ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the idea of a sensory language to include that wide range of choices and responses that parents make, both during QST and in everyday interactions. It highlights the all-important goal of a child’s growing capacity for self-regulation through a new lens – as a balance between attuned connection and predictable, safe boundaries. The parent’s growing ability to adjust between these two critical elements is powerfully communicated to the child and sets the stage for brain-to-brain and body-to-brain transmissions, which combine to provide the basic building blocks of self-regulation. And as the parent’s awareness of the child’s sensory language grows, so does their awareness of new intentional and effective responses that provide a greater sense of balance between connections and boundaries. The chapter includes stories of how two parents struggled with this balance in different ways, how that impacted their children and how they re-set that balance for their child to help them return to a path of self-regulation.
