Breathe with Kevin

Back in my younger days, I had the fortunate opportunity to work with autistic youth in a group home. What I loved most was that each resident was unique and special in their own way. I miss that work a lot.

One of the hardest parts of the job was restraining a resident. It wasn’t that I lacked the training or the proper tools — we were well trained — but there are moments in life when something simply feels wrong, and you wish it didn’t have to happen.

Then something changed.

I noticed that I wasn’t restraining residents anymore. In fact, when a resident was becoming more behavioural or agitated, they would often walk up and simply grab my arm. One of my colleagues interpreted this as aggression and wanted to place the resident in a basket restraint, but I insisted we slow down and allow the moment to unfold.

Eventually, the resident would settle, and everything would be okay.

So what was happening?

I believe it was co-regulation.

When we see a client becoming agitated — especially when we’ve been told they may become aggressive — our own nervous systems immediately shift into alert mode. We prepare ourselves for conflict. Our bodies become defensive, tense, and reactive.

I can only imagine how overwhelming that must feel for someone with autism who is trying to stay grounded while sensing fear, agitation, or defensiveness from the people around them.

Over time, I started to experiment with this idea.

I worked with one client who had been heavily “classified” as aggressive, but I rarely experienced difficult moments with him. One day, I needed to stop by my apartment to pick something up, and I asked if we could bring him along.

When we arrived, I made a decision that probably would have made some staff nervous: I brought him up into my small apartment — full of fragile things and plenty of opportunities for something to go wrong.

But nothing went wrong.

In fact, it was lovely.

He sat on the couch, looked through a magazine, met my wife, and relaxed completely. We later walked back through the unfamiliar hallways, down the elevator, and returned home without a single issue.

So was it luck?

Or was it co-regulation?

If I could go back and do it again, I would encourage staff to practice simple breathing exercises before and after shifts — even something as basic as “4 and Out” breathing or the 4-7-8 method.

Sometimes the calmest nervous system in the room becomes the anchor for everyone else.