Picture Credit: https://pixabay.com/en/crying-sad-child-sadness-1315546/
In my last post, I talked about using a set schedule to establish routines in your child’s day. Schedules help to give your child control over what they need to do for the day and to help the day go more smoothly than just playing it by ear. However, meltdowns can still happen as you cannot have control over every single aspect of the day. Things happen that are beyond our control and we have to deal with them as they arise.
When a meltdown does occur, my first order of business is not reacting in frustration or anger which is not as easy as it sounds. It takes consistency and practice on my part. Remaining calm will also help to calm my daughter down.
If possible, I try to remove her from the stimuli that seems to be causing the problem for her by taking her to her room where she can be in quiet and away from others. I have found leaving her alone for a few minutes will let her finish blowing off steam, so we can talk about the situation calmly and without screaming.
After she has calmed down, I ask her if she is ready to discuss the problem and find ways to correct it. Allowing my daughter to have a say in the solution of the problem gives her confidence in her ability to control her emotions in the future. Hopefully, eliminating the possibility of another meltdown. This also helps her to understand the situation better and to realize there is another way of dealing with certain things that arise unexpectedly.
As my daughter grows and matures, the meltdowns have become fewer and further between episodes. I have come to learn that my daughter feels things more strongly than other children her age and does not know what to do with everything she feels.
I now realize that the meltdowns she had after school was because she spends seven to eight hours holding herself together at school. When we get home, she feels safe and can let all her emotions out knowing that our relationship is secure enough to handle the onslaught.
While there are many methods that can be used to handle your child’s meltdowns, these are the two main ways I deal with my daughter’s. What are some of the methods that you use to deal with this type of behavior? Do you use different ones for different situations or do you stick with the same ones? Please feel free to share them here.
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Those after school meltdowns are really common. The kids have such a long school day, and by the time they arrive home they really need downtime.
If you can schedule long enough breaks after school, those tantrums tend to be reduced quite a bit. Let her do unstructured things that allow her to chill out a bit.
If you find she has too much going after school, consider having the school modify her homework load.
For some experts, they claimed that the best way to handle child's tantrum is to ignore it. As they said, if we entertain their meltdown episodes, it will aggravate the situation. Once the child had calmed down and it is high time to talk about the reason why he or she is in a state of being upset. This is the best intervention to handle the child's tantrum.
Moreover, tantrums are also can be seen with adults but it is a bit serious matter. We tend to let them vent out and never intervene to his or her anger over something. It is also the same pattern. Once it toned down, it is also the right time to talk about the root cause of being so upset.
Let me talk about myself back in the day when I was still going to school, because I don't have kids yet to talk about them. Anyway I can contribute by saying that meltdowns are inevitable with kids, and that's why we have extra curriculums in schools so that pupils can unwind a bit before they go back to their books. This is how our timetables used to look like. We will have a break of 30 minutes yet you can use to eat a snack then play a bit, then we had time to do physical exercises by playing different Sports and games, there was drama, choirs, gymnastics class, discussion classes boys and girls mingling and asking question etc. And all this enabled the child to feel free and have less tension. Even by the time you go home you feel light headed and relaxed the brain doesn't feel like it has been over worked. Nowadays I feel like students are bombarded with books and assignements all the time an they have no time to even mingle and become social.