What if the behavior you’re struggling with isn’t defiance or poor choices, but the brain working differently? Join Barb Clark for FASD: Behind the Behavior. We’ll tackle lying, raging, impulsivity, anxiety, repeated mistakes, and “knowing better but not doing better.” You may walk away seeing behavior very differently. 1 out of 20 kids have a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Let’s dig in!
All right. Hello everybody. I am coming to you for, I think I'm in Sarasota, Florida. Right now. I was. Doing a training in the town cordon called Northport today, and now I'm driving and I'm stuck. In traffic. So I pulled over to do this livestream. Today, what I wanted to talk to you guys about is, um, why do some of our kids or some, even the adults. Why do individuals with F a S D. Often keep making the same mistakes. Why do they keep doing a behavior? That gets 'em in trouble one day. And they do it again, right?
Like most, most of the world, the way that it works with people. That have your brains is. When we do so stupid and we are punished for. It, we get a cons, whether it's from our parents. Whether it's from a teacher. Maybe a therapist, maybe the justice. System, um, whatever, uh, as a society, we are very punitive consequence. Based, right. This is how we expect kids, especially to learn, to stop doing a behavior that. We don't like is we punish them. We consequence them and we use logic. And so with a lot of our kiddos, kiddos.
Um, a lot of our kiddos who have this kind of, who have these kind of behaviors, we can. Punish them and the behavior. Just keeps happening. That I told I he mentioned I think in one of my other live streams, how we threw our daughters. Daughter's thank you away when she was six. I teach her to stop stealing. And the behavior continues. Did not learn from that punishment. So. The the cause part of the upstairs brain. Right? So we, um, Dan Siegel is a really great. Psychologist doctor, um, doctor, maybe he's an MD.
I don't remember, but he's a doctor Dr. Dan Siegel. He's got this great, um, model of the brain called the hand modeling. He talks about the upstairs. Upstairs brain and the downstairs brain. So the thinking brain is up here and the downstairs brain is. Down here and, um, inner upstairs brain where the executive functioning skills. Are that's our ability to organize. Analyze, uh, problem solve sequence time, understand time. Impulse control all of those things. Are commonly impacted by the prenatal, a alcohol exposure.
And so, um, so a lot of our kids. When, uh, you know, for a neurotypical healthy brain individual. We, uh, when somebody gets in trouble, a kid gets in trouble. We punish them. They're like, Ooh, I didn't like that punishment. I'm not gonna do this again. They might do it a few times. It might take a. Few times to stick, but that usually. That process that strategy of punishing kids, things like that. Works somewhat okay. With healthy brain individuals, to be honest, I'm not a fan of it. Even with.
Neurotypicals anymore anymore. Our society and world has just changed. So much. Um, but anyways, so, so the logic of I did this and it didn. Didn't work. So I'm not gonna do it again, that, that, um, you know, being punished consequenced for a. Behavior that was not right. Um, is kind of logical and that doesn't work super great with this. Population the other big reason. And, and I think almost a bigger reason why. It doesn't work is that the Corpus callosum, which is a part of our brain, the. Bundle of fibers that separates our left and our right hemispheres.
Is impacted also by that prenatal exposure. And so a lot of individuals with, um, F a S D or even. Autism or other kind of neuro based brain-based differences. Um, have their Corpus callosum doesn't work, all that great. And so, um, so many of them. Keep making the same behaviors because what's happened is. Sometimes they've stirred the information over in that left hemisphere or whichever hemisphere it. But they can't access it in the moments that we need them to. This is why many individuals with F a S D.
Are super inconsistent. And keep repeating certain behaviors and doing things. That they were able be because they were able to do it a day ago or an hour ago, or. Five minutes ago, and this is really frustrating. You guys doesn't mean they can do it right? Now in this moment, and that is confusing to logical. Brained individuals and thinkers, right? We're like, I know they know how to do this. So they're. Clearly being willfully disobedient, they're clearly being an a-hole. They're clearly being.
Whatever fill in the blanket is that you're thinking in a negative way about this individual now. Sometimes it is gonna be that right once in a while, it's gonna be that. But the majority of the time. If we are talking about F a S D or other brain-based differences, that is usually. Not what is going on. It is that they were not able to. Access those places in their brain where they have stored information and that's happened to all of. Us. Right. All of us have had these moments where, you know, you're in the grocery store and you see somebody that, you know, that, you know, their name.
And you can't think of their name and you're like, what, what's their name? And you're trying to access that, you know, it's stored in your brain. But you can't figure it out. And, um, so, but that happens. Uh, way more consistently and in bigger ways to like, and other things. That for neurotypical individuals are easy to kind of easier to remember. And so that happens. So commonly with this population and when I work with families in particular, but even I just. Did this training with, um, the school system here in Sarasota county?
I was talking. About that even from an educational perspective. Um, this is what's happening is you're just assuming the student is being lazy or. Defiant or avoidant or all of these negative things. That we just kind of naturally assume. And the majority of the time, honestly, that's not what, what is going on. Like I said, it. It's gonna be that once in a while, but that's usually not what it is. And that is really baffling to our logical brains when we're like, okay, I know they know. How to do this.
I know they know how to do this just because they took a shower. 47 times in a row and got outta the shower and didn't stink and used body wash. And. Use shampoo and all of the things right. Or soap or whatever. Doesn't mean that today when they took a shower, they knew all of those steps just because they've. Emptied the dishwasher multiple times. Doesn't know, they know how to do that today. You guys think about how many steps there are when it comes to empty. Emptying a dishwasher, right? There's a lot of steps to empty in a dishwasher that we don't think.
About because we just do it. Kind of like by memory and it's, it's kinda like a robotic thing for us often. And so, um, but for people with brain-based differences, some of those M. Incredibly complex. Multi-step things like even taking a shower, right? You gotta turn. The water on you gotta get the water to the right temperature. Oops. You know, depending on what type of a faucet you. Have to make sure that it's at the right temperature. You've gotta get your towel set up in the right place. You've gotta maybe open a shower, curtain, open a shower door, whatever it is, then you step in, you have to.
