been rescued. Love that. Okay. fight or flight. So um the fight flight freeze or

16:58 phone response has been with us since the beginning of time. As we said this is something that we are programmed with

17:05 and it is a lifesaving life-saving mechanism. Um it's incredibly important

17:11 and again you know thinking about it from the perspective it is literally a

17:16 superpower. It is a superpower. Um you might be familiar with fight flight and freeze. The phone response is something

17:23 that's most recently been added and refers more to sort of um responses that

17:29 you may see in young children um or in people that have experienced ACIS or

17:34 trauma. So a form response would refer to somebody that um develops skills

17:40 around people pleasing um and and uses that as a survival

17:45 instinct. So the phone response. Yeah. So fight, flight, and freeze. You're probably familiar with that. Do you want

17:51 to add anything? Yeah, I think what um is important here is that a lot everyone is has a very

17:58 different sensitivity to fight or flight um and being aware of that because like as a form of an analogy. So if I'm

18:05 upstairs and I open my come out of the shower and my alarm goes off, I just

18:10 dismiss it and go right, it's just the steam coming from a shower. Uh that's fine. Whereas if my fire alarm went off

18:15 downstairs in the kitchen and my kitchen set on fire, I'd be running out of the house. The point is it's an alarm going

18:22 off. Um, but it's just how you interact with the alarm. So, I always see fight or flight as an internal alarm. Um, and

18:29 that it's alerting you to a perceived danger. So, with our little ones, it's really helpful to actually work out what

18:35 type of things are they experiencing. What danger are they actually perceiving? Um, and then we'll go on to

18:41 it a little bit later on, but actually working out how big that perception of danger is. To us, it might be minimal.

18:47 Oh, it's getting on the bus for school or going to pay for money at a supermarket. Um, you know, things like

18:52 that. To us, that doesn't warrant fight or flight. We're just in the shower and the alarm goes off. To them, it's the

18:58 fire, the kitchen, they're running out. Again, sometimes these sound quite obvious. Really helpful to actually look

19:04 at how sensitive or what the main triggers are. Write them down. It's really important. Get them out of the little one's um minds onto a bit of

19:10 paper and go and rag rate them. You know, which ones are the worst? What's the most scary? um which can be quite

19:16 helpful. And there is a QR code video next which we're going to put on. Is it this one now video which does explain a

19:21 little bit better than what I did. Okay. Hopefully it's on this hopefully is here and hopefully you can see it. If

19:27 if you can't you please let us know and we'll find another way to try and communicate this to you. But this is just a little overview of what we've

19:33 just been speaking about.

20:35 There's no volume. No volume.

20:47 I think somebody said was there no volume? Is that for everybody just so we can get

20:54 Yes. Okay. What we'll do is if we pause the video, we'll um the QR code is back a slide.

21:01 So, I'm wondering if we go go back a slide and you guys can maybe watch in your own time. It's it's only 3 minutes

21:06 long, but it's rather Okay. So, if we put see there it says survival instinct. There's a QR code there. If

21:12 you um guys wanted to just take a picture of it, scan it and then watch that at the end. I think that might be a

21:18 bit more helpful. Yeah, there we go. So, that might be that that's a better idea. So, sorry we

21:23 couldn't get that to that volume to come through. Okay, there we go. Over to you.

21:30 Fight flight. Right. So, yeah, kind of like what I was saying earlier about kind of understanding the the responses and

21:36 equally I think a lot of us try to get rid of them. Um, I think it's far better

21:41 thinking to understand that these probably don't go away. Um and they are actually a survival instinct. We need

21:47 them. You know, it's almost like us asking our pancreas to slow down a bit. You know, our alert to danger needs to

21:53 be on point. That's why we are top of the food chain. But unfortunately um we don't need to be as alert um in the

22:01 modern world today as we did many years ago. Um a lot of our little ones I find for me get petrified of the word anxiety

22:09 or emotions. Um what I tend to do is split them into two. So I explore with

22:15 the young people what's the worst part of being overwhelmed with their emotions. Is it their thoughts or their

22:21 physical sensations? Splitting them into two. I mean even if I asked you guys now

22:26 for example which is the worst you know is it you're overthinking the catastrophizing or is it the physical

22:32 part where your heart feels like it's being crushed your heart rate increases? You're breathing you're sweating. So

22:39 it's really helpful to split it. Um because at the minute, you know, most kids under 16 get really overwhelmed. Um

22:46 so it's just about you again aligning with your little human and going, well actually what you're experiencing is

22:51 normal. You won't die. It's actually doing the opposite. It's making you look for danger or you've already inherited a

22:57 danger in your thought pattern and then trying to get a bit of a and do a pros and cons. A lot of people panic. It's

23:03 one of the best things you can do with anything. Look at pros and cons of of their responses. um most you'll find

23:09 they tend to be quite negative and again you're not there to disprove them you're just there to support them because um

23:14 you know the more you say oh it's fine don't worry about it it doesn't work it's just making them maybe diffusing it

23:20 by talking about it um so yeah we uh go to the next slide this is what I find

23:27 quite helpful I think um myself as a parent myself as a nurse is that again a

23:32 lot of um even for us we tend to find that we go from naugh to 100 quite

23:38 quick. Some people do it gradually. Um, sometimes little ones really struggle to

23:44 be able to convey what's going on in their thoughts. Again, because of their rational thinking kind of goes out the

23:50 window. They're in survival mode. They can't always put it into logic. So, what's quite helpful for me is to

23:56 actually put into a scale system. Um, and what I mean by that is you get the you again you you support the young

24:03 person to say, "Right, this is when you're number one and number five is when you're going to explode." And in the in between, you work out where

24:10 they're at. Now, the idea of this is that if example, your little one comes home and they're really angry, a lot of

24:17 people get dismissed. They go to their room, they tell the first thing everyone says, "Oh, what's wrong?" Most kids will

24:23 say nothing. And then the parent will push again to go, "No, I know something's not right. What's up?" And usually the little one closes down.

24:30 Sometimes using a number is a little bit easier for them. They can just say, "Right, I'm number four." So you can go, "All right, okay, you're getting angry."

24:37 What I mean by that is you're not there then to go and eliminate that anger, but it gives you another tool, but it also

24:42 gives them the ability to be able to communicate in a different way. Let's not assume that the 12year-old,

24:48 14year-old, 16year-old can converse with me as an adult around their emotions. They may just be able to use this, which

24:55 is far simpler. You could argue that it might seem that you're going back, but then I think for me, if someone can

25:01 express and communicate in a way which is uh beneficial to them, then that's far better than nothing or just getting

25:08 the behavior outburst of the throw in the telling you to f off as it were or

25:13 you know the storm upstairs. So this is not about you eliminating. So this is what I also want to get over. We're not

25:20 here to eliminate emotions, right? We're trying to get be people to understand them and express them. You know, think

25:26 of it. How hard is it and difficult when you can't communicate and then you've got a parent saying, "Oh, what's wrong?

25:32 Something must be wrong. What's wrong?" You know, whereas if you can give them this and they can go, "Well, actually, I'm two." Oh, right. Okay. I I've got it

25:40 wrong. Sorry. Great. Off to your room. It it gives you a bit more control of being able to understand our own inner

25:45 anxieties again to stop trying to save the distress. Um, and if they're at number five, everyone will say, "Well,

25:52 how do you get them down to five?" Again, logic. You can say, "Well, how do we get you down to four? Is there

25:57 something I can do to get you to four?" Um, you got to be careful not to deskll them, but equally, it's quite logical,

26:04 isn't it? Five going down to four seems like there's a there's a journey that you can do together. Don't go from five

26:11 to one cuz well, I mean, you can, but I'd be amazed if that works. Um, but it's about you kind of giving a bit of a

26:17 graded reduction of where they're at. And if they're at number four, you go, "Great. Well, what are you going to do to get to three?" And they may say, "I

26:23 don't know." Great. Then you as a parent can then look to support that. Um, so

26:28 yeah, that's quite helpful. The uh the five point scale, what we also add to it is um show you on the next slide now is

26:37 around the actual size of our worries. Again, a lot of our little ones to us is a normal uh day, whereas they might

26:44 inherit about 12, 13, 15 types of worries. They get massively overwhelmed and anxious and then they present and

26:51 their behavior tends to define how they're feeling. Um whereas this, you

26:56 can make these yourself. It's basically a temperature gauge. You can do it 1 to 5, you can do it 1 to 10, whatever. But

27:02 the idea is trying to reference this worry so the child can actually see it again as a number. um and actually work

27:10 out how big is this problem. It's quite handy to do for ourselves actually. You'd be amazed, you know, sometimes you

27:15 come home and you think, "Oh, I'm really worried about that." And when you actually write it down and go, "Well, it's number eight. What can I do to get

27:21 it down?" Um and we do struggle. Um especially for myself cuz sometimes you

27:27 look at it and think, well, actually, how do I get it down? And that very question forces a solution. And it's

27:33 interesting as well, you know, that by putting a numerical value against it is that you're actually able to yourself as

27:39 a parent to differentiate and also to be able to um allow your children to see

27:45 that the problem and the outcome. So the problem and the behavior are not terribly synonymous. So you can see the

27:52 example that we've got on the screen there. What's the problem? Um I lost a level in my game. So you're at level

27:57 three. So that's quite a small worry. But then the outcome or the behavior would have been an eight because they were so frustrated that the games

28:04 controller ended up being thrown at the wall. Games controller is now broken. Dogs frightened, hole in the wall, child

28:11 is screaming and histrionic um because they can't play the game. And you were there thinking what on earth is going on

28:18 here? So again the numer the numerical system allows you both you know once you can normalize this and integrate this

28:24 into your you know your way of rationalizing just allows you to see whether the outcome whether they're

28:30 overreacting basically and as adults we can you know we can begin to overreacting as well but it's

28:36 interesting to see the difference between um what the actual problem is and the outcome or the behavior that uh

28:44 that accompanies it and whether it is relative and proportionate. And I think it's a key at this point as a parent to

28:51 actually try to look at their ability to manage. And if you think they can't, that's when you're there to try and like

28:57 bridge that gap to allow them to explore it. Again, we're not here to to eliminate the full distress. It's about

29:03 exploring it. Generate the curiosity around it. That's one thing I use in my practice is all about someone's ability

29:09 to manage and generating curiosity to why they think they can't. Um, which is

29:14 quite powerful. And and when you've generated the curiosity, then it's about trying to to reframe that. So, okay,

29:20 you've lost a level in your game, um what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You know, you're going to die

29:26 and start start again. You know, it's about having those conversations. Obviously, not when they up there at 8,

29:32 9 and 10, when they come down a little bit. Having those conversations, that curiosity, how can we stop this

29:38 happening next time? Let's reframe it. So, you lost a level in the game, not the end of the world. the outcome is not

29:44 as big as you think it is. You didn't die in real life. You just died on a screen. Uh which most people will

29:50 probably think is worse if you're age I don't know analyst FIFA. Yeah.

29:55 Okay. So it actually is dependent on the game that you're playing as well. I think so. Which we get a lot of now.

30:01 There's a lot of game rage. I don't know if parents are experiencing it quite a lot, but there's a lot of that coming around as well. It's quite hard because

30:07 it's so emotionally invested little ones with their computer games that it's uh and as you get older we don't quite see

30:13 it but to them their size they worry you're probably about eight or nine was me it' be up up to three but again it's understanding that isn't it and going

30:19 well actually it's quite powerful to them um and actually getting on their level which is quite hard. It is quite

30:25 hard and again you know when you're saying about being emotionally invested when you think about the dopamine hits you get from gaming we got onto the

30:32 subject of gaming the dopamine hits that you get but um you know so the joy and the pleasure when they win and then that

30:38 instantaneous crash when they're dying when you have not been socialized over a long period of time as we have um or if

30:46 you are not witnessing socially um emotionally stable environments or um

30:54 then then it is difficult to kind of have that measured response, isn't it? You know, we can't expect young children

31:00 who haven't been socialized and been exposed to these things for decades to manage little things in the same way

31:06 that we do as adults. So, so again, I use this quite a lot when I

31:12 was doing um therapies is is the emotional wheel, which is quite important because I quite like this cuz

31:18 there's if we look at it, I mean, this isn't even hardly any, but it's there's quite a lot there. You tend to find

31:25 we've got the two juicy ones right in the middle, anger and happy. Um,

31:31 we don't really seem to want to help our kids when they're happy, but we always seem to jump on them when they're angry.

31:37 Um, which is interesting because again trying to model positive emotions. We're not here to just model always being

31:43 happy. Can you imagine if we took all those segments out and the child was just those one? Um, I suppose it would

31:49 be a bit of a dream, but realistically, we need that full range. It's really quite helpful actually seeing them

31:56 because even when you're working with someone or you're trying to support someone, there's a huge difference

32:01 between trying to support someone whether they're fearful or whether they're angry. um as you can see how

32:07 they kind of uh go out and tracking this with someone's really helpful. So if you

32:13 feel that you know your little one is feeling quite inferior and worthless, they become quite submissive and with

32:19 that then becomes fearful. Um there's a very different way how you would support that young person as opposed to them

32:26 assuming that they're sad. Um so it's really helpful sometimes just to track these even if you do them for yourself.

32:32 Sometimes it can be quite interesting. These aren't always I mean they're black and white but they're but they can be quite different to each person. However,

32:38 this this is just a kind of a bit of a guide really which can help. Um

32:44 it goes back to what you were saying about exploring the curiosity. You know you see the um the primary emotions the

32:49 ones nearest the the center the anger disgust sadness. Apparently there are it's something like 0.7

32:57 m of a microscond. I don't know I might have just made that up. I don't know. It feels right in my head. um where people

33:03 have um a genuine response and now as adults we quickly learn to compose

33:08 ourselves. Children are not quite given to being able to compose themselves. So if your child is disgusted, if you for

33:15 example uh you you know you wean in a baby and you give them a Brussels sprout for the first time, you can see by their

33:22 faces that they're disgusted and you know and and that is um something that's

33:27 easy to be able to to sort of see from their faces. So, but it's really interesting if you look think back to

33:32 that first um slide where we had the iceberg. So, they had anger as an

33:38 example on the iceberg. And when you look sort of, you know, where the slide is and it says anger, the two/3s that

33:43 are submerged underneath the an, you know, what's driving the anger, do they feel hurt? Do they feel threatened? Do

33:50 they feel furious? Um, violated you know, what's actually going on? What's driving that anger? because all we're

33:56 seeing is the anger and the outburst and the behavior, but what's actually driving that, you know. So, uh,

34:02 interesting to think about that from that, um, iceberg perspective. Again, you done with this one? Well, I would just add to this is that

34:09 we've we're assuming that again our little ones can make the link of what they're experiencing and then give us a

34:15 black and white answer. Um, which would be great, but sometimes they get them mixed up, sometimes they get them wrong,

34:22 and sometimes as a parent, we don't quite know how to approach it. So there's an acronym called wine um which

34:27 is w i i n e um it's nice and easy to remember. It's not drink a bottle. It's using the the letter

34:33 remember. Yes. Yeah. So for example, you know, if your little one comes in and they're extremely they present as that they're

34:39 really angry. Most people go, "Oh, what you really angry for?" or "What's happened now?" So it's quite attacking.

34:44 Whereas if you just use the word wondering, right? So you use the W, you can say, "I'm wondering what's happened today." Again, they can still get

34:51 responded with the same outcome. But the point is is you're trying to put a bit of distance and not an attacking threat

34:56 on it. The I stands for interested. So again, if you can put again, if they come in and they really look disgusted

35:02 or they look sad, you can say, "I'm interested how your day went." Or, "I'm interested what's happened." Whenever you show interest, it almost um diffuses

35:10 threat, but it also shows that somebody's interested, which is quite nice. Again, these are little subtle changes of trying to change your

35:16 language to your little ones, especially if they're emotionally heightened or if you think there's something wrong. Let's not assume that they can make these huge

35:23 links that we've got here. The N is noticed. This is probably one of the best ones because if anyone says, "Oh,

35:28 I've noticed." Um, you know, a it puts that person on the back foot because first of all, they want to go, "Oh, wow.

35:35 What have you noticed?" Um, and equally, it's nice that somebody's noticed something about yourself. Um, again, if

35:42 your little one comes in and they look, again, I'm just using the word angry, they look really angry. You know, a lot

35:47 of people would say, "Oh, what's wrong now?" Blah, blah, blah. was if you say I've noticed you're not yourself and leave a bit of a a gap. Really

35:54 interesting to see their response. So again, noticed is quite a powerful one. And the last one is e empathy. Really

36:00 weird word. Everyone thinks they can empathize. Um can I empathize with how a

36:05 13year-old girl feels of being through a horrible day in school and then being reminded it on WhatsApp and Snapchat. So

36:12 I think as a parent their reality is completely different to ours and it's just basically you reminding yourself

36:18 that their reality is completely different. Um so that's that kind of empathetic view which I try to take and

36:24 it is really hard because um especially as we get older. Um so yeah so that's wondering interested noticed and then

36:30 empathy. So again thinking feeling and behavior.

36:37 So again we can all fall into traps. Um we all predict the future. This is a good thing in our development through

36:42 evolution because it means we can predict things that go wrong. Unfortunately, it's something Oh, it's probably more now. So, like 86% of what

36:49 we predict doesn't happen. However, we invest a lot of energy into thinking. Um, which is great. But the problem we

36:56 have is we get extremely fixated with a certain thinking pattern. I think what's

37:02 really helpful with kids that get emotionally disregulated is they hyperfocus on one thinking style. So

37:09 very black and white, very predict the future. We often refer to this as a a little

37:14 trip to somewhere called what if land. So you will hear your child or other people re uh saying things like what if

37:22 this and then you know what if such and such happens? What if such and such doesn't like me? What if they say this

37:27 about me? You know and they can be you know pack their bags and take themselves on a nice little twoe trip to what if

37:35 land and it's not terribly pleasant on arrival. So uh so yeah it's interesting to see if you

37:41 look at the the signs of emotional dysregulation um a lot of these can be helped to

37:47 explain um so you know their intense emotions ask them to write down which ones are their worst emotions what's the

37:52 pros and cons the impulsive behavior that's a little bit more tricky because we can't control impulse hence why it's

37:58 called impulse lack of emotional awareness so again if you use the fivepoint scale then use the the

38:04 thermometer then use the wheel you can get a bit of an awareness of what these things called emotions are.

38:09 Troublemaking decisions we've I've said and Mel a few times is you're there to align and not to eliminate but to help

38:16 generate curiosity and support as a collaborative um way of managing um

38:22 which then knocks off the next one. And then also you'd hope to stop the avoidance. I mean listen we all avoid

38:28 things. So again it's working out if you avoid it now will that threat go away

38:33 tomorrow if the same thing comes up? Oh it won't. Okay. So, what can we do to try and help? Again, you're there to do

38:38 it collaboratively. I think even as a nurse, there's a lot of pressure and parents to kind of be the experts and

38:45 fix that uh emotional dysregulation. Um, it's far more powerful for that little

38:50 one to do it themselves, but it's trying to give them the guidance and the support around it.

38:57 So, lots of healthy habits. Um, again, we a lot of these are they sound quite

39:02 obvious, but they're the basics. Um I think for me the best the one is sleep.

39:08 If you ask anybody what's their sleeping routine pretty good at telling you their evening sleeping routine or their

39:15 morning routine. Um but most people tend to focus on how good their morning routine is and tend to neglect the

39:21 evening. So just be mindful of going well actually what is the evening routine. Um and again there's a couple

39:27 of little things there which may you can work out whether actually am I managing is food a positive? Is food a negative?

39:34 You know, food powers for 40% of your diet, it goes to your brain because they're big old things. So, it's really

39:40 interesting to know if your food is not great or your child isn't eating great, their sleep isn't great, and they're

39:45 stuck in their bedroom already there's a few habits there which is going to hinder them. Um, again, there, you know,

39:51 we're not here for to give you the magic answers how to stop that, but just to be mindful of it and go, well, actually, let's do little things, you know. Um

39:58 and and it it all does boil down to basics. You know, ultimately any mental health or well-being issue or disorder

40:05 can be underpinned or or made better by um positive healthy habits. An example

40:11 would be uh Greg touched upon sleep. I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves and our children is

40:17 to go to bed at the same time and to wake up at the same time. Your body appreciates that um structure and that

40:24 routine. Your body's also doing some really important things. So, if you if you say, for example, I like to go to

40:29 bed at 10:00. From about 8:00 p.m., my body starts yawning and feeling tired. That's when my melatonin is being made,

40:36 ready for me to be tired enough to actually go to sleep. When I'm asleep, my cells are regenerating. Um, my body's

40:42 calm. Interestingly, there's a direct correlation between poor sleep and

40:47 emotional dysregulation, um, anxiety and selfharming behaviors. So all of these

40:53 behaviors uh have a correlation to poor sleep. Now we're not saying that poor sleep causes them, but what we're saying

40:59 is that you are more likely to be engaging in this in these behaviors if you do not sleep correct, you know, and

41:07 have a have a quality sleep. I don't mean sleep, you know, as in,

41:12 you know, grab a couple of hours here or there. I mean a good a good routine, going to bed at the same time, waking up

41:18 at the same time. lack of uh lack of screen time ahead of going. Making sure the lighting is just right. Just

41:24 everything that you can do to ensure that your young person has an opportunity to have that really great

41:30 sleep. When we talking about things like food, um you know, we all know things like energy drinks, high sugar um items,

41:39 you know, particularly if they're having those before bed. Not only are they stimulants, so they'll, you know, keep

41:44 you awake, which appears quite obvious, but also if you're eating particularly sugary things too close to bedtime, your

41:51 pancreas is trying to to deal with all that uh sugar and trying to sort of, you know, stabilize your um hormone levels

41:58 within your body and and that is disrupting to sleep as well. There's a lot that goes on underneath the surface

42:04 that really impacts on how we think, how we feel. People with high blood pressure, their blood pressure is

42:10 significantly reduced if they are sleeping well and and eating well and moving more. So literally I know it

42:17 seems like this sort of you know answer this this blanket response to everything. This will not cure but it

42:23 will certainly make everything better. If your child is anxious they will be less anxious. If they're disregulated

42:29 they will be less disregulated. if they are depressed or low in mood less so

42:34 just for getting these little things under our belts. So yeah, lots of little strategies. Um

42:40 we know our little ones like to use phones. There's lots of great apps out there that help the one one for

42:47 grounding is an app called Calm Harm. Very good. Um has a breathing exercise

42:52 in it and it kind of aligns you with the app how to breathe. The other thing which again pros and cons of foams is

42:58 you can put it in front of your face and it looks like you're just on your phone where you're actually doing a breathing exercise. So some kids you know are so

43:05 emotionally overwhelmed they like to be able to almost use that as a somewhere to hide behind muscle relaxation again

43:12 there's so much out there in terms of looking at how you relax yourself. Um I think you know what do you do as as

43:18 parent adults to help muscle relaxation you know is this something you can do that that you can again do together

43:24 collaboratively. Um and when you think of muscle relaxation as well when you're talking about your fight and flight um and being

43:31 overstimulated and and and lots of these other things. Think about how your body feels then. You know your muscles are

43:36 tense. You do need to have that that overarching sort of relaxation before you can actually get into your bed and

43:42 and fully sleep at night. you know, otherwise and and it can mimic physical health issues then. Oh, I've pulled a

43:48 muscle. I've got I've got a sore stomach. I've got, you know, my body hurts because your body does hurt because you're in this heightened state

43:54 of arousal almost constantly and continuously. Your child is in this heightened state of arousal and it does

44:00 manifest itself in a physiological way as well with aches, pains, feeling sick,

44:06 uh not being able to go to the toilet. So, all of these things. So, muscle relaxation and yeah, do it as a family.

44:11 Absolutely great. And even there it says self soo box. That can be in a physical sense and a mental sense. So in terms of

44:18 you know you're there trying to guide and align that you know why don't you dip into your box you know make it um

44:24 quite kind of creative. So you know like imagine there's a Harry Potter um potion

44:30 box at the back of your head. So when you're feeling a bit rubbish you can grab that one out and then you go and uh put a candle on, go and have a bath, do

44:36 some muscle relaxation, play your favorite music. Again, you know, the everyone's coping strategies are so

44:42 different and so unique. So, we can't like put everyone down there because it it won't work. Mine is to go to the gym. Others that would be horrific. So, you

44:49 know, it's just trying to you work out what is helpful for your little one. Um and and get that in into their routine

44:56 really. We're nearly there everyone. So, we're not going to be too much longer. Um here's a couple of little examples of

45:02 what when we use the muscle relaxation. I'll I'll stop talking. Can you just

45:08 have a quick look at them cuz uh they're quite self-explanatory. You can try them now while you're sat

45:13 down actually. Yeah. Oh, there's ideas for self soo boxes and here we go at the end. So with

45:19 some um with some resources and some signposting.

45:24 What I would like to just add as well is that we are in um every school within the kumtaff area and this is our

45:31 resource and information part of um what might be helpful. Um we can do parent

45:38 dropins um within the secondary schools and the primary. The primary side um our

45:45 practitioners tend to work more with the little ones. So they do like group stuff um around um well-being, emotional

45:51 regulation, um anxiety. So, if you thought that you could do with a little bit more support around managing

45:58 emotional um dysregulation, if you link in with the school and say, "Could we book a a drop in with our Shine

46:03 practitioner?" They're all aware and they should be able to help. Um going from left to right on the screen, there's a Shine Padlet. So, if you guys

46:11 could scan that little QR code, um what that does, it takes you to our resources. So, it has a number of um

46:18 strategies and guides and books that are all free. Happy to use them. I think a lot of the schools have been putting

46:23 them out on their um class Joe Cecil whatever whatever

46:29 platform schools use. So it might be worth just revisiting. What I'll also do is next week is I'll put the padlet up on our Facebook. So if you

46:36 wanted to follow us on our Facebook um then again that has all the stuff that we're doing up to date um signposting

46:44 because there's so many amazing charities out there that help not just on emotional regulation on the huge

46:49 range. So we tried to cover it all. This was just a quite a a little snippet of what how some strategies may help and a

46:56 bit of an understanding. So that is us in a nutshell. So that's I think the last of our

47:03 presentation. What would be helpful? Again, if you guys have time, just fill in a quick

47:08 feedback form. It doesn't take long. We tried to make it nice quick and simple. Um and just say what you thought went

47:13 well, what didn't. um just so we can help improve and and make these type of

47:19 um ways of of supporting people more positive because it is quite difficult

47:24 over a screen. We get that. Um just trying to see what works and what doesn't. Okay,

47:30 so let's get us back to where we