11 How To Respond To Your Child's Meltdown Behaviors

Episode 10 discussed the importance of establishing safety and consistency, through the use of schedules and routines. When responding to behaviors, we want to continue to have compassion and stay consistent with how we respond to our child’s meltdowns. I want to remind you that all behaviors are a form of communication. Kids learn new behaviors from what they see and what has been modeled.

Unfortunately, certain behaviors can be maladaptive and inappropriate so it’s on us to teach our children how to more effectively respond and communicate with others. 

To address behaviors and meltdowns, you need to:

1. determine the cause of the behavior
2. remain calm
3. teach new behavior responses

Determine Cause of Behavior

One of the best ways to determine the cause of a behavior, is to ask your child with genuine curiosity.

• Be aware of your tone and body language
• Use a tone is calm, slower, and safe. If your kids feel safe they are more likely to open up and communicate. 
• If you are loud and frantic your child is going to respond more erratically.

By having control over our tone we are not only controlling the mood of the conversation and also modeling a positive behavioral response.

Even if your child has limited communication skills, it's still important to remain calm when communicating with our children.  

You also want to take the opportunity to ask your children about their behaviors because it makes them feel heard and seen,  it also gives them an opportunity to actually reflect on why they responded the way they did. Oftentimes your child may not know but that is ok. Your child is learning to reflect and learn about themselves.

If your child is unable to express what led to their actions then you get to use your investigation skills. Investigate your child’s regular triggers or any major changes. You know your child the best. This could include things such as:

1. A major routine change
2. Not getting something they wanted or expected
3. An overwhelming sensory experience such as loud noises, getting scared, or falling. 
4. Or even things that are happening inside the body such as hunger, a headache, a stomach ache, or getting hurt.
5. It is believed that Autisitic children are more prone to having enteroception difficulties, which is difficulties understanding what is going on inside of their bodies.

Often, If you do a little bit of investigating you are able to determine what led to the meltdown. Once you have determined the cause you can respond accordingly. 

Remain Calm

Your initial response plan is to continue to remain as calm as possible especially if it isn't an emergency and make sure your child still feels safe and heard. You  want to minimize your words if our child  having a meltdown  as your child is likely unreceptive to your words at the moment.

*Think about times when you are angry and how willing you are to listen to others who are telling you what you should do.

Once, your child is in a calm state and receptive to your words. You now have the opportunity to model or teach a more appropriate response.

Teach An Appropriate Behavioral Response

When teaching an alternate response the focus is to try to reduce shaming by finding a suitable redirection, explanation, and/or providing options or alternatives. It also helps to respond with intrigue, curiosity, and compassion.

Here are some examples:

1. Your child is throwing a toy in the house (its possible that your child doesn’t know or understand why we don't throw balls in the house)
   • Wow! You are really good at throwing. What do you think about throwing a ball outside so we dont hurt anyone inside? U know what, how about we play catch or basketball?
2. Your child is hitting the dog
   • Are you ok? It looks like you may be trying to pet the dog. The dog prefers soft, nice hands. Like this. 
3. Your child  ran outside in the street overwhelmed by the fire alarm that went off.
   • That fire alarm sure was loud huh?  You know what I do when I hear loud alarming sounds. I grab my headphones and go into the backyard. The front yard has cars and cars are dangerous
4. Your child is mad because they can’t get on tablet compassion
   • I understand. I want to use the tablet as well. There are so many fun games there! Right now, it is time to eat lunch.  How about this: we can do 30 minutes of the tablet after lunch or 30 minutes after the park.  Which one do you want to do?

Providing options works well because you can set boundaries and parameters while at the same time giving your child a sense of autonomy and choice. 

• In the last example you limited the tablet to 30 minutes but gave your child 2 options of when to play the table. 
• Continue to experiment with options and see how they work for you. 

Recap

The 3 strategies for reacting to meltdowns are 

1. Determine the cause of the behavior (remember behavior is communication)
   • Ask your child
   • Investigate the typical triggers
   • Any major changes this week, yesterday, or prior to the behavior
2. Remaining Calm
   • Reduce the urge to yell or react suddenly
   • Keep your tone calm and use minimal words
3. Modeling appropriate behavior when your child is receptive.
   1. Guide them towards appropriately asking what they want or need
   2. Redirect to a behavior or communication that is more appropriate.

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