Co-regulation Coaching

When you offer your calm, grounded presence to another person who's in a heightened stress state, that's co-regulation. Have you ever told someone to calm down? Did it work? Not likely. When someone is having a stress reaction, reason and direct instruction are not helpful. In fact, they can make things worse. Instead of using logic and words, communicating by "speaking" with your nervous system can convey a sense of safety that soothes the stress response. 

Whether you provide support to an autistic loved-one who experiences meltdowns and shutdowns, a loved-one with down syndrome who becomes easily frustrated by cognitive stressors, or a loved-one with developmental disabilities and PTSD, co-regulation skills should be a top priority for supporting them and yourself.  Being able to prevent escalation and de-escalate stressful situations skillfully brings peace and opportunities for healing. 

Learning to skillfully co-regulate removes power dynamics from stressful situations and eliminates power struggles. When your primary strategy for de-escalation is connection, you increase safety and build trust.  At the heart of co-regulation is connection. 

If you provide support to a family member or a client, you know there is a risk of burnout. Pushing through stressful situations or trying to convince the person you support to try harder to control themselves isn't the answer. Learning to co-regulate soothes their nervous system and yours. 

We are not born with self-regulation skills. We do not know how to manage stress until someone co-regulates with us and "teaches" our nervous system what it feels like to calm down. Therefore, once we begin co-regulating with our loved one and healing our relationship, they can begin to build self-regulation skills. This doesn't happen through social skills training or other instruction. It happens through experience. Once their nervous system begins to get used to a reliable sense of safety, it has an easier time regaining that calm state on its own.  

Having developmental disabilities can present daily stressors that lead to an overall stress load that's too much to manage. As a caregiver or service provider, you may unintentionally co-escalate when that stress starts to show and your own stress response gets triggered. Through a series of one-on-one coaching sessions, you will learn how to interrupt that reaction, genuinely honor your own stress response, and connect to de-escalate the stress of your loved-one.