Supporting Children Through Meltdowns
As a parent, it can be painful to watch your child have a meltdown. Once they are in the thick of it, there is nothing you can do; you know your child is suffering and you may feel powerless in that moment to stop it. However, you are not powerless to help them develop awareness of the impending doom, the triggers that send them into overdrive, or the ways in which they recover from that meltdown.
Know the warning signs
Every child has warning signs that they are beginning to slip into an elevated state where the amygdala is likely to take over. Sometimes those warning signs are much more external like clenching fists, a flushed face, or sweating. Sometimes those warning signs are more internal such as buzzing bees in their chest, a volcano in their stomach, or a struggle to breathe. As a parent, you can help your child by actively noticing the external cues, and working with them to identify what the internal cues are. From there you can help them develop language so that they can communicate when they notice an internal cue.
I had a 13 year old client, we’ll call Oscar, who developed the coded language of “hot hands”. When he told his mom or dad that he was feeling hot hands, they gave him the time and space he needed to regain control. By developing awareness of his warning signs, talking about how he would communicate those warning signs with mom, he was able to slow, and sometimes stop, the escalation. And while this process did not help Oscar down regulate, it did help him stop the escalation and begin the process of regaining control.
Be aware of the triggers
Triggers are events that habitually result in meltdowns, but we don’t always explore them to understand their root cause or notice the pattern. For instance, going back to Oscar: Oscar had several triggers that we all initially misunderstood. Though math homework regularly led to meltdowns, we learned with exploration that math homework wasn’t really the trigger. The trigger was Oscar’s desire to avoid his negative voice, which was guaranteed to come out while he struggled to understand math problems. Once we were able to identify that trigger, Oscar and I worked together to develop skills and tricks to prepare him for that voice before he started his math homework. Mom and Dad worked to create a system of strong positive reinforcement throughout the process to counter that negative voice, and Oscar developed a plan in concert with mom and dad to help him manage his response to that voice if it showed up during his math homework.
Triggers are more obvious than warning signs, and it becomes easier to recognize your child’s triggers once you begin actively looking for them. As parents, you are often dealing with so much chaos and overwhelm in the day to day that it becomes more difficult to see these triggers. In the moment, you may just wish your child were “normal.” But by spending the time to focus on the root cause of your child’s trigger, you can work to develop strategies with them to help preempt the trigger and mitigate the effects.
Watch their recovery
People with ADHD rarely burn ourselves out; in the middle of a meltdown, we can be an eternal flame of anger and frustration. This means that when the meltdown finally ends and your child has calmed down, it did not happen by accident. Whether they realized it or not, your child made choices and took actions that helped them calm down. For Oscar, the solution was sitting with his favorite cat. Sometimes he would vent to the cat, sometimes they’d play, other times he would snuggle the cat. But we didn’t realize this at first; the key to understanding how Oscar was down regulating was curiosity. Oscar and his parents focused on staying curious and paying attention to what he did after each meltdown and talking with him before and after a meltdown. Because of this, we were able to identify that time with this specific cat was the best way for Oscar to down regulate.
What started out as a 45-60 min cool down process Oscar managed to get under 10 minutes. He did this by knowing his warning signs (hot hands), catching it early (telling mom he has hot hands and having permission to take space), knowing his triggers and developing systems to support him in his efforts to manage his emotions when triggered, and lastly by developing techniques and tools to help him down regulate (hanging out with his cat for a few minutes). This learning process takes some trial and error, and the elements are not always obvious. But if you stick with it and work with your child to better understand their meltdowns, you can make great strides in helping them learn important skills towards mitigating and even preventing meltdowns in the future.
