The "Calm the Chaos" Framework: Relieving Parenting Stress and Creating Connection in Families with Dayna Abraham

Christine Li  0:01  
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 139. Today I have the pleasure of celebrating a book launch my friend and colleague, Dayna Abraham, who has written other books called The Superkids Activity Guide to Conquering Every Day and Sensory Processing 101... has written a another book and this book is amazing. It's called Calm The Chaos, A Fail Proof Roadmap for Parenting Even the Most Challenging Kids. This book is going to be released this month, August 2023, and we're here to celebrate it with her. Dayna is a national board certified educator, a parent of three neurodivergent children, and an ADHD adult herself. She is also the founder of the popular parenting website, lemonlimeadventures, which has accumulated more than 41 million viewers in less than seven years. Through her compassionate framework, calm the chaos. She has helped millions of desperate parents around the world find peace and meet their children where they're at when conventional parenting tools have failed them. With a weekly reach of more than 1.2 million people on social media and more than 200,000 parents attending her Calm the Chaos free workshop, she has become a proven and trusted leader in the parenting space. Her work has been showcased in Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, BuzzFeed, Attitude Magazine, and Positive Parenting Solutions. She lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her three amazing children her husband Jason, and two huge Newfoundland puppies, Luna and Coda. We have a wonderful conversation about the book, about her work, about her courage on taking all this on. And again, I'm just so proud of Dayna, so happy to introduce her to you now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hi, everyone, it is Christine again. And today I have a fantastic author, mentor coach, guide to millions of people around the world in lots of areas, but I will say probably the biggest area umbrella area is parenting. So happy and proud to have Dayna Abraham on the show with us today. Welcome to the show.

Dayna Abraham  3:11  
I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Christine Li  3:14  
Very happy to have you here. Please let us know a lot about you. What gives you energy? What do you love to do? How do you love to serve the clients that you have the followers that you have? You've amassed a very large audience and you do very deep and meaningful work. Please give us a sense of what that landscape look like looks like

Dayna Abraham  3:39  
Wow, goodness gracious. Okay, that is a lot. So what energizes me from from a work perspective and from a serving perspective and why I believe I'm kind of put on this earth is helping each individual that I come across feel seen heard and valued for who they are. That's kind of my mission in this world is to create a more compassionate and accepting world, one kid or one adult at a time. And so it serves me when I see that that spark happen when a parent sees their kid for this fierce, amazing, wonderful person that is in front of them. Instead of Do you want me to pause? Go ahead. Instead of the, you know, aggressive, violent or bratty child that they've been seeing them as right when I can see parents make that swap. I'm like, Alright, we are on to something. And then the world is your oyster. You can do anything and your kid can do anything. And so that really energizes me it really energizes me to help people get unstuck. When they've you know, they feel like they've tried everything done everything bend down every single road and hit dead ends. I really love to share my resilience and my hope with people so that they can borrow from Me until they have their own. And that is kind of how I give to this world. I believe in like everything that I do.

Christine Li  5:07  
Yes, beautiful, I can attest to the fact that you absolutely does do that. And you have your own story of resilience and parenting and being through this also being a teacher for decades, if I'm not mistaken, could you give us a little bit of a sense of your personal, deeper connection with this work? Yeah,

Dayna Abraham  5:27  
So I have to say I was kind of born into this, I was raised with a bipolar brother who was extremely explosive. And I had to deal with a lot of that. And then, as my husband says, I lived 1000 lives in this short life that I've had so far. And, and when I became an educator, my favorite kids were the kids that had a long paper trail behind them, the ones that all the teachers saw is too much or not enough. They were my favorites. And so when I became a parent, I figured I had this parenting gig figured out, I was a national board certified teacher, I had an award for best teacher in Chicago, like I was like, I got this, right. And when I had my son, I just everything was flipped upside down, especially once he started school. Because once he started being around others and being in school more, then it's really became evident that he struggled with traditional settings. So he was kicked out of preschool, he was in trouble in kindergarten, he was starting to get suspended in first grade. And by second grade, he was kicked out more days than he was in school. And he was starting to have epic meltdowns. And they were so bad that one day, the principal actually said, you have two choices, you can take them home, and don't bring him back to figure out what's wrong with him. Or you can let this officer take them. And she was going to let an officer take my seven year old to the police station. And it was in that moment that I knew I needed to do something different. And it wasn't like, I've got this figured out, I can do better than the school system, I could see that they were throwing everything they had at my son, and it just, it wasn't working. And so I brought him home. And I really just had two goals, I wanted him to not hate himself for not fitting in. And I wanted him to not hate the world for not understanding Him. Those were my big goals at the beginning. And so I started a blog started sharing the ups and downs of life. And really just saying, like, I don't have this figured out, here's what I'm going through. And I was looking for one other person who said, Hey, that sounds like my life. And I didn't find one, I found millions. And then over the years of figuring things out, I started realizing what worked from my education background from my kind of like sciency background. And then what also worked from this new knowledge I was gaining of raising a neurodivergent child and raising a child with sensory processing disorder and autism. And like all these things, while also raising two other kids being ADHD, myself and all these, you know, swirling whirling thoughts, and then my own expertise. And so I started teaching other parents. And it started becoming evident that this was a framework that worked across genders, Across Ages, across challenges across cultures, and across the world. And so it really became something that just grew a lot bigger than I ever thought it was ever going to. And now it has reached, you know, 10s or hundreds of 1000s of parents actually who have and teachers, therapists, doctors who have gone through our programs and free workshops and apply this framework to their life and see massive results in their parenting with like, regular everyday situations like my kids are arguing to, you know, my kids getting kicked out of school, my kids refusing to go to school, my kid won't do anything I ask them to do like, we've had people who are at the brink of sending their kids off to like a military academy, you know, and they're just not sure what to do. And, and we've been able to help them.

Christine Li  9:04  
Yeah, beautiful. And it sounds magical. But also I know from having read your new book, calm the chaos, that there's actually a lot of pragmatic, down to earth simple to understand steps that are in your system. So before we get into talking about that, please let us know how the book came to be, and what allowed you to gather your own resources to put this book together.

Dayna Abraham  9:35  
So the book has been almost four years in the making, actually. So in 2019, I had been running our program called the chaos with the exact same methodology. I had been running it with 1000s of parents around the world. And so a mentor of mine said it's time it's time for you to put this in a book, share it with a wider audience. And I was scared to death but I was like okay, So I started down that process. And I submitted my first proposal on March 3 2020. So we all know what happened March 13 2020, the world shutdown, right? Yeah, we kind of come out from the dust. And you know, and like the mayhem. And one of the things that happened in 2020, that was on believable and shocking to us is that our community was thriving. While the rest of the world was experiencing chaos at a massive level, for the first time, this program was built in chaos. And so it was a framework that people could use. And when their schools got shut down, they're like, I know what to do with this, you know, and when it was like, I don't know what's coming next, they were like, I know how to handle this. And when their kid review school, they're like, I don't know what to do here. Like, it just was so cool to see how empowered they were. And at the same time, it was really clear that I needed to simplify it even more, if I was going to be able to help people when they were in the worst of the storms. And there was now a much larger audience that had experienced chaos at a massive level. And so we went back to the drawing board, we rewrote the program, we retested it with 1000s of parents again, and we saw faster results than we had ever seen before. And so about that same time, my proposal got denied, I said, this is kind of all over the place, the way that it was before is it was just my framework, it was like, here are the theories, here are the practices, and it was kind of choose your own adventure, and it was really hard to follow. And people were making progress, you know, in spite of how confusing it was. And so it was just, you know, someone that I love and adore always says, Its simplicity on the far side of complexity. And I feel like we went through all that complexity and the testing and the iterations and trying to get it to where the book is today. And the book is essentially calm the chaos 4.0. So we have reinvented it and, and reconfigured it four times over the last five years, and every time only giving you exactly what you need, and no more. And so this really is, and we've already run a group of parents, we ran about 500 parents through the the program version of this book. And again, they saw much more progress faster than any of our programs in the past. And it's this combination of like, the framework, and then a roadmap that takes you through the how to implement this framework in your life. So it works with your unique family. And, you know, there was, you said, like, what, why a book why now you know, and, and really it just, again, after 2020, and seeing how many people have been in this place, where they've seen massive trauma they've seen, you know, or have massive trauma, they've seen massive chaos. The world needs something that gives them a way out of the unsustainable chaos, whether it's with parenting or in their everyday life. And I knew that we had something that was working for this small little segment of people. And I wanted to share it with more people. And I truly believe that the more people that have this book, the more compassionate and the more accepting our world will be. And so that's really the why behind why this book, why now I think it is the absolute best time in the world to be raising a kid that doesn't fit the mold. Because after the pandemic, so many opportunities opened up online opportunities and things that never existed when we were kids. And so it's so much easier for parents to make that shift now of like, oh, they don't have to go to school, get good grades, go to college, get married and then have a job. Like there are other options for our kids now.

Christine Li  14:07  
Yeah. You have a strong streak of optimism, I believe. Yes. Because as I'm listening to you, I agree with everything that you've said, don't get me wrong. I do also think that during the pandemic, everyone was going through crisis after crisis after crisis, right? Even people who had never really been used to that at all, and that a system like yours, I'm thinking as you're describing, it is such a source of hope and relief for people and that as I was reading it, I was thinking that she is put all these behavioral theories and techniques and simplify the explanations for them, given examples and case examples of victory, victorious families to illustrate and it's just as Really wonderful guide for how to get yourself out of a problem. So before we started recording today, I mentioned, Dana, you don't have to be a parent to benefit from this book, this book is really about problem solving. And she knows this already. But I wanted to describe that to you, dear listener, because if you're listening, and you don't happen to have a neurodivergent child, still take a look at this book, because there's so many resources for calming your nervous system for thinking in a better and more optimized way. And for finding your way back to your own source and sense of calm for yourself. So thank you, Dana, for doing this hard work. I did not know about the different iterations of the book and all the research that you had to do to put this through. It's even more impressive now. So thank you.

Dayna Abraham  15:50  
You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah, and I think that that's my superpower is that I part of it, it comes from having an ADHD brain. But if you've ever taken the Colby assessment, which kind of helps you identify how you work, I am a very high Quickstart, surprise, surprise. And my factfinder score is about a like, it's like a sick, so it's not high, it's not low, it's like right in the middle. And my follow through is like a one, then. But my implement score is also really high. It's like a seven, which is why I like to doodle things out. And I like to draw things out and make frameworks for things to make them understandable for people, because that's how my brain needs to be able to understand things as well. And so when when I took the Colby assessment, and there's like a little audio that comes with it, it was like you're a bridge, you learn just enough so that then you can go explain it to others in a way they can understand. And I was like, yes, that is my superpower. And growing up, I thought it was what made me broken. Like, I thought it was the thing that I did wrong. I really struggle with memory, I struggle with remembering, like polyvagal theory and parasympathetic nervous system and like the words of it, but man, do I get the concept, I totally understand the concept. And I can share those concepts and actually simplify them. And for a long time, I thought that something was wrong with me. And why would parents come to me when they could go to, you know, Dr. Porges, they could go to the researchers, the doctors who have come up with these concepts and theories. And it was like, oh, because they can't access it. Right. And because, and that was me. And that was my husband when I tried to explain what was going on with my son. So he couldn't access the information because it was just going over his head. And I think that that is the beauty of the calm the chaos framework as it takes the best of neuroscience and the science of behavior and the science of communication and relationships, and then marries it with just being a good human and having your own knowing of yourself and, and trusting yourself. Because I think so often experts are like, here's the one way go this way and only do it this way. And you're like but what about all this awesome stuff I already know about myself, forget it move forward without it. And it's like, no, no, no lead, there's got to be a way to marry it. And that's, you know, that's what I've tried to do so hard with calm the chaos is make it so that it's really simple to remember and really simple to implement in your own life.

Christine Li  18:32  
Okay, beautiful. I would like to take our listeners through a bit of your work so that they get a sense more tangibly about what we're talking about. And my thought is if you could start at the point where the storm is happening, or the storm has just happened, and you can describe what a storm up, and the parent is thinking they really know what's going on. But yet they don't know everything, right? They know their child in a very deep and meaningful way. But there's something also missing. So could you start us off at that point? And then teach us some points?

Dayna Abraham  19:13  
Yeah, so. So I think what you're talking about, so I call any big explosion, argument, friction point, just think of it as a friction point. There's different levels of storms. I grew up in Tornado Alley. So I of course also think of like the really big storms. And so the plans that I walk through in the book and in our system, they are for different types and different timelines within the storm. So let's assume your kids are having like just a knockdown drag out fight let's let's just like use one example. Like that. So in the storm, the when it's happening, especially the very first time after you're learning these concepts, all you can do is ride the storm with the goal of safety. So it's about getting them separated. It's about using your words minimally. And it's about staying calm yourself. And so instead of jumping in and saying, I told you so don't do that, like, why are you on your brother again, like go to your rooms you need to separate. Instead, you're really going to make sure that you feel safe. Because when our kids are fighting, it sends signals to our brain that our kids are in danger. And so then we're gonna go into fight flight or freeze and be like, let's jump in, let's make sure. So we have a one strategy called Stop, Breathe anchors, the first one I described in the book, and you're really just stopping with that pause, taking a big deep breath. And that gives your brain oxygen so that it can actually access information. And then you're recalling an anchor, which is something that you've chosen beforehand. And for a lot of my parents, I have them choose something like a memory anchor, which is remembering their child is a baby, their child would cry, their child would whine, and you just help to them because your child needed something and you didn't overthink all the things it was you were just like, okay, my child's crying, they can't talk. So I will support them. If we can think of it that way. And we can remember our child as this, like this creature that needed our help. And we can see the two arguing, fighting, pulling hair out kids as to little infants that just need us, then we can soften and we can remove that, that need to go in and fight or take control of the situation. And then the other thing in the heat of the moment is a lot of times we have a bunch of signals we're sending, like our Huff's or puffs, our shoulders, our face, and sometimes even our voice. And so doing a body scan and just checking from head to toe, what signals Am I sending right now? Instead of sending signals of danger to my kids so that they get more heightened? How can I send signals that they are safe. And then we always all of our plans are for parts. And so I don't know if this is what you're wanting to be to do. But so then the that was the UPS connection, the understanding piece, you're not really going to play 20 questions in the heat of the moment, it's just not going to work for you. And you definitely don't want to jump to assumptions. So in the heat of the moment, all you're doing is getting curious, and you're just swapping the mindset from like, there's they're giving me such a hard time or Ah, why are they doing this too? They need something, there's something under the surface, right? What is under the surface, what could they be trying to tell me, and you're not trying to solve it, you're not trying to fix it, you're not trying to do anything about it, you're just giving yourself that reminder. So you can wait it out. And a lot of times, it's really helpful to know this is just a moment and it will pass. And then when you come out of that storm, it's about focusing on the little progress that you're making, before you actually reach that end result of having two kids that always get along. So that's the like in the storm plan is that kind of what you were asking for. It's perfect.

Christine Li  23:28  
It's really, really perfect. And I loved that middle part in particular, of really transforming the parents habit of saying, Oh, what are they doing? And how is this bothering me to what might be needed, and not seeing yourself as the only source of the solution or that the kid is the only source but there can be multiple sources of calming everybody down have finding peace again. But that we have to identify what the need is what what are they trying to communicate when they're trying to pull their hair out of each other's heads?

Dayna Abraham  24:04  
Right? And you can't do that when it's happening. Like you. You can't like let's just take like a dog attack, right? Let's say you're out on a walk and this dog walks up to you and start to gnarling at you and barking at you, you're most likely not going to reason with that dog, right? Like you are going to make sure that dog feels safe and you feel safe, so that the dog backs down and you back down and you're going to really check your body signals and you're watching their body signals, right and you're like, Alright, I'm getting out of dodge if this gets real bad, but you're trying to be as still as you can and you're trying to ride it out while that dog is upset. Now, I'm not necessarily comparing children to animals. That's not what I mean. But I just did that to kind of visualize and help people kind of see what I mean when it's just we have to ride this out. And this isn't when to solve it. This isn't when to pull up a treat. So this isn't when to, you know, try to tell the dog to sit or any of those things, right? It's the same with our kids. It's the same with an argument with our partner. It's the same one, we get mad at work. It's the same, like, all those things. I mean, my son got frustrated at someone on like, text messages. And he came to me and he was like, okay, so I am no longer angry. I wrote something, and he didn't send it. He's 15. And he goes, I didn't send it, can you read over it and make sure that it's reads the way I'm trying to get it to read? Right? And how many adults can't do that? How many adults are like in the heat of the moment, you're frustrated, you're sending that text, you're responding, right? In the heat of the moment, you just can't do that. You have to wait till both of you have kind of reached this calm state. Now you can dig into where did this come from? Why did it happen?

Christine Li  25:56  
Yeah, I'm looking at the two copies of the book behind you. And the title calm, the chaos is so meaningful, because what you're teaching is that the way to calm the chaos is by identifying where you can be calm. Again, right? That calmness is actually the major tool. I mean, you go through so many different examples, and doodles and maps and techniques. But it's all around kind of like, let's restore the calm so that we can actually find the solutions and the healing and the connection between us again, and the danger is when we feel like everything is flying apart, and in conflict with our safety needs. Right? That's when everybody goes into panic. And you are the beautiful, compassionate, wise experience voice for the other options. So let's go with your options. Yeah,

Dayna Abraham  26:52  
well, we another thing to just remember to is it's not read the chaos, right? Or, or anything like that. It's not about getting rid of the chaos. And we have some of our families, I love it when they go to leave us and they've done really well and their families are connected and working together. A phrase we hear all the time is there's still chaos in our life. But instead of yelling, and arguing, and fighting and pushing and pulling, it's laughing. And it's going to go do this. And it's going to go do that. And it's problem solving together. And there's still a lot of things happening. It's life there is chaos, but it's beautiful, happy chaos. And I like I love that difference, right? You're going from this chaos being the thing that's ruling your life that's holding you back that's keeping you stuck to chaos being something that you are actually loving and enjoying and it's not stressful chaos.

Christine Li  27:49  
Yes. Amazing. Changing the world, one family at a time, one community at a time. One thought at a time. Thank you so much, Dana for being here for being so optimistic for all of us. And for putting out this book. I'm really really so happy for you so happy for all your future readers, please let us know how we can get our hands on your book.

Dayna Abraham  28:13  
Absolutely. So you can go to calm the chaos book.com And we've put together a bunch of special bonuses just for you guys that you can grab when you preorder the book and then if you're still on the fence you're not sure if you want to try this out. We also have where you can get a free chapter check it out read the chapter immediately it's right there ready for you and so you can find out everything you need to write they're at calm the chaos book.com

Christine Li  28:39  
Okay terrific. One other thing is I know you are very present on social media as well what's the best channel to get in with

Dayna Abraham  28:47  
anyone or Facebook or Instagram? So in there both calm the chaos work calm the chaos parenting on all channels on YouTube tick tock Instagram Facebook, were most present on Instagram and Facebook.

Christine Li  29:00  
So proud of you. So happy for you so excited for this book to meet the world. Congratulations again. Let's all root for Dayna. Please get your hands on this book. Please tell your friends about this. And do me a favor to like

Dayna Abraham  29:15  
back to school gift or a you're about to have a new kid gift or you know just hey, I want the world to be a better place gift so definitely buy more than one for your friends.

Christine Li  29:28  
Okay, wonderful. Buy the book also connect with Dayna on social media. Connect with me as well procrastination coach and let us know what you thought of this episode. What was your biggest takeaway? Let us know we'd be happy to send you a reply to all right. Thanks, everyone. Bye Dana be well good luck with the launch. 

Thank you and my followers. I will see you next week. Thanks for being here on the Make Time for Success podcast. Bye! 

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