the kid's meltdown: what do you do?

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mostly i'd think we as parents try to avoid it, but once in a while it doesn't help,
and so a meltdown is inevitable,

any one advise on how to handle this?

if the kid starts kicking things or people? or shouting in a rage in the middle of the street?
does it stop at a certain age? (i mean young children get older and stronger)

(when i was a kid, i occasionally got fysical with a teacher in primary school, but not later)

i dont know if the rages will stop but you shouldnt worry too much about what other people think if one of the meltdowns happens in a public place. all young children have tantrums (even nts) and no stranger has a right to judge a parent on how they are handling the situation. just focus on how to help your child get through the rage the best you can.

i don't think i bother whether being judged (although being a teacher and encoutering parents quite often is not the most interesting situation of course, and living in a small community it wouldn't be healthy for the kid either to be known for it, but i'm too focused on the situation to notice other people anyway) but we don't have a problem with that for the moment

i'm more looking for inspiration, for advice, for things i could do, ways i could see, solve, understand it ...
or even an advice of how to stop it, if that would be possible.

if you think you're not truly bothered by the tantrums, you're in denial....everyone is bothered by them to a degree~it's normal.
the hardest thing for me was always to keep my cool, and remember that every tantrum had an end. over time i learned that talking or reasoning with my son during a tantrum is pointless. i try to calmly state that we need to leave now, and then firmly grasp his hand, and leave. ( when he was small enough to pick up, i'd pick him up)... i've had to leave many places in my life....it's never easy.
what's worked the best for our family has been analyzing what the tantrum was about ( after the fact), and working diligently to avoid those sorts of situations. for us, we found that most tantrums revolved around miscommunication ( son wouldn't understand what was going on, or what was expected of him...).

Talking softly to my son usually helps at least some.

He wants to hear what I am saying even if he acts like he doesn't so he will calm down at least a little bit while I am talking to him soflty during a meltdown.

I'll talk softly to him asking him if he is mad, frustrated, or scared then ask him to take some deep breaths.
He doesn't always take the breaths but a soft voice asking/helping him to identify his feelings seem to help.

My son has had meltdowns at home that were because he was scared of a noise outside his window, bad dreams, etc. After checking his room out and telling him he is safe, I try to distract him with something he can help me with. IE pack for a trip, pick up MY clothes, put dishes up etc.

Of course, sometimes nothing works and you just have try and get them out of whatever situation he/we is/are in.

Another suggestion, if he is about to have a breakdown and there are others (siblings, friends, family, etc) try to remove them from the situation. Just leave him alone for a while, yeah something might get broke but it beats something vs someone (s body part).

My son had the same sort of meltdowns - yelling, hitting, kicking, spitting, throwing things, hitting himself - it was horrible.

Trying to reason with him just added fuel to the fire. Ignoring him and walking away didn't work - he just continued. Redirection - not likely. Holding him tightly in my lap with his back to me shortened the meltdown but only worked when he was young. Removing him from the scene was a face-saving last ditch effort. Letting it run its course and then focusing on preventing one from happening were the only options.

I agree with ster, it was frustration over a miscommunication. The more planning you can do beforehand, the better. Describing what he can expect to happen (in more detail than you would image) and what you expect of him is key. Also bribes work well - after we do our jobs, we can get some ice cream. I hate to say it, but you have to change your life to accomodate him (a huge inconvenience at times) cause he's not able to - yet.

goku is right with that YOU do have to change your world to fit his not his to fit the world and this is the hardest thing to get through to other people including myself. I do try to hold my son with his back to me and my arms crossed over his arms and that seems to have somewhat of a calming effect sometimes. A very calm voice and attitude helps too. I think this is because they dont fully know why they are doing this either. Its kind of like the behavior takes over and they cannot stop it from happening. That is the impression I got when I read a book by Thomas Mckean??? I think that was his name. Its so hard because as hard as it is for us it is even worse for them.
However, there are times when you cannot avoid what he wants to avoid. Like going grocery shopping. I have NOONE to leave my son with. It is a huge feat to get through the grocery store. It was so bad that I almost got kicked out( I left when I saw the manager heading our way). So after that, I just made it a point to go in for say a two liter of soda and I would tell him exactly what we were doing. we are going into the store and we are getting a soda for mommy and thats it and then we will leave. You will sit in the cart (which he is almost outgrowing-dont know what Ill do then lol) while mommy gets the soda. Then we would go for one meal at a time and slowly I am able to almost get a full weeks worth of groceries.

Of course, it depends on why he is melting down. If its avoidance of an every day issue I cant just totally avoid that. Unless, you have someone to watch him while you do the activity. My fear with that though is that he will never learn to cope.

But I am wondering the same thing is there anything you can do to help him get through it at the time. I dont believe there is but then alot of people argue with me about that. I am kind of the only one in my son's life that believes there is a reason for his behavior issues. Even with diagnosis, no one believes his behavior stems from autism, just weak parenting. Which I second guess myself at times.

just my two cents.

i must admit it is not easy to understand the why, although i can have the same issues (and thus have some kind of look from the inside)
but it's not only me, also his (nt)father and his (nt)sister interacting,
it's true that he might suffer some of their actions, like noice or dramatical emotional exageration, but that's the way they are, we have to deal with it
the whole world is full of people and things that are not the way we would want...

talking helps but is more difficult if i get an emotional nt-reply at the same time,
so i thought maybe there is some clear advice of 'do's and don'ts' that i could bring forward?

lemon - you have the key - what is it??? Talking helps? But not NT noise or emotional exaggeration? Please elaborate! I would love to know how to help my son.

You don't know the why and maybe nobody can but what to do next?

Thanks for your invaluable insight!

well somehow i've got the feeling that the emotional reply of an nt does not help to stop the meltdown, my husband will for exemple talk about so many things that my son is getting even more confused and upset. ( i feel that if we could just let it go and not talk about it -or just state clearly what can and cannot be done in a simple non-emotional or suggestive sentence- it would stop)
my husband will for exemple shout and say things like "i can't stand it any longer, why do you always do such things, you know that ..."
personaly i think that references to the emotional state to someone else, the generalising words like 'always', pretending to 'know' without having asked and the noice that accompagnes it have nothing to do with it and bring us nowhere. (i'm trying to explain this to my husband and that seems to work out a little)

my thought is that you shouldn't feed anything at all, only remind the person he can't have it and you can't do anything about it and maybe also you are sorry about it (like: you can't have the candies, we agreed on a certain amount, and i understand that you want more but it's bad for your health; or i understand you don't feel like brushing your teeth, but i don't want you to be mad at me because this is an issue of life and nothing between you and me, etc)

what i'm looking for now, is what can i do if emotional rimram has already started?
how can i learn my son to deal with it? (cause we live in an nt world)
what should i do when i can't be as clear as i should want to, because i'm not the only parent?
and also how can i calm him down when it gets too bad? (cause this mix of opinions has always been there for him, and will remain)

Thanks for the explanation lemon - it makes sense. It's great that you have personal experience to draw from. Keep trying to explain it to your husband - it helps.

I think you're right that the NT emotional reply that refers to incidents in the past (why do you always do such things...) is confusing and upsetting. I've said the same thing and it never ends well. It was hard for me to understand how such a minor thing as brushing your teeth or setting limits would elicit that kind of extreme reaction.

Having a plan helped us. If we knew what to do beforehand, we were less likely to fall back on old habits. It helped my son to have his 'jobs' written down on a list in the order of his preference. Then I would just have to say: Did you do all your jobs? Check your list if you can't remember. That way everything gets done, but he still has some control over the timing (which was a problem for him).

Maybe you could make a plan for how to handle future meltdowns. Agree that you should handle them if you're both together but if your husband is by himself and not able to stay calm, then to call a time out for everyone until things are less emotional. My husband and I would cover each other if one of us started getting too emotional. It prevented a few meltdowns.

Also I would try to explain to your son how emotional Dad gets and the reasons why and what the plan is. I think if everybody is working together and invested, making it a family plan takes blame away from any one person and teaches tolerence of others. Your son might even have some interesting solutions if asked. Once mine got the hang of reasonable compromise, some of his ideas were amazing.

I hope you find some calm soon.

If my kid was having a meltdown, I'd remove them from the situation/place the meltdown started and try to go somewhere quiet where the child can calm down.

It doesn't always help to ask me what's going on; often times I'm too afraid or overwhelmed and the sound of human voice just drives me further into oblivion.

For some reason, holding my shoulders calms me down. I'm just weird like that. Sure, I wriggle first but once I know I can move a bit in any direction, it works.

Prevention is always best. We have two routines we go to when things are starting to go downhill fast depending on how many adults are around. The lower level is to offer my child time in his room with a snack and show. Pull out whatever sensory stuff seems appropriate: bean bag, weighted blanket, juice with a straw, crunchy crackers, rope Christmas lights, etc. The second we use for when things are heating up fast and hard and that's when one of us (usually me the mom) takes him away for awhile to soothe the raging that's directed at a parent or sibling. Usually a quiet hour in the bookstore cafe with a snack puts enough time and distance between him and the meltdown that reentry goes fine. When it's been really bad I've called home and had everyone disappear for a bit while I get him off to bed. Usually it's all forgotten in the morning. We also use the get out of the house method when rages are in progress. He knows the routine and goes along with it. Finding methods that worked for us in these situations and being able to put them into place quickly have made a huge difference. When the family hears mom is dropping everything to deploy meltdown prevention tactics , everyone understands and works together.

I never try talking to him or rationalizing during this time. It's just calming distracting time. Another day is usually best for discussion, when needed.

The one thing that I constantly have to remind myself is that even if the reason for the meltdown or rage seems ridiculous to me, he has a very good reason for it from his point of view. I forgot the other day and found myself trying to talk him out of being upset for something I thought was silly. Afterwards I realized to him it was important and I should have respected that.

thanks for you're advice all, i agree that prevention is the best thing,
but i'd like to know what to do if it's too late, my son won't go some other place, he's like frozen, i feel like not talking helps but his father doesn't, my man is emotional (nt) and says he cannot change the way he is (although he also agrees that i'm better at parenting our son, this is not always possible)

also in life our son does encounter people who react the same way, i'd like to know that he can deal with it
(meltdowns without us being around are rare but they do occur occasionally, we have a few stories of furious teachers running after him)