Autonomic responses aren't that way for everyone

Each person has individual differences, some are considered strengths or weaknesses, some are natural, and some are worked towards. Up until this experience in my life, I have assumed that the one thing all people had in common was the ability to regulated their nervous systems.

But that isn't the case.

Even as early as infancy, when a person cries they are asking for a need to be met, they feel the feeling at a level and then when the need is met, they are able to let go and return to a regulated state, autonomically. A baby trying to walk will stumble and fall, then either cry for parent or they get up. Either way they are usually okay in a matter of seconds.

Then we have our case study.

Same age, maybe even slightly older child is learning to walk, they start, stumble and fall. Their nervous system has just told them they nearly died and they go into such a fear response, walking is a death sentence and the idea of trying again? No shot. At least not for a very long time. It may even be months before they try again.

Think about the amount of times you want young children, toddlers stumble fall and pop right back up. We know this as a normal and natural response. If it is a big enough fall they may cry for a moment, or look to you to make sure they are okay, but it passes almost as fast as it happens.

But for the child who cannot regulate their own nervous system, this same instant can turn into a meltdown unusually large. That feels over-the-top, too big for the situation. Which you can apply this to any minor situation where a child or person may have a tiny set back.

A child practicing putting a cap on a marker and cant get it to click right away. Emotional dysregulation immediately.

Feel extreme? Well, it is.

We all regulate our emotions differently, some of us quicker than others. If you have not heard of a child or a person who lacks the ability to regulate to this extreme, you are not alone.

I have worked with all kinds of kids over the years and not once have I heard a child be talked about in such a light.

At best you hear that a kid is dramatic. They make the situation a bigger deal than it really is. They are crying way too hard for something so small so there much be something bigger going on.

At worst they are a bad kid. A bad person. They are watched closely at school for blowing up and many are kicked out of school for fighting or other disciplinary reasons.

I've been learning and experiencing education with a student, a child, who is recognized for his disorder, disability. He has been labeled as an autist. Which has its own stereotypes to go along with it. But the more closely I work with him and his parents, the more we begin to recognize that it is more than just PDA autism. It has so much to do with nervous system regulation, fight or flight, upstairs versus downstairs brain.

He is so bright, he is a joy and a sweetheart. He is kind, compassionate, empathetic. He also is limited by his nervous system. Which can look a lot of different ways. Some of the ways are viewed by society and negative, bad, intense. And probably they are. But understanding what choice we have when the chemicals in our body work a certain way, it is out of our control, we can grow to see that maybe its more than just "bad children" "trouble makers" "irrational". There is something more to diagnose. And with the proper tools, information and perspective, we can help ourselves and others who cannot regulate in the same socially acceptable way,