Mary Koska explains why bubbles are included in a therapeutic kit and how they help children with emotional regulation. She introduces the "three Cs"—calming the environment, calming the caregiver (so they can co-regulate), and calming the child—then demonstrates a "bubble mountain" activity and links bubble-blowing to slowing exhalation, vagus nerve activation, and rapid autonomic regulation.
Hey there, Mary Koska here. And I'm going to talk about why there's bubbles in the kit and why they are so magical and helpful with our kids that are struggling with their emotional regulation. So I want to start with explaining the three Cs. So we have, think of it like a triangle we have. We can calm the environment, we can calm ourselves, so we can co regulate and we can do things that calm the child. And the beautiful thing about bubbles is they do all three. And honestly, if I was my kids are in their mid, upper 20s, if I was gonna raise kids all over again, I don't think I'd ever leave home without bubbles. I just put them in a Ziploc bag, put them in my purse. I would just always have bubbles with me because it can do those three things. So when you blow bubbles, first of all, if your child's upset or they're getting upset, the first thing you need to do is be able to stay calm so you can co regulate. So when you breathe and you're blowing bubbles, it's helping you just stay calm. Gives you a minute to think about how you're going to handle it. So they can be crying, they can be upset, and you just start to blow the bubbles. The next thing that happens is the environment is changing and it's calming just to see these bubbles floating around. The other thing is that the brain pulls out of its funk of fight, flight, freeze, shut down, whatever, because the environment changed. And so we're more in our primitive brain when we're in the fight, fight, freeze, shutdown. And so when you see the bubbles, it's kind of like that primitive brain going, oh, fly. You can't ignore it. So it pulls us out, even if it's momentarily. So you keep blowing, it starts to pull them out and you're staying calm. So now you're taking care of calming the environment, calming yourself. Now it doesn't usually happen right away if they're in a full on meltdown, but as soon as you can get them to blow, it really only takes three good long exhales to shift the nervous system to pull out of that meltdown and to be calmer. And it was very interesting. When I worked with geriatrics, we used to have to stop and do the smell the roses, blow out the candles because their oxygen would drop and we'd have low oximeter and we check it and it would have dropped down to the 80s or 70s and we're like, oh, we got to stop. And we would just take three breaths. And then recheck it and they'd be back in the 90s, the high 90s. And it was fascinating to me how only three breaths reoxygenates the brain, gets you out of that primitive brain where you can kind of think a little bit. And so it's really important for you to do it. And that'll help you get to where the child can do it. So again, don't leave home without your bubbles. I love bubbles. There's a lot of other things you can do with bubbles too, but they're my favorite self regulation tool. So there's another way you can do bubbles, and that is bubble mountain. And so you get a, just a mixing bowl. You could use a casserole dish. I mean really just any kind of container. You can kind of see there's just like two inches of water here. Let's put two inches of water. And then you put about one squirt of soap. So just doesn't have to be measured, but just one little squirt. It can be dish soap, can be hand soap, any, anything. And then you can take a straw. Can be a, any kind of straw really. I'm gonna actually put two together because if they make a really big bubble mountain, it's kind of nice to have your face away from it. So what I do is I just, I, I pinch it so it looks kind of like that. I don't know if you can see that. See, I pinch it, pinch it and fold it and then I can stick it in to make a longer straw. So then you just start blowing and you can see it starts making a mountain of bubbles. And you can see I have to work really hard. I have to blow really hard. It's using my core. The nice thing is multiple people, you can do this with your child. You, you can have multiple siblings do it at the same time. And it's really fun. And you can see why I make, I like to make the straw, the straw a little bit longer because then you can make it even bigger. Anyway, you get the idea. You can make it actually even bigger than that. It's really fun. So again, what you're doing is you're calming the nervous system down by these long exhales. So you activate the vagus nerve on the exhale and that tells the body, hey, everything's okay, everything's safe and sound. The vagus nerve travels throughout your whole trunk. So that is what's making your heart beat fast and making you sweat, making your stomach hurt, all of those things. So when you do those nice, long, slow exhales. It's telling your vagus nerve. It's okay. You can chill out. You don't have to get ready for Saber Tooth Tiger Attack or whatever it's feeling. So that is the way we like to use bubbles.
