📫 Letter No. 7: Buckle Up, Buttercup—Regulation Starts With Us

🔥 A Reckoning Non-Advice Letter 💌

✨ This one’s for the grown-ups staring at the Zones of Regulation chart on their fridge, 📊
wondering why they’re still rage-posting on Facebook. 💻😡

✨ It’s for the parents trying to raise regulated kids 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
while barely holding it together themselves. 🫠

✨ Because regulation isn’t a chart—it’s a relationship. 💗
And it has to start with us. 🪞

✨ Regulation isn’t perfection—it’s never-ending repair. 🧩🛠️

💌 Dear Miss Reckoning,

I’m trying to raise emotionally regulated kids.
We’ve got the charts. The calm down corners. The breathing techniques.

But I’m still losing it.
I yell. shut down. I spiral.
And then I feel like a failure.

How do I teach regulation when I’m still learning it myself?

– Red Zone Mom

🪞 Dear Red Zone Mom,

Let’s start with the truth. 🧃

I feel you. 🫶

After raising two neurodiverse kids, 🧩 the whole family has been in so much therapy, 🛋️
there’s a Zones of Regulation chart on my fridge right now. 📌

I’m staring at it as I write this. 👀

For my generation, we didn’t grow up with color-coded charts. 📉
We grew up like the norm—
suppressing emotions and hiding trauma behind closed doors, 🚪
where society demanded all the bad stuff stayed. 🧳

Somewhere down the line, someone decided we should raise regulated kids. 📘
And they left it to us: chronically unregulated adults. 💣

🧸 Let’s real-talk about calm down corners.
A corner is a corner is a corner. 🪑
It used to be a kid would be sent to sit in the corner, 🧱
staring at the wall for an hour. ⏳

We collectively decided that wasn’t helping things. 🚫
So naturally, we chose another corner—a softer corner. 🧸
It feels like this should be a metaphor. 🪞
It’s not. 😬

Oh god—it’s real. 😱

Pillows and blankets and stuffed animals. 🧸
In a corner. 🪑
All to help a child calm down. 🌬️

Here’s a different question for adults. ❓
Always, no judgment: 🙅‍♀️

When Suzy at work throws you under the bus 👩‍💼
for a mistake she made and your boss blindsides you with a warning, ⚠️
what’s your first thought? 😤

Calm down corner? 🧸🪑
Would that be helpful? 😬

These suggestions aren’t bad. 📚
Do they work? ❓

I’m not saying calm down corners are a bad concept. 🚫
Maybe they work for some kids. 👧👦
But kids are tiny people. 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️

If it wouldn’t work for adults 🧓,
why are we expecting it to work for kids? 👶

And the adults giving these lessons? 🧑‍🏫
We don’t always know what we’re talking about. 🤷‍♀️

We’re asking an upset toddler if he’s in the red zone—🟥👶
then we’re losing our shit over getting a kid’s shoes on. 👟
(Although if you’ve ever tried to get a toddler’s shoes on, I don’t blame you 😤)

We’re telling a five-year-old to use their words—🗣️
then giving a family member the silent treatment for years. 🤐

The adults should learn regulation first. 🧠

It’s not easy. 😮‍💨

I’ve been working on it for ten years. 🔟
I finally stopped being so reactive 🛑
when I realized my kids were unknowingly hitting my trauma buttons. 🎯

I didn’t want to yell. 📢
I wanted to do gentle parenting—👩‍👧
or whatever the hell they were advocating that day. 📚
But I was pissed off a lot. 🤯

Now, after years of practice 🏋️, I can keep my calm. 🧘‍♀️
Mostly… 😏
I realized that yelling at my daughter for using permanent marker on the carpet 🧼
isn’t going to work. ❌

It won’t make our relationship better. 💔
It won’t prevent her from drawing on the carpet again. 🖍️

Do you know what does work? ✅

Being calm. 🧘‍♀️
Letting her think it through. 💭
Asking her questions. ❓

“Did it occur to you that was a bad idea?” 🤔
Sometimes she says “No” to things that are absolutely the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. 😳
It’s hard not to challenge her. 🧠
But she says it with such innocence. 😇

That’s when I remember—she’s learning. 🧠
I’m learning. 🧍‍♀️📖
I’m an adult, and I make mistakes. 💥

Some days at work, I use permanent marker all over those metaphorical walls. 🧱
I don’t need a chart to show me I’m in the red zone. 🟥
I know I’m in the red zone. 😤

But what am I going to do about it? 🔧

That’s where I can talk to my daughter. 👩‍👧
I’ve told her: “I make mistakes, too.
We all keep learning forever. That never stops.” 🔁

She is a tiny human. 👧
I’m a much larger human. 📏
At the core, we’re the same. 🫶

Neither of us likes to be yelled at in the morning. 📢🌅
So, I do my best to greet her with a friendly, relaxed demeanor 😊
when she gets out of bed. 🛏️

Sometimes, she starts yelling at me for no reason. 🙃
Unprovoked! I tell you. 😩
This last time, I learned I can last about an hour
of being calm and reasonable when she’s not. ⏳

Don’t get me wrong—that doesn’t mean passive. 🙅‍♀️
She lost her screen privileges very early on in this hour. 📱
But I didn’t yell. 🔇

I tried to work through that nightmare morning 😵
and get her freaking hair brushed 💇‍♀️
(which is apparently the equivalent of stealing all the things she holds dear). 📵

At the hour mark, I didn’t yell either. ⏳
I did say something like:
“Okay, now I’m mad. 😠
I don’t like being yelled at in the morning. 🌅 “
You don’t like being yelled at in the morning. 📢
We’ve talked about this. 🗣️
We agreed to try to do better. 🤝
And you’re yelling at me. 😤
I am mad now. 😠
I have my limits. 🚧
And I’m going upstairs now.” 🏃‍♀️

Back to regulating. 🧠
Learning to regulate isn’t a chart. ❌
It’s a relationship. 💞

It has to start with us. 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️
There’s no cheat sheet for the fridge. 📄
There’s no magic formula ✨
you can read in a book. 📚

The hard part? 😣
It’s a two-way street. 🚦
You can’t regulate if one of you is unregulated. 🌀

So, I’ll say to you what I say to my kids every time we get in the car: 🚗
“Buckle up, buttercup.” 😅
Yeah, they hate it, too. 🤭

It’s a long ride. 🎢
But it’s worth it. 🌟
You’re doing great. 🙌
You’re doing your best. 💪

Sometimes society has impossible standards. 🧱
The fact that you’re writing this letter means you care. 📝
We’ll all keep working on this together. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Scorched, signed, sent,
🔥🖊️💌

-Miss Reckoning

As always, your unqualified, non-professional, non-advice friend

Note from Miss:
I’ve sought a lot of professional help, and I’ve found it beneficial in my own recovery. Please always seek what you need from professional avenues.

But know, you’re never alone here.

This post is for emotional reflection and storytelling purposes only. It is not professional advice.

[See full disclaimers here]