Escalation Cycle Part II

As promised, a continuation of the discussion on the escalation cycle as filtered through the idea of crisis and so-called 'assaultive' behavior, and further how this model can be aptly utilized in considering challenging behaviors from day to day. While we often consider the child or person emitting the undesired behavior, Dan and Mike take time to include the responder as an active, and integral variable in the environment.

Grab a few more ice cubes, freshen up your drink and take another sip of this tasty libation. And of course, always analyze responsibly.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey Mike, how do you feel about today? Feeling pretty good about it?

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

I think today's a great day, Dan.

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

I couldn't agree more. Like you say, any day that you wake up and your name's not in the obituary, you're off to a good start. Speaking of which, today's also a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, you have a message you want to share with the world, or just think it'd be fun to have your own talk show, like we did. Podcasting is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to expand your reach online. Maybe learn something. Now, Buzzsprout is hands down the easiest and best way to launch, promote, and track your podcast. It's what we use. Your show can be online and listed at all of the major places podcasts can be found, like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc., within minutes of you finishing your recording. You know, podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. And the team at Buzzsprout is passionate with helping you succeed. Join over 100,000 people just like us sharing their message, already using Buzzsprout as the conduit to get their message across the world.

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We use Buzzsprout and we love it. Buzzsprout will give you a great looking podcast website, audio players that you can drop into other websites, detailed analytics to see how people are listening, tools to promote your episodes and much, much more. So here's what you'll do if you want to start your podcast today. Follow the link in the show notes. This lets Buzzsprout know we sent you. It gets you a$20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan, and it helps support our show. So make it a great day today. Get on to Buzzsprout and start your podcast. Inform the world. And of course, always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

Cheers. Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

All right, and welcome back yet again to ABA on Tap, this a continuation episode. Before I go too far, I'm Mike Rubio with our gracious co-host, Dan Lowry. Dan, how you doing? Doing good, man. Good to see you. How you doing? Doing well. Doing well. Excited to be able to follow up on our episode about escalation cycles, which has turned into a discussion about... Just about everything else with a little bit about escalation cycles. But the importance, I think, of the cycle is talking about what's happening in our brain, what is happening concurrently behaviorally, knowing that we often think of neurology supporting behavior, but it actually also goes the other way around, something we talked about a little bit earlier. in the first episode on escalation cycles. But today, really wanting to continue with the what to do. So we talked about the why certain things happen, the how to understand those things, and now what to do behaviorally, how to not react but respond to escalation behaviors, whether they're assaultive or not, knowing that our perception has a lot to do with it. So sometimes a mere tone of voice might sound like an escalation to us. And our discussion started about how to manage crisis with regard to the escalation. So, again, we're dealing with a lot of variables here, likening them to one another. But also differentiating, knowing that not every undesired behavior, even a tantrum behavior, is necessarily good. and escalation from a physiological perspective. So what does that all mean? That's what we'll try to piece apart today. We talked a lot about brain last time. We'll allude to those things still today and then talk about what the learner or what our child, what our client might be experiencing during those periods of tantrum and or escalation. More importantly, how is that making us react and then better yet, now respond in a way that we keep that cycle not from tipping... we keep it away from tipping over into escalation, but in this sort of healthy, a little bit of stress, back to baseline, a little bit of stress, back to baseline, which is kind of like what I think what a good learning model is going to look like. It's not like you're always at baseline during learning. If you were always at baseline, then there wouldn't be any arousal with which to learn, right? So we often think of as parents, I make my allusion to the perfect little English schoolboy, yes, mommy, no, mommy. No, we have to go through some of those periods of in order for learning to happen. What we're talking about today is when our child hits that point of, man, I'm frustrated with your behavior, child. We've been going at this for an hour now with your homework or whatnot. How am I going to recognize those signals in me? And then more importantly, how I respond is likely going to be able to keep us from tipping this over into any sort of escalation, crisis, so on and so forth. So in so many words, Dan, I'm saying... Us as professionals, myself as a parent, I've got a great deal of influence and control, dare I say, over whether or not these things go into escalation. And then better yet today, we'll talk about how when they do go into full escalation, how we can still maintain that control and allow for the resolution of these situations hopefully without having to involve law enforcement or having to make trips to the hospital and have a psychiatric hold. Not that those are bad things, but things where now learning has stopped and we're allowing somebody else to take control and we haven't learned how to resolve that on our own. So As always, I've thrown a lot at you. Unpack it, friend.

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

Yeah, when you were chatting about your response, rhetorically being the parent's response and how that affects the child's response, it's very interesting because I run a lot of parent groups with our current company that we're a part of. There's kind of two types of parents, and I can totally see both sides of it. But when I talk about behavior being a product of the environment and how our response has a huge impact on the child's response, it's kind of two types of parents. One type, and again, no judgment to either one. I could totally understand me not being a parent the best of my ability. One type of parent is like, well, so you're saying it's my fault? I'm not the one tantruming. No, the child just needs to do their homework. Yeah. And I would probably feel that way, too. Like, in my arguments and stuff like that, sometimes I can be kind of righteous and things like that. And I can totally understand why a parent would feel that way. The other type of parent is like, okay, you're the quote-unquote expert. I'll try it, whether they believe it or not. I'll try to adjust my behavior. And, in fact, one of the parents that comes to our parent group that has a teenage kiddo– well, both parents– Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. came to us and was like, you know what, it's really just adjusting my behavior in these situations. We still do have little flare-ups, but it's kind of like little sparks. But without the prerequisite oxygen being flamed on them, they just kind of end up as a spark. So again, I want to try to highlight that and preface that as we go through this, that your behavior does have a significant impact on your child's behavior. Again, no judgment. I don't want anybody to do that. No need to be defensive or anything like that. But the more you're able to objectively and I do think that's where it's kind of useful for me not being a parent is I can look at these things objectively. The more you're able to not respond and try these suggestions, I can almost guarantee you'll have a quicker response versus some of the other parents. And then, you know, some people too, myself included, tend to be right fighters, right? And well, the child needs to do their homework. The teacher said they need to do that. And yes, I get it. I get it. You're right. The child does. theoretically need to do their homework. They're not going to spontaneously combust, but they should do their homework. They should do the chores, things like that. I understand that. But the question is, do we want to rewrite or do we want to be happy? And the more we can kind of adjust our behavior, the quicker you'll be able to get to your response. Anyway, going, so what we'll talk about today is the behavioral strategies of how to get to where we want to be. Last time we talked about the physiological and the neurological symptoms of fight or flight. So again, when the amygdala is triggered, that sends us into fight or flight, which starts to send blood away from our brain into our extremities. So I want... Because we're not on YouTube currently, I want you all to think about, and we might revisit this when we have YouTube backing, so for a better graph, I want you all to think of kind of like a bell curve going up and an inverse bell curve going down. And that's basically going to be the behavioral curve, which runs exactly proportional to the physiological and neurological curve. So think about it as there's 50% of the blood in your extremities and 50% of the blood in your brain. As you get more escalated, more More blood goes into your extremities, less blood goes into your brain. So think about it just from like a chart. You've got 20% more blood going into your extremities. You've got 20% blood less in your brain. So now you're at a 70-30 scale. And that continues to go. So as more blood, as you get more escalated, as an individual gets more escalated, the trajectory goes up on the top end and down on the bottom end because the cognition runs exactly inversely proportional to our behavior. The more blood that's getting pumped into extremities, the less we have in our cognition. So the first thing I want to do is talk about baseline. Before I get there, Mike, anything you wanted to add to what I've said so far before I start to get into the behavioral strategies?

SPEAKER_01: 10:38

Well, so what we're saying here is there is no way not to have this reaction. Just to clarify for all parents out there, you're going to have this reaction. Now, how you respond... to this physiological reaction you will initially encounter is what we're talking about today. Correct. So are we saying you're superhuman, don't ever get frustrated at your child's frustration? No, not what we're saying. We're saying you're going to get frustrated at your child's frustration, and when you notice that frustration, instead of letting your body do such and such, We're asking you to think of certain responses, or we're going to provide you with certain responses and knowledge so that you can respond in this way. So you're going to have this reaction. That much we can guarantee. When you note that reaction, that's when you'll kick in the responses or the strategies we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_00: 11:39

Yep, exactly. There's only one person we can control, and that's us. Okay, so let's talk about baseline. And this obviously looks different for every individual, but we've talked about stress and distress yesterday. Baseline is just when an individual is at kind of like a homeostatic level. There might be a little stress, might be a little bit of lethargy, but not too much where it's really affecting their behavior greatly. And this varies for every individual, right? Some kids are very mobile. Some kids are active. Some kids are fidgety. Some people tap their knees. Some people play with their hair. Baseline is different for every individual. So just because you have two kids and one is calm when they're doing the homework and the other is fidgety doesn't mean that the fidgety one is away from their baseline. But baseline is just think about your child when there's nothing really being asked of them. What is their physiological state and their demeanor and their level of activity? That's what I want people to think of. baseline is where we want most of the learning, uh, to be done. And as we talked about, um, Mike last time, why is most of the, the learning, um, based on blood flow and stuff like that? Why is baseline the best opportunity and the best time for us to do most of our teaching and learning?

SPEAKER_01: 13:00

Well, because, uh, certain brain structures are being supported by your blood flow. So you only have so much blood in your body and that's why, uh, you know, if you get nervous, uh, Exactly. Exactly. have the optimal brain blood flow brain responsivity to support that learning knowing that once we're escalated going moving toward crisis like behavior or distress that learning ability is going to be compromised based on how the brain is functioning

SPEAKER_00: 13:38

yep and again nobody comes to these podcasts to learn about what do i do when my kids calm but i really want to highlight this because mike's talked about numerous times how we're trained to leave well enough alone and we're trying to rewire your brain structures as parents and therapists and stuff and not leave well enough alone, that's when you should be spending the most time and energy and effort figuring out what's going on because it's going well. So a baseline, like Mike said, that's when we have the most blood in our prefrontal cortex, in our hippocampus. That's when we're going to retain the most amount of information. With the analogy that I ended off with last time, that's when there's electricity going to the processor and the RAM. So they're writing on the hard drive, right? So if you want that to be retained, whatever your teaching, that's probably also when the individual is going to be most attentive. And then as a parent, when you're at baseline, you're going to be able to present stuff in the best way. If you're away from baseline, again, taking back to you, the way that you present is probably not going to be the best way. So you can think about it neurologically. The reason is because that's when the most information is going to be retained. If you want your child to retain the information, Try to do so when they're a baseline.

SPEAKER_01: 14:46

So from that perspective, just to interject really quickly, behaviorally speaking, if your child's baseline is a little bit hyperkinetic, if they don't tend to sit down for anything, they tend to want to stand. Now, even the way you approach homework might be a little different. So the idea that you might say, okay, come sit over here. When you really want them to be in one place so they can have access to their pencil and their worksheet, now you might want to consider, well, wait, why don't you stand over here and let me let you pace a little bit after one problem or so on. Now, that doesn't seem ideal. But what we're saying is by recognizing those particular aspects or those baseline behaviors in our kids, we might actually support their baseline entry into activity without wanting to make it our ideal vision, where you're sitting here, you're just having your eyes where I need you to have your eyes. Because as parents and as professionals, we spend a lot of time with that. No, no, no, look here. No, no, no, come sit over here. Come this way. Come that way. So we're almost trying to set up the perfect situation. We're trying to get that pitcher to pitch the ball perfectly to where our swing is, where we should be thinking about where the ball is and how to get our bat to that

SPEAKER_00: 15:58

position. That's a great analogy. Yep. So what are some things that are going to Amen. calls your child to follow an instruction when they're baseline. Number one, that they are engaged, obviously, that they understand the instruction. So if you want your individual or your child to stay at baseline when presenting instructions, number one, they should understand it. I see this happen all the time in schools. You know, the teacher will bring over a whole box of work and the kid only has to do one worksheet, but the kid sees the whole box of work and flips out because they don't understand what's expected of them. Or the parent says it's time to do homework, what does that mean to the kid? The parent knows that means I want you to do five minutes of homework, but the kid might think that that means that I'm going to do homework for eight hours. So it's really important, number one, that the child understands your instructions. So making sure that you're very clear with your first then so that the individual understands. Also that they find meaning in your instructions. And I'm going to parallel this with mean that it's valuable. So I don't necessarily expect a four-year-old kid to find meaning in brushing their teeth. Or I still don't really find that much meaning in some of the work I did with geometry and stuff like that. There's going to be times where an individual doesn't find meaning. So we have to make it valuable. I'm not going to talk too much about artificial versus natural reinforcement. We've talked about that a lot. But we have to make it valuable. Why should they Sit and do homework as opposed to put their head down or run away or grab the iPad or spin around next to the wall. Why should they do it? It has to be valuable. Do we have a motivator? Hopefully it's a natural motivator. Like if we're talking about homework, getting good grades, being successful, acquiring knowledge. Or it could be an artificial motivator, money, iPad, game time with family, something like that. But it has to be valuable. So number one, they understand the instruction. Number two, that it's valuable and they understand the value behind it. Hopefully that it's meaningful as well. Those are some important things when we're talking about baseline. Also that the individual has control over the environment. I think that's important to what Mike said. In terms of individuals that might be a little bit more active, that they have some control. Why do they have to sit down in this exact chair? Okay, if we're talking about in classroom, okay, maybe they have to do that because the teacher's not able to accommodate individually. But control is such an important aspect. Think about a lot of the kids we work with. They go to school from... 7.30 to 3.30. Then they go home and they have this therapy, and then they have ABA from 4 to 6 or 5 to 7 or something like that. That's a lot of time throughout the day that that kid's been told what to do and probably doing things they don't want to do. It's not so much by six o'clock that the kid's like, I don't, I'm not going to do my math homework. It's just like, I'm tired of being told for eight hours a day what I need to be doing and how I need to be doing it. So I'm just going to not do it. So control is another important aspect with that kind of making it valuable, making sure the individual has some autonomy, some authority, and some control over the situation. So instead of maybe sitting down to do the work, can we stand up? Do you want to sit in the spinny chair or the flat chair? Do you want to write your name on the paper? Do you want me to write your name on the paper. These are all empowerment things that will help that individual stay at baseline so that they continue to complete the work. And the last thing is just that it's fun. I encourage you all to really, really emphasize this fun aspect. Again, parents will spend hours talking to me on, well, how do I get my kid to do homework or how do I get them not to hit their sister or something like that? But rarely do parents ever come to me and like, well, how do I have more fun with my kid? But that's the important thing. We have to really make sure that we're trying to find ways to be fun so that this individual will stay at baseline. That's when the most learning is done.

SPEAKER_01: 19:55

So to some extent, there's a matter of referencing here, right? So I don't imagine that a lot of the parents we work with who, to go on with this example of homework, after a certain trend has emerged in terms of homework, As parents, we're also approaching homework with a certain level of apprehension. Sure, sure. Okay, so that's number one. It's creating stress or distress in the parent. Exactly, because you're already going about, this is going to be tough. Yep. This is going to be challenging. So it's a matter of actively thinking how you're going to approach that challenge. We talked about, okay, so your child doesn't sit very well to begin with, expecting them to do that while they're... Doing homework, that might be one way to think about it. Another thing, even just the way you present homework, right? So you've talked about this every day. It's okay, it's time for homework. Bah, fall out. Yet, as parents, we'll do the same thing. As professionals, we'll do the same thing. Hey, it's time for this on the schedule, and now that I've said it, I'm going to dig my heels in. This is what it's time for. Yep. Now we've got conflict, not just confrontation. So the idea that– let's talk about this for a while– that you're going to approach that differently. So as a parent, you might say, hey– I'm going to get ready for homework and literally go set things up on that table or that location for homework for your child might be a time savings. Now, at some point, you're going to want to get their help and help you chain through that, right? But oftentimes, we expect a whole lot out of the learner. We expect everything. Go get your homework. Sharpen your pencil. Understand what's supposed to be for homework already. Did you write it down? You didn't write it down. Go look on PowerSchool. Go do this. Go do that. Can we cut through a lot of that fat for our kids, for our clients? Sure. Yeah. And, you know, sort of the intrinsic reinforcement part of it or the intrinsic motivation. Well, that starts with you as the parent, right? Again, how are you setting that up? Because you're already approaching this as punishment for yourself. We're also engaged in some level of avoidance, even professionally speaking, when you know that you're going to hit that sore spot for that learner. Ooh, how am I going to do this? I'm already anticipating some sort of fallout. So... Learning our, remembering our better procedures. How am I going to chain this? How am I going to facilitate this for the learner? And then I do all this and I still get a refusal. what now? How do we keep ourselves at that better, quote-unquote, calm state, knowing that the learner is referencing everything we're doing? Our escalation, our avoidance, our anticipation of fallout, we're acting just like them, and unless we change that by understanding what happens to our physiology, by understanding how to behaviorally change that and remain calm, as it were, knowing that we're facing an uphill challenge. That's what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

Even changing the word homework, maybe that that's created some stress or that creates some physiological respondents in that individual. So instead of it's time for homework, it's, hey, what are we going to learn about today? Or what's on tap for science? Or can you show me what you have in your backpack? Something like that, just changing that word. But let's talk about some of the transition into escalation. So we're at baseline, and that's when everybody's calm, and that's where individuals spend most of their time. Let's talk about escalation. So escalation is any deviation away from baseline. It can be... We would call it, you could think about a positive or negative, but keep in mind that we are only able to see observable escalations. So a lot of times when I ask parents, what does your kids do when they escalate? Oh, they start pacing, they get louder, they start fidgeting, they start clenching their fists, they get redder. Sure, we can absolutely look at those things. But I'll talk, I was going to ask you, Mike, but I'll throw myself under the bus for this one. How do I know if my girlfriend's getting escalated with me? She gets quieter. So we're not as good as therapists and parents noticing that with our kids. Just because your child's not displaying overt behaviors does not mean that they're not escalated. So we have to look at any deviation away from baseline. One of the examples at a social group, maybe, I don't know, seven years ago now, at a nine-year-old client that I would work with and I would see him in the waiting room, Every Tuesday for our social group, I would say, hi, so-and-so, and he would say, hi, back. And we'd have a little quick interaction. And one day I said, hi, and he just kind of looked at me. He didn't yell at me. He didn't do anything. He just kind of looked away. And I made a mental note, okay, that's a deviation from baseline. Is that different than it was yesterday? And it was, and he ended up having a little bit of a difficult session. Fortunately, I was able to prepare the staff, so we were pretty adequately prepared for that. But we're talking about escalation. So escalation, again, any deviation away from baseline. A lot of times parents will say, my kid goes from zero to 100. Your kid in two seconds. No, you just missed zero to 60. when the kid wasn't fidgeting or anything like that, and you notice when they started to get fidgety. So any deviation away from baseline starts to be an escalation, and that starts with a triggering event. Now, that could be multiple things. That could be one thing. So a triggering event could be me coming up and saying, okay, all done iPad, or it's time to do homework, or let's go pick your sister up from the gym, something like that. That could be a triggering event. Oftentimes you might not notice a triggering event. Your kid might have a triggering event at school and come home already all teed off because something happened at school. Or you might have a child who might be non-vocal, and you're just cooking dinner, and they're playing the puzzle or playing the game, and all of a sudden they start flipping out, and you didn't ask them to do anything, you didn't take anything away. So triggering events can be things that you actually observe. They can be things that you're not even aware of. But it's something in the environment that caused the behavior to occur. And I do want to highlight that based on setting events, Triggering events can have different value. What I mean by that is maybe doing homework sometimes is not a triggering event for your kid, but maybe they had a rough day at school and they're a little bit tired and they're hungry and they're... The girl that they wanted to ask out on a date, somebody else did or something like that. So they're coming home in what we could refer to as a bad mood. And then we say it's time to do homework. So it's kind of like putting quarters in a bucket and eventually the bucket gets full or putting drops of water in a bucket and eventually the bucket gets full and tips over. So a triggering event can be one specific thing or it can be the accumulation of multiple things together. that basically lead to the individual to start to escalate. That set off that amygdala. So that's the triggering event. Think about it neurologically as, okay, that's whatever it is that set off the amygdala. Now there's the fire alarm going off. Now how do we deal with it? Before I talk about how to deal with it, anything you wanted to add with the triggering event there, Mike?

SPEAKER_01: 27:11

So oftentimes, and we might get to this later, in those moments, we will... break into some level of soothing. Everybody has their favorite phrases. It's okay. It's okay. Well, clearly, if you're upset and somebody tells you it's okay, then... It's going to be okay. Right, right. And that's sort of my point in saying that is we're going to talk a little bit about how to move away from those things, if possible, knowing that we all tend to do them. They're all well-intended, but they could be a little bit dismissive in that moment when you don't know what the triggering event was. Somebody is... Clearly escalating. And now we're saying, oh, it's okay. It's okay. Don't worry. It's okay. Which is an interesting point of perspective. Because, well, for me, it's okay. I don't know what's making you angry. But for you, clearly, it's not okay. And so what else can we say in those moments? How else can we respond in those moments? And maybe, again, we'll get to that a little bit later. But I think that's a really important part here in realizing perspective. Oftentimes, especially in trying to soothe, quell, resolve undesired behavior, When we were talking about compassionate care last time, about empathy, about sympathy, this is the time to enact that, to realize that I may not know what's going on. I don't like what my child is doing, but it's not okay for them right now What do I do next? So maybe we'll table that. Go on with the other stuff you were going to

SPEAKER_00: 28:35

talk about. Yeah, that it's okay. I agree. We'll talk about some better things to say, although I would probably contend that saying it's okay is better than the more demonstrative, well, you need to do your homework or the blanket extinction. There is a level of compassion with that and level of helpfulness, but maybe we can keep the same idea but just change the delivery a little

SPEAKER_01: 28:55

bit. The next thing I'll talk about really quickly and then we'll get you to move us along is the idea of time, right? So in that notion, you've asked a question. Now your child's withdrawing or the client's withdrawing, and it might be our tendency to then insist on an answer. What we're saying here is maybe it's cool to sit back a little bit. Maybe you're going to be waiting 7 to 10 seconds in between responses or in between you asking the question again in an effort to not escalate or be part of the escalation cycle.

SPEAKER_00: 29:27

All right, so keep in mind the triggering event. So the amygdala has just been triggered. So the water is starting to get a little bit heavier here, but it's not... It's not impossible to stop. So what do we do during a triggering event? Well, you got to kind of put your Sherlock Holmes hat on as a parent, number one, and figure out what the triggering event was. Now, if you have an older kid or a more vocal kid, maybe they're going to say, so-and-so was mean at school or something like that. Cool. Now I know what the triggering event was. Or maybe it's obvious. You asked your kid to get off the iPad or you told him it's time to do homework or something like that. Maybe you know what the triggering event is. Cool. Otherwise, we've got to try to put our Sherlock Holmes hat on and figure out what the triggering event is. Now, like Mike said, with the respect of time, we want to try to figure it out. If not, then we can still deal with it accordingly. We'll deal with the behaviors even if we don't know what the triggering event is. Again, maybe your kid was playing a puzzle and two seconds later they're tantruming and you have no idea why. But the first thing is we want to try to figure out why. If we know why, so we'll go down that branch. If we can figure out why... Number one, acknowledge the individual's feeling and frustration. So important. So often, you know, the parent will say, it's time to do homework. And they go, I don't want to do homework. I hate math. Math's hard. And then the parent goes into lecture mode. You need to do homework. How many times do we need to argue? I don't know why we argue about this every night. You need to do homework. You never get out of it. Do you want to work at McDonald's or whatever? They go down this whole lecture, you, you, you language. We want to get rid of that. More eye language and more understanding, more empathy. I understand you don't want to do homework. Maybe I didn't want to do homework when I was a kid. How do we get through this together? Again, a collaborative and compassionate response. Again, I'm not saying you have to say what they're doing is right or the way they're going about it is right, but some sort of acknowledgement. It's the difference between a lot of times you use the example, and poor Mike has to hear these examples at Nauseam throughout my parent groups, but asking my girlfriend to get milk. This was like eight years ago or something like that. Well, sorry. She asked me to get milk, so I went and got milk, and I got 2% milk because... That's what I thought people drank. Apparently she wanted lactose-free milk. Wrong is right. Apparently she wanted lactose-free milk. I didn't even know that existed. I thought milk had lactose. But nonetheless, I came home with my 2% milk. She looked at me and was like, that's not the milk I wanted. Don't you know what milk I drink? And now we're kind of on the defensive, right? Now I'm like, well, you didn't tell me. And now she's like, well, it's right here in the fridge. And now we're both kind of dug in. picking on each other's sides, trying to defend our actions. Whereas if I were to come home and, oh, you know, I realized I didn't tell you the kind of milk that I wanted. How do we figure this out? I would have been much more responsive. And again, notice how it's our behaviors. I would have been much more responsive and more likely to be like, you know what, let me go get you the right type of milk. Same thing with the kids. I understand that you feel this way. Or What you're telling me is this. It looks like you're upset. Can I help you? Again, some sort of acknowledgement in the triggering event and letting them know that you're on their side. Again, a lot of it, as we've talked about, 93% of communication is non-vocal. So not a whole lot of talking, but letting them know that you're on their side and you want to help them through it. That's number one with the triggering event. How do I acknowledge it? And how do I Try to help them through it because here the cognition is pretty low. Let's just use a number, maybe 10% more water. So now we're at the 60-40, 60% of the blood in the extremities, 40% in the brain. That's still recoverable. So how do I let my child know that I'm on their side and how do I figure out how to get them back to baseline?

SPEAKER_01: 33:14

So therein lies this aspect of time again, right? So one thing I like to say is none of what we're saying today is a magic wand. Once in a while, it'll work that way, but it's going to be a gradual process, meaning to your example with the milk, even in the best case scenario, in order to find that solution, you're going to have to enact a little bit more time consumption. Somebody's going to have to get more milk. Right. Going to have to go back to the store. So this means that by doing this with your child, they're not automatically going to get to their homework. It might mean some acknowledgement. It might mean more acknowledgement. It might mean a lot of suggestions that your child kicks back and says, nope, that's not going to work. And this entire time, what we're also saying is that as the adult, as the authoritative adult, if you will, we need to endorse some of these things, meaning our baseline needs to maintain as well. We need to make sure that we're not escalating by this back and forth rejection, but that we're continually enacting all these solutions, knowing that not one of them is going to work right away, but it's going to be an amalgam of many attempts that is likely going to lead to the desired response. We are told to go, okay, I think this is manageable enough now. Your client might say, I see that you're not escalating, so I'm not referencing escalation in you. We're not at a standstill where I'm saying, no, I don't want to do homework. And you're saying, yes, because I love your example. What do you want to work at McDonald's? That's such a common... Maybe the child does want to work at McDonald's, and that's okay. Eddie Murphy would say so. I want McDonald's. The point being, you are going to have to endure a little bit of time with this, even with these strategies. And during that time, the more calm you maintain... the better the outcome is likely going to be.

SPEAKER_00: 34:59

Absolutely. And you reflected on my example. Neither me or my girlfriend wanted to go back to the store. Just like as parents, neither you nor the kid want to do homework. It's probably aversive for you as the parent, and the kid doesn't want to. Somebody's going to have to... To get that done, we're going to have to find a common ground. And so often I'll see... you know, parents wanting the kid to be flexible, but they're not being flexible or therapists, right? So often they're made, they're waiting for the kid to make the first agreement. And then they were like, well, okay, when they start to do it, then I'll start to agree. But a lot of times we need to make the first flexibility, you know, like in my girlfriend's example, I didn't want to go to the store. She didn't either. one of us is going to have to make the bullet and like, well, let me offer you some sort of win in this situation. And same thing with the kids. So maybe the kid's not wanting to do homework. Can I do the first problem for you? Can I write your name on the paper? Do you want to sit in the spinning chair? You want to spin to do homework, something like that. How can I show them that I'm on their side? I'm team kid, not team, you know, police officer. That's just going to make you do it the exact way I want to do it. So that triggering event, again, showing them that you're on the same team, Trying to offer them solutions that are going to benefit them. Let's talk about escalation. So this probably, because a lot of times you're not necessarily going to know the triggering event, right? As a parent, you're cooking, you're cleaning, you're doing whatever. You only notice the triggering event when the individual starts to escalate. And again, I want to highlight, escalation doesn't mean more noise or more fidgety. An individual can be escalating as they get quieter. So what do you want to do when someone is escalating? Number one, maybe acknowledge the escalation. And not in a trivial way. Not in like, well, it looks like you're mad. Something like that. But hey, are you upset? It looks maybe your kid's crying. You seem sad. Can I rub your back? Acknowledging their escalation. And as they start to escalate, so they're going from maybe, you know, 60, 40 blood in the extremities versus the brain now 70, 30, 80, 20. So it's getting less and less. You want to offer specific options for them to do, but less and less options because they're having less blood in their prefrontal cortex. So it's like you go to the grocery store, right? And you have all the candy bars in front of you. Even with a fully functioning prefrontal cortex, it's hard to Figure out which candy bar I want. Now you start taking more and more blood away from there. Now it just becomes an overwhelming endeavor. Same thing as your kids start to escalate, acknowledge maybe their frustration, and offer one or two options. Hey, when you're ready to do homework, sit in the chair. Or when you're ready to earn your Xbox, come sit in the chair and let me know. Or something like that. A simple solution. And oftentimes if the child's non-vocal, Mike and I have had clients where it's kind of like an ebb and a flow. We let their behavior guide us. So their behavior tells us is basically what tells us how to respond. So maybe they're really upset and we are trying to figure out if they want us to give them a hug and we get closer and they get more upset. So we back off. We get closer and they get a little calmer. So their behavior is telling us maybe they do want some sort of soothing response. So in this situation, as an individual gets upset, continuing to acknowledge a couple of times, but not at nauseam once or twice, then reducing verbals. Because there's an increase in energy in the environment, the last thing we want to do is add energy to an already too energetic environment. So they're getting escalated. We're taking a step back. We're offering specific options and kind of letting them guide from there.

SPEAKER_01: 38:41

And in that case, again, going back to my premise on time, knowing that as a parent, as professionals, we want this to resolve quickly. But it's probably not very likely that it's going to resolve quickly. It's going to resolve when it's going to resolve. When that motivating operation hits the point for the learner, the client, and they say, okay, this person is responding in this way. This person is offering this level of help. I feel like I can tackle this task at this point, which means to your example of offering options and fewer or less being more in this case, so the fewer options the better, it doesn't mean the learner or the client's gonna take one of those options right away. You might have to put them out there and let it sit in silence for a little bit and see what they do next. So you're almost monitoring to make sure, obviously always trying to make sure everybody's staying safe, but in that situation, if the learner's to break the pencil, tear their sheet, throw their chair down. That's not an excuse for us to now escalate our behavior. In fact, that's one of those points where we might have to endure despite our better reflex to redirect that behavior verbally because now we're adding energy. So I really want to highlight this because in what we're talking about today, and I like to reference the endurance test, what we do as parents, as professionals, through the gradual learning process takes a lot of endurance. Now, while that might seem like you're losing the battle because the child is still emitting that undesired behavior, if you're enduring some of this time, it means you're taking time to plan your response. It also means you're not reacting. So now we're not saying let all sorts of things fly. We're not saying be permissive. But this time of endurance... this endurance challenge, if you will, allows you to stay your better authoritative self. If we're going to compare that now to the full escalation cycle of 45 minutes to an hour, I can guarantee you without measuring it, unfortunately, that this endurance challenge will take much less time than hitting that escalation cycle.

SPEAKER_00: 40:49

Think about how egocentric we've been as parents and therapists as well of being authoritarian, which is the I win, versus the authoritative, which is the we win. There's a situation where we want the child to do the homework, right? And the child's getting upset and the child's trying to communicate that they don't want to do the homework or they want the iPad or something like that. And we're just going to ignore everything else until we get 100% of what we want that homework is done. Nothing else is going to... We're not going to acknowledge anything else until I get 100% victory. And then we wonder... We talk about the kids not having theory of mind. Well, we're also not really having theory of mind, right, in that situation. So, yeah, giving our energy to what's going on in that situation, being collaborative, compassionate, as opposed to just egocentric. Again, like you said, authoritative. We win, not just I win. But... In order to get that done, in order in the milk example, somebody's going to have to go get the milk. So how are we going to get through this? How are we going to get this done? Same thing with the homework and that escalation. There can be FUs. There can be whatever in there. If the kid's going to tell me how they're not going to do their homework, things like that, that happens a lot. A lot of times parents will say, well, you know, it's time for homework. And the kid will throw a tantrum or whatever. Do your homework, and then you'll get the Xbox. And the kid will tantrum, and they'll go back and forth. And the kid will finally do the homework and get the Xbox. And the parent will be like, well, they do this every time, and they don't get anything out of it because they end up doing their homework. But it's like, well, they're getting the escape the whole time that you're arguing with it, right? Look, always trying to have your eyes on the prize there and not getting caught up in the nuance, right? Not getting caught up in the, well, the kid's like, well, this isn't fair, or my friends don't have to do the homework, and then now we're getting caught up in that argument. I think you shared an example with your daughter about kind of the analogy of the tantrum being kind of like the fire alarm. And until I... We get this fire alarm put off and let me pass it to you so you can not butcher like I just did. We can go back and forth as much as we want. But until someone turns a smoke detector off or this fire alarm off, it's not going to magically turn off. So figuring out kind of what your end game is and not losing sight of that because all of that. Middle stuff, all of those kids' behaviors that really, really upset you, right? Parents will say, oh, my kid knows the exact one thing to escalate me. Well, that's because you allow it to, because your eyes are getting off of the prize there. So I don't know if you have that analogy handled. Yeah, no, there's a lot

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

to unpack here. Let me see if I can do it. So to the example of the smoke alarm in the kitchen. I guess one simple way to describe that is it doesn't matter how hard or frantically or frustratedly I fan in front of that smoke alarm. That smoke alarm isn't going to stop ringing until that sensor has been quelled, right? So it doesn't matter if I'm really upset and fanning in front of the smoke alarm, upset. I just need to do it efficiently and effectively for it to stop, right? And that's a really, the reason I use that is that the smoke alarm, that sound, just like the sound of our child protesting or crying, almost has, I would say it has a very similar effect on our central nervous system. So it really teaches us about being able to stay calm in the light of the alarm ringing, right? Which is, I think, the reason I like to use that example, I think it hits home. Hopefully I made sense of it there. Now, I like what you said, right? I never really thought about it this way. When we talk about escape behaviors, right, you're talking about, so they do the same thing every time, and they fight me on it, then they finish the homework, then they get the Xbox. So the escape behaviors doesn't necessarily lie in the child's response. It lies in your engagement to that behavior and in prolonging the time with which it takes for them to get to their homework. The child can't argue with itself. So if you subtract that argument, then again, you're saving time. Now, what would you say to a very reasonable response? And again, we talked about this quandary last episode. Which is parents feel a little bit like pushovers in that moment, right? And this is why we're describing this because, yes, you will feel like a pushover. I know that as a professional. I know that as a parent. Your child is emitting all this undesired behavior. And you're sitting there seeming a little bit meek and unresponsive to some extent. But that's what we're saying is therein lies the endurance challenge. Don't be caught up in the misperception that by raising your voice because it's worked a couple times, that's the answer. In fact, by raising your voice in the light of that rising crisis, you're matching that energy. You're probably adding to the escalation. And don't worry about it because as long as the outcome is that homework gets done, then by not engaging in the argument, you've removed a lot of that delay, you've removed the function of escape by and large on your end, and you're getting yourself to that desired outcome without the necessary escalation on your end. You've met the endurance. I also like to say the challenges with homework, with your child's behavior, those are inevitable. What we're saying here is how much you suffer through it That's up to you.

SPEAKER_00: 46:20

Yep. The pushover is an interesting one, right? I feel like that's either... So we've got the three spectrums of parenting, right? Permissive, authoritative, authoritarian. I feel like the pushovers are either going to be on the permissive side or the authoritarian side when the authoritarian person doesn't get what they want. They almost say, screw it, and then they become the permissive person. And I think that's... kind of where that pushover comes in. And I think that's remedied by, on the front end, doing the first then contingency. So it's, you know, first... you can do your homework and then you get your iPad or something like that. And then I can just kind of wait them out, but it's when I don't do the first thing contingency. And I'm just like, well, it's time to do the homework. And I don't have the then part, uh, clearly defined. Then when they don't do the homework, then my only resort is to try to be more authoritarian, more authoritarian, more authoritarian. And then when that doesn't work, then I basically have to be permissive. So I think that's kind of where the, again, going back to the egocentric pieces, right? If I don't do the first, then I'm not acknowledging the, Oh, you win. I'm not acknowledging the we win part. It's just a me win, right? It's time to do homework. Well, that's a win for me. How do I get a win for you? So I think it kind of comes back down to that piece on parents being concerned that they're going to be a pushover. It comes down to that first part, acknowledging what can be a win for the kid on the front end.

SPEAKER_01: 47:40

So in essence, it doesn't necessarily matter. Well, let me not say it that way. It doesn't matter so much... a lot of the undesired behavior we might have to endure to get to the desired outcome. What matters is the desired outcome. Staying focused on the prize. And at some point, knowing that by the child, the learner, adapting the notion or it becoming routine that when they finish the homework, the demand is lifted, then that in... in and of itself over time is what allows for the baseline behavior to endure as opposed to the escalation. Where sometimes our better logic kind of makes us think that any emission of that behavior toward escalation, because we don't like it, because it's being emitted, it's strengthened. Now that's not illogical, but what you're saying is it's the resolution of it that's going to be the ultimate reinforcement and we might have to endure some of it. And the more we stay calm and don't mirror any aspect of that behavior, the better. So again, as I said last episode, it's a tall order. But it's an effective method that we're talking about here. We're not saying it's easy. We're not saying it feels natural at first. In fact, it's not. It's reflexive to bark back at your child when they're barking at you. But that's why we're talking about all this information in terms of what's happening in your brain and their brain. Furthermore, if we're talking about a child that's facing some developmental delays and some challenges they're in, how much more impactful that can be toward the escalation cycle. And again, as our better adults, our better logical This is why this plan is being put forth, to keep our calm, to be able to model the better behavior, and more importantly, to get to the desired outcome with less energy being expelled, so to speak, or less of that escalation energy being expelled, because our kids are watching. They're referencing, and a lot of that might be contributing to the very escape we think we're avoiding by engaging with them. Sure. Okay. It

SPEAKER_00: 49:41

comes back to, rhetorically, you, right, the parent, and their response to the situation. situation because the kid's going to do what they're going to do they're going to say i don't want to do homework or whatever now how do we respond to that is either going to fan that flame out and and you know call it or it's going to give it oxygen and now we got a big fire that we got to deal with and we have to put out that fire before we can get even get back to what we were trying to do

SPEAKER_01: 50:02

so you might have identified your reinforcement at the beginning um it's a phrase that i'm working on changing because i don't like it anymore but this idea of what are we working for sure more the idea of what's on the schedule after you finish these pieces That's what I like and the idea that we're not working toward this extrinsic reinforcement. We're actually working toward you finishing your homework so you have the time to access those things that we're not prioritizing as much as homework. Again, that's a mouthful, but I do like that in terms of us now thinking about intrinsic motivators versus extrinsic pieces.

SPEAKER_00: 50:34

Plus there's a lot of reinforcers at any time, right? There's parental improvement, getting good grades, seeing yourself getting good grades, feeling good about the work that you did. Maybe the iPad or the... There's a multitude of things. It's not just one thing. It's not that linear.

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

And then being able to see the difference between your escalation versus when you're pleased with their behavior, probably a much better contrast from a place of neutrality as opposed to bouncing back and forth from being escalated yourself to now Now maybe giving minimal verbal praise. Okay, I'm done too. Great. Negative reinforcement for me. Now I'm going to leave because we're done with the homework and you get to be with the Xbox. But I actually lent you a whole lot of undesired attention before this. Sure. So we're really talking about a savings and it's all hinging on as adults, as parents, as professionals, making sure that we're maintaining our baseline savings. In the face of the fire.

SPEAKER_00: 51:27

Yep, not getting caught up in the minutia, right? You're wanting the kid to do something. They're throwing a whole bunch like a football play, right? All the offensive linemen go in one direction, but they're really going to throw it in the other direction. If you follow all of them and get all caught up, Then they got you. Same thing with the kids not getting caught up in all the minutia and all that stuff. Staying kind of focused on what the goal is and not being disrespectful, not being dismissive. Again, acknowledging. This is something also that I mentioned to parents, especially during the triggering event as cognition becomes less and less. That's when the informative function, you want to give less and less informative function. I am a huge advocate of informative function. When individuals are baseline and they have the processing speed and the RAM to process it, but so often, again, when individuals start to escalate, that's when they have all the questions. Why do I have to do it? I'm not going to do this, and I don't need to know math. My friends don't need to know math. All these questions, and they're not really looking for answers. They're looking for diversion from whatever you're trying to get them to do. So kind of staying focused, and a lot of times I'll tell parents, hey, if your kids have a lot of those kind of diversionary tactics, Tell them to write it down and say, hey, you know what? I don't want to talk about it right now, but if you want to write it down, I'm happy to talk about it later. Number one, that gives them the ability to write it down if it legitimately is important, which nine times out of ten it's not. They don't want to write it down. They just want to get you diverted. Um, but it's not dismissing. It's not going to say that's not important. Hey, if that's important, let's write it down. But now's not the time to talk about it. And then offering them later in the day or whatever. Hey, you, did you, um, you were upset earlier mentioning some things. Do you want to talk about those when they, they have time for baseline? But again, that triggering event, oftentimes less, I'm sorry, the escalation less is going to be more when my girlfriend's upset with me. Um, you know, and more of the, um, The reduction of baseline, then the excessive behaviors. I, maybe being a guy, I don't know, I want to fix things right away, right? And a lot of times she just wants time to process or whatever. Same thing with your kids. If your kids could process, they wouldn't be throwing these tantrums. But they're struggling with processing. Maybe my girlfriend doesn't want to address it at this time. And the more that I try to intervene, the quicker I try to get that out of her, it's actually going to be counterproductive. The less I'm going to get out of her. So a lot of times I just need to acknowledge the situation, what's going on, and then put the ball back in their court. I'm here for soothing. Just like with your kids, you're here for soothing if need be. But that soothing is going to be with the intent to get back on track of whatever you initially proposed.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

So in a sense, you lay the framework out or you lay the plan out. You've been alluding to the if-then structure, for example. And then you let it run. I've been talking a lot about that urgency with time that a lot of us can feel in those situations. And we might even run the risk at times of putting out that carrot and reminding them, well, if you want the Xbox, well, if you want the Xbox, well, if you want the Xbox, what we're saying here is, Don't do that. You've laid out the framework, and now you start with your acknowledgement. Oh, I can tell that you don't want to do homework. I see that. Oh, I hear you. I hear what you're saying. Okay, well, the homework's ready. Take a few minutes, and when you want to sit down and start, I'm here to help. Yep, exactly. And on the other end, it means that you have ensured, to use Xbox as the ongoing example, that Xbox is not available anymore. You've done everything on the front end so that there's no fight, there's no accessing the controller and having to take it out of their hands now to make sure that you can keep. Now, let's say in that situation they have accessed it.

SPEAKER_00: 55:07

What do you do? Yeah, that's going to be a situation-specific example. Is it worth trying to pry it out of their hands and get in a power struggle? That's something you have to think about. The last time you did that with your kid, what did they do? Thinking about that is, yeah. I do want to offer a behavioral prescription as we'll talk about later for this specifics though because I could see that this could maybe seem a little bit even hypocritical saying that we're not going back and forth with kids. That could almost look like blanket extinction. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that you say it's time to do homework and then you turn your back and don't respond to anything that they say until they do their entire homework. I'm also not saying that you say it's time to do homework and then you go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I'm saying like Mike said and just want to reiterate so that I'm very clear and give you all applicable things to do maybe tomorrow if this situation occurs because it's Monday, that when you say it's time to do homework and And they respond in a way that is not them doing homework. Like Mike said, maybe you acknowledge it once. You acknowledge it twice. You show them that you're on their side. Yeah, I know you don't like to do homework. I didn't like to do homework. Can I help you with this? Can we work together? So you're offering that. And maybe if they respond, maybe they're like, you know, I don't want your help or something. Okay, cool. Well, I'll check back in in a little while or something like that. So you're not going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. You're not completely removing yourself. You're kind of in that middle ground of showing them that you're supporting them and you're there when they're ready to work with you. It's not your way or the highway. You're also working with them. Hopefully that was clear.

SPEAKER_01: 56:43

Yeah, yeah, I think so. What we're saying here is it's kind of a dance.

SPEAKER_00: 56:46

Exactly. And you're going to

SPEAKER_01: 56:47

respond to the rhythm. You're going to respond to the song. You're going to respond to your dance partner, in this case, your client or your child. So there's not one set motion. Yes, the steps are clear, right, depending on what dance you're doing. But you're going to have to modify that. Are there more people on the dance floor? Exactly. Are there other stimuli in the environment that you have to contend with? So you're setting the stage. You're certainly acknowledging their feelings. You're offering help. You're being compassionate in terms of what they're expressing with regard to wanting to avoid a difficult task, you're being patient, meaning you're allowing some time to elapse. While you might want to give the direction and want them to start immediately, we know that's not always going to be the case. In fact, we're betting on the fact that it's likely not going to be the case or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast or you wouldn't be in our services. That's why you're working with us. So it is a very careful dance of acknowledgment. of maintaining your own baseline, of offering assistance, and then differentially reinforcing any and all more desirable behaviors than their avoidance or their escalated soul. Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. Anything else we might add to that list? We're actually, believe it or not, getting close to our hour here. Yeah. We could probably do a third episode on this. We'll see if we

SPEAKER_00: 58:04

decide to do so. Which we will have to because we got the whole de-escalation side. We haven't even gotten to that side. So we'll have to make them come back for the third episode, which I'm looking forward to. forward to okay well we'll have to talk

SPEAKER_01: 58:15

about that and see we might avoid the restraint part yes yes yes definitely showcase that just on audio right but i think i think we've been very effective in talking about how to avoid getting to that point right knowing that there's a threshold even when we look at the escalation cycle graphically there's a threshold and we're not saying again to be to be uh repetitive here we're saying not every tantrum is an escalation or a crisis situation exactly every tantrum is an escalation exactly and it Yeah, exactly. Yeah. stepped away run outside move completely away from where the homework is and now you've got a bigger challenge to contend with so fighting the smaller battles the smaller flare-ups making sure your child is you're acknowledging their feelings you're offering them a bit of assistance you're differentiating reinforcing anything that's desirable toward that task or that demand that's at hand and doing that dance knowing that that might feel a little busy that might feel a little bit permissive at times as a parent but at the end if the job gets done, therein lies the reinforcement.

SPEAKER_00: 59:46

Exactly. Like in the flood example, is there a door over here I can kind of open up to let a little water out before it just completely blows down the entire dam and now we have to reconstruct this whole situation. So I guess in conclusion here, three things maybe to think about during the escalation phase. Number one, less is more. With the kids we work with, with people in general, just the less we can intervene, the higher likelihood we're going to be to be successful. Otherwise, the individual wouldn't be escalating. If the individual could come up to you and say, hey, I really don't want to do my homework right now, this is why, or I'm really upset about X, Y, and Z, this is why, this is what you can do, they would have done that. Because they're escalating, they obviously couldn't do that. So number one, less is more. Number two, keeping your eyes on the prize. And what I mean by that is whatever you're focused on. And number three, kind of going with number two, is figuring out how we can win, how we get a win. Not I get a win, but we get a win. How can I get us both a win in this situation? And understanding in any situation what a win is for you, what a win is for them, and how we can both get a win in this situation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:53

All right. Well, we've tackled a really large topic. There might be a part three. We'll see. We'll certainly be back at some point. No, there has to be because we got the whole de-escalation. So come back next time. We got two episodes left in this particular season, starting kicking off season four with our 25th episode. Can you believe we'll be looking at season four in January of 2023? We thank you all for your listenership. We thank you for your time. We hope this has been helpful and we'll see you next time. And always analyze responsibly. Bye-bye. ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.