The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}

Every behavior. Every parenting moment that feels impossible. It all comes back to three sentences — the three core tenets that distill how relational neuroscience makes sense of behavior and give us a roadmap toward change.
This episode lays out the three truths underneath everything I do — this podcast, my books, The Club, the Immersion Program — and why they matter more than any single strategy ever could. Caring for kids with big, baffling behaviors is so overwhelming and confusing. Having an anchor is non-negotiable.
In this episode you'll learn:
The three sentences that hold up this entire framework and sum up what behavior really is
Why Social Baseline Theory says your nervous system was never built to carry hard moments alone
How these three truths can help in the middle of a meltdown — with your kid, with yourself, with anyone you love who's having a hard time
You don't have to hold onto these truths by yourself. That's what The Club is for!

Resources mentioned in this podcast:
Start Here Podcast: The 6-episode series built to go first → RobynGobbel.com/starthere
Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior — free masterclass + ebook → RobynGobbel.com/masterclass
The Owl/Watchdog/Possum, Stress-Brain-Behavior, and Parent Regulation roadmaps → RobynGobbel.com/downloadroadmaps

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/threethings
If you work with the parents of OTHER people's kids, register for Reframing Resistance: Supporting Parents through the Lens of Relational Neuroscience on July 14 @ 10-1:15pm eastern.
----> RobynGobbel.com/ReframingResistance
We have a few spots remaining at the Presence in Practice retreat-style training in Michigan July 15-17!
RobynGobbel.com/MIPIP2026
:::
Immersion Program for Professionals!
The Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals is NOW accepting applications for our 2027 cohorts. You MUST be on the waiting list to be eligible to apply so head to RobynGobbel.com/Immersion and put your name on the waiting list!
Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book
Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub
Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion
Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram
Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

You know that kid who just can't stay in the therapy room? They leave, wander around, get into things that aren't theirs, or are maybe even destructive? And three therapists have already called it quits.
Maybe this describes your kid. Maybe this describes the kids you work with. This episode is for both of you. The helper who is trying to be with this kid, wondering what they're doing wrong. The helper who is working with a furious or checked-out parent — because it's the same question. But this episode is for the parent of that kid, too.
In this episode you will learn:
Why saying yes to this work means saying yes to dysregulation — kid dysregulation, parent dysregulation, all of it 
What it looks like to stay regulated next to someone else's protection mode, whether that's a kid on a windowsill or a parent saying nothing is working
Why a helper- or a parent- can't do this alone; and how being met with regulation yourself is what makes it possible to offer it to someone else.
Come find your people — the ones who get how hard and how worth it this work is. 
If you’re a parent or caregiver, join us in The Club at robyngobbel.com/theclub
If you’re a helper and want to be included in my database of professionals trained in my framework, apply for the immersion program at https://RobynGobbel.com/immersion

Resources mentioned in this podcast:
Reframing Resistance → https://robyngobbel.com/training/reframing-resistance/RobynGobbel.com/starthere
Immersion Program → RobynGobbel.com/immersion

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/helperframework
If you work with the parents of OTHER people's kids, register for Reframing Resistance: Supporting Parents through the Lens of Relational Neuroscience on July 14 @ 10-1:15pm eastern.
----> RobynGobbel.com/ReframingResistance
We have a few spots remaining at the Presence in Practice retreat-style training in Michigan July 15-17!
RobynGobbel.com/MIPIP2026
:::
Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book
Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub
Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion
Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram
Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

When life is overwhelming and your kid's behavior makes no sense — and feels like it's getting worse — even the best resources get hard to use. You're too dysregulated to sort through 270 episodes or an almost 300-page book to figure out where to start. Of course you are.
This episode breaks down why you freeze in the face of new information, or end up just begging someone to tell you what to do — plus a personal story about learning that the hard way, and the actual order to work through instead.

In this episode, you’ll learn
Why "I don't even know where to start" is a regulation problem wearing a content problem's clothes
Why more information stopped being the answer at a certain point, and what had to happen instead
The exact order to work through first — and which of three free roadmaps actually matches where you are right now 

Resources mentioned in this podcast:
Start Here Podcast: The 6-episode series built to go first → RobynGobbel.com/starthere
Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior — free masterclass + ebook → RobynGobbel.com/masterclass
The Owl/Watchdog/Possum, Stress-Brain-Behavior, and Parent Regulation roadmaps → RobynGobbel.com/downloadroadmaps

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/WhereDoIStart

If you work with the parents of OTHER people's kids, register for Reframing Resistance: Supporting Parents through the Lens of Relational Neuroscience on July 14 @ 10-1:15pm eastern.
----> RobynGobbel.com/ReframingResistance
We have a few spots remaining at the Presence in Practice retreat-style training in Michigan July 15-17!
RobynGobbel.com/MIPIP2026
:::
Immersion Program for Professionals!
The Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals is NOW accepting applications for our 2027 cohorts. You MUST be on the waiting list to be eligible to apply so head to RobynGobbel.com/Immersion and put your name on the waiting list!
Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book
Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub
Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion
Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram
Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

For years, "the four functions of behavior" has been the go-to framework for understanding why kids do what they do: attention, escape, access to tangibles, sensory. It's not wrong, but it's not the whole story either. In this episode, we dig into where this model actually came from, what it leaves out, and what's underneath it once we go looking with a relational neuroscience lens.
In this episode, you'll learn: 
Where the four functions of behavior actually came from, and why this is relevant
Why naming a behavior's "function" and saying it started in the nervous system aren't competing ideas — they're just two different layers of the same truth 
What's actually underneath attention-seeking, escape, tangible-seeking, and sensory behavior - and how to start identifying the missing skill that can be scaffolded

Resources Mentioned on the Podcast
All Behavior Makes Sense ep. 198
When it’s not Working ep 261
The Club (membership community + troubleshooting worksheet)
Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/behaviorfunction
If you work with the parents of OTHER people's kids, register for Reframing Resistance: Supporting Parents through the Lens of Relational Neuroscience on July 14 @ 10-1:15pm eastern.
----> RobynGobbel.com/ReframingResistance
We have a few spots remaining at the Presence in Practice retreat-style training in Michigan July 15-17!
RobynGobbel.com/MIPIP2026
:::
Immersion Program for Professionals!
The Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals is NOW accepting applications for our 2027 cohorts. You MUST be on the waiting list to be eligible to apply so head to RobynGobbel.com/Immersion and put your name on the waiting list!
Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book
Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub
Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion
Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram
Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

We've been in a three-part series on sticky behaviors (behaviors that don’t seem to change, no matter WHAT you do!), and today we're doing the detective work: what is your specific child's nervous system actually predicting? 
In This Episode
Three detective questions to help you identify what prediction might be driving your child's stickiest behaviors, and what those behaviors are actually protecting against
Why you don't have to get the detective work exactly right, because the mismatched experience that changes the brain is almost always the same thing no matter what prediction is running
How your working theory about your child's nervous system changes something in you first, and why this is so important (but also, no pressure. We’re all doing the best we can)

Resources Mentioned
Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors — robyngobbel.com/bafflingbook
The Club — robyngobbel.com/theclub
Immersion Program for Professionals — robyngobbel.com/immersion
Part 1 of this series: Why Sticky Behaviors Stay Stuck 
Part 2 of this series: What Actually Changes Sticky Behaviors

Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/predicting
If you work with the parents of OTHER people's kids, register for Reframing Resistance: Supporting Parents through the Lens of Relational Neuroscience on July 14 @ 10-1:15pm eastern.
----> RobynGobbel.com/ReframingResistance
We have a few spots remaining at the Presence in Practice retreat-style training in Michigan July 15-17!
RobynGobbel.com/MIPIP2026
:::
Immersion Program for Professionals!
The Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals is NOW accepting applications for our 2027 cohorts. You MUST be on the waiting list to be eligible to apply so head to RobynGobbel.com/Immersion and put your name on the waiting list!
Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/book
Join us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClub
Sign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/Immersion
Follow Me On:
Facebook
Instagram
Over on my website you can find:
Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)
eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)
LOTS & LOTS of FREE Resources
Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club
Year-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute’s (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)