Stop Surviving Days Full Of Disruption - Defiance, Disrespect, Dysregulation - And Start Thriving With Your Child

Transform daily behavior battles into calm collaborative routines using strategies backed by neuroscience and lived experience.

Whether you are a parent, teacher, or therapist, you will find tools, downloads, courses here, and free strategies here that help the children in your care grow into kind, responsible, self-regulated individuals while you reclaim your peace of mind.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You might find yourself saying:

“I feel helpless when my child has meltdowns. I don’t know how to calm them down or keep everyone safe.”

“Every morning is a battle to get my daughter out the door. We end up late and emotionally drained.”

“All the advice I find is about forcing my child to fit in, not about understanding their world.”

“Our therapist gives me charts and reward systems but none of it works.”

“School calls me daily about my child’s behavior. I need solutions that work at home and at school.”

“I know my kid isn’t bad; I just need help with their behavior.”

You might also notice overwhelming patterns:

Emotional and social signals like tantrums or outbursts that last too long, trouble calming down once upset, persistent anxiety or sadness, and difficulty making or keeping friends

Authority and control struggles such as defiance, refusal to follow directions, aggressive actions like hitting, biting, self-harm, or compulsive rituals driven by anxiety

Academic or engagement clues including a sudden drop in school performance or avoidance of tasks that require focus or interaction

If this resonates, you’re not alone. There are brain informed, connection based strategies to replace chaos with calm, conflict with collaboration, and frustration with flexibility.

Behavior Is a Symptom, Fix the Cause

Beneath every behavior lies a child’s unmet need and a gap in skills to meet that need in a way we adults find acceptable. Our children are doing the best they can with the skills they have. And so are we. 

Regulation, connection, and capacity come first. If you’re raising or working with a toddler who won’t sleep, a 5 year old who flips tables, or a teen dismissed as too intense or lazy, the issue isn’t your effort or your child. It’s the mismatch between the child in front of you and the strategies in your hands.

Tools and Keys: Unlock Your Child’s Potential

Imagine a toolbox filled with every gadget you could dream of - hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers - but the toolbox is locked tight. Those tools sit unused, no matter how essential they are. Now imagine you have the keys to that toolbox… but inside, it’s empty. You have access, but nothing to work with.

In behavior support, tools are the concrete strategies for self-regulation and anger management you explicitly teach children:

Deep breaths (You can find my favorite way to teach this to kids as young as 1 year old here)

Taking a break when frustrated

Asking for help

But a locked toolbox won’t open on its own. (Sound familiar? "He KNOWS what he should do but can't do it in the moment"). That’s where keys come in they represent the neurological and emotional capacity children need to actually use those tools when it counts:

Brain networks that regulate stress and sensory input

Interoception skills that let a child notice rising frustration

Impulse-control circuits that pause a knee-jerk reaction (You can find some play based ways to teach this here)

Resilience wiring that helps them bounce back from upset

Without capacity, learning a skill is like owning a tool you can’t reach. Without tools,capacity sits idle. Most behavior management strategies or behavior therapies stop at lecturing kids about the tools they should be using,or punish children for "choosing not to" use the tools, and ignore that the child doesn't have the keys!

When you combine tools+keys, you:

Explicitly teach children the “how” (tools)

Build the “can” and “will” (keys) through trauma-informed co-regulation and brain-based exercises

That synergy unlocks the toolbox giving your child and you both the skills to handle challenges and the thriving neurological foundation to apply them with confidence.

Just like your child needs tools and keys so do you! That is where I come in. I will guide you, so you can guide them.

Brain-Based Behavior Support for Real Life

I Lived It. I Got It Wrong. I Learned It. I Got It Right

I don’t just regurgitate research (although I am a research nerd!) and I never blame the child or their caregivers. In my three roles (as a parent, pediatric OT, and autistic adult), I moved from surface-level, compliance based, behavior fixes to a deep brain based, co-regulation, skills building, and collaboration approach:

As a Parent

My child’s behavioral disorder once put her on a path to be dead or in jail; learning to meet her neurological needs turned everything around.

As a Clinician (Pediatric Occupational Therapist)

I replaced compliance chasing with curiosity and capacity building, transforming how therapy actually works.

As an Autistic Adult

I have had to learn first-hand how to work with the brain I was born in instead of against it.

This unique blend of lived and professional expertise shapes every strategy I share.

Ready to Rebuild at the Root?

Explore my blog here and dive into free strategies or my store here to shop for more in depth solutions.

About Devina King, B.A. Psy, MSOTR/L, ASDCS, ADHD-RSP

Devina is an autistic occupational therapist with over 17 years of experience working with children, specializing in behavioral regulation and neurodivergence. As both a clinician and a parent, she combines professional expertise with personal experience raising neurodivergent children who previously struggled with behavioral disorders. This unique perspective allows her to bridge the gap between science and real-world application, offering compassionate, evidence-based strategies that empower children to thrive.You can learn more about Devina's credentials, lived experience, and approach here. 

Her book, From Surviving to Thriving: The Art and Science of Guiding Children to Develop Behavioral Regulation available on Amazon here, provides actionable insights for parents, educators, and professionals looking to support children in building essential self-regulation skills. Reviewers praise it for her comprehensive, refreshing and practical, compassionate approach that takes complex psychological concepts and evidence based approach and breaks it down into concepts anyone can understand and apply. Available in eBook, paperbook, and audiobook versions so you can learn the way that works for you!

Devina is an AOTA approved professional development provider and also shares her knowledge through expert-led webinars, where she delivers practical guidance tailored to the needs of caregivers and professionals. Stop by her store here to explore her latest resources, workshops, CEUs and training sessions designed to help children succeed in their behavioral development journey!