Robert Trout (00:01.454)
Hello and welcome to today’s episode from Parent Problems Today. And today’s episode is going to be with myself and Paul Arradondo as we have worked with lots of different families and we have a topic that’s come up that we wanna kind of focus on. Today we’re gonna talk about safety versus process. And this is one of those topics where…
We’re not going to use today, we’re not going to use a specific example from one family because what we’re really looking at today is kind of a part of our work with parents because parents show up with stories and we work with them and supervise the process of dismantling those stories to look at intervention strategies and steps that they can move forward on.
But today we’re going to take one of those things where it’s like, this is something we have to do. And what that is, is constantly stepping in with families that they’re in that new normal mindset or the blind spot. There’s lots of different names for this phenomenon. But what we’re really looking at is a family that they’re working with their loved one.
and they’ve received maybe from other sources, therapists, programs, hospitals, different individuals along their treatment path, they’ve received feedback where it’s like, okay, I’ve got to build relationship with my kid, or I’ve got to do this reflective listening, or I’ve got to do this process around making sure they go to school, right? Like they get…
super honed in and focus on what they were told they were supposed to do. And it creates this blind spot because very often they’re so focused on this one key point that they miss some truly significant needs within the dynamic. And today the need that I want to focus on with Paul is safety. So
Robert Trout (02:13.026)
Paul, let me kick it over to you for a second, because this has come up for both of us with at least one family and several in the last couple of months. But why don’t you kind of speak to this idea of safety? What comes up for you when I introduce this topic?
Paul (02:32.103)
Safety is the foundation of everything. You can’t do therapy without safety. You can’t have relationship without safety. You can’t approach a problem without a sense of safety. If anybody in the family system is not feeling safe, it’s pretty clear that their anxiety is gonna be up, their fear response is gonna be up, they’re going to be presenting with some more agitation in their system, and that just makes for more difficult…
conversations and situations. It all just is speaking directly to the idea of stabilization. Cause when it comes to safety, really it can go a myriad of ways. Do I feel safe in your presence? Do I feel safe in my environment? Do I feel safe leaving and going to school or a neighborhood or anywhere?
Right? We can look at it through it. And you were just mentioning that we’ve both been having it come up. I’m working with a family who has a male kid with high functioning autism. For him, the unknown is a lack of safety. For him, his brain, he needs to have some sense of a picture of the next moment.
Robert Trout (03:42.665)
So,
Paul (03:56.187)
you know, front loading, a skill that we talk often about, the ability to give somebody information about what the next moment’s gonna be like, to help them understand structure and what’s gonna be the future moment that they’re all gonna have to navigate together and how they’re gonna do it as a family, as a unit, as a support system. That’s safety for that particular family. And with that same family,
that child gets overwhelmed very quickly, right? Sensory overload can be a safety issue because that can spin them into anxiety, into fear, into the need or the desire to control the environment. Because when I think of safety and I think of behavior patterns across the board, it’s safety or control, safety or control, safety or control, safety or control. If I don’t feel safe, I’m gonna try and control this thing.
Robert Trout (04:35.271)
Okay.
Paul (04:53.195)
And my version of control is going to be to exert power. Maybe it’s going to be to push you away. Maybe it’s going to be to pull you close. But all of those behavior patterns are a desire to feel safe, right? We can boil down every single behavior pattern to this idea of safety and control. So when it comes to somebody who has trauma or who has depression, their version of safety or control is very different.
Right, because they ultimately might have behavior patterns like self-harm that actually in their particular internal process is a remedy for all that sensory overwhelm or deep dark thoughts, or even when they get to that numb place, they wanna just feel something. Right, so self-harm can actually be a tool for them.
albeit a maladaptive tool, a tool for them to try and come back to a sense of normalcy, a sense of baseline self-awareness. So safety in that household is having the parents have an awareness that they need to manage the environment, meaning get all the sharps out. Sharps is referring to knives, scissors, razor blades, anything that ultimately can be an impulsive.
quick decision by this person, anybody, teen, young adult, adult who leans on self harm for a coping skill, a maladaptive coping skill, but a way that they manage themselves, manage their own internal experience. So yeah, safety can, it’s a broad topic, right? But again, if we do not have safety, there’s nothing to stand on, right? So,
Robert Trout (06:24.453)
Okay. There we go. Okay. Yep. Okay.
Paul (06:48.284)
It’s a big push-pull in a lot of ways, and it’s a huge ask of a lot of parents to try and support their child and stay connected to their child, and this idea of safety.
Robert Trout (06:58.972)
Yep. So what I want to kind of orient to in this conversation is safety as a foundational piece of, we would say treatment, but within a family context, safety is a foundational piece to even be able to create.
Paul (07:09.305)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (07:19.786)
process to work with to make things better in the future. You can’t nobody, me, you, any parent in the world that we’re not going to be able to, any professional in the world for that matter, is not going to make a change neurologically or behaviorally or within a dynamic of a system, you’re not going to succeed in a change process until you establish certain key points.
Paul (07:22.323)
Sure. Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (07:49.894)
And safety is probably the first one that we all have to orient around because without that safety, we do have then to, we have nowhere to go. And so you and I have been talking about this with several families. You brought up self-harm. I’ll bring up a family that I’m working with right now that the theme of the conversation with the mother specifically has been her recognizing
Paul (07:53.267)
Priority number one. Yep.
Paul (08:07.557)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (08:19.678)
and me helping her reorient to the idea that she’s feeling physically threatened by her teenager. Okay, he’s really big. He’s going to puberty, he’s developing physically, he’s doing the individuation and pushing back and trying to find out what’s real and where those boundaries are. Now, he’s never hurt her. I want to be clear about that. What’s happening here is that she, her brain is creating a story
Paul (08:28.932)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (08:39.972)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (08:48.482)
from fear from a different part of her life. And this mom’s really digging into that and looking at, okay, hold on, my son’s never actually hurt me. I’m scared that fear is coming from somewhere. So the safety factor in this is that she’s showing up and in a lot of her interactions with her son, she’s almost antagonizing him to see if he’ll follow through
Paul (09:01.148)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (09:15.004)
Hmm.
Robert Trout (09:18.734)
the loop that she’s in that I’m not safe. So we’re having to reorient the conversation around what is safety and how do you show up not in fear but in this case the mother has to feel safe. We’re not even talking about the kid like the kid like hasn’t done anything truly impactful from a safety standpoint. He’s not self-harming, he’s not suicidal, he hasn’t hit anybody, there’s
Paul (09:35.283)
Sure.
Paul (09:42.674)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (09:46.462)
no physical retribution acts, et cetera. So I just wanna make sure that we’re coming at this from both sides of the conversation that yeah, sometimes kids will self-harm, they’ll swallow things, they’ll cut, they’ll run away, they’ll do all these things that, okay, hold on, stop all processing. We have to stop the process and recognize that, I wanna bring in something you just said, you said safety in control.
Paul (09:54.263)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (10:11.574)
That’s the other side. That’s the maladaptive reaction behaviors for most parents, right? So just for our listeners, so you understand the difference, control is where you show up and you’re triggered to a place of, oh, I need to stop this or I need to make this safe or I need to make myself safe or I need to whatever. You’re showing up in a very much of I need to gain control over this situation, this person, this problem, whatever it might be. That’s where most fights and
Paul (10:17.171)
Sure.
Robert Trout (10:41.25)
and really intense crisis situations come from is everyone’s reacting. So control is a reaction response. What we’re talking about today is not that what we’re really talking about is the process of relationship oriented intervention and building process with them, seeing where they’re at and working with them. So there’s a direct difference between those two things. We’re not talking about controlling.
Paul (10:45.203)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (11:07.426)
But for both those, control and process, if we remove both options, we then back up into, wait a minute, someone in this scenario is not feeling safe or creating non-safety. And that’s where we’re showing up in this conversation, right? It’s like, okay, either the parent needs to own that they’re making it unsafe with their reactions, or the kid, whatever age, right? And like you said, you know, six, 15.
Paul (11:20.923)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (11:35.982)
25, 39, doesn’t matter. However old they are, this kid in our scenario for parenting problems today, we’re looking at, okay, where does this safety come from? So let me pass that to you, Paul. Where do you start that conversation with parents that this is the blind spot? We usually have to be the ones to be like, whoa, hold on, we’re not talking about what you’re gonna say to get this kid out of bed. No, no, no. There’s something way before that.
Paul (11:55.635)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (12:01.337)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (12:04.662)
So what comes up for you when I kind of swing that back to you?
Paul (12:05.267)
Sure.
Paul (12:09.275)
I would say, you know, when talking with parents directly, it all begins with them. The safety has to actually begin with them. I mean, you mentioned if a parent doesn’t feel safe, they’re gonna be in the reactivity, and then that just generates more reactivity, right? Because ultimately, the parents need to be the anchor. That’s a constant conversation that we engage the parents on, right? It’s like, hey, you have the mature nervous system and neurology, the kids do not.
The teenagers do not. Their brain is not developed enough to be able to use the skills that we would hope they’ll integrate over time. But that’s something that we need to actually slow down with the parents and say, you are the anchor. It is your role to slow yourself down to then help them come down to then be able to have a conversation. Because if they’re up here and you meet them up there, that’s just a recipe, right? That doesn’t support a process of safety.
Robert Trout (12:37.83)
Thank you.
Robert Trout (12:43.25)
So, I’m going to start with a question. Yes. So, I’m going to start with a question.
Paul (13:04.207)
So when it comes to supporting the parents in slowing down, self-awareness and the many avenues of generating that, well, be it developing language, developing co-parenting conversations to help them support one another or co-parenting scenarios or co-caregiver scenarios to create space for them to slow down, as well as strategies to be slow in the moment. You know, if…
It’s something like, oh goodness, there’s so many scenarios that we could talk about that actually destabilize safety, right? Or we make it so that we don’t feel safe or another person doesn’t feel safe, whether that’s the truth or not. There’s so many situations that put us into that reactive place. Such a basic one. You didn’t put your dishes in the dishwasher. It’s a pretty benign moment. It’s not that big of a deal, but if a parent comes stomping down the hallway and they’re hearing the…
Robert Trout (13:41.966)
I’m going to start with a question from the audience. So, I’m going to start with a question from the audience.
Paul (14:01.691)
The kid in the bedroom is hearing the feet slapping the floor and then banging on the door and then barging in and being like, I told you to go in the kitchen. Boom. There’s no safety. Right. And there’s the other end of the spectrum when we’re actually talking about safety where a kid is curled up in a ball. A kid is sobbing, weeping. Maybe they just lost a friend to suicide. I mean, let’s go to the some of these more extreme examples that we have to, you know, support parents in navigating.
Robert Trout (14:19.495)
Let’s see. Hello. Watch. Hello.
Paul (14:32.427)
that parent wants so desperately to take that strain and that struggle and that suffering away from their child. And they don’t always necessarily know how to do it, or they get into that reactive place and they do the rescuing and problem solving thing that doesn’t necessarily serve their child. So when it comes to generating safety in that moment, helping the parents again, have their own internal compass about what’s going on for them.
Robert Trout (14:37.706)
And so, I’m going to take a moment to say a few words. And I’m going to take a moment to say a few words.
Paul (15:01.051)
how are they navigating it for themselves? Are they walking in with a ton of tension in their body? Because if they are, it’s not supporting that moment for their child. Have their mind is racing into how do I navigate this? How do I make this stop? How do I pull my child out of this? They’re pushing their agenda and they’re not meeting their child where they’re at. Right? And so being able to do, as you were saying earlier, things like reflective listening. If the parent is not in a place to even be self-reflective,
Robert Trout (15:06.854)
And that was the end of the presentation. Thank you.
Paul (15:30.455)
they’re not gonna be able to use any of the skills, right? And so, switching it to another scenario, what is it that we’re talking about when a kid truly feels unsafe? They don’t feel like they have an anchor. Oftentimes when kids don’t feel safe, they don’t feel like they have any support system around them. So if their mom is flying off the handle or their dad’s flying off the handle, they’re gonna destabilize, right? And so,
Robert Trout (15:41.899)
Yeah
Paul (15:58.391)
Oftentimes, in order to find some sense of control, they just get bigger, their behaviors get escalated. And so again, coming back to the parents, if you’re not the right person for the job in that moment, take yourself out of it. Because two people in this scenario up here don’t generate safety. You know, if you’re recognizing you’re climbing that scale, you need to take a step back and pull yourself out.
Robert Trout (16:05.29)
Yes. Sorry. I’m sorry.
Paul (16:24.851)
because you not contributing to it is actually a better, leads to better outcomes than trying to come in and manage it from up here in this space. So we can dive into all the skills and such, but to kind of lay the fabric of, you know, the different scenarios is really important.
Robert Trout (16:35.714)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (16:43.686)
What i think the important point to reiterate from what you were just saying is this moment. This moment you may need to walk away you may need to create that space for safety. Like the conversation that we’re trying to have here is not stop you know or you know give up or etc. There is a reality check that families need to do on a momentary basis.
As they’re looking at their loved one their kid is the kid is struggling or the whole family system is struggling Where they say, okay, hold on before I try to do anything in a positive direction Am I triggered? should be in my opinion number one and Then is everyone safe? If the answer to the first am I triggered is yes
This is probably not the moment for you. You have to take care of that, right? That self-regulation for co-regulation. Then we get into the, okay, the safety and you know, maybe we could actually have a fight with all of us on the team about which one of those comes first. To me, the trigger comes in because you need to be calm enough to ask that second question seriously. Because if you’re triggered, so many people are blinded by the emotional rush.
Paul (17:44.231)
Right?
Paul (18:02.451)
Definitely.
Robert Trout (18:09.15)
of the trigger, to me, I kind of feel like that has to come first. It’s, oh, OK, hold on. I’m triggered. Let me take a breath. Let me reorient. And now, let me say, is anyone in danger here? And that leads into a much bigger conversation, not only just for the moment, but for the whole process in general. You and I were just talking about a family that the reality is, you had to ask that question, right? Like,
Paul (18:16.921)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (18:22.416)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (18:38.382)
Are you willing to take all the things away? Right. Are you willing to take everything sharp in the house and give it away and lock the essentials in a safe? And that’s going to be your life is you are going to unlock the safe to get the knife out to cook dinner You’re going to clean the knife and you’re going to put it back in the safe And and yeah, like to a lot of our listeners, that’s an extreme example. But guess what? It’s a very common thing
It really is. So many people are in their own process. They’re like, Oh, you know, it’ll never get that bad for me. Guess what? It gets that bad for so many people. But let me kick that over to you. Like you just had to ask a family that question. Like talk about that process of asking those hard, direct inline questions and what comes up from that.
Paul (19:08.937)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (19:19.42)
Yeah.
Paul (19:31.575)
Sure. Yeah, so when we’re at a point where we need to be clear, it is our role to actually show up and ask a question that is going to, as we would expect, cause a reaction. And even in that moment, trying to help a parent slow down and see clearly is challenging, right? From our perspective, our role. And so being able to say very clearly, hey, your child has a history. Let’s not.
Robert Trout (19:53.206)
Yeah. So that’s a good question. So I’m going to go ahead and do a little bit of a demonstration. So I’m going to go ahead and do a little bit of a demonstration. I’m going to go ahead and do a little bit of a demonstration. So that’s a good question. So I’m going to go ahead and do a little bit of a demonstration.
Paul (20:01.611)
even get beyond that part of the conversation for a moment. Let’s recognize that there is a pattern here, a pattern of self-harm. Now let’s also recognize that our baseline function in terms of being supportive to your child is safety. Okay, how do we make your kid safe? Let’s make sure we’re taking all the potential like low hanging fruit options off the table, right? And that ends up being sharps.
You know, and so the question was, hey, we need to start thinking of a safety plan. We need to start actually having, um, the, the clarity that if sharps are around the house, it’s not going to be supportive that they’re just too easy to access going to the kitchen, going to the craft drawer, going to, you know, any bedroom in the house, sharps are everywhere. Right. And so being mindful that.
If we’re really trying to promote healthy choices, we need to take away easy, maladaptive opportunities. And so are you willing to remove the sharps? And the mom actually said, I don’t think I can do that.
I let that hang in the space. Because I really wanted her to sit with her saying that. I didn’t want to jump on her, but I wanted to have that moment where I said, okay, so I hear you’re not willing to remove the sharps.
Paul (21:39.715)
and then became a bigger conversation, right? It became this idea of, okay, so if the sharps are still present, how do you feel like you’re gonna be able to manage that? If there’s options on the table for your daughter to walk into the kitchen and grab something and have it be a moment where safety, again, is not present, that just makes it so you’re not capable.
Robert Trout (21:42.935)
Okay. Thank you.
Paul (22:09.235)
of redirecting her. It makes it so a lot of your options are now off the table. So creating safety generates more options, generates more opportunity to have a conversation. Pulling the sharps, putting them in a lock box, having that just be part of what you need to do supports relationship, supports intervention, supports redirection, supports healthy coping skills becoming more of an option.
Robert Trout (22:11.32)
Yes.
Robert Trout (22:31.9)
Yes.
Paul (22:38.963)
And it took about 10 to 15 minutes of a conversation with this mother to truly illustrate that and clarify like, yeah, and you may have to take some of the trinkets off your shelves because they’re the size of a baseball or a softball. And she also has a history of throwing things through the window, you know? And so that is also something to manage and be attentive towards, right? Because safety doesn’t just end with sharps. So being aware of how we…
Robert Trout (23:02.501)
No. Well, yes. So very often we have to help families, right? We look at even what a safety plan is. And to me, I guess there’s two things that come up automatically for that.
Paul (23:05.275)
generate space, right? Our environment is a reflection of safety. And so it’s a very extensive conversation, to say the least.
Robert Trout (23:25.954)
The first is the recognizing that we are in a supportive role, helping them see here’s the pattern for your kid, and here are the things that you should consider for this pattern. Because so many parents also go overboard where it’s like, well, we just need to move into a concrete bunker. It’s like, no, you don’t. Like,
Paul (23:48.867)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (23:49.25)
There’s a certain point, right, where we’re asking their kid or the processes, the team, the treatment, the hospital, the therapist, et cetera, we’re asking that individual to work on themselves and to better their ability because the hope is, I’m gonna say in most circumstances that behaviors are adjustable, it can be changed over time. So it’s not like lock up the sharps for the rest of your life.
Paul (24:16.366)
Right.
Robert Trout (24:16.402)
even though that does happen. And I do want to be clear about that. That does happen. Sometimes we have to normalize the fact that depending on the level of mental health process or developmental process or whatever is going on for this person, this is not, we’re not talking about short games. Like when we get to this level of safety conversations, this is not a short-term fix. This is a normalizing longer term efforts to support someone in a mental health.
Paul (24:34.012)
Right.
Paul (24:38.864)
Right?
Robert Trout (24:45.966)
crisis or process. Right? So to me there’s that like, okay first of all, yes you may have to lock up your sharps. Yes it may be for longer than six months. Yes it may be for the next three years. But the hope is, it’s not just lock up the sharps and everything get their pay. It’s, hey we’re going to do this now. So you create a lifestyle around putting it together.
Paul (24:47.831)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Robert Trout (25:15.838)
And then we’re going to work on kind of understanding what you’re going to need to do for your individual process with your individual family and style, right? So you get to now personalize the intervention, personalize the process with that family. For me, you know, I’ll throw out some and then maybe you can throw out some, but I’ve had to help families understand not just the sharps, but like medicines.
Paul (25:29.555)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (25:45.927)
Mm-hmm, sure.
Robert Trout (25:46.198)
clearing out garages of anything liquid. I’ve definitely had younger kids that have had to work through processes around getting into their adult, you know, alcohol, cigarettes, all that kind of stuff. So that’s also a part of the process. But those are some examples. What have you run into that we’ve had to create safety plans around?
Paul (26:05.861)
Right?
Paul (26:12.847)
All of those, right? I mean, there’s, you know, the, I mean, you mentioned early on in this conversation that I was just working with a family and screws an aerosol, like air freshener, swallowed in the same moment, right? You know, and that being a behavior of feeling a lack of control.
Robert Trout (26:13.93)
Hahaha
Robert Trout (26:33.156)
Yep.
Paul (26:38.191)
and also wanting to get attention. So some of these patterns of self-harm or seeking or substance use might be attention seeking, might be signs of depression, all of those things. But when it comes to setting up a safety plan, I am exactly in the same boat. We echo this to families. It’s that thing of look at the patterns of your child.
start to get out ahead of them, they’re predictable behaviors. You know, we’ll use that language a lot, predictable behaviors. And so it could be…
Paul (27:20.647)
Gosh, I think you hit the majority of them Rob. I mean, there are.
Robert Trout (27:24.984)
Oh, there’s so many more. You brought up throwable objects, like kids that are physically violent. So what are some of those? The different things we’ve had to look at for physical safety.
Paul (27:30.915)
Right. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Paul (27:38.599)
I mean, it’s everything, Rob. You know, like, it’s anything that could be lifted can sometimes be used, right? I mean, depending on the kid, depending on the age, depending on their athleticism. Like, I have a 14-year-old ASD kid who is strong. He is built, and he will pick up a baseball and wing it. And that has happened.
Robert Trout (27:44.68)
Yep.
Robert Trout (27:50.21)
Yep.
Paul (28:02.351)
You know, and so that is a reality. It’s, hey, can we redirect them to an environment where these things aren’t available? You know, and so that becomes part of the tactic or part of the plan is, hey, if we’re talking about safety, let’s move them and redirect them to an environment where there aren’t as many options, right? And we’re not talking about a padded room per se, like you were saying, the cement bunker, but we’re talking about like, hey,
Robert Trout (28:04.758)
Yep.
Robert Trout (28:10.359)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (28:20.567)
Yes.
Robert Trout (28:26.202)
and I’m still on the on the you know stuff I don’t know if I’m on the stuff yes yep well
Paul (28:27.823)
let’s go sit on the couch. And there’s not anything within arm’s reach or even within two steps, right? And so we do need to strategize our environments and create space for there to be an opportunity to deescalate and co-regulate as you’re saying. So it could be anything, Rob. We can go and list all household items and the answer is yes, right? And so it’s extensive.
Robert Trout (28:54.022)
I’ll throw out just a couple of key things that I’ve had to work out with families. Cell phones and locking them up and having them have the special apps that shut them down and things like that. Car keys are a huge one for families that you actually have to lock your car keys away somewhere to make sure that your kid doesn’t steal the car or get access to the car for a variety of reasons.
Paul (29:01.331)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (29:07.667)
Sure.
Paul (29:18.771)
Sure.
Robert Trout (29:23.066)
Having rooms in the house where there are locks on the doors of each one of those with different keys That’s always key don’t have one key to everything. It’s got to be specific and then the parent has access These are just some things but it goes on and on and on because like you said this is very much related to identifying the pattern the predictable behaviors as you were just saying
Paul (29:29.201)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (29:50.118)
and then looking at how do we develop a plan and then for our work and all of you who are listening to this please hear this working with the parent to understand or normalize that sometimes you just have to do this for short term long term or an undetermined amount of process for your loved one
So very often it is an exchange where you’re looking and saying, okay, I want things to be different. Great. Step number one, identify your triggers that are getting in the way. Step number 1.5, how do you as the parent feel safe and how do you keep your kids safe or family safe or whatever the scenario is? I’ve had parents that have had to give away pets.
because the pet is a part of the process for safety where to save that pet’s life or to make sure that there’s no process of safety happening there, the pets have to go away. And yes, that’s hard. The parents cry. It’s been their pet before the kid was ever even born, things like that where it’s like, okay, let’s normalize this idea that safety is probably where this all has to start. You have to start with this place of
Paul (30:44.552)
Mm.
Paul (30:56.403)
Sure. Right.
Robert Trout (31:14.022)
Okay, am I in an environment where I and my kid is safe so that we can start a change process?
Robert Trout (31:26.018)
So from that, you know, let’s kind of, let’s start moving this towards the end of the conversation. Safety plans. What does it look like to have that conversation? Where do you start with the family?
Paul (31:26.131)
Bless you.
Paul (31:40.467)
I mean, we’ve already touched on the beginning of that conversation. Is the parent feeling safe? Right? You know, and you said 1.5. I would say 1.5A is what is the skill that the parent’s going to use? Right? How do they slow themselves down? How do they have, as you were saying earlier, have proper perspective? Because if they’re agitated and they’re escalating and they’re climbing that scale, oftentimes they’re in their reactivity. So being able to start with them.
Robert Trout (31:53.538)
Yes.
Paul (32:08.927)
They need to be able to take care of themselves, because if they’re not the right person, they’re not the right person. And so then it comes, what is it that is creating the space for their child to slow down, their loved one to slow down? How do they, do they already have a plan in place? Because a safety plan is something that hopefully you’re having a conversation with the person, the child, the teen, the young adult, long before you’re in the moment.
Robert Trout (32:37.845)
Yes. Right. So, I’m going to go ahead and start with the question. So, I’m going to go
Paul (32:38.683)
We’ve used this word front loading. So you have to front load the safety plan. You have to have some buy-in around the safety plan. Like having that kid go outside and go on a walk, having that kid go into their bedroom and close the door and scream into a pillow, or take their pillow and beat their bed with it. Like something that is actually going to be safer than, and they get to move that energy. They get to move that tension out of their body, out of their system.
So when it comes to a safety plan, we gotta talk first about like skills, right? What?
Robert Trout (33:15.035)
Well, actually, you said 1.5A, and it reminded me what you said about your conversation with this mother. Are you willing? I think that maybe it’s 1.3A is the reality check, right?
Paul (33:24.467)
Sure.
Robert Trout (33:30.838)
Like before we even get to safety is, are you capable and willing? Because if the answer to that is no, we’re looking for external support systems, right? At that point, like there’s nothing to be done from that point. If the answer to that is no from the parent, we’re looking outside of the home, hospitalization, treatment programs, therapeutic interventions, whatever it might be. And I…
Paul (33:31.155)
Sure, yeah.
Paul (33:43.639)
Oh yeah, definitely.
Paul (33:51.258)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (33:59.23)
I guess I do want to say for a second, like, if the answer to that is no…
there’s a check in there. There’s something going on for the parent now. So we need to even divert away from the kid at all. Like, hold on, what’s going on over here? Are you safe? Are you, do you, like, what’s going on? So just put in that caveat where it’s like, okay, hold on, if the answer that’s no, there’s work even to do on the parent side versus even looking at the kid. So.
Paul (34:18.076)
Right.
Paul (34:31.288)
Yeah, I mean…
Robert Trout (34:31.35)
Maybe that’s 1.3a, then you get into 1.5a and go from there. So go ahead.
Paul (34:36.551)
Sure. Yeah, I mean, just to further speak to what you were just saying, is it capacity or willingness? Can the parent actually show up? Are they capable? Or is it, I don’t want to do that because I want to have a normal life and I can’t begin to integrate the idea that my home is not safe, right? Like I can’t fathom that, right? And so capacity versus willingness is a really interesting evaluative lens in terms of
as you were saying, do we need to find further support? Having somebody come into the house, having the child leave the home for a period of time to learn more skills, to be in an environment that is truly safe, to create behavioral change, to create developmental maturation processes. There’s so many things that come into ultimately taking a good next step. So.
Robert Trout (35:31.723)
Yes.
If you’re listening to this as a parent, understand that question, are you capable or have the capacity and the willingness to do this? If the answer to that is no, no judgment. There’s no judgment there. There’s just good data. There’s work to be done that includes you. And you may actually have to be the one to start this work, not your kid. If the answer to that is no, that’s where it’s like, OK,
Paul (35:48.531)
Of course not. Yeah.
Right.
Paul (35:57.18)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (36:01.563)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (36:04.778)
seeking external resources, plugging other people and processes, programs, whatever in for the kid to keep them safe while the parent does their work. But there’s no judgment there.
Paul (36:16.807)
None. Yeah. It actually goes back to, you know, not only external support systems for the child, but just as you said, no judgment and trying to encourage that parent to have support systems for themselves, be it therapy, counseling, group work, retreat, something, something to help them come back to their center to have more resilience, have greater capacity because
Early on in this conversation, you also said, hey, parents have their own life experience that they bring to the table when they’re parenting. Meaning they could have had trauma in their youth or their young adulthood, or even then their adulthood that ultimately informs and impacts their reactivity because they don’t necessarily feel safe. So it’s a family system. I mean, there’s so many levels to the experience. And as you said earlier, sometimes we have to be the mirror of that.
Robert Trout (37:05.114)
Yep.
Paul (37:12.887)
and create space for the clarity around what those next steps are. And it all leads to safety as the foundation. It all comes back to this theme of, hey, if we’re not feeling like we can stabilize ourselves to then help them come down and stabilize with us, we’re having the wrong conversation.
Robert Trout (37:36.893)
And
I think you said this earlier, we could probably talk about this for hours. The reality is, is so much work needs to be done of normalizing the processes that families have to create in order to even establish a foundation of safety for the parents, the siblings, the kid, the animals, everyone. There’s work to be done in almost any situation. So this is very often a very
Robert Trout (38:07.646)
Is everyone safe? If they are, now we can start with looking at skills and processes and those types of things. But this really is a key point, a key beginning to a family that’s listening to this right now and saying, wait a minute, hold on. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I need to back up because I keep trying to step in. I keep trying to create change or facilitate, but nothing’s happening. Nothing’s changing. And they’re losing steam and getting exhausted.
Paul (38:09.381)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (38:20.764)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (38:36.91)
The reality is they may have missed this, because this is a blind spot, because most families are seeking solutions. And that’s OK, except that if you try to implement a solution without safety, the likelihood of change is almost zero. You’re just not going to see anything happen there. And in fact, you can exasperate it. Yeah, it’s not stable. That’s right. So all right. Well.
Paul (38:37.105)
Right.
Paul (38:42.117)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Paul (38:54.532)
Right.
Paul (38:58.059)
And it’s not sustainable. Right. Yeah.
Robert Trout (39:05.906)
Let’s stop this at a, hey everybody, check in with yourself about safety and really do an examination around like, okay, hold on, maybe I need to relook at where we’re at as a family. Paul, what would your closing statement to this conversation be? Knowing that we’re probably going to touch on this.
in many more episodes as we go through the years in doing this, but what would be your closing thoughts today about safety versus process?
Paul (39:41.455)
I mean, it is that self-reflective moment. If you’re already exhausted, there’s something you’re missing. If you’re already feeling out of control before you’ve even engaged your child, that’s something to be self-reflective about, right? Creating the space to recognize if we’re not slowing down, we’re not safe. If nobody’s slow, there’s a lack of safety, right?
Again, think of the system as this nervous system. If it’s agitated and it’s in that fight-flight-free stays or it’s raw and sensitive, and it just keeps going into reactivity, there’s a lack of safety, right? So being able to take a big step back and be objective, create that space for that clarity. And then ultimately pause and go, okay.
what are we missing, just as you said, and have conversations with people outside the home about perspective and normalizing, oh, this needs to change because this is actually not normal. We’ve been just doing this, but actually it’s not normal that a family functions this way or fails to function in certain ways, right? And I hate using that word failure. I think it’s just challenges.
Robert Trout (40:40.05)
Yeah. Well, you know, well, for me, I hate the word normal. It’s more like here would be my closing thought to every
Paul (41:03.879)
Totally.
Robert Trout (41:06.27)
If you’re a parent out there and you’re listening to this conversation, here’s the question. Are you willing, are you willing to change your life to support the process for your family, for your kid? Are you willing to do that? If the answer to that is no, then you need to slow down on trying to change anything that’s going on.
And if the answer to that is yes, then take a breath and say, okay, how do I make sure we’re all safe enough to actually create something different than what we’re in right now?
Robert Trout (41:47.746)
Thank you, Paul. I appreciate this conversation. I feel like it’s gonna need to be something touched on multiple times, just reminding families and ourselves to take that breath and look at safety. I appreciate your time for the podcast and everyone, we hope to hear from you as we’re putting together our episodes and looking for scenarios and questions. So feel free to reach out if you have something that’s been sparked from this conversation.
Paul (41:54.83)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (42:17.294)
and we’re here to support you. Our videos and trainings and everything are online and ready for you and your family. Have a great day.
