Shut Down, Avoidant, and in La-La Land: Helping Kids (Birmingham)
Registration Closes: 11/20/2025
Event Time: 09:00 AM - 04:30 PM
Total CE Credits: 5.5
Clinical Hours: 5.5
General Admission: $0 CE Cost: $55
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Description
Children who are shut-down may seem easier to parent than children who are explosive, but the truth is, they are hardest to reach. These kids often require more patience, more connection, and more felt safety than kids who are acting out. This workshop decodes these frustrating and elusive behaviors by exploring the neurobiology of behavior and the impact of trauma and toxic stress.
Some shutdown kids are watchdogs, acting like volcanos (keeping it all inside).Some shutdown kids are possums. This training will help you distinguish between the two, as they often benefit from different interventions.
Attendees will leave with a tool-box full of practical strategies you’ll be able to implement immediately that will increase your confidence working with these hardest to reach kids.
Training Objectives:
1. Attendees will be able to apply the neurobiology of behavior to behaviors such as shut down, checked out, avoidant, and la-la land
2. Attendees will be able to identify the different levels of shut down based on observable behavior
3. Attendees will use sensory based strategies to increase safety, connection, and regulation in shut-down children
Speaker & Bio
Robyn Gobbel
Robyn Gobbel, LMSW-Clinical, has 20 years of practice in family and child therapy experience, specializing in complex trauma, attachment, and adoption. Robyn is a therapist, trainer, and consultant who recently relocated to Grand Rapids, MI from Austin, TX. Robyn’s diverse clinical training includes EMDR (including EMDR adapted for children with attachment trauma), Somatic Experiencing, Theraplay, Trust-Based Relational Intervention®, Circle of Security Parent Educator, The Alert Program® and Yogapeutics Aerial Yoga Level 1 Teacher Training. Robyn has integrated these training modalities with a foundation of attachment theory and the relational neurosciences to create an attachment-rich, sensory-sensitive, and relational neurosciences-supported healing environment for children and families. Robyn consults, teaches, and trains extensively throughout the US. She previously served as an instructor for the Foundations of Interpersonal Neurobiology Certificate Program at Portland Community College as well as with the Adoptive & Foster Family Therapy Post-Graduate Certificate Program. Robyn has served on the working board of the Global Association for Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies (GAINS). Her first book, Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work, will be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in late spring 2023.
Itinerary
8:30-9:00 Check-in
9:00-9:10 Welcome and Introductions
9:10-10:30 Training Time
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45-11:45 Training Time
11:45-1:15 Lunch on your own
1:15-2:45 Training Time
2:45-3:00 Break
3:00-4:15 Training Time
4:15-4:30 Wrap up, announcements, door prizes, etc.
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