meltdowns

Deac130 · February 2014

All suggestions and commisserating welcome

DS is three. Most of the time he is an easy going guy but lately he's been having meltdowns, especially with transitions (usually when we have to go somewhere). Sometimes I can diffuse the situation early if I get the hint there is going to be a problem (he has a little scowl that comes out first). I've been trying to catch him on good days and reward him. For example, he likes to play on my kindle but his time with it is limited. He has had some meltdowns regarding getting out of the car when we get home from school (I don't get why he wants to stay in the car). We had a great day where he listened and came inside without any problem so I told him what a great job he did and let him play with the kindle while I made dinner. A few days later, he asked to play with the kindle on the way home. I told him he could if he listened and made good choices. He started to give me a problem getting out of the car, I reminded him to make good choices and he got out of the car no problem. I rewarded with the kindle again. He responds to this, if it is immediate.

Other things I've done:

Give him a countdown: "in 5 minutes we have to leave. In 3 minutes...in 2 minutes etc" Variable success with this.

Give him choices: "do you want the car pajamas or dinosaur pajamas?" Again, variable results.

Consequences: does not work at all. I don't think he can understand this concept right now. (Unless it is something immediate).

What do you do when your child is in the middle of a meltdown? Generally I put him in a safe place and ignore him but sometimes that isn't possible (for example if he doesn't want to leave to go to school, he doesn't have a choice. I have to go to work). The kindle is a powerful motivator right now but I haven't said "do xyz ans you can have kindle time." Should I? Today, he melted down when we had to leave to go to my husband's grandmother's for dinner. It went on forever.

Thanks in advance! I hope my post made sense (I had some much needed wine after bedtime tonight)

TiffanyBerry · February 2014

My daughter rarely has meldowns these days - I have been doing the "we have to leave (or whatever) in 5 minutes..." countdown since she was 1, and I do it EVERY SINGLE TIME (even when she says "don't tell me!", so she is VERY accustomed to it. That repetition helps.

But when they happen, I sit down as near to her as she will let me be, and I wait until she's expressed those really hard, really big emotions, and then I name her emotions and empathize ("I can see you are really disappointed! You wanted to play that game, but we can't because it's bedtime. I'm sorry that you are so sad.") But I don't give in; I just wait for her to process her emotions. And yes, this does mean that I've sat on the floor in the grocery store for a while waiting for her.

Rarely, it happens when I have to leave quickly. I do my best to pre-empt these situations, but since I'm VERY consistent about using the method above, it's usually helpful to - as a meltdown starts (or just before) address it the same way - "You sound very sad! You don't want me to go. It would be nice if I could stay with you, but I can't. I have to go do X." It usually helps the meltdown from going all the way.

I would definitely NOT bribe. Otherwise he won't want to do anything without getting a reward.

Deac130 · February 2014

TiffanyBerry said:

My daughter rarely has meldowns these days - I have been doing the "we have to leave (or whatever) in 5 minutes..." countdown since she was 1, and I do it EVERY SINGLE TIME (even when she says "don't tell me!", so she is VERY accustomed to it. That repetition helps.

But when they happen, I sit down as near to her as she will let me be, and I wait until she's expressed those really hard, really big emotions, and then I name her emotions and empathize ("I can see you are really disappointed! You wanted to play that game, but we can't because it's bedtime. I'm sorry that you are so sad.") But I don't give in; I just wait for her to process her emotions. And yes, this does mean that I've sat on the floor in the grocery store for a while waiting for her.

Rarely, it happens when I have to leave quickly. I do my best to pre-empt these situations, but since I'm VERY consistent about using the method above, it's usually helpful to - as a meltdown starts (or just before) address it the same way - "You sound very sad! You don't want me to go. It would be nice if I could stay with you, but I can't. I have to go do X." It usually helps the meltdown from going all the way.

I would definitely NOT bribe. Otherwise he won't want to do anything without getting a reward.

Thank you! That was my exact feeling with the bribe, then I questioned myself when I was pulling my hair out tonight

TiffanyBerry · February 2014

Deac130 said:

TiffanyBerry said:

I would definitely NOT bribe. Otherwise he won't want to do anything without getting a reward.

Thank you! That was my exact feeling with the bribe, then I questioned myself when I was pulling my hair out tonight

I think bribes are like bandaids with superglue stickiness. They seem like they should help, so you use them. And it seems like they're helping a little bit. But then when you need to remove it, it rips your skin off. Ok, *maybe* a little hyperbole. But only a little.

Meltdowns take time to get through. Coming out of it, into a new stage, I can see that my daughter needed time to learn how she best wanted to process her emotions. (She's an introvert - if she can (like at home), she wants to go off and be alone, and she doesn't want to talk about it a lot.) And she needed the space and respect to allow her to figure out what works and do it. But it took *months* to get there.

Deac130 · February 2014

I'm going to try sitting near him and see if that makes a difference. Tonight I left the room and he was crying for me to come back. I did, but I didn't try just sitting with him. Maybe that's what he needed. I've been trying to get him up a little earlier for school, so he has more time to adjust to leaving.

TiffanyBerry · February 2014

I dread starting kindergarten. They start school at 8:30am around here, and DD is up... sometime between 7:30am and 8am most mornings. She doesn't like to eat breakfast or get dressed for nearly an hour. Those two things are incompatible! We've got another year and a half before this is an issue, but kids coming out of their sleep cycles in wonky ways are not quite normal. (Well, the same is true for adults...)

KatieB19 · February 2014

DS hits me when he has meltdowns, so I won't sit with him. I'll try to sit in the same room as him so long as he'll stay put and not try to come near me to hit, but mostly I leave him be until he calms down enough that I can join him. Then we talk about what happened.

This is just an idea, but for the car: DS will flip out if I turn off the engine and he was listening to the song playing. Not every time, but often enough that it's predictable. Could that be a reason he doesn't want to get out of the car?

As for transitions, I don't give minute cues, I give tangible (word?) cues. Like, I might tell DS that we're leaving soon, or eating dinner soon, or going somewhere soon -- but not say how many minutes because I'm not sure it's a value he understands. And then as we're getting closer, I'll say that he can do one more thing, or do something x number of times, or finish whatever he's doing (like a puzzle maybe) and then we're done and have to move on. I think it gives him a better sense of when the transition is happening.

And then choices: yes I think choices are good, but he has to actually choose one. We have issues with that, so eventually I make the decision and deal with the fallout. If it's a time issue (like getting in the car so you're not late to work), then the choice is: you climb in yourself or I will put you in. For us anyway, the anger fades pretty fast once the "decision" is over and done with. It's the waiting for him to decide that he's ready to do something that tends to prolong the tantrum.

TiffanyBerry · February 2014

I avoid soon because it's so darn vague. No one really knows what that means. If I give tangibles, it's going to be tangible - we will leave after you put three more blocks on your tower; we will leave after I go to the bathroom and put on my shoes; we will turn off the TV after Abby's Flying Fairy School is over; we will clean up after I finish reading this next book.

I agree that my daughter doesn't *know* what five minutes means. But she knows that it's something soon that still gives her time to do something else first. Then the two and one minute warnings are relative to that. It didn't mean a darn thing to her when I started using it at one year. I used more tangibles then ("so you can go down the slide three more times before we go"), but mostly I was trying to set a precedence, which I still use today, and I think it's helped.

And yeah, we totally have to do the "either you choose, or I'm making the choice for you" thing every once in a while. It usually causes her to go running to her room to pick out a shirt saying "no no no, I get to pick my shirt!". (Because getting dressed is the one we have the most trouble with.)

Deac130 · February 2014

On mobile and quoting is not working

@KatieB19, thank you! I'm not sure what the issue is with leaving the car. I'm going to have to pay more attention to see if there is a pattern. We usually chit chat the whole ride home. Maybe he just doesn't want it to end.
I also do say: "two more trips down the slide..." And that seems to work. I've been trying the 5 min, 3 min, 2 min, even though I know he has no idea what that means because it gives him multiple warnings. I'll have to try some different wording and see what works best.
You nailed it with the choices. Sometimes he won't make the choice and I have to make it for him.

@TiffanyBerry: DS doesn't like to get dressed or eat breakfast right away either

@jkep5909: I don't think it's fair when they start the terrible twos before they are two! Lol!

I have to remember that when he is in the midst of the epic meltdown, he will be impossible to reason with

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