How do you handle tantrums?

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Hello,
My 5 year old son diagnosed with mild PDD-NOS has been having tantrums lately. I've tried a variety of responses and none seems to help either curtail the current tantrum or prevent future ones. As you may have guessed he can be angelic one moment then turn into the Tazmanian Devil the next . There is often no obvious thing (like "I want juice") that sets him off, it's like a switch flips and off he goes and nothing can calm him down. The most frustrating is when I KNOW he's hungry but he won't eat even when his favorite foods are sitting on the plate. Usually we try to ignore the tantrum or put him into his room until it's over -- I never give in if he's tantruming about something specific -- as the parenting gurus suggest. But if I ignore it, it's like giving him permission and he just ramps it up instead of calming down. Last night the only thing that helped was scooping him up, taking him to a dark room, and cuddling for a few minutes before giving him a bagel chip which he finally accepted then went on to eat more. He's getting over the flu and I think that's part of what's making him crabby.

How do you handle this with your ASD kids? We esp need help when this happens in the morning -- he's crabby, then my husband gets crabby, then the baby cries because that seems to be the thing to do But really, we don't have time to put him in time out in the morning.

Thanks,

Welcome to the forum.

I hope you enjoy your stay and find the information here useful. It seems we have been having a sudden influx of new parents the last week; maybe it is because school just started up. In any case, I would suggest you try reading other posts on this forum. You may find useful information that will answer questions of yours. Specifically you may want to look at this post:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2387282.html

I wrote up what I thought was a nice response here that may answer your question:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2387282 ... t=#2387282

If you have any further questions or need clarification on some issue please feel free to ask.

Thanks Tracer, that was really helpful. I really liked you "quiet spot" idea and I guess that's what I did last night without knowing it .

Glad to help.

Keep in mind in order for it to be the most effective, you should have a quiet relaxing spot set up ahead of time prior to the meltdown. Let your son know ahead of time that when he is feeling overwhelmed, he can go there to relax. Let your son help you with setting it up. Does he want a pillow and blanket there, or perhaps a book, and if so which book? Make sure it is a place that he wants to go to, not some place he gets dragged to against his will. Just make sure you have it set up prior to the meltdown because trying to set things up during the meltdown isnt going to work too well.

Eventually your son will learn to recognize the signs that he is getting overwhelmed and retire to his quiet spot without you taking him there. But you probably will need to escort him there initially.

Also, remember that when people are sick, hungry, or something else like that, they generally have a shorter fuse. So you may want to expect problems, and try to be on top of them. I hope that makes sense.

Since Tracker already dealt with the issue of meltdown v. tantrum, I want to address the "what to do in the morning when there isn't time." What I'm going to suggest is that you make what should turn out to be a short term investment and MAKE the time. If everyone is late, everyone is late. Take notes, experiment, and work on creating a more pro-active routine that is less likely to result in meltdown. But once you've got the meltdown, you can't hurry it away, so you have to accept and deal with it properly.

Its been years since my son has caused us any issues in the morning. The investment will pay off.

Tracker has the best explanation, one that I read when he first posted it and it helped. As parents, we get the idea from our own family, others around us and society in general that tantrums are something we as parents are supposed to fix either by disciplining them out of the child or by identifying triggers and making sure they don't happen. When I first read Tracker's post, I had come to understand that disciplining away meltdown's with the standard techniques that work for tantrums in NT kids just wasn't going to work for my daughter. It always made things worse and left me feeling frustrated and like a failure. The standard advice for parents of AS kids is to minimize exposure to triggers. And that's good as far as it goes but 1)life is full of triggers and encountering them is inevitable and 2)what constitutes a trigger isn't fixed, so you can't identify all triggers- they change perhaps minute by minute.

The good thing about Tracker's advice and what helped me is that it made me see that parents can't actually prevent or end a meltdown. They will happen. Identifying triggers helps but it won't make a child meltdown-free. Really, the best thing you can do is not makes things worse. Following standard procedure parenting advice makes things worse. Follwoing AS-parenting advice to identify triggers and make sure they aren't encountered helps to some extent but if you take it as a fix it will just make you frustrated because it will give you the damaging illusion that if you just made your child's life trigger-free, the meltdowns would stop and if they still happen, you just aren't being vigilant enough. Bad parent! After reading Tracker's advice I came to view my daughter's meltdown's differently. Now I see them more as being analogous to weather. Although Tracker's analogy of "cell phone call during a loud concert" makes it easier to understand what's going on neurologically, thinking of meltdowns as akin to stormy weather helped me as a parent keep my perspective. Hurricanes happen. You can't stop a hurricane. It's going to happen when it's going to happen. You just hunker down and wait for it to be over. That's how I've come to see my daughter's meltdowns. As advised, I keep her safe and unstimulated and just wait until it passes. And it always does. It used to be that I would be a frazzled wreck by the time it was over because of my delusion that I was supposed to stop or prevent it somehow and had failed. Seeing it as a hurricane which will happen and then will end helps.

Well, the storm analogy is good, but I think the better analogy would be like comparing meltdowns to being sick (as in having the flu).

There are things which you can do that will increase your child's likelihood of getting the flu. For example, dunking them into ice cold water, or having them hang around other sick children is a good way to get the child sick. There are also things which you can do to reduce their chances of getting sick. For example, making sure they get enough sleep, getting them good food, and having them wash their hands. But ultimately, even if you reduce their chances to get sick, and do everything you can to keep them healthy, children will acquire the flu eventually. You cant prevent it completely, all you can do is reduce the frequency of the illness.

Likewise, there are things which increase the child's frequency of meltdowns. Just as you dunking your child into ice water would probably get them sick, putting your child in an environment that is too chaotic, loud, and crowded isn't a good idea. That's just asking for a meltdown. Similarly, just as washing a child's hands will reduce the chances of them getting sick, there are things you can do to reduce the chances of a meltdown. For example, giving your child plenty of time to relax, unwind, and do things that they enjoy will greatly reduce their chances of getting overwhelmed. This is why I am such a strong proponent of things like playing video games and computer games.

Getting sick does not reflect poor parenting, nor willful problem making on the part of the child. It is just part of life that you have to accept. Likewise, meltdowns are not caused by poor parenting, nor are the result of the child intentionally creating a problem. It is just part of being autistic, and you just have to accept that they will happen, all you can do is work to reduce the frequency. Over time, your child will develop a better immune system and become sick less often. Likewise, with time and patience your child will learn to sense meltdowns coming and remain calm long enough to avoid the situation.

When a child does get sick, beating yourself up and thinking your a bad parent because you didnt prevent it and cant immediately cure it isnt going to help. You just need to accept that they have gotten sick, and go from there. Get them some medicine, put them to bed, and just wait until the child is feeling better. There isnt anything you can do to end the sickness, all you can do is just wait till it is over. Likewise, dont beat yourself up when your child has a meltdown. Just get them their metaphorical medicine (a calm place) and wait for it to be over.

Janissy, I almost felt like you were talking to me, lol. I realized while reading your post that it is possible to overpreach the triggers and mitigation aspect, with the negative side effects you described. Its just been such a great tool for us that I always preach it, and maybe forget to say that while it reduces the volume, it doesn't eliminate. Good reminder.

Tracker, love the getting sick analogy.