A

Today's guest is Alyssa Blask Campbell, founder of Seed Sow and New York Times best selling author of Tiny Humans, Big Emotions. In this conversation, we dive into emotional intelligence regulation, nervous systems, and why understanding ourselves is such an important part of supporting children. Alyssa shares practical insights, powerful stories, and a refreshing perspective that will leave you thinking differently about behavior, connection, and what kids really need from us. I learned so much from this conversation and I know that you will too. I'm Tara Phillips and this is the Autism Little Learners podcast where I share simple neuroaffirming tools to support young autistic children with compassion and confidence. You guys, you're in for a real treat today because I have Alyssa Blask Campbell with us. She is from Seed and Sow and the author of Tiny Humans, Big Emotions and another book after that, which I will let you tell us about Alyssa. But welcome to the Autism Little Learners podcast. We're so lucky to have you here.

B

Thank you. I'm so stoked to be here. Yes. What a. What a journey. I got my master's is in early ed, but I got to do research in building emotional intelligence in kids and tiny humans. Big Emotions is the, like, culmination of that research. We, after doing the research, Lauren Stable and I co create. Had co created the method, the collaborative motion processing method. And then we lay it out in that book, which is all what the research was about. And then right after it published, pretty quickly, people were like, oh my gosh, this is so helpful. And also, why is my 9 year old a teenager? Like, what do I do here? And so we. I went on to co author Big Kids, Bigger Feelings with a colleague of mine, Rachel Louder. Looking at that elementary space, the like kindergarten to fifth grade range, what does it look like to raise emotionally intelligent humans? And I'm psyched to get to chat about all this jazz with you today.

A

And emotional intelligence is such an interesting concept. Right. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means in like.

B

Yeah, it's gotten totally, it's gotten so buzzwordy, which like, as a child who grew up in the 90s, it's very cool now that we're talking about emotional intelligence because this was not a big part of my childhood and upbringing. And so that's really rad. But you're right, I feel like a lot of folks, we don't even know what it means anymore. And so when we're looking at emotional intelligence, we're looking at five components. Self awareness. This is what my son. I have a. I have Two children. I have a son who's five who's autistic, and a neurotypical daughter who's two and a half. And my son calls the self awareness component the volcano, where you, like, notice it inside when it's building before it explodes. And then we have self regulation, which is, once you notice that volcano, what do you do next? What helps your unique nervous system calm? We do a lot of work on this topic at Seed because it has gotten so zeitgeisty, the idea of regulation, and it is not a one size fits all. How my nervous system regulates is vastly different than how my son's does, than how my husband's does, from how my daughter's does. And so when we're looking at self regulation, for us, it's not just, like, take some deep, calming breaths. I'll like, cool, if that works for you. But what really makes your nervous system tick, how does it operate, and what's calming and regulating for you? So we self awareness, self reg. We have empathy, where when we're looking at empathy, it's not walking in somebody else's shoes, it's understanding the feeling that they're experiencing and believing it to be true for them, connecting over what they're feeling, not why they're feeling it. That maybe I don't think I would be really disappointed if I got the orange cup instead of the purple cup. And I know what disappointment feels like. And if I believe that this human in front of me is experiencing disappointment, it doesn't really matter why. Just in the same way that if I was disappointed about something, it's not your job to decide if I should feel disappointed about it or not. I'm already there. And so you have the opportunity to connect with me over that feeling and say, man, I know what that feeling feels like, and I'm gonna show up alongside you in that feeling.

A

Yeah, that's. That is a beautiful, beautiful way to describe empathy. I've never heard it like that.

B

Thanks. Yeah, it has helped me understand empathy in a different way. You know, like, what really is it and how do I do it? And the believing that somebody else's feeling is true is such a crucial part of it that I think is often left off the table. And then we look at motivation, that intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. How do we foster the intrinsic alongside some extrinsic. Sometimes we. Our goal isn't only intrinsic motivation. We live very much in an extrinsic culture and society. I will say this is where sometimes in the autism world, we Find ourselves kind of butting heads against aba, which is heavily focused on extrinsic motivation. And we are looking at like, okay, if you're only looking at extrinsic, then what happens when there's no carrot and stick? What happens if nobody's watching? How do we teach kids to tune into and build an internal value system that says, oh man, I did something that doesn't feel good and, or wow, internally, like that felt really good. I feel really proud of me. And not always, are you proud of me or did I do a good job for you? But man, I feel proud of me. Yeah. And helping kids and it also like foster that. And then the final component of emotional intelligence we look at is social skills. And so for us, this is being able to kind of read the room and see what's appropriate in different contexts. And for all five components of emotional intelligence, every single human on the planet has some of them that come a little easier and some that need more scaffolding and support. My son is so acutely aware of his internal systems, his interceptive system, that he, for him, self awareness comes pretty easily. For him, he can let you know, especially as we've built just emotional literacy, like how he's feeling or what he's experiencing. He was the easiest kid I've ever potty trained in my life because he notices the feelings inside of like, I have to go to the bathroom sometimes to a point of dysregulation where he can feel that he has to go to the bathroom before he's really ready to go to the bathroom and can't do anything else until that happens. But for him, self awareness has come pretty easily and social skills have had to be scaffolded. I have to say things like, well, it looks like she didn't like that. Or I noticed that you were telling a story, but there was no pause to hear somebody else's reaction or see what was happening. I wonder if they're still into this story and, and helping him build that awareness or even like what's appropriate in different settings. He's very into poop and fart jokes right now as a five year old. And so helping him know, like, what's the right context for that? Is it at the library? Probably not. And so what can you do if you feel like you really need to say poop or fart and you don't have to go and write the library? What can you do? So we'll do a lot of that practice on the way to the library. The latest word is Frankenstein that they're like, we could say Frankenstein. And for my daughter, social skills are come way more easily. She reads the room quite naturally. That's how her nervous system responds to a space is to really read the room and react to it. And I have to really help her cultivate self awareness that for her that is something that she's not as tuned into and aware of. And it takes more scaffolding and support to build those. So when we're looking at emotional intelligence, all five of these components, it's not like everyone on the planet just is the same in all of them, for all of us. We develop these five components differently and sometimes we need more scaffolding and support in some and others come more easily to us.

A

Yeah, that it's such a great definition of emotional intelligence because it really breaks it down and you can think of it almost visually, almost like a pie graph for each person, each human and you know, like this I need less assistance with or support with and this one I need more and everyone's would be different from another another. So I love that you're also, you're the founder of SEED and, and the co creator of the collaborative emotion processing method. So can you tell everyone, give a quick sense of what that framework is all about?

B

Yeah. So the step method, Collaborative Emotion processing, call it SET method for sure because it's a mouthful, is what Lauren and I co created and then we partnered with Brandeis University to research it across the US and it's a method for building emotional intelligence. It is five components. One is adult child interactions. So one is about how do we engage with the kids and how do you respond to the child in front of you. The other four are about us. That gosh, I could tell you all day long, here's some things you could say to this kid or here's some things you could do with that kid. And then in the moment when they do something from a dysregulated state and they're defiant or they're disrespectful or they hit somebody or they hurt somebody, they ignore you and we know that that's from a place of dysregulation when we're sitting here talking about it. But then it happens in real time and now you have a reaction, now it triggers something in you and all of a sudden you want to like fight a three year old or you find yourself trying to power over a six year old or you're in an argument or a battle or conflict, a struggle with a child and you might Know, in a regulated state, yeah, that's not going to be the most beneficial way to handle this. But if we don't have the US parts baked into the set method, we can't access any of this when it happens in real time. And so when we look at the set method, we have self awareness for the adults. What's your volcano? We've got uncovering implicit biases. What are the stories we're telling ourselves from our childhood, from our social programming, from what we learned? It was actually very interesting when my son got his autism diagnosis, seeing how different humans in our circle responded to the diagnosis itself. For some folks, just like, what does that mean to have an autism diagnosis? What will it mean for him for life and for school and all that was so different than for other folks. The just the context around the word autistic, it's all from bias. And bias isn't bad. It's just what we know. It's what we believe to be true based on what we've experienced and what we've learned. And we have some biases that I wrote in Tiny humans, big emotions. Sometimes I open my mouth and my mom comes out and like sometimes that's great, right? Sometimes I totally want to pass that thing on. But like sometimes I spend a lot of time, money in therapy trying to not pass that on. And so what do you do with that? And when we're uncovering our implicit biases, it's really helping us start to take a look at what's coming up. For me, what's the story I'm telling myself about this behavior or about this interaction or about the way this kid's showing up in the world and being able to decide, is that something I still believe to be true and want to carry on or is that something that I learned in my childhood that I don't believe to be true anymore that I want to pass on?

A

Yeah, you know what, Alyssa? I think with that it both of the things that you just mentioned made me think of a lot of times. Well, all these things happen in schools a lot. Especially when you're talking about are you going to fight or like get in an argument with a three year old. This happens. It's like human nature. But I also, when you started talking about the biases so many times, this would always drive me crazy. So many times people say he's just trying to get out of that. And as you explained the implicit biases, like I think even that could be something someone up believing or was told they're just manipulating you if you don't make him do this, you know, if you don't win the power struggle, he's going to learn. He gets out of it by having a behavior or a meltdown.

B

Totally.

A

So very interesting. You say that.

B

Yeah. As. As if humans are dogs. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That. Like, that's. That's. Actually. We're not. We're not dogs. And we. When we treat behavior from a behaviorist lens, that's exactly what we're doing.

A

Yeah.

B

Is saying that we should pay attention to and reward what we want to see more of and punish or consequence what we want to see less of. And what we miss is the need that's driving it. And when you just mentioned that, I thought of this incredible teacher that I have the privilege of getting to support in our. In our program. And she teaches preschool pre K. She's got mixed threes and fours, and she had this little girl who was neurodivergent, and she was like, yeah, she just doesn't want to, like, clean up the stuff and go through the steps to go outside. I know she can because she does it in the morning when it's time to go outside, and then in the afternoon, she just doesn't want to. But the whole class is doing this. We're gonna do it. She's gonna learn what it looks like to clean up her stuff. And I was, like, listening, and she's like, I just don't know what else to do. I've tried all these different things to get her to clean up her stuff. And I just asked her, like, what's your goal here? Like, what's your ultimate goal for her? To learn? What are you trying to teach her? She was like, that it's her responsibility to, like, clean up her stuff when she's done and put on her shoes to go outside. And that she's capable of doing all of these things by herself, that she's gonna go to kindergarten in a year and a half and no one's gonna do these things for her. And I was like, okay, does she know how to do that? She's like, yes. She does it every morning when we're going outside. She just won't do it in the afternoon. I was like, okay, so it sounds like you've been successful in teaching her how to do this. She knows how. What I'm hearing is that as the day goes on and she gets more and more drained, she doesn't have the capacity to continue to do it in the afternoon, that it's not a can't or it's not a won't, it's a can't. That. It's not that she won't do this. It's that she's saying, I'm spent in the same way that if you showed up to my house at 7:30pm after my kids have gone down, and you're like, alyssa, I will clean your kitchen for you, and I will put together lunches for your kids tomorrow, and I'll pick up and you can just chill because you've had a long day. I'd marry you and say, move in with us. Like, that's incredible. And it's not because I don't know how to make lunches or clean up my house. It's that I've parented and worked all day, and I'm spent. And I welcome that support. At the end of the day, that feels like a gift to me. It gives me more capacity to be a kind partner to my husband and to have a little more in my tank to be able to even show up for me in some manner. And so what would it look like if you supported her in cleaning up her toys in the afternoon and. And even putting her shoes on her or her jacket on her and letting her know, oh, man, I know it's been a long day. I can help you with this in the afternoon. And then maybe she'd have more capacity for the social skills she's going to need on the playground, outside, or navigating the other parts of the day. And she was like, I can do that for her. And I was like, you can do that for her? And she was like, okay. And about two weeks later, she reached out and she's like, this has been a game changer. And it didn't involve changing anything for the kid. It was just the bias for the teacher that I'm not allowed to do it for her because she has to know how to do it herself.

A

Wow, that story is so relatable. So I often talk to my members about taking some of that pressure off of themselves. And some of it, I think, is induced by years of teaching and having administrators that expect a calm class, this or that. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes you put that pressure on yourself. Like, okay, if I let her not do it in the afternoon, but it's like you made this complete shift in how she thought about it. And I just. I love this. It's a breath of fresh air. Thank you.

B

Great. It's same, honestly, same. It's. It's. It's freeing for me you know, like my teacher brain that learned all about classroom management and all that jazz. And to be like, what if I'm not managing humans? What if I'm just being in relationship with them? And so we have self awareness, we have implicit biases, we have self care. This is where we dive into, like, what does that actually mean for you as a human? Not like a night out or going, going, going to. You burn out and you can't talk to anybody and you need to be in a dark, quiet space to recharge and you need to get away in some manner. But what does it really look like to take care of your nervous system, to understand how your unique nervous system works, to know that, oh, I am a human who is vestibular seeking. So I sit in an office chair that can rotate. So my desk chair at my desk at school or wherever you're working, wherever you are, even in your living room is one that swivels and moves. Or I'm vestibular sensitive, but I'm proprioceptive seeking. And so I like to have a space in a chair that kind of wraps me up. Actually, if I can lean this down, I sit in a chair that kind of hugs me. It does not move. It just has like a little snuggle around me. I'm proprioceptive seeking and I'm vestibular sensitive. So if I'm in a swivel chair, it's actually going to drain me all day long. Not recharge me. When I get to sit in this chair or walk on my walking pad, I get recharged throughout the day. When I sit next to a kid and have them snuggle up to me, I get recharged throughout the day. When I get a hug from somebody, I get recharged throughout the day. And my last co teacher, everything that recharged me drained her. And so if we moved through the day in the same way, we would experience it very differently. And so when we're looking at self care, we help folks map out how does your unique nervous system work. And then within the context of your day, how do you take care of yourself? How do you recharge yourself? And then we look at scientific knowledge. This is where we get real nerdy with folks. We're going to dive into things like the mirror neurons. And how if I come in with this energy says a whole different message than if I can do with this energy.

A

Yeah.

B

And how powerful our communication on a neurobiological level is with one another, especially when we're looking at Kids who are neuroceptive, sensitive where they are. It's our sense that I color our spidey sense, like reading the energy in the room, you know?

A

Yeah.

B

And these are kids who they hate gimmicky connection. Like, would you like a hug or a high five? Or let's do a community circle and share one thing that brought us joy or filled us up. And they're like, oh, I just want you to know me. I want genuine, authentic connection. And that doesn't feel authentic to them. And so also, your tone of voice, your facial expression, your body language often matters more to them than what you say. And so we dive into that in the scientific knowledge portion. And then the last component of the set method is the adult child interactions. Once we're doing all the US parts, what does it look like to respond with intention to the human in front of you?

A

Alyssa, it's so good, because putting this on the adults and helping adults figure out all of those things is going to just make everything better or more intentional when it comes to the adult child interaction.

B

Thanks. I hope so.

A

Yeah. I know. It is the goal. It is the goal. So your work is not autism specific, but hearing you talk, you obviously get neurodivergent folks, but it really aligns naturally with what, like, early childhood educators and SLPs are doing every day. And on top of that, you're raising your autistic son. How does that personal experience now weave into your work?

B

Yeah. I also grew up with a mom who was a director of special ed and worked in autistic summer school. She ran and was the director of. And I. I grew up around humans who were always treated just as humans. And I feel like my mom's influence into my work early on is so strong for me that it was so focused on understanding the person in front of you. And then I had the privilege of being exposed to incredible ots professionally in my work, who just expanded that for me and where I got to start learning about the different senses and building a more comprehensive understanding of the nervous system. And really that every human has a nervous system and it's all unique to us. And that neurodivergence is such a broad term, and when we look at folks who are neurodivergent, I, I still, I, I a little bit struggle with this term still, because it, for me, sends the message that there is that. That within neurotypical, there's even like one way of being and one way of moving through the world, and then there's this other way and doing this work now for so long and getting to work alongside ots and dive into one's unique nervous system. It's like, man, we just all have unique nervous systems. And if I, if you told me this human that's walking in is neurodivergent, that still doesn't tell me that much about their nervous system. I don't know if they're going to be vestibular, sensitive or seeking. I don't know if they're going to be tactilely sensitive or seeking. And even in my own two kids, right, I have a neurodivergent human and a neurotypical human. And my neurotypical one is my tactilely sensitive. She's the one where it's like, oh, there's an itchy tag or my socks a little funky. She'll say, when that like ridge is not right or the idea of like a wet clothes on her body is so dysregulating. And my autistic child will like go out in the rain and socks and loves that feeling and has his hands and everything and is touching everything all the time. And it is so tactically seeking. And so I feel like for me, personally and professionally, the exposure, exposure to all of this work professionally has shifted. For me, the personal bias that it's autistic means this thing and neurotypical means that thing. And really just broadened it to what if instead of you need this diagnosis to get these support tools or you need this diagnosis or this label of some manner for the world to see you differently and to see that your defiance is dysregulation? What if we just were able to look at all humans and say, oh man, what is dysregulating for this human and what's regulating and how do we bring that into their day to day in their environment and recognize that when we're seeing challenging behaviors, that's a human who needs support and tools. And I, I think about my child in preschool had such incredible teachers who at one point, one of his preschool teachers came to me and said, having him in my class makes me a better teacher for all my other kids. And I was like, break that down for me. And she was like, well, I am now like doing more pre teaching. I'm doing more scaffolding of like, what can you expect? What's going to happen? Oh, we are having a zigzag day where normally we do this and now something else is happening and creating visuals. And she was like, I'm bummed that I needed an autistic child in my classroom for me to do more of this, because actually, it's benefiting all my kids. And I was like, yeah, for sure. But I think she hit the nail on the head that once we hear there's a diagnosis, it can shift how we approach a child or even what we expect of a child. And I wish we could just see across the board, all of us need different tools and supports to thrive.

A

Yeah. And you do see that. You know, 25 years in classrooms, you see kids who have needs for supports doesn't mean they need special education.

B

Totally.

A

I feel like maybe in the last 10 years in the preschool level anyway, some teachers have gotten better about offering these tools to everybody when they're needed. Teachers that are more in tune, you know, and so instead of being like, oh, no, that's for Johnny, it's okay. If you need a seat where you can wiggle a little, we'll get you one. And those are the classrooms that I see doing better as a whole. So exactly what you described.

B

Yeah, well, and that's, you know, we. We created this tool. Our flagship tool is our regulation questionnaire, and we worked with ots to create it because we realized every human on the planet has different needs. And there wasn't a tool for teachers, for parents, for caregivers to say, okay, but what does my kid need? And how do I find that out? Unless you qualified for services and you were able to get an OT in to do an assessment and say, okay, here's the. Here are the tools we recommend. And so we created the regulation questionnaire. It's available for free for anyone to take. And also there's a version, a paid version, that we use with schools that then auto generates, like, here's the right seating for this kid, or here are the. Really the top three tools that are the best bang for your buck for this kid's regulation. And it's been really cool to see when folks are using. We won't work with a school in elementary, middle school without using this. And it is rad to see when folks embrace this and they put the tool into practice. We're seeing a 60% reduction in behavior support calls. It's a 6. 0. And what it's doing is shifting some things that people viewed as Tier 2 or Tier 3 into Tier 1, where we're saying, what does everyone just need on a sensory level to thrive? And when we meet those needs first, we see a huge drop in behavior support calls because we have more regulated nervous systems.

A

You know, we were talking a little bit about this tool before we hit record. And I was like, Alyssa, you have to talk about this. Because the way that you explained it to me, I was like, every school, every teacher needs this. So one of the things at. We have the Preschool Autism Summit coming up in July of 2026, and you are one of our speakers and we're so thrilled to have you. And one of the things that you are giving everyone access to is this free version of the questionnaire and then they can find out more information about, about the full version. Yeah, it's so exciting because the way you explained it, you can really go in depth per student about what their sensory system, their whole profile looks like. And so it's going to give you really. Instead of pulling ideas from all over the Internet, this is guided by your research, your information, your frameworks.

B

Yeah. And a group of OTs. I can't give enough credit to the OTs in my life who I just have the privilege of working alongside and, and getting to learn from because we. There's so much guesswork that happens often for teachers where it's like, okay, I have these sensory seats, but they're just sitting in a pile in the corner because it's maybe not actually the right tool for this kid. Maybe this sensory seat is a proprioceptive tool and this kid is mostly sensory sensitive and we're just adding in more sensory supports from a seeking perspective. And when we look at a kid's profile and say, oh yeah, this kid's actually sensory sensitive, the better bang for your buck rather than adding in another tool for them is to look at where can we have sensory breaks? What does it look like to have a true break from sound from visual stem? Maybe it's an organized desk with some more components for labels and organization around what goes where. Or maybe it is a visual of what's happening next that's broken down for them. Maybe it's. Yeah, you can go under. I, I have a fourth grade teacher, I love her, she's so incredible. And she started using a system this year. This is our, our, our first year working with her. And we like introduced all this to her. And then she built in a system where there's a 1 minute, 3 minute, 5 minute sand timers and the kids can check them out twice a day. At any point. You could be in the middle of a math lesson. You're like, I'm overwhelmed. I need a break. You can go, you can grab the sand timer, you can flip it over, and then there's a couple of different things you could do during that time. And one of them is, you can go under your desk. You can go under her desk. That's, like, in class, closed, and just not look at anything, not hear anything. Take a little break. And then you come back to it. And that first month of using. And this is Jenna classroom, the first month of using it, she was like, I had to enforce it, right? Like, I'd be like, oh, you're seeing timers done. Time to back to your desk and what. And enforce those boundaries. And they learned. Here's what to expect. This is not a. Like, I can flip that sand timer and I'm done with school for the day. But instead, like, here's what I can access. And then I come back to it. She was like, after a month of enforcing it, I got to pop into her classroom in February and see it in action. And they just move through it so seamlessly. And they know, like, do I need 1, 3, or 5 minutes at this point? Like, am I starting to get overwhelmed? I need a little break? Or is it like, whoa, I just came back from lunch and we jumped right into math, and I can't even. And I need five minutes. And it's just this opportunity to have the right tool for the right kids. And you'll see the same few kids use it on repeat. And there are kids who are sensory sensitive. Our sensory seekers are like, no, I need something to rock in and I need to move, or I need a band on my chair, or I need a weighted thing in my lap, or I need to be able to be next to a buddy who also is sensory seeking that I can, like, bump into or kind of snuggle into at some points of the day. And when we use this tool to help teachers understand who's the kid in front of you, it then helps you realize, like, oh, this is going to be the tool that's going to be most effective for this child, rather than, yeah, I've got sensory seats over there, but no one's using them.

A

Yeah. And don't you think with that example that you gave that at first. I know this from being in classrooms. At first, when you introduce a new sensory tool or a new routine, like, disaster, everyone wants to do it, and everyone's overwhelmed. Like, how are we going to do this? Everyone's leaving, taking turns, going. But then novelty fades, and that's when it settles into, like, kids end up using what they need, and they kind of know this. And also, I talk a lot about predictable routines. And when you talk about like the boundary with that you have a predictable routine. We do 1 minute, 3 minute or 5 minute. And after that predictable routine kind of is understood and practiced and used, the kids are able to do it more seamlessly. Right. They're not questioning or, you know, you're having a power struggle about it. It's. We have something called the all done bucket and it's just simply a bucket of some type with a visual that says all done. And it's just, it helps with transition. So if you give a heads up, okay, we're going to be done playing with trains in two minutes. And whether they're good with just you saying two minutes, one minute, or if you set a little timer. But it becomes this predictable routine where eventually with my students, three and four year olds, I would, if they learned that routine, put that out and then all of a sudden they didn't even need time, usually they would just start putting it in because that was just the automatic routine. And some kids would, they knew, like, I'm going to take one train with me and that was fine, like a transition object. But those kind of predictable routines can become. So it help with autonomy too because they get it. They don't need reminders, they could just do it themselves.

B

And it's, it's regulating for the nervous system to have predictability. I was just sharing with you. We just moved to a new state and so it's like, where is everything? What's happening? Where's even the playground? Every time I leave the house right now I'm using Google Maps because I don't know where the grocery store is, I don't know where the post office is, I don't know libraries. And that it's so inherently dysregulating to constantly be in your conscious brain where you have to really think, what happens next? Where do I turn next? How do I what, where is my kid going to go to the doctor? Right. Like I'm using so much of my conscious brain right now, which is very dysregulated and very exhausting. And the more consistency we have, the more I'll be able to use my subconscious where I will find myself driving to the library and not remembering the drive because I've done it so many times that I could then do it on repeat. I can have conversations. I could. And that's all because it's been, it's happened enough times, there's been enough predictability in repeat of that pattern that it becomes a part of my subconscious. I don't have to actively think about it anymore. And just the other day, we were driving to the library, and my two children, who are a sensory mismatch. One is what one is regulated by, the other one is dysregulated by. And so they were kind of at each other in the backseat, and I snapped, because I'm already exhausted, and I'm trying to pay attention to, like, where do I have to turn? What do I have to do? What's. What do I have to do next? Where am I going to park? Is there a parking lot here? And I'm trying to also simultaneously manage the backseat quarrels that are happening. And so I snapped, and I. I turned to my son, I said, why are you being rude to everyone around you? And he goes, actually, mom, that was pretty rude. And I was like, not wrong. And I said to him, like, yeah, you know what, buddy? You're right. I said, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm gonna pop my AirPods in, and I'm gonna listen to one song that feels really calming for me while I drive, and then I'm gonna help you guys. I'm not gonna be available during this one song. They weren't like, okay, we'll chill back here, right? Like, they still are then bickering with each other while I'm driving. But I regulated my nervous system enough to then be able to return to them with a little more capacity. And I said. I said, you know what, buddy? Right now, my brain has to think about things that it didn't have to think about before. So before, when we would drive to the library, I knew exactly where to go. And so if you guys were having a hard time, my brain could think about how to help you. And right now, it has to think about, how do I get to the library because it's so new. And I said, pretty soon, I won't have to think about how to get to the library, because I'll know how to do that. And then when you guys are having a conflict in the back, it'll be easier for me to help you when we're driving. But right now, when we're doing things that are new, my brain can't think about both things at one time. And then I was able to, like, bring that into. We just also got a new puppy. What am I even doing? And my son is regulated by dogs more than anything in the world, but a puppy is dysregulating for him. A puppy is not a dog. And so we've been talking a lot about, like, the newness of a puppy. And what does it mean? And how does it change our day to day? And how does it even change what we expected? That you expected a dog. And these are things you like to do with a dog. And this is a puppy. And here's what it's going to look like over the next few months with a puppy. And here's when it will change, and here's when there'll be a dog. And be. And he said, he go at one point, I was having a conversation with him and he goes, oh, like when you had to think about the library. And I was like, yes, like when I had to think about driving to the library. That this happens to all humans. We all, when we are in tradition, in transition, and there's Then for the body unpredictability, we don't know what to expect. Then it is dysregulating. And so same when we're working with kids, when we're parenting them, when we're teaching them, when we don't have consistent boundaries, they don't know what to expect. It is inherently dysregulating for them.

A

Totally. The example that you just gave, I just, I love how you talked about the conscious brain and having to use that, because I think for anyone, they can understand then how it might feel to go through the day having to think and wonder and, like, be on alert for, you know, what's going on next, what are we going to do? I'm not sure. And in your car example, it made me also think about the times that you're driving and you're either somewhere new or the weather's bad, and in order to drive, you have to turn off the radio and you're like, why do. Why just having the volume down make me feel like I can drive better, think better. But it does. Yes. So thank you for those examples that can really bring those ideas home.

B

Yeah. If only we could turn down the sound of children bickering behind you. Totally put up the window. I need a little limo window. I'm driving someplace new. Thank you so much.

A

You guys deal with each other back there.

B

I will return to you. Moment. Oh, that's so good.

A

Well, I do not want to neglect to mention that you are a New York Times bestseller and your book, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions. Who did you write it for and who did. What did you hope readers would take away from it? I think you've probably covered a lot of that today.

B

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I wrote it for anyone who will ever interact with a kid, whether you are a teacher, a parent, a caregiver a grandparent. I actually had somebody reach out the other day who is reading it. And she's a server. She works in a restaurant. She doesn't have kids. Not a teacher. But she was like, I found this. It showed up on her TikTok. She's like. I kept seeing things about it, and she's like, I realized, man, actually, this is just about me being a person. And I was like, yeah, for sure. And she was like, and I see kids all the time in my work, of course. She was like, but I'm just learning so much more about me as a person. And it's kind of the joke with tiny humans. People come for the kids, but they stay for themselves because everyone's got a nervous system, and we're going talk about yours just as much as we're going to talk about the kids. So, truly, anyone who's ever going to interact with a kid, I hope can get something from tiny humans. And I have zero desire in the world to add noise. There's so much noise out there. And for me, in our work in writing books at seed. And so we will not create something if it's just gonna add noise. We want to add value. And with tiny humans, I feel like there's so many one size fits all parenting books. And there was this gap where no one was talking about the nervous system in this way and how it affects you as a parent or as a teacher. Like, maybe you're not. Not a bad mom or you're not a bad teacher. You've just heard too many sounds in the last 45 seconds. Right. That have been conflicting with each other. Too many people have touched your body in the last 15 minutes, and you are now a dysregulated human. So for folks to know that their reactivity is not that they're failing, it's that they're dysregulated and that there's a path for supporting that regulation so that they can then show up with intention and teach the tiny humans about how their brains and bodies work as well. That when we get to learn this ourselves, then we can teach.

A

Has your work has so much value, and being able to talk to you for the first time today, I can see why the book is so successful, because you have a knack for being able to explain things in a really gentle and understandable way, these hard concepts. So thank you so much, Alyssa.

B

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really am just like a giant nerd for neuroscience and have a passion for trying to make it accessible for folks to break down into. Into real life and really be able to get curious about themselves and the humans in front of them where people

A

find you and your books and your work.

B

Yeah. Thank you. Seedandsew.org it's so is S E W. Seedandsosew.org is the mothership where all of our stuff lives on Instagram at seed and sew S E W. And our books are wherever books are sold. I read the audiobook for tiny humans and for big kids. The audiobook's actually the most sold format for tiny humans. So many of us that are working with young kids are like, I can't sit down and read a book, but I can listen while I do the dishes or I'm driving somewhere or going for a walk and doing laundry and all that jazz. So you can snag wherever you get your books. You can snag those bad boys. And feel free to request it at your local library if that's most accessible for you too.

A

That's great. I have the physical copy, but now after talking to you, I am gonna go and get the audible copy because, yeah, I need to listen. Thank you.

B

You're so welcome. And if folks are ever interested in bringing this work to their school, their child's school, you can find out where to do that right@seedandsew.org happy to collaborate with folks doing this work in schools.

A

Great. Perfect. Thank you. And I'll see you at the summit.

B

See you at the summit.