Focus Area 6: Behavioral Intervention
5. Strategies to Help a Young Person Re-regulate
Ignore verbal attacks from the youth. It’s critical you don’t get caught up in their escalated behavior and make things worse. As a youth worker, it’s important to have a strong emotional muscle. This means that you have a firm understanding that a youth is probably more upset with your role, than with you as a person. It’s also critical to remember that much of a young person’s escalated behavior is symbolic of trauma that may be transferred onto you. You really need to develop a thick skin to avoid owning their behavior.
Sometimes it helps to stay near enough so you can see the young person but turn your body so you are not making direct eye contact. Be sure you understand your non-verbal body language. Standing or sitting calmly is a good idea when it is safe. If you are calm and relaxed, it will speed up the recovery time. If you are stressed or anxious, youth will pick up on it and it becomes fuel to keep them in a dysregulated state.
Reassuring and calming messages may be helpful like, “I’ll be quiet for a time and check in with you in 10 minutes” or “I’m here to help, please let me know what can help you.” Be sure to allow them time to process your statements. If your statements are causing further escalation, just stop talking! Sometimes, it helps to bring in a team member. Just hearing a different voice can work, even if they’re essentially saying what you said.
If you’ve been working on teaching the youth about the zones of regulation, you could try to name the zone you’re observing by saying in a calm voice, “It looks like you’re in the RED Zone right now. I know this is hard, but if I can help, just let me know.”
When dealing with a young person that is dysregulated, it’s important to monitor and control yourself throughout. Remember, you’re going through this situation with the youth. Your immediate task is to focus on improving the situation.
Pay attention to your self-talk and depersonalize it. Ask yourself, “What am I thinking about this situation. Am I angry at this young person now?” Be sure to frame your talk in a manner that is about helping the youth learn and not about yourself and your dislike of their behavior.
Consider your own assumptions and interrupt them if necessary. Remember, there are many reasons a youth may be dysregulated. One way to interrupt your own assumptions is to imagine several possible reasons for their behavior (e.g., they are either mad at me, frustrated by not being heard, worried about their parents, etc.).
Listen to them closely and acknowledge them. A young person will often calm down more quickly just because they know they’ve been heard and understood. Pay attention and acknowledge their interests. Empathy goes a long way.
Dysregulated youth often want to engage in arguments with you. Do not defend your actions or try to defend the decisions you made at this point. Rather, deflect or ignore arguments using tactics designed to remove you from the escalated scenario. Defending your actions or perspective will only invite more argument. Do not argue.
Stay focused on a young person’s best interest. Young people will pick up on that and it will help. A simple example to demonstrate your positive intent could sound like this, “I think I can help if you explain to me what is making you mad.”
Ask a young person questions that require them to think logically. Don’t force it but thinking logically requires someone to use the analytical part of their brain, which tends to mute the reactive emotional part of the brain.
Finally, if a dysregulated youth becomes hostile, don’t engage with them. For example, if they use offensive language or are threatening, calmly inform them that you will not continue to talk with them if they continue to behave that way.
If they do continue, politely and calmly end the interaction until they can interact in a non-harmful way. Even if you stay calm yourself, you won’t be able to engage in constructive conversation with them until they calm down.
There is so much to consider in the process of helping youth re-regulate their behavior. Some of it is very technical and can be taught and learned. But it’s also partly intuition that comes from experience, your gut, and how good your relationship is with the dysregulated youth. If you are aware your intent is good, follow your instincts.
CO-DYSREGULATION
Being with a very upset and dysregulated youth can stir up lots of feelings for you. It can be emotionally difficult and anyone can get their buttons pushed. This is part of being human. When two or more people influence one another toward regulation we call this co-regulation. (Reed, Barnard, & Butler, 2015)1
As you might expect, co-dysregulation occurs in youth workers from time to time as well. When you work with youth who present emotional dysregulation frequently it can be very helpful and wise to explore, “What are my default responses when youth get upset?” Fight? Flight? Freeze? You need to be aware of your coping style before and during an escalated situation.
Take a few minutes to reflect on your automatic, default internal and external responses to various kinds of dysregulated behavior you’ll see with youth:
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Youth’s dysregulated behavior |
Your actions, verbal responses |
Your internal feelings and emotions |
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Anger, threats, or aggression |
||
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Emotional distress like intense crying or dramatic behavior |
||
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Bullying |
||
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Behaviors disruptive to the group and social environment |
||
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Manipulation or lying |
It’s also a good idea to take a few minutes now to brainstorm things that might possibly help you with the most frequent or troublesome default responses you listed above. Taking the time to think about this now, when you’re not caught up in the moment with a youth showing dysregulated behavior will prepare you to respond better when that situation does arise:
|
My default responses/tendencies |
What might help me |
It takes courage to explore your reactions and coping mechanisms, but you’ll be more effective and better able to manage your own self-care. Being blindsided by emotions, being unaware, and acting with a lack of awareness will cause burnout real fast.
You don’t want that to happen because youth are counting on you! Consider how self-awareness can be helpful in your work with youth:
- It allows you to make intentional choices for your actions, responses, and interventions. You’ll better serve youth when you are proactive instead of reactive.
- You are better at utilizing support and understanding that you don’t need to be a superstar in every situation. Knowing when to seek support is strength, it is not a weakness.
- It prevents unnecessary stress and can help prevent secondary trauma to you or the youth you serve.
- It strengthens and reduces vulnerabilities of team members. All of us have certain things we do better or worse than others. What are your strengths and weaknesses and how can they benefit your co-workers and vice versa?
If you work as a team, you and your supervisor can find ways to discuss this as a group. If not, talk with co-workers about ways to support each other. In the long run it builds trust among youth workers, which is a key factor in youth outcomes.
Sherrita Allen is a Licensed Professional Counselor. She has provided direct service to traumatized youth and families so she is very well-versed in recognizing escalated and dysregulated behaviors and responding appropriately to help the young person re-regulate. In this video, she shares proven strategies to help you stay calm and effective in those difficult situations with young people. Self-regulation is the key. As you listen to her share these practices, you’ll quickly pick up how effectively she models for you just how to make this work.
HANDOFF TO A CO-WORKER
During a highly charged situation, youth often fixate on the person who interacted with them or who happened to be around when they got upset. If you happen to be that person, and you have interacted with the upset youth for a bit of time without seeing as much positive change as you’d like, consider bringing in a co-worker to help.
Sometimes re-regulation will occur sooner with a different youth worker who wasn’t present when the dysregulation occurred. That new person will not get the same focus or fixation from the youth as you did just by being part of the moment.
It can take ego strength to ask for someone else to take the lead in these situations. You cannot interpret this as a personal failure. In reality, it is the smart, mature, and safe decision. It is often best for the young person, you, and the team.
Ideally, a team will discuss the general topic of handoffs before crisis situations arise. Simply acknowledging that there will be times when a handoff is necessary can go a long way. Some teams even decide on a code word that will indicate that a handoff is needed.
Youth work can sometimes feel like everything rests on your shoulders. It’s just not the case. You’re part of a network of support for young people. You’re not supposed to go it alone! Learn how to rely on the people around you because working together will always make things better for the youth in your program.
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