Refrigerator Moms

Kelley Jensen [0:00:00] Hi, I'm Kelley Jensen and I'm here with my friend Julianna Scott. And today, Julianna, we're talking about SPACE.
Julianna Scott [0:00:17] SPACE.
Kelley Jensen [0:00:17] SPACE.
Julianna Scott [0:00:18] Okay.
Kelley Jensen [0:00:18] Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. SPACE. And this conversation came to be because I was telling you I have noticed a distinct trend in some of these parenting groups that for a long time the parenting groups and the parenting coaches that ran the parenting groups were talking about radical acceptance of your child's anxiety, radical accommodation, tiptoeing around anything that might cause trauma. I have noticed that the conversation is a distinct shift in tone and that they're starting to come around to, well, you're going to have to make a bad choice and sometimes you're going to have to put up with a tantrum and sometimes you're going to have to just work through some behavior for the greater good.
Julianna Scott [0:01:04] Okay. So like, an example would be — an example.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:07] Co-sleeping is probably the quintessential example, I think, probably the one I called you about and I thought it was really funny because it was from a parenting coach whose mantra is radical acceptance of your new role as an accommodator.
Julianna Scott [0:01:22] Right.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:23] She put up a, you know, carousel of why you deserve to have a boundary around sleeping if that is important to you.
Julianna Scott [0:01:32] Okay.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:32] And how —
Julianna Scott [0:01:32] Okay, that's a distinct departure.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:35] A departure from radically accepting that your child needs to co-sleep with you.
Julianna Scott [0:01:39] Right.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:39] And I thought, I wonder if this person wants her sleep all of a sudden.
Julianna Scott [0:01:46] A little privacy, a little sleep.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:48] Like maybe her child is getting older now and it's not so cute to have them in the bed all night. Right. So which is what happens. Right?
Julianna Scott [0:01:56] Absolutely.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:56] And that's sometimes what happens when you —
Julianna Scott [0:01:58] Right.
Kelley Jensen [0:01:59] Radically accept. You kick the can down the road and you hit a wall, you hit the end of the road.
Julianna Scott [0:02:03] Yeah.
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I found this concept of SPACE, this therapy actually in one of the groups that suggested that for their anxious child, the conversation shifted from does this accommodation actually facilitate long-term anxiety? And if it does, I should be a little bit more proactive in setting boundaries as a parent. You know, a little bit more of the tough it out school of parenting. And I thought, wow, coming from this group, this is an interesting thing. And I started looking into SPACE and —
Julianna Scott [0:03:01] I thought, this sounds like what we've been doing.
Kelley Jensen [0:03:05] Yeah, it sounds like pretty solid parenting advice to me. So why don't you tell me what you found out in your research.
Julianna Scott [0:03:09] Well, I did. I dug around because you sent this to me, and I go, this sounds interesting. So this was created, I believe, in the 80s, and it wasn't for the autistic population. It was just for parenting in general. But it's been more recently studied for those on the spectrum. Studies show now that family accommodation alleviates distress in the short term, but is associated with increased symptom severity, greater functional impairment, poor treatment outcomes, increased caregiver burden, and disruption to family functioning overall. So research shows a prevalence of family accommodation of anxiety in autism. So while the most common treatments for anxiety and autism are CBT and medication, research is limited and other approaches must be considered. So SPACE is one that is now being considered. Parents in this study rated the treatment as highly satisfactory. Anxiety symptom severity and family accommodation were significantly reduced following treatment. So this is kind of preliminary evidence that SPACE is actually quite effective.
Kelley Jensen [0:04:24] So, okay, walk us through using the sleeping as an example, since it started the conversation to begin with. So you've got a child that is scared of the dark, right? And you put the nightlight on, and that child does not like the nightlight, does not keep him in the bed. They keep running back to your bed. Now, in some of the latest advice, it would have been just let him co-sleep with you so that everybody gets a good night's sleep. But then the child gets in the habit of sleeping in your bed. So the child that's fine and cute when they're four or five, which is when the fear of the dark sort of usually sets in, right? They're 11 now, they're still sleeping in your bed, and now they can't sleep if you're not there, right? It has become a bigger impairment, right? Because now they're getting bigger, adolescence is setting in, and you haven't been alone in your bed in four, five, seven years.
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Kelley Jensen [0:05:40] So walk us through.
Julianna Scott [0:05:42] Yeah.
Kelley Jensen [0:05:43] You decided that SPACE is where you've got to go because you need space.
Julianna Scott [0:05:48] Right. Well, it's going back to figuring out: is this fear-based?
Kelley Jensen [0:05:52] Right.
Julianna Scott [0:05:52] It kind of goes back to our ABCs. Yeah. You want to figure out what is this? What is driving the anxiety? If it's fear avoidance, reassurance seeking, that's when you need to step in and start, you know, managing that.
Kelley Jensen [0:06:07] Okay.
Julianna Scott [0:06:07] Through, like, CBT, all of those things. Like, yeah. Introducing the nightlight, doing all of those things.
Kelley Jensen [0:06:14] So you should have maybe stuck with it when they were four.
Julianna Scott [0:06:18] Yes, absolutely. I mean, you're basically going back and doing that. So mapping SPACE onto an autistic kid — the thing that you want to make sure is that you're not ignoring accommodations that are necessary. So that was the thing about mapping this on to autistic kids: you don't want, if it's a sensory issue, if the anxiety is being caused by, you know, sensory need, processing difference, or communication issues — you don't use SPACE for that.
Kelley Jensen [0:06:50] Right.
Julianna Scott [0:06:50] It's when it's anxiety-producing. When it's fear-based.
Kelley Jensen [0:06:54] But let's be clear that if your child sleeping in their own bed is a sensory need, there are sensory accommodations for that.
Julianna Scott [0:07:03] But you're saying, like, you should accommodate a sensory need. Yes. Or a communication or processing difference. I mean, that's when you accommodate. You don't accommodate when it's just fear-based.
Kelley Jensen [0:07:15] When I'm just scared of the dark. I'm just scared to be alone.
Julianna Scott [0:07:17] I'm just scared of the dark. Yes. Like, that's when you stop accommodating and you start dealing with that.
Kelley Jensen [0:07:23] Okay, and how do you deal with it? Well, same way as we've always done. Set up a sleep routine.
Julianna Scott [0:07:29] Set up a routine. It's all of those things. The same things that we've always talked about: scaffolding. You know, you don't do it cold turkey. You introduce things. You don't want to create more anxiety, so you want to talk to them about what it could be, then slowly introduce some mitigating measures. It's all of those things.
Kelley Jensen [0:07:57] Yes.
Julianna Scott [0:07:57] So it's just another way. I mean, it's a little bit like repackaging the same kind of ABA.
Kelley Jensen [0:08:03] But the point of it is that managing a child's anxiety through accommodating the anxiety, you hit a roadblock. Right. So now if you have a child that's scared of the dark and doesn't want to sleep in their room — then you're dealing with the fear of being alone. You're dealing with the fear of the dark. You're dealing with maybe some sensory needs. You're dealing with those accommodations. It takes persistence. It takes patience. It takes positivity to let the child know that they can do it. If you deal with it at 11, having taken a chance that, okay, they're doing this when they're four, I'm just gonna leave them, we're gonna co-sleep together, hoping they grow out of it — and they don't grow out of it. And they're 11.
Julianna Scott [0:08:47] They're not gonna grow out of it. You've just reinforced it.
Kelley Jensen [0:08:50] One, you've reinforced it. And two, you've created a routine. That's the routine. Their routine is they sleep in your —
Julianna Scott [0:08:53] — bed. And that's what SPACE is trying to do. It's like they don't want to reinforce the anxiety. You want to build the tolerance for the anxiety. And obviously for our kids, if it is like a sensory need or something like that, you're not gonna increase their tolerance for that. You want to accommodate that. If they need headphones, whatever, something like that. But in a case, again, back to the sleeping in the dark or something like that, you need to get the nightlight. Do all these things. Raise their tolerance for distress — and that's gonna be good overall. I mean, you're going to help them manage the anxieties that come up later. If you're reinforcing that these are things to be anxious about, any new thing that comes along that you're anxious about — how are you gonna cope with that? So you've got to give your kid some tools to cope with that distress.
Kelley Jensen [0:09:54] And you take it one behavior at a time, one important priority at a time. So sleeping when you're four is a priority. Getting good sleeping habits when you're four, getting potty trained when you're four — so maybe you put school off another year. You make a list of the things that are priorities, and they start with function levels, with health levels and sleep levels. So those are the things that you accommodate positively while making sure they make progress and move forward. Otherwise you're still dealing with it when they're 11 and they're bigger and they're more ingrained in their habits and you've reinforced —
Julianna Scott [0:10:36] Yeah. Now you've gotta undo all of those years of reinforcement.
Kelley Jensen [0:10:41] Yes. In addition to dealing with the fear.
Julianna Scott [0:10:44] Right, right. So yeah, that is the ultimate of kicking the can down the road.
Kelley Jensen [0:10:48] Good luck and hang in there — and SPACE.
Julianna Scott [0:10:50] Check it out! Thank you for listening to this episode of Refrigerator Moms. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also find episode notes, resources, and any refrigerator paper connected to today's discussion on our website at refrigeratormoms.com where you can sign up for our newsletter. We'd love to hear your questions and future episode ideas. Reach out to us on social media or through our website. The information shared in this podcast is meant for informational and educational purposes only. It shouldn't be taken as medical, psychological, therapeutic, legal, or professional advice. If you have questions about a diagnosis, treatment, intervention, or any medical or developmental concerns, please consult a qualified healthcare or service provider. Don't rely on this podcast in place of professional guidance, and don't delay getting help because of something you heard here. The views and experiences we talk about are our own and those of our guests. They're not meant to serve as personalized recommendations for any individual or family. Listening to this podcast does not create any kind of professional relationship between you and the hosts or guests. Any choices you make based on the information here are completely your own, and we are not responsible for any outcomes that result from them. If this episode includes a refrigerator paper, you can find all sources and citations along with additional notes on our website at refrigeratormoms.com.