Episode 24: Looking Beneath Behaviour: The 5 Domains of Stress

I’m a firm believer that the behaviours that challenge us most in parenting are actually signals asking for something deeper to be seen. In this episode, I explore a powerful shift in perspective that can transform how we understand both our children and ourselves. Instead of focusing solely on the behavior itself, I unpack the idea that stress is often the real story underneath our reactions. Drawing from Stuart Shanker's self regulation framework, I share how recognizing what’s happening beneath the surface can help us move from being frustrated and closed off, to open and connected. 

In this episode, I explore:

• The stress that hides beneath the surface of our actions
• How biological stress like hunger, fatigue, and sensory overload can push kids (and parents) past their limits
• How cognitive overload from school, schedules, and constant demands can impact behaviour and focus
• The impact of social stress from friendships, family dynamics, and the pressure to belong
• What pro-social stress looks like when children want to do the right thing but don’t yet have the skills to navigate it

When we start looking at behaviour through the lens of stress rather than judgment, parenting begins to feel less reactive and more compassionate. If this perspective resonates with you, leave a like and share this episode with a fellow parent.

Join my Regulated Parent Reset
Books to support you on your parenting journey
Mentioned in this episode: The 5 Domains of Self-Regulation

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Parenting Through Connection. I'm Megan, a parenting coach and mom, navigating the ups and downs of raising kids in a way that feels connected, compassionate, and true to who we really are. This is the place where we ditch the shame, embrace our humanity, and explore what it really means to parent with intention, from toddlers to teens. Whether you're here for practical tips, heartfelt stories, or a reminder that there's no such thing as a bad parent, you're in the right place. Let's dive in and learn together so we can thrive in parent. So today I want to talk about something that completely changes the way that we can understand behavior. And I'm not just talking about our kids' behavior, but our behavior too. And this is something that I have been bringing into my coaching and into my programs and even into my own personal life and my parenting. And this idea comes from Stuart Shanker and the self-reg framework. And although I don't agree with everything in this framework, I do love how he frames stressors and what is called the five domains of stress. So most of the time when we think about parenting challenges, we do focus on behavior. Why is my child melting down? Why are they fighting with their sibling? Why can't they just listen? But this framework kind of invites us to start asking a completely different question. So instead of asking, what is wrong with this behavior, we can start asking kind of what stress might be underneath this behavior? Because as most of us have heard more than once, behavior is very often the signal. And it's usually a signal that some form of stress is coming from a need that our child is trying to meet. And this happens in us too. Our behaviors say the exact same thing. And those stress signals tend to show up in five main areas. And understanding these five areas can really help us not only recognize what our kids actually need, but it can also help us understand ourselves with a lot more compassion. So let's walk through them. So the first domain is called biological stress. This is probably the one that gets the most attention, especially nowadays. This is the physical stress happening in your body. So this can be things as basic as hunger, fatigue, illness, but it also talks about sensory overload like noise that is loud, or maybe never-ending with your kids. Maybe there's too much stimulation, which is, I feel like, parenting in a bit of a nutshell, things like not enough movement, um, even things like not enough sunlight. There's a phrase out right now, like go touch grass that falls under this to me. Now, kids experience biological stress constantly because their bodies are still developing and their nervous systems are still very sensitive. So if we imagine a child who slept poorly the night before, skipped breakfast, and then spends the whole morning in a loud classroom. By the time they get home, their nervous system is already overwhelmed. And then a sibling touches their toy and suddenly there is an explosion. So from the outside, that then looks like a behavior problem. We have to mitigate, you know, their conflict with their sibling and their behavior around that sibling conflict. But underneath it is actually a biological overload. And the same can be true for parents. If you are exhausted, overstimulated, maybe you're running on just caffeine and stress. And then somebody spills juice on the floor after you just cleaned the kitchen. Your nervous system then might react before your brain has a chance to even step in. And most of us, in those moments, we attribute it to a character flaw. That something is wrong with us. When really it's just our system has reached its limit, and our body is actually doing exactly what it's supposed to do in the moment when it is feeling stressed. And the next one, the second domain, is emotional stress. So this is stress connected to our feelings and emotions. Things like fear, frustration, worry, shame, feeling misunderstood. Children often experience emotions that are much bigger than their capacity to manage them. And their brains are still developing. Not only do they not really know the skills and are learning the skills needed to regulate these emotions, but the part of their brain that helps with that isn't even fully developed yet. So they kind of are getting hit by two sides. So when we see these big reactions like yelling, crying, shutting down, or lashing out, what we often see is emotional overall. And so this can look like, you know, a child might come home from school and they melt down over something small. But what is really happening is that they've been holding in these stressors all day. Maybe something happened with a friend. Maybe they felt embarrassed in class. Maybe they were trying very hard to behave really well that day. And so by the time they come home, their emotional cup is already full. And parents can experience this emotional stress too. Many of us carry pressure, guilt, expectations, worry about whether we are doing things right. And when those emotions build up, they can make us more reactive as well. And let's be honest, a lot of us never really learned how to deal with our emotions. So we don't have those skills either. And so behavior can often be that surface signal of emotional stress underneath. And the third domain is cognitive stress. This is stress that comes from thinking and learning demands. So for our kids, that cognitive stress can come from things like school expectations, homework, trying to focus for long periods, processing new information, transitions, schedules. Our children's brains, especially once they hit that school age, are doing an incredible amount of work every day. They will all of a sudden have to sit still, listen, follow instructions, manage expectations for hours at a time. And that takes a huge amount of mental energy. And when that energy runs low, behavior changes. Kids might become more impulsive, distracted, or irritable. This one is also a big one for kids that are neurodiverse and have executive function or maybe even learning disabilities, because now they have those additional stressors on top of it. And as parents, we get to experience this cognitive stress too. We are constantly juggling responsibilities, planning meals, remembering appointments, managing school emails, work deadlines, household tasks, emotional labor. A lot of times when parents say they feel overwhelmed, it's actually cognitive overload. The brain simply has too many demands happening at once. And then the fourth domain is social stress. Now humans are wired for connection, but relationships can also be stressful. For kids, that social stress might look like conflict with siblings, friendship struggles, maybe they're feeling excluded or worried about fitting in, even just navigating group dynamics that are new. Children are constantly still learning how to communicate, share, negotiate, and repair relationships. So social situations can feel really intense. And a child who may have had a difficult interaction with a friend at school might come home and now they're taking that stress out on you or even their sibling. Again, a lot of the time the behavior we are seeing from our kids is not necessarily about the situation that's happening in that moment. It's really from stress that has happened maybe earlier in the day or has accumulated throughout the day that's not been processed yet. And parents also carry social stress. Pressure from extended family, expectations from social media, feeling judged by other parents, maybe feeling isolated and not having a support system, conflict with your partner. All of that can influence how we feel and respond. And the final domain is called pro-social stress. This one is a little less obvious, but pro-social stress happens when any of us, but especially children, are trying to do the right thing socially, but do not yet have the skills to manage it, as well as can even be navigating events going on in the world, in your community, really outside of yourself. So the big difference here is social is kind of things that are happening inside internally, whereas pro-social is stuff happening outside socially. So for example, this could look like wanting to share but feeling possessive, wanting to be kind but feeling jealous, wanting to include others but not knowing how, feeling guilt about hurting someone, feeling afraid about what's going on in the world. Pro-social development is a process of kind of learning that empathy, cooperation, moral understanding. But those things can be really stressful because they often lead to kind of bigger internal conflicts where we want to do the right thing, you know, our kids want to do the right thing, but feel pulled in another direction. And that tension can lead to behavior that looks maybe confusing or even inconsistent. And this can show up for us parents too. We're seeing a lot of it right now in our own stress as parents because of all that's happening in the world and the fact that we are constantly flooded with that information from social media every day, kind of all day. And so understanding these five domains can really help shift our parenting conversation because it helps us start to shift from how do I stop this behavior and begin looking and getting curious about what stress might be driving this behavior. And then when we can identify that stress, we can start to reduce it or even eliminate specific stressors. And this could look like maybe helping make sure our child or even ourselves are resting, eating, moving our body as much as we can in our current season. And that'll look different for each of us. Sometimes it can mean helping them process their emotions or learning to process our own. Maybe it's something like reducing demands or giving space to reconnect. This matters as much for our kids as it does for us. We have nervous systems as parents, and those nervous systems are trying to support our kids' nervous systems. And so when we can support ourselves, we can also create a lot more capacity to support our children. And it also helps us feel a lot more empowered and steady when it comes to our parenting. And so behavior to its core is that communication. But very often that communication is about stress. And when we look through the lens of the five domains of stress, it allows us to move from that judgment, that labeling, to curiosity. And that's going to help us really understand both our children and ourselves so that we can support ourselves, well, and them, in a way that actually works, instead of just trying to kind of put out all the fires as they happen. And if you're wanting some more support on this, my regulated parent reset program does just that. It is my group coaching program, but it helps you learn about your own nervous system and your child's, figure out all of your own unique stressors in your season, as well as find effective ways that actually work to help support all of you and decrease stress. And the next group starts in April, and you can find more information in the description of this podcast. But as always, I am right here with you in this, and I am so grateful that you are here. See you next time.