Oh, the
dreaded meltdown. Don’t we love those screaming fits where a child has become
so involved in crying he doesn't even realize what the problem is. These are
the kinds of crying fits where even if you give in - the crying won't stop. The
world is just too much and too unfair.
Why does
this happen? Children are in the process of developing self-regulation. In this
case self-regulation is the ability to get control of strong emotions. For
young children they are learning to prevent an emotional nuclear meltdown.
Some
emotional meltdowns are way out of proportion to the event. Once they take hold
a child has great difficulty in calming down. The meltdown seems to take on a
life of its own.
One trick to
help a child calm down is to move the experience to a different part of the
brain. Dr.
Daniel J. Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson explain this process with the
terms “upstairs brain” and “downstairs brain.” The upstairs brain is the
problem-solving part of the brain. The downstairs brain is the survival skills
part of the brain that can get us caught in a fight or flight response. When children
are tired, frustrated, or in the middle of any kind of growth spurt that
temporarily turns their brains upside down, they can fall victim to getting stuck
in their downstairs brain, resulting in a fit that won’t quit.
The more you
try to comfort them, or ask them to explain, or threaten them, distract them,
or even ignore them, the longer the fit will continue. In order to calm them
down you have to move them to the upstairs brain. The upstairs brain is
happiest when it is solving a problem. In fact, solving a problem can take precedence
over an emotional reaction.
The solution
is to find an intriguing task that is not too hard, but not too easy. Once the
child is engaged in the task the brain shifts to problem solving and the fit is
forgotten. When your child is calm you can discuss the previous episode and
problem solve how to prevent it.
Check out these
ideas to help you design the right task for your child. This can work for
older children, too. You just need to find the game that has the right amount
of challenge and irresistibility.
