Slow down Mumma, slow down!

When I visit my mum in her dementia care home, it often feels like I have to crank my speed right down before I enter. It’s as if I’ve been travelling at 100 miles an hour, and in order to curate a good visit, I have to stop. I have to slow. And where possible, never pitch my visit against the clock.

Why? Because despite the fact that our lovely mum has now lost most of her words, she still senses us.

She may not be able to find a name, the right name, or the right relationship. I am, in fact, her daughter, yet I am often now replaced as her mother. But what hasn’t gone is her ability to feel. She senses that I am someone to trust, someone she loves, someone special to her.

And she senses my urgency.

My busyness.

My rushing.

My speed.

My schedules.

I’ve noticed that my busyness is something she hasn’t been able to tolerate for some time. Months ago, when she was more lucid, she would often say that I came in like a whirlwind and that she needed us to slow down.

So now I sit in the car park beforehand, as I recently discovered Laura does too, mentally preparing to slow myself down.

To me, that pace feels efficient, energising, even exciting.
To her, it feels like something is wrong.

Her nervous system is picking up that my body is alert and unsettled, ahead of the moment, not fully in it.

And the science makes sense of this.

Our brains and bodies are constantly scanning for safety or threat – a process called neuroception (a term coined by Dr Stephen Porges). This happens below conscious awareness. We don’t need words. We don’t need logic. The nervous system reads tone, speed, facial expression, breath, posture, and rhythm.

When someone moves quickly, multitasks, speaks fast, breathes shallowly, or carries a sense of urgency, the other person’s nervous system interprets that as activation. To a sensitive system, whether that’s a person living with dementia or a child, activation can feel like danger.

Children, in particular, are exquisitely tuned to this. Their nervous systems are shaped through co-regulation, not instruction. They don’t calm down because we tell them to. They calm down because their bodies borrow safety from ours.

This is right-brain-to-right-brain communication. Long before language develops, children learn safety through tempo, tone, and presence. A hurried adult is read as unpredictable. And unpredictability doesn’t feel safe.

What we often label as “anxiety” in children is very often a response to adult urgency.

And the mums we’re currently working with reflected this back to us so beautifully.

When they slow down, their children become more emotionally regulated.

One mum noticed the difference simply by having a less hurried breakfast.
Another by coming down the stairs more quietly and softly in the morning.
Another by lying in bed listening to an audiobook with her child before starting the day.

No big strategies.
No complicated techniques.

Perhaps the answer is less complicated than we often think.

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do isn’t do more at all.

It’s to slow enough to meet the person in front of us, rather than the day we’re trying to get to.

If you are looking for a place to start understanding your own patterns and your child's behaviour start with Regulate our short 7 step mini course. CLICK HERE