In this episode, Amanda speaks with Dr. Megan Anna Neff, psychologist and co-host of the Neurodivergent Conversations podcast, to discuss how understanding the nervous system changes everything about parenting. They explore how stress responses affect both parents and children, the power of co-regulation, and why meltdowns are more than just big emotions. Dr. Neff shares insights on the autonomic nervous system, practical strategies for supporting neurodivergent kids, and the science of repair after ruptures. Tune in for a conversation on finding compassion and resilience, even in the most challenging parenting moments. 12 Days of Low Demand Holidays: I'll say it: Holidays can be the absolute worst. This transformative course is tailored for families navigating the unique challenges of the holiday season. Discover impactful video lessons, a comprehensive workbook, and recording of an interactive Q&A to empower you through the festivities. See all the details here! Links: Meet Dr. Megan Anna Neff Explore Neurodivergent Insights page Check out Megan Anna's wonderful book "Self-Care for Autistic People" Listen to Divergent Conversations podcast with Dr. Neff and Patrick Casale Time Stamps: 00:34 Meet Megan Anna Neff 02:18 Understanding the Nervous System 04:29 Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Systems 06:50 Nervous System Responses to Stress 09:17 Interacting Nervous Systems in Parenting 10:31 The Science of Interpersonal Neurobiology 11:19 Understanding Mirror Neurons 12:42 The Pressure of Staying Regulated 14:58 The Importance of Repair in Parenting 15:43 Modeling Self-Regulation for Children 17:49 Honesty and Trust in Parenting Additional Resources: As we move into the end of 2024, you're going to LOVE the Low Demand Holidays course -- your step-by-step holiday survival guide. With your high-needs kids, with burnout hovering, and too much on your plate -- Is celebration and joy even possible? It absolutely can be when you drop demands and focus on what truly matters. Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free! Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward! Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Transcript: Welcome to the Low Demand Parenting Podcast, where we drop the pressure, find the joy, and thrive, even when it feels like life is stuck on level 12 hard. I'm Amanda Diekmann, author, autistic adult, and mom of three. I'm not here as an expert, but a fellow traveler. Together, we're learning how to live more gently, authentically, and vibrantly in this wild parenting life. In our episode today, I am talking with my friend Megan Anna Neff. Megan Anna is a psychologist, an autistic and ADHD adult, co host of the Neurodivergent Conversations podcast and author of Self Care for Autistic People. This conversation about the nervous system is so important to me as a parent and a parenting coach because I think it's essential information. People come to me all the time asking, are we doing this right? Is my kid doing okay? Here's what's going on in our lives. Are they developmentally on track? We have so many questions and we're always looking around and comparing our kids to other kids, our kids to the normal, our kids to what it says in the book, because we want to answer one fundamental question, which is, are they okay? And the complicated answer is, yes. The only measurement we've been given is in our own bodies. We've been given an internal barometer. It's the nervous system. The only way to know really whether or not something is a reasonable expectation or something you need to drop, whether it's aligned and it feels good or whether it's totally not the right approach, is inside of your body and inside of your child. Learning to trust the information that we're getting from our bodies and learning to read someone else's nervous system is complex and important work. And the conversation that I had with Megan Anna really opened my eyes and helped me understand a lot more about the building blocks of parenting. So here's our conversation about the nervous system. Can you help us understand What is the nervous system? Maybe a really quick overview of what we know about Amanda. You're asking an autistic person to give you a quick overview of a complex construct, but I will do my best because you're right. Parents probably don't want a science lesson. Um, but I, yeah, I do notice that. Um, nervous system is floating around there more in pop psychology, which I love because it's so important when we think about the nervous system. But I also realize people often say that word without realizing what are we talking about? So broadly speaking, our nervous system is our brains, our spinal cord, and then all of the lovely messages and messengers that go out in our bodies that are sending signals up to our. or brain, but the brain is really the center of the nervous system. When people are talking about regulation and nervous system, they're typically talking about a very specific branch of the nervous system. Um, the nervous system kind of branches out, but what we'd be talking about here is what's called the autonomic nervous system. I find it easy to remember because autonomic sounds like automatic. And this is the part of our nervous system that's operating automatically, meaning we don't have control of it. So there are parts of our nervous system that we do have more control over. If I say, I want to pick up a glass of water, or you just picked up coffee, we're telling our bodies to move. That's voluntary. When we're talking about nervous system regulation, we're talking about a system that's not voluntary, which is really important in understanding our kids and our responses, responses to stressors. So things like our heartbeat, our breathing, um, all of these things are part of the autonomic nervous system. I'll stop there. I do want to explain parasympathetic branches, but I'll stop there just to see. So far, are you tracking? Yeah, I'm tracking. Let's try the other ones. I've heard people describe this and read many books and it still hasn't quite stuck. So I'm excited to see if I can sort it out for myself here with you also. So tell me about these other types. Yeah. So within the autonomic nervous system, there's two branches. Again, the nervous system, we can think about like branches off like a tree. They're sympathetic and parasympathetic. You can think of the sympathetic, the easiest metaphors to think of that as the gas pedal and the parasympathetic, like the brake pedal. And we need both of these. So for example, When I was getting ready to meet with you, my sympathetic nervous system started to mobilize, which I could tell, which was good. That's eight 30 here in Oregon. And to be able to be alert and talk with you and have words to say, I need some mobility in my body. Now, if we get too much of that's when we're talking about fight, flight mode, stress response, panic symptoms. And. For externalizers. So one more thing about PDA ers who are externalizers, they're often dipping into their sympathetic mode when they're getting stressed, because what you're seeing is you're seeing their fight mode get activated. Um, or sometimes their flight mode, which can look like stereotypical, like aggressive behaviors or lashing out, which is it's their nervous system getting into that sympathetic mode. The parasympathetic mode, this would be like the break. So when we fall asleep to digest our food, we need to be in our parasympathetic nervous system. Ideally, the break and the gas are working together in harmony. So again, to use this morning as an example, when I was getting ready to come talk to you, it's okay. My parasympathetic system could come online to be like, okay, you've got enough arousal here. Now we don't want to be so stressed out about being on video with Amanda that we're going to keep you in a regulated window. Um, And this, when our body's able to do this, when these systems are able to work together, we're in what's called the window of tolerance, which means we can take in incoming stressors and adapt and respond. Now, our nervous systems need some flexibility to be able to do that because the flexibility of these two branches working together harmoniously. It's not that one branch is good and one branch is bad. Sometimes it gets talked about that way, but it's how flexibly are these systems working together so that you can adapt to your environment? One other thing I'll say, and then I'll stop and dump in on the nervous system is when we, so the window of tolerance, when we enter a stress States, we tend to go one of two places. So I already mentioned sympathetic dominance, fight flight, but autistic people particularly We're equally prone to go parasympathetic or dorsal vague shutdown dominance, which looks like a retreat, withdrawal, like low key disassociation symptoms or not low key. And this is where the person's slowed down. So that can also be a response to stress. But it doesn't look as obvious. So for example, PDA or two internalize might be going parasympathetic dominant and going more into that dorsal shutdown area. So that was a lot of information. Are there any parts you want me to unpack more? That's a landscape of the nervous system. That was so helpful. Thank you for giving such a, an introduction that allows I can already be thinking about my own body systems and how that happens. And one follow up question. So these this the speeding up in the slowing down the gas and the brakes is. Not at the level of conscious thought. It's not, Ooh, it's time for me to take a deep breath here or like, I better hurry so that I'm not late. It's not like that. It's like o