Speaking Life Into Motherhood ~ Holistic Health, Self Care, Resources, & Support for Christian Moms of Children With Special Needs & Disabilities

09 Christian Mom's Guide: Using the PACE Method to Find Calm Amidst Chaos and Dysregulation

• Season 1 • Episode 9

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Catherine Cowell, a spiritual director and life coach specializing in supporting parents of children with additional needs, shares her journey as an adoptive mother to two boys and introduces us to the transformative PACE model of parenting. She offers a unique perspective on integrating faith with therapeutic parenting approaches.

Key Topics Covered:

  • Introduction to the PACE model (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy)
  • Managing dysregulation in both parents and children
  • Integrating faith with special needs parenting
  • Understanding God as a therapeutic parent
  • Moving from traditional to relationship-based parenting

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While you're here, please leave a quick rating or review! I pray this episode blesses you! Remember, you don't just have to survive mama- you can thrive!

Connect with the host: Elyse Scheeler


Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the guests and hosts and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Speaking Life Into Motherhood. None of the advice or discussion on the podcast is medical advice. Always consult with your medical provider before using any supplements, essential oils, or therapy methods.

Elyse Scheeler (00:00)
Welcome back everyone. Today I have Katherine Cowell with us. Katherine is a mother to two adaptive boys who are now 16 and 18. She understands what it's like to be at the sharp end of parenting where all the things they told you would work don't. She's a trained spiritual director and life coach and she has just started a PhD researching the spiritual lives of parents of children with additional needs. She runs courses and support groups for parents of children with additional needs integrating parenting and faith.

She's also the host of the Love Called Gifted podcast where she talks to guests about all sorts of topics and the themes of spirituality, identity and purpose. Welcome, Katherine. Thank you so much for being here today.

Catherine (00:40)
It's really lovely to be with you, Elise.

Elyse Scheeler (00:42)
So tell me a little bit about your story. mean, I just absolutely love everything that you're doing. Obviously we have a lot in common with kind of wanting to be able to connect those parents who have kiddos with additional needs, but also connecting that to their faith. Tell me, how did you come to be in this space?

Catherine (00:59)
I have, my two boys came home aged just five and nearly two, so they were, right, let me start that again. Forgotten how old my children were. My boys came home aged nearly three and just five. Together they are siblings and that was a real kind of naught to 60 induction into parenting.

And because they both have difficulties with attachment and trauma and all that kind of stuff, probably a bit of undiagnosed neuro spiciness in there too. It really was a huge challenge to know how to parent these two boys. So I needed to kind of access quite a lot of training and thinking. And what I realized fairly quickly is that the sort of traditional style of parenting, which is very much based around

adults controlling and deciding the behaviour of their children really didn't work for my boys and so I needed other things. I needed stuff that was more relational and more attachment focused. So that was kind of partly where my journey went and there were lots and lots of challenges along the way and then in the last few years I've noticed that quite a number of the people who I'm doing spiritual direction with

are folks who've got kids with children who have additional needs and there is often a real challenge in terms of how do you integrate that into your faith life really because quite often a lot of the Christians who you're around particularly in church don't understand just how difficult it is and how the kind of normal good Christian parenting doesn't work.

Elyse Scheeler (02:28)
Yeah, absolutely.

Catherine (02:41)
So I know quite lot of people who have ended up moving away from church for whom it has really catalyzed quite a lot of questions about their faith and what they think about God. And so having a space where we can do kind of a jazz mix really of coaching and parenting, mentoring and spiritual direction has been of great value to people. And I like doing it.

Elyse Scheeler (03:00)
Was this your, sorry for interrupting you, was this your

profession before you got the boys or was this something that you came into after that?

Catherine (03:08)
I started my professional life as a speech and language therapist. I think we have that in common. And I did that for about 20 years and then moved more into life coaching. led a church, alternative church, Christian community for a while and did quite a lot of stuff in that sort of space. And that was sort of where I was when I, when the boys came home, I was doing some private and low-coming speech and language therapy and some.

Elyse Scheeler (03:12)
Yay!

Catherine (03:34)
of the other stuff and it became fairly obvious that I couldn't do all of those things and something had to drop and that was the speech and language therapy. So I carried on with the sort of the spiritual stuff and the parenting. So yeah.

Elyse Scheeler (03:47)
Yeah,

absolutely, which is a huge, as we all know, is a huge job in and of itself. So I know that you feel really strongly about the pace model of parenting. And I had not heard about that until prior to chatting with you leading up to the podcast. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about what that is and what that entails?

Catherine (03:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, so PACE was developed by someone called Dan Hughes, who's a really significant person in the world of attachment parenting. He's a psychologist. PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. I think it's hugely, hugely powerful in terms of both parenting, but also in terms of how we interact with all sorts of people, including ourselves, and how we view God as interacting with us.

Yeah. So if I just talk, is it helpful if I just talk you through those four things? Yeah, okay. So if you take playfulness, often it's the case that it's much easier to interact with your children and for them to kind of get that sense of being close, being loved, if we do that through play. So there have been many, many occasions in my parenting with my boys where we have needed to include some play.

Elyse Scheeler (04:37)
Yeah, absolutely.

Catherine (05:01)
in order to kind of get around some really sticky moments. So for example there was a day when I had one child leaning out of an upstairs window whilst the child downstairs was attempting to throw stones at him from our garden and they were both kind of emotionally quite dysregulated and this was not good but we live quite close to a canal. This sounds more and more dangerous doesn't it?

Elyse Scheeler (05:24)
No!

Catherine (05:27)
But we live quite close to the canal and both my kids are really good at skimming stones and the stones, the decorative stones in our back garden, which we put there before the kids came along, we would never have done it afterwards. That's just like hazard, We do live and learn but we still have them. But they are, really flat pieces of slate and if you've ever done, I don't know what you call it in the States, I would call it. Yeah, yeah.

Elyse Scheeler (05:40)
Yeah, you learn, right? Live and learn.

Like skipping rocks. Yep, that's what we would call it.

Catherine (05:53)
If you're doing skipping rocks, you know you need really flat ones. So I said to my youngest, you've got these skipping rocks and you're wasting them throwing at your brother. We need to go and throw these in the canal. And so we both went round the front of the house to the canal and he spent five or 10 minutes skipping rocks in the canal, which he had great fun doing and it helped him to re-regulate. And I could have, till I was blue in the face, told him that it would be...

Elyse Scheeler (05:55)
Mm-hmm.

Catherine (06:19)
Much better if he did what I hoped he would do, if I could have told him about his behaviour towards his brother, it wouldn't have worked because in those moments when our kids are completely dysregulated, it just doesn't happen, does it? Their frontal cortex has turned off. The thinking part of your brain is gone. The I need to run away from the bear brain is in full action and so you need to of quiet that down and help them to re-access their thinking brain before you can do anything.

Elyse Scheeler (06:32)
Mm-hmm.

Catherine (06:47)
So all of your traditional good parenting methods won't work until you've sorted that out. So that's what the skimming stones did under those circumstances. There is this kind of mantra that in those sorts of situations, you need to help children to regulate and then relate, feel emotionally safe, and then you can do the reasoning with them. And I can't remember whether or not we had a conversation about...

the inadvisableness of throwing rocks at your brother through the window after that or not, but we've got through the moment. It was one of those before school moments. I think if you are doing advanced parenting with kids who need advanced parenting, then you can have like eight of those moments before school, can't you? So that's playfulness. And then relating that to kind of our spiritual lives, know, God is much more interested in our being and our existence.

Elyse Scheeler (07:24)
Yeah.

Catherine (07:36)
than God is interested in what we do. And so understanding that God wants to chill out with us and spend time with us and relate to us in that way is really valuable. And so I think spiritually injecting some playfulness into our spiritual lives is really putting a stake in the ground because play doesn't have an ulterior motive or another purpose. Play is about being enjoying your own company, enjoying somebody else's company.

It really affirms being is important, you're important, even if you're not productive. And so one of the things I would say to people is as you're looking at your spiritual life, how can you incorporate playfulness into that? How can you allow God to be playful with you? Because part of what that does is remind you that you are loved for who you are and for what you're doing before you go any further. So that's playfulness.

Elyse Scheeler (08:30)
I absolutely love that. When we had a training at one point, and I think it's your amygdala, right? When we always say your lid is flipped, right? Once your lid is flipped, right, that frontal cortex is not working. And when I had that conversation at some point, with my husband, we can, it's so much easier if you can be like, okay, either my lid is flipped, right? As an adult, that happens to us too. Or like the kid's lids are flipped. And there's nothing that can be, like you cannot rationalize with irrationality, even as an adult, right? And so like,

Catherine (08:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Elyse Scheeler (08:58)
I think that

first, like you said, like accepting that. And I love the idea of bringing in play because immediately, like even in my own body, I could feel relaxed just listening to your story and thinking about how that feels in those little bodies when they're feeling so out of control. then that's scary to them too, right? Even if it looks like they're being naughty or whatever it is, it doesn't feel good to feel dysregulated. It doesn't feel good to feel out of control and to know that you have that...

acceptance of that grown up that like, we're just going to transition this into that play. And I also love how that like how you transition that to God and knowing that even if my lid is slipped God and I am not maybe making the choices in my right mind or whatever it is, like you are here to love on me and to essentially work me through that. just, I think that that's such a great reminder because

Parents who have children with additional needs are often living with their lid slip because they're in fight or flight all the time.

Catherine (09:55)
Absolutely, absolutely. And often, because we want to do the best that we can, we don't think about what we need in those moments. And quite often, if you're living with the judgment of other people, you kind of move away from understanding who you are and taking time to work out how do put your lid back on. Which moves me neatly on to the next couple of things.

Elyse Scheeler (10:15)
Mm-hmm.

Catherine (10:22)
So the concept of acceptance, I'm gonna start with the spiritual bit. The spiritual bit is that we are accepted, you know? We are deeply loved as we are. And knowing that we are accepted, unconditionally accepted by God is just really helpful. And quite often that is in the face of not being accepted by the people around us.

and not experiencing that acceptance for others. And often that leaks through into our understanding of how we think God is seeing us. Particularly if some of those people who are doing that not accepting are people from our faith community. Particularly if they're pastors or vickers, you know, that can become really difficult. So taking some time and making that part of your kind of spiritual mission to understand that you are accepted.

and offering that acceptance to yourself, I think is really, really valuable. And that helps you to be in a clearer space, I think, to deal with your kids. And you know, we're talking about kind of when you get dysregulated and the fact that parents with children with additional needs are often in that lid flipped state, as you put it, means that we need in the moment to be able to accept that that's where we're at. Not with a sense of judgment, but just, okay.

In this moment, I am dysregulated and I am not coping. And quite often the simple act of saying, that's where I'm at, that is who I am and that's what's happening now, actually brings the temperature down internally and helps us to re-regulate. So there's sort of two levels of acceptance. There's that kind of global, I am accepted. You know, who I am is welcomed and accepted. I can welcome and accept myself because I know that God does that for me.

And then there is that kind of acceptance in the minute. So before I can do anything about the thing that's going on, in order to keep my brain in a place where I can process what's happening, I need to just say, is what it is. Like in that moment when my son was chucking rocks at his brother, it would have made no difference at all if I had, it would have been no help at all if I had simply said,

this is wrong, this shouldn't be happening, I shouldn't be the kind of parent who's allowed this to happen, he shouldn't be doing this, needed to start with, it is what it is. And that kind of, okay, this is what it is, without judgment, without at this moment trying to change it, helps us to get some brain space to work out what to do next. So that's acceptance. And then from there, you can then be curious. So...

What is going on? What might be behind this? What might have been the trigger? What is difficult for me? Why am I finding it difficult to accept myself? Why am I finding it difficult to accept that I'm loved by God? And that curiosity at all those levels for us, for our kids, for the people around us, helps us to then be in a position to start to problem solve. So the acceptance and the curiosity.

is really really helpful.

and that curiosity helps us to have access to empathy. And we need that at all levels really. We need that for ourselves. Because it just helps you to, if you can express empathy to yourself, that is really settling. It does something inside us, I think, which brings us to a much more settled place. And our kids need it. You know, they need to know that we understand.

So the PACE model is based on using these four concepts of playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy as a bedrock. And all of those things, you can hear that through all of those things comes love. So it's sort of within the context of love. And I have found it more and more helpful to understand that God is our therapeutic parent, actually. You know, that...

we were adopted by God and I know about adopted kids that they don't start from a perfect, like none of us had perfect parents. Some of us had really very, very imperfect parents. And when you come with that kind of level of brokenness and trauma, not everything is going to go right. And so understanding that our heavenly father understands that is really, really helpful because

because we know that we are coming into this place where we are loved and adored and accepted, where God is curious about us and interested in us and who we are and has deep empathy. I really, I think I got a particular understanding of God's empathy at a time when things have been pretty tough and I needed some psychotherapy. Things at home had been really, really difficult.

and I've kind of reached the end as we sometimes do. And my psychotherapist sat with empathy and I understood in those sessions with her that God sits empathically with me. And that has been really helpful to kind of take that forward into my parenting. And I think for some of us that growing into that place where we understand just how

deeply and unconditionally loved we are can sometimes take quite a while. You know, it's the journey of a lifetime. I think quite often people talk about becoming a Christian or meeting Jesus as if it is going to, as if you're going to get in your Christian starter pack the easy understanding that we are loved. Actually, it takes time, you know, to walk through that.

Elyse Scheeler (15:54)
you

Absolutely. am as I'm like, I have so many, this is just so awesome. So one of the things that I know for myself that I think would be maybe a possible way to use this would also be for like if there's a spouse or other adults, right? That are your co-parenting with and giving them, using this same idea for them. Cause I know like with everything that I have been

Catherine (16:05)
Hmm.

obviously.

Elyse Scheeler (16:23)
I have had going on, like I have felt like my lid has flipped a lot lately, right? And so even just hearing you talk about it and thinking about like, okay, what can I do or what can I maybe ask my spouse to do, when I'm having those moments to help me work through that, I think is just amazing. And, the idea of that, I'm going to, this is going to be somewhere in my kitchen. There's going to be a, there's going to be some words going, cause I think we all need this. And then my second question is, so now, I mean, your kid, kiddos are older now.

Catherine (16:42)
Thank

Elyse Scheeler (16:50)
Have you ever introduced this to them? Because I feel like this is something, as I'm thinking, I'm like, well, hey, maybe I can have this conversation. My kids are little. as they get older, have this conversation with them of, OK, if you notice that someone's having a hard time, that's what we use when we say someone's having a hard time in our house. Maybe we can practice. We can practice saying, we're going to be playful, or using words like, we accept you, or it's OK to feel this way. Have you ever had that conversation with them?

about like how that they could use it either for themselves or for the others in the house.

Catherine (17:23)
That's a really interesting thought. I've had those kind of overt conversations about this is what I'm doing about other things. I haven't specifically done it about this, but they've got the hang of it.

Elyse Scheeler (17:34)
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think a lot of times too,

when it just becomes like, if you're just doing it, like there's not necessarily the need for that overt conversation. It's just, they're already practicing it because they're saying you practice it, right?

Catherine (17:47)
Yeah, so like, so for example, like I current vibe, I completely we got lost me and my youngest a few weeks ago. And I did flip my lid. I'm not I very rarely shout, but I've kind of completely lost it. We were late for somewhere and I got shouty and he got shouty and I apologized and he said, I get it completely. I often feel like that. I know what that's like. Bless you.

Elyse Scheeler (18:09)
Mm-hmm.

Catherine (18:12)
But that was because we have been practising this for a long time and he's able to sort of give that advice to other people. So I hear him speaking to friends online and he's often using those skills of acceptance and curiosity and empathy with other people. So they do it. But I would say that it's not because we've sat down and said here is playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy.

But I think it's a really good idea to do that actually. think anything which gives us and gives our kids tools, you know, I think is really useful.

Elyse Scheeler (18:48)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. you had somebody, because I know as part of what you do as a mentor, if you have someone, let's say a mom who comes in who is maybe, kind of at that point where she's facing some sort of a spiritual crisis, but also a parenting crisis, what would be your first steps, like some recommendations just to help her get started on a path towards peace?

Catherine (19:14)
I'm going to be really boring and say, it depends. But my first move is just to listen, you know, and to really, really hear what's happening for you in this moment. And I'm always very curious about what is your image of God? where do you see God in this scenario? So if you were to, for example, if you were to draw a picture,

of yourself and God now, where would you be? How are you picturing that? Because quite often a lot of our internal struggle is related to how we think God sees us. When we see in the Bible God's fatherhood and motherhood and friendship and so what are the images? So if you've got this kind of internal sense that God is disapproving of you then it's going to become

be very difficult to sort of accept yourself. And how do you see yourself? What are the voices for you? If you were to imagine your, the way that you converse with yourself, if you were to imagine that as somebody, what do they look like? What's their attitude? You what's going on for them? And what would you like instead? Or for some of us have quite a number of different voices and some of those are really not terribly nice.

Elyse Scheeler (20:28)
Mm-hmm.

Catherine (20:34)
So part of it's about, what's going on internally for you? But for other people, it's that they are just exhausted. And so the first step is really to say, can you start to get some rest? How can you get some support possibly? Or how can you make the most of those restful moments when you get them? So for some people,

Just taking a moment to recognise what's going on inside. Perhaps sitting down with a cup of tea for five minutes. Just stop. Just notice what's going on in your body, what's going on in your mind, in your heart. Can you just sit with that lovingly for a couple of minutes? And acknowledge that you are being loved by God in that moment. So you can hold yourself.

because you know that God is holding you with empathy and acceptance and curiosity and love.

Elyse Scheeler (21:27)
Yes, absolutely. think that that's been a huge theme for many of the episodes that I have been recording is just, we can, you know, try our hardest to be these great parents, but if we're not taking care of ourselves, and I love, that you're bringing in that, like, how does, how do you view yourself? How does God view you? How are those the same and how are they different? And really understanding that

you have to take that time and it's okay. And you shouldn't be judging yourself. I think as moms, we judge ourselves, right? we're making that judgment, I didn't spend enough time or, or this behavior happened because I didn't do something right. Like there was something that it's my fault. Whereas like, if we can take some time to really focus in on how we can support ourselves in feeling more whole and accepted, right? And view ourselves with empathy that the way that God does, even though sometimes we forget that.

that we will then be able to better implement things like the PACE model and all of those things in parenting. I just, absolutely love that. Are there any, kind of as we wrap up here, any final thoughts or things that moms should remember as they're moving on with their day and maybe feeling like they're not good enough today, but we are here to support them, to tell them that they are.

Catherine (22:24)
Yeah.

I think that it's never going to be perfect. there are times when you can just make the best decision that you can in this moment. And that's OK. So sometimes we've got this kind of image of if it was all perfect, it would be like this. So that would that would be the first thing.

And then I would say.

Elyse Scheeler (23:00)
So really just accepting,

right? Like accepting yourself as you are and just giving that empathy. I love that.

Catherine (23:06)
Yeah, I would also say a really good thing to remember is that when it does all go wrong and you shout when you shouldn't have done, remember that the repair that you can then have after that can be really helpful and it's a really good learning experience for your kids. We can model what it means to get it wrong and apologise and repair a relationship.

and move on from that and that's actually quite useful and we need we need to be confident about that. I sometimes you can think that was dreadful it went awfully awfully wrong. I am awful, it's terrible, you know that horrible kind of mum guilt hangover that you get in those moments when you have flipped your legs and you go but if you just remember that actually within that there will be valuable learning for your kids.

Elyse Scheeler (23:40)
haha

Mm-hmm.

And just that way to repair, absolutely. Can you remind our listeners as we close up here, where can they find you online or if they're interested in learning more about your services or your mentoring and coaching programs that you have?

Catherine (24:05)
my podcast is called Loved Called Gifted. So if you Google Loved Called Gifted and Katherine Cowell, you will find that. And I'm just going to have a look for the web address for. So the parenting courses that we're doing are online and so potentially accessible from anywhere. And we are running one at the moment. We'll do another one in the summer. And you can find that at And Breathe.

So that's a-n-d-b-r-e-a-t-h-e dot org dot u-k. And the lovedcalledgifted dot com website will give you access to my podcast and other bits and pieces. So there you go.

Elyse Scheeler (24:40)
Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Catherine (24:42)
Thank you very much, Elise. It's been lovely.