Does it feel like your child is going from 0 – 60 in 2.6 seconds?
So often when I ask parents they say yes! At times it feels like my son does as well. It’s hard to manage when it feels like it’s coming out of the blue.
Have you ever had one of those days when it’s just not going right? You’re trying to home educate your kids, work from home, clean the house and cook the meals. Then your child says, for the 8 millionth time that day, ‘can I have a snack?’. Your stress levels rise a bit more but on the surface you stay calm. Every time you pick the phone up or jump on a zoom call they have to speak to you that very second and no, it can’t wait.
Somehow you’re still managing to stay calm on the outside. Finally, it’s dinner time you get the little darlings sat down and they refuse to eat it because they’ve decided they hate sausages, although they happily ate them 2 days ago.
At this point your calm exterior disappears and you explode, shouting at your kids. It appears to come from nowhere because you’ve stayed outwardly calm up until now. It looks like you’ve gone from 0-60 in 2.6 secs when in fact you’ve been holding it all in.
Sound familiar?
I know I’ve done this a few times. To our children our ‘meltdown’ has come from nowhere, when in fact it was building up and we were just trying to keep a lid on it.
Many of our children are exactly the same. Those unexpected 0-60 meltdowns have been building up and we’ve not seen it coming. More often than not an explosion isn’t completely out of nowhere, although obviously there are always exceptions.
If this sounds familiar here are a few tips to help reduce those 0-60 moments:
- Don’t assume your child is ok just because they seem to be on the surface, particularly if they are prone to meltdowns.
- Build in sensory and/or movement breaks regularly to release some of the pressure a bit at a time. For some children every 15 minutes is about right, others can go much longer.
- Don’t keep asking them if they are ok. It’s really annoying and more likely to escalate them!
- Raise your presence so that they have the time with you they need, it really does help.
- Remember to do point 2 yourself as well.
Implementing these tips will help to reduce the 0-60 meltdowns (from everyone) and create a calmer home.
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