What Do You Do When Your Child Has a Meltdown?

The Little Man had a meltdown this weekend. He hadn't had one since October, so when they happen, I am still caught a little off-guard. Even with my own experience with meltdowns, I am still a novice at dealing with other people melting down.

We work hard at preventing meltdowns in the first place, but I think the transition from school ending to going back to daycare for the summer has been too much for him. He's struggling with finding predictability in his day and his daycare worker is not the best with this either, unfortunately. She told me, "he's been asking, 'what's happening now? I don't know what's happening!'" but she didn't know what to say to him. I had to tell her she simply needs to tell him what's going on - "now it's snack time. Then we'll play before lunch. Then we wash our hands, then we have lunch...." It's so easy and obvious to me, I had forgotten that not everyone parents like I do. You don't have to a special needs parent to know to just answer a question when a child asks it! (That's my little rant of the day)

Anyway, I thought everything was fine, but it wasn't. I proposed going out for a short ride around the block on his tricycle. The work involved in getting a bike to move forward is a lot for the little guy. A mixture of dyspraxia and autism conspires against him. He has made great improvements, but still has a hard time. He started to get frustrated at it and I should have put a stop to it then, but I thought he would be ok. So we got to the corner of the street where I thought we should turn around and head back when he flipped out. He wanted to bike to his great-aunt's house (who loves a good 25km away!) since we had visited her recently. He then would not budge from the bike. I suggested walking back home and he didn't want to do that either. After trying to calm him down, he was just screaming outside on the corner of the street, so I took him off the bike and walked him back home, him screaming the whole way. We got home and he didn't want to go inside. I thought he would when we got to the door, but instead he bolted. He only bolts when angry, so obviously, he was pretty angry now. The problem is we live on a busy street and I am always scared he will just run into traffic. If I move towards him to try to coax him inside, he moves further away. So by now we are quite a distance apart, with him on the lawn close to the street and this terrifies me. So it becomes a game of cat and mouse, with me trying to catch him as he runs around screaming. People walk by, even a cop car drives by, but no one pays attention. (Looking back now, maybe I should have flagged down the cop car? The excitement of seeing a cop might have snapped him out of it for a moment).

I eventually catch him and I bring him up to the porch (which is enclosed) but I leave the door open and the house door closed (so that he doesn't feel like I am forcing him in) and I just hold him like a baby while he cries and lets it all out. I coo, and shush and pat his back like he's a baby in my arms and I bounce until he is soothed. That's my technique right now, but I won't be able to do that as he gets bigger. I'm hoping meltdowns won't be so bad as he gets older, but I'm probably crazy to think that. I tell him it's ok that he's frustrated and angry. When he's done crying, I let him play outside a bit to calm down. He runs his fingers through the sand in the driveway and starts to relax.

(For all those wondering where Dad was all this time, he went out to get food. I kind of hoped he would get back before we had to go inside, but that didn't happen. I'm just unlucky since I was also alone for the last meltdown!)

Eventually we go back inside and I get out his iPad so he can just chill out, but I see he is still teary, so I sit down with him to talk about what happened. I said, "do you want to talk about your feelings? You feel angry and frustrated, right?" He nods yes. "What other feelings do you have?"
"Silly!" he says.
"Silly? Who told you that? Did someone say you were being silly?" (Now I'm thinking someone put that idea in his head at school when he gets angry)
"Me silly!" and he points to himself.
"You think you're being silly? No. Not at all, love! You're not being silly. You're allowed to be angry. But what makes mama scared is when you run and I'm scared you'll go into the street. Then you could get a big owie and mama doesn't want anything bad to happen to you. Remember mama told you, you are my most precious treasure, so I don't want you to get hurt. But you're not silly, ok?"
He nods.

It's one thing to have a meltdown, but I don't want him to think he's a bad person for it!

So that's my long story. What do you to do to deal with your child's meltdowns? Any special techniques you use to de-escalate? Do you think the cops could have helped? 

How To Prevent Meltdowns

I started out wanting to describe the experience and then realized it's probably best to know how to prevent meltdowns in the first place because they are really horrible. If you think it's horrible as an observer, I can tell you it's 100% worse as an experiencer (I know I totally just made up a word).

A lot of a meltdown is a loss of control of the situation. Autistic people give many signs BEFORE we get anywhere near meltdown stage, but they are often ignored. Children are more powerless and not so good at communicating their needs, so they have them more often. Pushing/forcing/encouraging your Autistic child to do things they are not ready to do can lead to a whole lot of anxiety and eventually a meltdown. I really want parents to try and understand even when they think they are not pushing too much, a lot of the time they are. I know parents don't mean to, because it seems normal and easy for you and all the other kids you know, but it's not the same with an Autistic kid. When I think back to my childhood, it was an overwhelming mess of anxiety. What makes anxiety different from other issues is that it requires an extra set of skills to overcome it, and kids usually don't have those skills.

When an Autistic child seems to be resistant to do something, like take a walk around the block holding your hand for example, it is not because they hate you, are in their own world, don't enjoy walking or just want to be difficult. They are resistant because they don't know how they will feel outside in the big unknown. They don't know what they will encounter and have to process once out there. They don't know exactly when you will return. They don't know if the toys they have happily organized in a row sorted by color, to give their lives a sense of control and orderliness, will be in the same spots they left them in when they get back. They don't know if they will have their senses overloaded. They don't know if they will be expected to speak to people and say, "hello" or that the correct words will come out at the appropriate time. They don't know if their legs will be tired. They remember that time they fell on the sidewalk and fear it will happen again. They remember being scared by the sound of a fire engine rushing by and are scared that may happen again. They remember the time you took them for ice cream and they got a stomach ache after, and they're scared that will happen again. They fear you won't take them for ice cream. All of that. In the flash of the 30 seconds it took for you to say, "let's go for a walk!" - that went through their mind. I can almost guarantee it.

Not all Autistic kids are that high anxiety, but a lot of us are (or were). I was and it only gets worse the more you try to force us otherwise and ignore the state of anxiety we are in. What happens to high anxiety children? They grow up into high anxiety adults who don't have much respect for parents who disregarded their feelings when most vulnerable.

So the parent or friend or whatever other person has to work on helping the Autistic through the not knowing part. This takes patience, sensitivity and creativity.

I use speech and my presence to calm my child. That's just how I am best able to work with him. Even when he doesn't respond to me with speech, I keep talking. You can use pictures or social stories or whatever way you think works. Do not stop trying to communicate with your child even if they do not respond in the way you expect or are comfortable with. Even if they don't look at you or even appear to hear you, they are, trust me.

So going back to the walk example, I'm going to say it's a leisurely walk with no particular aim other than some fresh air. If you are heading somewhere in a rush, you should prepare with more warnings preparation than this.

Let's say both mom and dad want to take a relaxing walk around the block. You can go to your child and say, "mom and dad would both like to take a walk. We would both like you to come. We want to all go out as a family. We will just walk around the block once and come back. We want you to hold our hands and stay on the sidewalk. You can leave your toys exactly where they are right now and they will be there when we get back. If you need to pee, you should do it now. We will go in 5 minutes. You will need to wear shoes (or a sweater, hat etc). When we get back it will be time for snack/lunch/bath."

Now I don't mean just ramble all that stuff off without taking a breath, but that's the sort of detail we want to know. If yours is the type to ask questions, then answer those questions, patiently, without rolling your eyes and sighing like a teenager because you've answered those questions 200 times before. We need those questions answered each and every time. We need you to be the adult and patiently do that for us until we are able to do it for ourselves. We are relying on you to calm our fears because the world is too much for us to take by ourselves. If you can kiss a boo-boo when we fall, you can answer those questions for us. Autistic kids are doing the equivalent of running into your arms every day, numerous times a day, looking for your love and support. Don't let us down because it presents itself as a series of questions or stims.

A child who cannot ask questions is still asking those questions in their head and needing answers, so answer the questions before trying to go out. I've done this sort of stuff with my kid since he was a baby. If he started crying in the car, I knew I had to start calming him by answering some questions. You can do this with any kid, Autistic or not, and I guarantee your day will go a whole lot more smoothly. I taught daycare workers to do the same thing and it worked for them.

Yes, I am seriously proposing you tell your 3 year old where, when and how you are going and when you are coming back. It's not spoiling them, it's giving them information. You are still the boss, don't worry about that, you will always be. You are still the parent. That won't change. But you are changing the relationship you can have with a child who happens to worry a lot more than others. There may still be protests, but over time it will get easier - especially if you don't change the plan and you continue to respect the high need for reassurance. If they can trust you to give them correct and up to date information, as well as protect them, they will be better able to trust others and themselves when they are older.

You might want to read What Does A Meltdown or Shutdown Feel Like?