When your child is in the midst of a meltdown, particularly an aggressive one, it can feel impossible to help. It might feel like you have no way of engaging or intervening without putting yourself at risk. Or that the only option is to ride it out until they exhaust themselves.
While there might be meltdowns you can’t assist your child with, some changes in approach might improve your odds.
Meltdowns can be self perpetuating. They begin as a response. Escalation can occur due to the frustration of realising you’re having a meltdown, and that no-one is helping you. Then the meltdown is heightened by guilt (people telling you to stop what you’re doing, or that you’re hurting people, or that you’re being embarrassing, etc). Further complications arise when people add comments such as “It’s not that big a deal!”, leading to the neurodivergent person feeling unheard and misunderstood; or insist on hugging you, leading to sensory overload.
The neurodivergent child responds in a way that is natural to them. As a result they end up feeling problematic, isolated, angry, miserable, misunderstood, and exhausted.
Trust
We have previously discussed emotional dysregulation and how crucial trust is in the parent-child relationship.
When your child is not dysregulated, try joining them in a neutral, non-distracting activity such as eating lunch. Remind them that even when they’re really angry and/or lashing out, you still love them. Tell them that you would love to help when they’re ready for that. Ask if they can think of anything you’re doing in those moments that makes them exclude you, or anything you could add to your approach that would help them calm.
Develop trust using baby steps.
Promoting trust outside difficult situations makes it easier for your child to trust you when they are at their most vulnerable.
Empathy
Imagine your child has hurt themselves. For many neurodivergent people, this is a cause for significant dysregulation. Imagine your child responds to this pain by becoming aggressive, screaming, throwing things, and lashing out at people around them.
Acknowledge their trigger as immediately, and as generously, as possible, ignoring the current meltdown. “That looked so painful!”
Avoid asking, “Are you alright?” which is a common reflexive question in these situations. Your child is clearly not okay and will felt misunderstood if you ask this.
Now look at how much pain they appear to be in. Not the usual physical pain. Their pain. While a bumped head might make you wince and pause for a moment, in this instance it has triggered a full body response. Imagine how much that bumped head must hurt for them, both physically and emotionally. Add empathy. Genuine, kind, empathy. “I would be so upset if I hurt myself that badly! Can I get you anything to help?”
It might not feel appreciated every time, particularly the initial times you try this approach, but over time it is likely to increase the connection required to ease things.
Coregulation
For your child to find calm, they need you to be calm. Not correcting, not controlling, not fighting, not shouting. Calm.
Consider sitting down near your child, and reminding them – only as loudly as is required to be heard – that you are there as soon as they want or need you.
You can voice your own feelings and needs too. This is done best with steady tone, and supported by you discussing what you are doing to self regulate.
For example, in the situation above, “I’m worried about you because you’ve hurt yourself. But I can see you’re not bleeding, and I trust you that you’ll tell me if you’ve injured yourself and need help. I’m also sad that you threw something at your brother when you got upset. But I know you didn’t do it to be mean and that you’ll apologise when you’re ready.”
This models for your child that it is perfectly acceptable to have negative feelings, but that they can be processed. And that you can be sad about their behaviours without blaming them, or attributing negative beliefs such as “You’re a bad person” to those behaviours.
If your child begins to calm, mirror this by calming yourself even more.
Your posture or position can make a significant different. If you were sitting, then see if you can move closer to your child without them escalating again. If this works, consider reaching out a hand for them to hold. Potentially lie down nearby if you don’t feel they’re ready for physical contact.
It is crucial that you are warm, loving, and kind, both visibly and verbally. If you are saying kind things, but scrolling through your phone because you’re fed up with the meltdown, your child will assume you don’t mean what you’re saying. If you behave gently and lovingly, and give them a cuddle… while lecturing them on their behaviour, they won’t trust the hug is genuine.
Redirection
For many neurodivergent people, recognising triggers does not prevent the triggering. Acknowledging that the RSD trigger was not, in fact, rejection, does not remove the physical response. Knowing that physical pain should not result in a meltdown doesn’t stop the surge of emotions that lead to it. Accepting that what has been asked of you is perfectly reasonable does not prevent PDA.
However, many people are capable of learning to acknowledge the feeling, and redirect the response.
Teach the child who is likely to meltdown over physical pain to roar as loudly as possible when they feel hurt, then run to get an ice pack to add a sensory counter-experience.
Encourage children to bundle in for a hug and reassurance if you have triggered their RSD. Teach them to tell you they’re feeling slighted so you can give them what they need to counter it.
And if the feelings are too big to tackle with roaring and cuddles, discuss – when things are calm – how they feel they would best get big emotions out.
For some kids this is running, kicking a ball against a wall, or punching play dough or slime. Others need to lie down in sunshine with ear defenders on. Some will like the idea of sitting in a cupboard with a blanket over their head. Or dancing to loud music. Or shaking it out.
What they say they need is the best solution to try.
Try to help your child redirect those massive waves of emotion into less damaging expression.
After The Storm
While it’s important not to upset your child by making them feel guilty about meltdowns, it is a great idea to discuss them afterwards.
Encourage them to try to name the emotions they were experiencing, and empathise with how difficult some of those feelings can be. Talk about healthy ways to process big or negative emotions.
Chat about whether your approaches helped them, or made them feel worse. What they would like you to do differently, and what they would like to try to do differently themselves.
Importantly, this engagement, or reflection, can only be effective as a teachable moment when your child’s prefrontal cortex is back in action. That means, you need to wait until all traces of cortisol and adrenaline have disappeared from their system before you communicate. Engage in this discussion too early and you risk a second wave of “big emotions”.
Reframing Autism
Try to keep goals realistic. The neurodivergent child who says, “My goal is to never have a meltdown again,” is likely setting themselves up to fail. The child who suggests, “Next time I’m aiming to not hurt my brother,” is more likely to be building a strong case for Recognition Responsive Euphoria (RRE) in the future.
Don’t Give Up
This isn’t an instant fix. “Getting it right” after weeks, months, or even years, of exhausting meltdowns, will still take many attempts before you and your child are both in a position to fully trust the other person and their approach.
There will be days that the best approaches aren’t enough.
And there will be days in the future that all you need to do is the first step, and your child will know they are safe and loved, and that will be enough to stop the tsunami.
Consistency, warmth, kindness, and love. They can fix so much.
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