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John Hoffman reflects on Stuart Shanker’s opening talk at SRSS 2023 There's No Such Thing as a Bad Kid For years, Stuart Shanker has maintained that “there’s no such thing as a bad kid.” It’s become one of the big mantras of the Self-Reg framework. But for Stuart it...
I gotta tell ya – I don’t get out that much. I’ve been a work-at-home type for almost 40 years, and my active social circle is relatively small. Add COVID-related social restrictions and caution to that, and you can see how my face-to-face social contact has been...
When I started writing for TMC I saw my niche as helping people fit Self-Reg and some of the science behind it into the real world of what we already know (and think we know) from various experiences and sources. And I wanted to explore these ideas in...
On a practical level, the way we define self-regulation drives the way we work with children (and adults) who exhibit self-regulation challenges. Here are some examples of the difference the broader, more holistic, stress-focused definition of self-regulation, as...
Did you hear the one about two psychologists and a philosopher who searched The Google for the true meaning of self-regulation and found 447 definitions? This is not the first line of a bad joke. It actually happened. Back in 2014, Jeremy Burman, Christopher Green and...
Restoration was a key central topic at SRSS 2021. In fact, throughout this entire year, Stuart and Susan have been really banging the drum for Practice 5 of Self-Reg. They even changed the name from Respond to Restore. And that’s because, to oversimplify, if we are...
By John Hoffman When I was a child the worst thing I could imagine was to be taken from my home and put in a place where harsh, demanding adults had complete control over me, and my parents couldn’t help me. I had no idea that such experiences, and...
In the last 20 years or so people have really latched on to the idea that teenaged brains are not fully developed. Good thing to talk about. But when the media started reporting research findings, e.g. the rational part of the brain isn’t fully developed until age 25,...
Advice for parents is seldom in short supply. But this September, as kids return to school amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve noticed an uptick in parenting advice, and mental health advice in general. In 10 minutes on social media this morning I saw posts about: •...
When child psychiatrist Dr. Jean Clinton starts talking, you always know that before long, you’ll hear words like relationships and connecting. And you’ll hear them again and again. Witness the following lovely and memorable little quotes from Jean’s keynote address...
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time sitting at the table after dinner, after everyone else had been excused, staring at a glass of milk I didn’t want to drink. That’s probably when my interest in picky eating started. I now realize that I wasn’t that picky as a...
The more I learn about Self-Reg and the brain/body science of stress, the more I have been struck by the same thought over and over. Self-Reg explains things I’ve sort of known for years, but couldn’t articulate very well. So often I’ve watched children, including my...
I feel like I’m wading into risky territory here, but I want to talk about the concept of safety, in terms of women’s experiences and relationships with men. There is a big-picture aspect to this conversation: safety from sexual assault, sexual harassment and domestic...
One of the biggest challenges in raising kids is learning to parent well—OK, reasonably well—when you’re angry. Raising children is inherently emotional. And that means we’re sometimes parenting under the influence of anger and its cousins – frustration, resentment,...
In a past blog I suggested that the most important single factor in good parenting was not sensitivity, not parenting skills, but support—feeling well supported in your role as parent. Parents who feel well supported tend to parent better. That’s very...
How many times have you really needed and wanted to support a stressed out person, only to find that your supportive words just didn’t do the trick? (Pick me!) I’m sure we’ve all had this experience. It’s not always easy to find the right words to say to someone in...
I recognized the tone of voice right away. My friend Mara* was on the line. (*names changed at family’s request) “How are you doing?” I asked. “I’ve been better,” she replied. Mara’s voice caught a bit on the word better, the clear sign of someone trying to hold it...
As a journalist, researcher and father, I have been studying the fascinating, messy world of child development for 30 years. I’ve had many aha moments, and surprising insights over the years, but in the past five years or so I’ve found that Self-Reg has unlocked...
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