Why kids have meltdowns

They are embarrassed and fear that onlookers will regard them as faulty parents. However, do not let your self-consciousness or self-attacks affect your actions. Your focus should not be on worrying about how you are being seen, but on tending to the agony that your child is going through. When your kid is in this state, do not send her to her room. Isolation is not a constructive solution because she is not being helped to deal with her feelings. During time alone, children in this distraught state are often tortured by angry fantasies.

Therefore, it is especially valuable for you to make a point of being with your child in order to assist the her in coping with her powerful emotions. When your child is having a tantrum or meltdown, you can sit with her as she goes through the tantrum. Do not try to talk your child out of her feelings, do not try to coax her or appeal to her logic.

Do not get angry or offer a response that will fuel her anger and frustration. Let your child know that even though she feels like she is coming apart at the seams, you are comfortable with her emotions. By maintaining a calm, understanding and patient attitude, you create a stabilizing presence that will hold the child emotionally.

The child who fears that she will fragment will feel contained by the adult and her agitation will subside. In cases where your child is feeling intense anger, you can hold her gently but firmly, allowing her to vent her rage. The child having a temper tantrum or meltdown experiences the entire world as being overwhelmed by the emotions that she is feeling.

By showing the child that you are not only not overwhelmed, but not threatened or upset by these emotions, you are offering your child a way out of a state that she perceives as inescapable.

After the emotional period has passed, it is possible to have a calm discussion with your child about what happened. If your kid is old enough, talk about what preceded the outburst. Did something make him mad?

Did something frustrate him? Did he feel sad? Did he feel disappointed? Can your child describe what he was feeling during the tantrum or meltdown? And second, by reducing the likelihood of a tantrum response, you are also taking away the opportunity for reinforcement of that response.

Fewer tantrums now means…fewer tantrums later. There are lots of very specific protocols to help parents respond consistently, in ways that will minimize tantrum behavior later.

They have in common the starting point that parents resist the temptation to end the tantrum by giving the child what he wants when he tantrums. Attention is withheld from behavior you want to discourage, and lavished instead on behaviors you want to encourage: when a child makes an effort to calm down or, instead of tantruming, complies or proposes a compromise.

As Dr. You may need to teach techniques for working through problems, break them down step by step for kids who are immature or have deficits in this kind of thinking and communication.

And you need to model the kind of negotiation you want your child to learn. Being calm and clear about behavioral expectations is important because it helps you communicate more effectively with a child.

Lopes says. Both you and your child need to build what Dr. Get this as a PDF. Enter email to download and get news and resources in your inbox. Share this on social. Rational and intelligent parents can easily fall into the trap of doing all the wrong things with riled-up kids. Our tendency to provide reassurance during a red-zone moment is remarkable in how typical it is and how spectacularly it can fail to help accomplish the goals of calming the child and inspiring compliance.

Whether the anxiety is triggered by a birthday party, soccer practice or homework, fear is in the mind of the beholder and is not something to be argued with during a meltdown. Kids know what their parents are feeling about them. Anxious children do better with Zen Buddhists as parents.

Here are more helpful guidelines for managing in the moment:. The greatest challenge for the parent in the moment is to not become dismissive, because this results in the child ratcheting up the screaming to make it clear to Mom and Dad just how upset he or she is.

She came by this temperament as innocently as other kids do asthma or diabetes. While you sit quietly and listen to your child, try just repeating what they are saying to you. Tell them that you are listening carefully. Speak slowly and very quietly. Breathe in slowly over five seconds and exhale slowly over the next five seconds. Free and confidential live chat with parenting staff.

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