When we double down: Why escalation makes sense — and why it so often backfires
When things start to escalate, a powerful question to ask yourself is: Is this a teaching moment — or a regulation moment?
Dear parents,
I want to share a moment from my own home — not because I handled it well, but because it captures something I see in families every single week.
My daughter had just lost an earring.
An earring she loved.
She stormed into the house, upset and overwhelmed, and flopped onto the couch. Behind her, the door — and the screen — were left wide open.
Where we are right now, an open screen door means flies will come in. And flies are deeply dysregulating for her. If a fly gets inside, things escalate quickly.
Here’s the part that matters:
I had just finished a hard conversation.
I hadn’t eaten.
I was already irritable and stretched thin.
So when I saw the open door, my nervous system didn’t think, I’ll just close that.
It jumped straight to: This is going to turn into chaos.
And instead of doing the simple thing — closing the door myself, even though I was closer — I told her to do it.
Yes. I know.
The Moment Everything Shifted
She yelled back:
“I just lost my offing earring!”
(She doesn’t even swear — which tells you how flooded she was.)
And instead of softening, instead of seeing the grief and overwhelm underneath, I doubled down.
I snapped back something like:
“And you’re going to freak out if a fly comes in, so close the damn door!”
That right there is the moment I want to pause with you.
Because nothing about that moment was actually about the door.
What Was Really Happening
Underneath the surface, this was happening:
My daughter’s nervous system was already activated
She’d lost something important
She came in fast, loud, and flooded
My nervous system was also activated
Emotional residue from a hard conversation
Hunger
Irritability
Anticipatory anxiety about what might happen next
Two dysregulated nervous systems met — and I tried to resolve my discomfort by making her do something.
That’s what doubling down often is.
Not a power move.
Not bad parenting.
But an adult nervous system looking for relief.
Why Doubling Down Makes Escalation Worse
When a child is already activated, any additional demand, even a reasonable one, lands as threat.
And when that demand comes with urgency, frustration, or blame, the nervous system hears:
Your distress is inconvenient. Fix it.
At that point:
Reasoning won’t land
Teaching won’t land
Consequences won’t land
The body is no longer available for learning.
This is especially true for autistic and neurodivergent children, and for children with PDA profiles, where perceived loss of autonomy can feel intensely threatening.
What Would Have Helped Instead
Looking back, the regulating response wasn’t:
explaining
correcting
insisting
or pointing out future consequences
It was this:
Close the door myself.
Say nothing.
Sit nearby.
That’s it.
Not because the door didn’t matter —
but because regulation mattered more than the lesson.
The fly problem was hypothetical.
Her distress was real.
A Question That Changes the Moment
When things start to escalate, a powerful question to ask yourself is:
Is this a teaching moment — or a regulation moment?
If it’s a regulation moment, your job isn’t to be right or consistent or effective.
Your job is to lower the temperature.
You can teach later.
You can problem-solve later.
You can revisit expectations later.
Safety comes first.
This Is the Real Work
The work isn’t never snapping.
It isn’t always choosing the perfect response.
The work is:
noticing when we are dysregulated
noticing when we’re about to push
and sometimes choosing to do the thing ourselves
Not because our children “won.”
But because nervous systems settled.
And when nervous systems settle, capacity returns.
That’s where learning actually begins.
With care,
Tanya