 Hi. Today we are thinking about the window of tolerance which is a really useful way of explaining our ability to cope and manage day-to-day and can easily be shown or talked about to a child or young person that you're supporting and you can think together about how to make changes to their window of tolerance. So what is it? So our window of tolerance basically describes our ability to cope day-to-day how much we can manage. So the window is these two parallel lines that you can see here and we are always endeavoring to stay within the optimal zone. So we want to stay within our window of tolerance. Basically, we want to continue to cope. What happens when we don't stay within our window of tolerance? We can shoot up through the top of the window of tolerance. This might be when we're feeling very anxious, very angry, when we might trigger a trauma response and go into kind of fight, flight, or meltdown type responses. These tend to be big, loud type responses and we can also go down through the bottom of our window of tolerance. And that's when we tend to go more into a sort of shut down response where we might have the kind of trauma response of freeze or faint and we might become mute, very quiet, very withdrawn, tend to be much quieter response. One thing that's really helpful to understand here is that both of these are essentially the triggering of a trauma response or a general kind of overwhelm response. And so whilst they look really different, one can be big and loud and shouty and the other one might be very quiet and withdrawn. And so they might have a very big difference in terms of our ability perhaps as a teacher and educator or a parent to manage and support a child. Actually, for the child, these are both responses that show they're not coping at all anymore and they need our support. The other good news for us as the adult supporting is that the way in which we support a child in both of these circumstances can be quite similar. What the child needs is calm, kindness, consistency, care to bring them back within that window of tolerance. So we're looking to stay within the optimal zone. We don't want to go into our fight, flight, meltdown, sometimes known as hyperarousal or into our freeze faint shut down, which is sometimes referred to as hypoarousal. Now, we can try to make our window of tolerance bigger. Window of tolerance is smaller for some people like myself, who is autistic and the world is a very sensory, overwhelming place or the time. And so my window of tolerance is quite small and much more likely than your neurotypical person to go into overwhelm in either direction. But we can try to make our window of tolerance bigger. That is one way of staying within our window of tolerance, or we can make little adjustments all the time to try and stay within our window of tolerance. So what does this look like? So we're either going to try and stay within it with micro adjustments, or we're going to make it bigger. So it's easier to stay within. That makes sense. So we can make it bigger through a whole range of different stuff. A lot of this is big long term stuff. So we might be thinking about our physical wellbeing. We might be thinking about getting enough sleep. Our window of tolerance gets way, way bigger when we've had a good night's sleep and tiny if we've had a really bad night's sleep. So make it bigger by getting good sleep. We can also make it bigger through regular healthy eating, regular exercise, all the fundamental physical wellbeing stuff. Our window of tolerance will also be bigger if we are in a good calm environment when our mental health and special educational needs are met when we feel safe. So these are big kind of longer term things that we'd be looking to change, other than to be honest, the sleep one. Sleep is quite a quick fix in the scheme of things of making our window of tolerance bigger. The other thing that we can do is to try and stick within. So remember that idea of sticking within the window of tolerance by making these micro adjustments. Now this is about being able to recognise when we're getting towards that point of meltdown or shutdown. So we might be teaching a young person to recognise physiological symptoms, for example, that their anxiety is rising, that they're beginning to feel sort of triggered and the onset of that sort of trauma type response. So they can recognise those warning signs, which means they're able to take action. And then we might be taking proactive kind of calming versions, making micro adjustments to try to stick within that window of tolerance. And that might be things like stroking a cat. That might be things like using a breathing strategy. That might be things like taking a little bit of time out or taking a movement break. There's loads and loads of different things. And it's going to be different from person to person to person. And a really helpful thing that we can do here with a young person is to explore with them and say, what helps you to stay within your window of tolerance? What are the small actions that you can take that you are in control of that help to keep you within that window of tolerance when you feel yourself moving towards the edges? And equally, what are the signs that tell you that your risk of shooting up through the top or shooting out down through the bottom? Very whistle stopped all there, but hopefully gives you a starting point for your understanding of a child or young person that you're supporting. And also gives you a starting point for conversations with them about how they can make their window of tolerance bigger. How can we optimise this environment? What changes can we be making to your day to day life and wellbeing and meeting your needs better? But also what micro adjustments can we make day to day to help you keep within your window of tolerance? Really hope it was helpful. Until next time.