From Surviving to Thriving: How to Help Your “Challenging” Child Utilizing Nervous System Awareness Skills

A practical guide to understanding emotional dysregulation and building self-regulation skills in children who've experienced trauma.

The Daily Battle That No One Talks About

If you're a parent or caregiver of a child with challenging behaviors, you know the feeling. It's 7:20 AM, and you're already exhausted. Getting your child ready for school feels like a battlefield. Your jaw is clenched, your heart is racing, and you're wondering—for the hundredth time—why is this so hard?

Here's what most parenting advice won't tell you: You're not failing. Your child isn't broken. You're both experiencing what happens when your nervous system gets “stuck” in survival mode.

After 30 years of working with families affected by trauma, I've discovered something remarkable: the key to helping challenging kids isn't about better discipline strategies or reward charts. It's about understanding the internal pharmacy happening inside both your body and your child's body—and learning to shift from producing stress hormones to happiness hormones.

Understanding Your Child's Internal Medicine Cabinet

Imagine your child has two medicine cabinets inside their body:

Cabinet #1: Happiness Hormones

• Dopamine (satisfaction and motivation)

• Endorphins (natural pain relief and that "runner's high" feeling)

• Oxytocin (the soothing "hug hormone")

• Serotonin (the feel-good hormone that makes life look bright)

Cabinet #2: Emergency Stress Hormones

• Cortisol (short-burst emergency response)

• Adrenaline (the turbo-boost for fighting or fleeing)

Here's the problem: Children who've experienced trauma, neglect, or chronic stress have learned to reach for Cabinet #2 automatically—even when there's no real danger. They're perceiving threats everywhere, and their bodies are flooding with stress hormones that make them irritable, defiant, aggressive, or shut down.

And here's the part nobody tells you: When your child goes into stress mode, the nature of human co-regulation means you're likely to follow them there. Their nervous system pulls on yours like a magnet. This pulling is what at the epicenter of many disagreements.

The One Word That Changes Everything: "Perceived"

I once worked with a foster family whose young son would suddenly become terrified and dive into nearby bushes whenever they walked past a Mrs. Fields Cookies store at the mall. This bizarre behavior baffled his parents for months. They tried everything:rewards for staying calm, consequences for running away, talking through what would happen before they got to the mall. Nothing worked.

Eventually, they discovered that the smell of chocolate chip cookies triggered traumatic memories from his past abuse. To everyone else, it was just the pleasant aroma of fresh-baked cookies. To him, it was a danger signal that sent his body into emergency mode.

He wasn't being difficult. He was having a perceived emergency—a cortisol response to a real trigger that others couldn't see.

This is the most important word in trauma-informed parenting: perceived. Your child's challenging behavior isn't manipulation. It's their nervous system perceiving  danger and automatically reaching for those emergency stress hormones.

When your child:

• Refuses to get dressed for school

• Melts down over minor changes

• Becomes aggressive seemingly out of nowhere

• Shuts down and won't communicate

Ask yourself: What danger might they be perceiving right now? Now you might say, “What do you mean ‘danger’? We are in the car driving to the market!” What you need to understand is danger starts as frustration, worry or concern. Now ask yourself what they could be perceiving as a threat.

The Essential Skill: 4-10 Breathing (And Why It Actually Works)

Before you can help your child regulate their emotions, you need to regulate your own. That's not selfish—it's essential and its neuroscience! Like the oxygen mask on an airplane, you must attend to yourself first.

Here's the technique that can shift you from stress hormones to happiness hormones in minutes:

The 4-10 Breath Pattern:

1. Sit upright (or lie down if needed)

2. Blow all your air out with a whoosh

3. Breathe IN through your nose for a count of 4

4. Breathe OUT through your mouth (like blowing through a straw) for a count of 10

5. Repeat 7-10 times

What you'll notice: As you continue, the counting naturally slows down. Your 4-count will go from 1-2-3-4 to 1..2..3..4.. until it becomesinhale becomes 1.....2... ..3..... 4..... and your exhale stretches even longer. Be sure to focus more on the exhale than on the inhale.

Why it works: The elongated exhale is the biological signal that tells your fight-or-flight system to switch back to rest-and-digest mode. This is where you have access to creativity, humor, logic, and patience—all the gifts of your brain that make you an effective parent.

The Real-Life Application

Picture this: Your kids are fighting. Your stress response says "STOP THAT FIGHTING!" But instead, you pause and breathe: 1... 2... 3... 4... hold... then exhale slowly for 10 counts.

Suddenly, you can see the humor in the situation. You have patience. You can respond instead of react. You can actually invite them to do the same and once they see the effect, they will do so gladly.

One parent told me: "My kids now say, 'Mommy, I think you need to count. 1, 2, 3, 4...' They've learned to recognize when I need to regulate, and they help me!" Warning: if someone tells you “you need to breathe”, and your response is a middle finger, then you DEFINITELY need to breathe! Same with your child. Now here is the method: suggest the breathing and then completely disengage with that person in a loving way or neutral way.  Say,”I’m noticing myself getting ratcheted up and I need a few minutes to come back to myself.

Recognizing Your Stress Signals (And Your Child's)

Most of us have been trained to ignore our internal sensations. Think about when you whined as a child. Whining stems from feeling insecure. Kids go to their parents with something uncomfortable but for whatever reason are told to be quiet or go away. This is the start of learning to ignore our internal sensations. This leads to believing that your internal experience isn’t valid, and this, dear reader, is the seed of codependency getting watered. This is exactly how generational trauma gets passed from one generation to the next. Which seeds are you watering in your kids now?

Your body is constantly giving you information about whether you are perceiving safety or danger which determines which medicine cabinet you're using.

Common Cortisol/Adrenaline Indicators:

• Tight chest

• Rapid heartbeat

• Jaw clenching

• Stomach drop

• Feeling heavy or exhausted

• Blood rushing to your head

• Feeling constricted

Common Happiness Hormone Indicators:

• Feeling bubbly or light

• Energized but calm

• Peaceful

• Relaxed

• Smiling naturally

• Warmth in your body

One parent shared: "I had to go to the dentist because I was clenching my jaw so much from stress. Now I recognize clenching as my early warning signal—before I get to the point of yelling at my kids."

The goal is to catch yourself before you're fully activated. What happens right before the clenching? Right before the tight chest? That's your opportunity to breathe and shift.

The Activity Analysis: A Revolutionary Tool for Overwhelmed Parents

Here's an exercise I use regularly with all of my students. It has a high score of positive six and a low score of negative six. This ishow it changed one father's entire relationship with his son:

David was a stay-at-home dad who dreaded every morning. When I had him chart his daily activities and rate each one based on whether he felt green zone (happiness hormones: light, bubbly, energized, calm, etc.) or red zone (stress hormones: tight, heavy, clenched, racing heart rate, etc.), he made a shocking discovery.

His chart looked like this:

• Wake up: +4 (mostly green zone)

• Feed the dogs: +4

• Get kids up: -5 (zero green, all red zone)

• Load kids in car: -6

• Drive to school #1: -6

• Drive to school #2: +6

How could driving to one school be -6 but driving to the second be +6?

David realized: His oldest son was having a massive fight with him every single morning about going to school. David had gotten so used to the battle that he accepted it as "just how things are with us."

But when he saw it on paper—a negative 6 every single day at 7:20 AM—he thought: Maybe my son is having a cortisol response.. Maybe we are all having a cortisol response! Why is he perceiving danger on the way to school? Maybe I am missing something really important here.

Turns out, his son hated his first-period teacher (who also hated him). It was math and his son felt awful starting his day feeling ridiculed. David  decided to ado=vocate for his advocate for a schedule change. The morning battles ended. Their relationship transformed. And it transformed because David stopped seeing his son as problematic for him and instead was able to hear his son was having problems he couldn’t deal with on his own. David couldn’t have done this without paying attention to his own nervous system first.

The Four Questions That Change Everything

When you find a consistent negative score on your activity chart, ask:

1. Is this necessary? (Can I eliminate this stressor entirely?)

2. Is there another way to do this? (Can I approach it differently?)

3. Is there someone else who can do this? (Can I delegate?)

4. Is there an attitude adjustment I can have? (Can I shift my perspective?)

One dad discovered he got a -6 every time he cleaned up dog poop. When asked about an attitude adjustment, he realized: "I have an ocean view in Ventura! I was so focused on hating the task that I forgot I could look at the ocean between scoops."

A young former foster youth, now mother of two,  was stressed about mandatory video visits with her children's incarcerated fathers. These two visits a week were very upsetting to her and her depression was skyrocketing. When she asked the four questions, she realized her own mother had offered to supervise those visits. Delegating that task kept her in the green zone.

Teaching Children to Self-Soothe: The Oxytocin Secret

Here's something remarkable about oxytocin: When you soothe a child, you're not actually making them feel better. You're teaching their nervous system how to self-soothe.

Think about holding a crying baby. You pat their back and say "Shhh... it's okay... you're safe..." That rhythmic patting and soothing voice triggers oxytocin release in the baby's body. They're learning: "This is what safety feels like. This is how I calm down."

Try this right now: Pat your chest or rub it in circles while saying out loud, "Ohhhh... it's okay... I've got this..."

Feel that? That's oxytocin. You can give it to yourself.

When your child is upset, before you try to "fix" the problem, help them release oxytocin:

• Pat them gently on the back

• Use a soothing, rhythmic voice

• Say "Ohhhh..." with them

• Help them recognize the sensation of calming down

You're speaking to them in pre-verbal language—the language their nervous system understood before they could talk. This is incredibly powerful for children with trauma, whose early nervous system development was disrupted. And if you have trauma, its good for you now, no matter how old you are.

Why Traditional Discipline Fails with Traumatized Kids

Let's be honest: When your child is in full cortisol/adrenaline mode, logic doesn't work. Consequences don't work. Rewards don't work.

Because they're not in the part of their brain that can access logic.

When stress hormones are driving the bus:

• Bad ideas sound good

• Impulse control disappears

• They can't access problem-solving skills

• They genuinely can't "just calm down"

This is why you hear yourself saying: "We've talked about this a hundred times! Why do you keep doing this?"

The answer: Their cortisol/adrenaline response is faster than their thinking brain. By the time they realize what they're doing, they've already thrown the chair, hit their sibling, or screamed that they hate you.

Building Long-Term Emotional Regulation Skills

The goal isn't to eliminate all stress from your child's life (impossible). The goal is to teach them to:

1. Notice when they're shifting into stress mode

2. Name what's happening ("I'm having a cortisol response")

3. Apply regulation skills (like 4-10 breathing)

4. Return to their green zone where they can problem-solve

This is literally life-changing. Children who learn these skills:

• Don't get stuck on failures or setbacks

• Can self-soothe even in isolation

• Have tenacity and grit

• Are less likely to end up in jail, sex trafficking, or other dangerous situations

You're not just managing today's tantrum. You're giving them the skills to manage their nervous system for life—when you're not there to do it for them.

The Morning Routine That Changes Everything

Want to set your whole family up for success? Start here:

Before you get out of bed:

1. Do 4-10 breathing (7-10 rounds) until you feel good ( or better) inside

2. Drink a full glass of water

These two simple actions reduce cortisol production for your entire day. Your brain comes online. Your patience increases. You can access creativity and humor. Cortisol increases naturally when you are short of oxygen and short of water. Start your day by flushing your emotional toilet by oxygenating your brain and hydrating your internal organs.

One parent said: "I used to check my phone first thing and immediately feel overwhelmed. Now I breathe and drink water before I even look at my to-do list. My whole day is different."

When You Can't Keep Your Cool: The Power of Modeling

Here's the truth: You're going to lose your cool  sometimes. You're going to yell. You're going to feel like the worst parent in the world. That’s what happens when two people are perceiving and interpreting danger from each other’s reactions or behaviors.

This is actually an opportunity.

When you notice you're escalating, say out loud: "Wow, I notice I am filling with cortisol right now. I need to take a break and calm down. I'll be back when I'm feeling better." It is very important to say “I am filling with cortisol” instead of “I am getting really upset or angry,” etc. This difference honors your nervous system response and avoids heavily charged feelings that often feel like blaming or shaming of the other person.

When you say, “I notice I am filling with cortisol,” the other person can say, “Wow! So am I! Let’s take a break and come back when we are both oxygenated and hydrated!”

Then go do your 4-10 breathing. Pat your chest. Say “Awwwwwwwwww! This really hurts!!!” Get yourself back to green zone.

When you return, you can say: "I noticed I was getting  really upset, and I needed to calm my body down. Did you notice how I took some deep breaths? That's what helps me feel better."

This is tremendous modeling. Your child learns:

• My feelings matter

• It's okay to recognize when I'm upset

• I can take a break to calm down

• I can come back and try again

• Adults struggle with this too—I'm not broken

Co-Regulation: The Double-Edged Sword

Co-regulation is why parenting challenging kids is so exhausting. When your child is in red zone, their nervous system actively pulls you into the red zone with them. It's biological, not a character flaw.

But here's the good news: Co-regulation works both ways.

When YOU are solidly in your green zone—genuinely calm, regulated, and resourced—your nervous system pulls your child toward regulation, too.

This is why your own regulation is the most important parenting tool you have. Not for selfish reasons, but because you cannot give what you don't have.

A regulated parent raising a dysregulated child creates opportunity for healing.

A dysregulated parent raising a dysregulated child creates a cycle of reactivity.

The Satisfaction Secret: Why Small Wins Matter

Remember dopamine? It's released when you set a goal and achieve it. But here's the catch: If you set the goal too big, you don't get the dopamine hit.

Parent says: "I'm going to clean the whole house today." Parent cleans everything except bathrooms. Brain says: "You failed. No dopamine for you."

Parent says: "I'm going to clean the living room." Parent cleans living room. Brain says: "YOU DID IT! Here's your dopamine!" Serotonin chimes in: "Of course you did! You rock!"

This applies to your kids too. Instead of "Be good at school today," try "Let's see if you can use your calm voice when you're frustrated just one time today."

Small, achievable goals = dopamine = serotonin = motivation to try again.

The Reality Check: This Takes Practice

If you're reading this thinking, "This all sounds great, but my kid would never sit still for breathing exercises," you're not alone.

Start with YOU. Model it consistently. Narrate what you're doing: "Wow, I'm feeling really frustrated right now. I'm going to do my breathing. Want to count with me?"

Some kids will join immediately. Others will roll their eyes for a while before trying it. That's okay. You're planting seeds.

One mother reported: "After two months of me doing 4-10 breathing when I was upset, my daughter finally said, 'Fine, I'll try your weird breathing thing.' It worked, and now she asks for it and is teaching her friends how to do it as well."

Your Challenging Child's Hidden Superpower

Here's what I want you to know: Children with trauma often have nervous systems that are finely tuned to detect danger. This makes them "challenging" in safe environments.

But that same sensitivity, when channeled properly, becomes:

• Deep empathy

• Acute awareness

• Protective instincts

• Resilience

• Creativity

Your job isn't to "fix" your child. It's to help them understand their nervous system and learn to work with it instead of being controlled by it.

The most challenging kids often become the most remarkable adults—when they have caregivers who see their behaviors as signals, not character flaws.

Take the First Step Today

You don't have to overhaul your entire parenting approach tomorrow. Start here:

1. Notice your own stress signals. What does cortisol feel like in YOUR body?

2. Practice 4-10 breathing for one week, especially in moments of frustration

3. Create your activity analysis chart. What gets you into your red zone daily?

4. Ask the four questions about your biggest red zone stressor

Remember: When you apply 4-10 breathing to yourself while your kids are fighting, you bring yourself into your green zone. Then you can find the humor, access your patience, and address what's happening with creativity instead of reactivity.

You're not just surviving anymore. You're learning to thrive—and teaching your child to do the same.

Want to go deeper? Nick Lawrence's book "From Surviving to Thriving: Reversing Trauma Through Nervous System Awareness" provides comprehensive guidance on these techniques, complete with exercises you can do with your family. The principles in this post are designed to be shared with your children as they grow—because understanding our internal pharmacy is a gift that lasts a lifetime.