Crisis Averted: How I Defused a Meltdown in 10 minutes.
We were all packed in the car ready to go to the park and playground for the afternoon. Bikes, scooters, helmets, basketball, snacks. Even the dog. As we were buckling in, my daughter (5) got into her seat and without warning, started yelling “I hate this! I’m not going!” My brain froze for a second, did I miss something? She went from 0-100! She unbuckled her belt, opened the car door (we were still in the driveway luckily) and ran inside. (Which was in one way good because it alerted me to the fact that we had NOT locked the front door!!) My husband, son and I looked at each other in disbelief. All ready to have a great afternoon at the park and now a BIG roadblock. Nooo!
We all have times where our child seems to have a huge, immediate, unexplained meltdown that baffles us. We can very easily become frustrated, resentful and even angry. Sometimes we go straight to the “You’re being ridiculous!” and “What is your problem?” or even “Don’t spoil this for the rest of us!”. Thanks to my journey with Emotional intelligence, I don’t say those things anymore. They’re unnecessary, hurtful, do NOT solve the problem in front of us and certainly don’t solve any problems with children’s challenging behaviour in the long term.
I want to run through with you what I said and did – because in no more than 10 minutes, we were back in the car and on the way to the park, HAPPILY.
Firstly, I let my husband and son know I was going to head in and see what was going on – and that it might be a few minutes. This allowed them to busy themselves and not wonder why I was taking so long.
Next I headed inside, reminding myself there is always a reason for my child’s behaviour. There’s an underlying difficulty, stress, or need. She is not giving me a hard time, she is having one. This helps me stay calm, and just as importantly stay curious.
I found my daughter in her bedroom, crying on her bed. I asked her “Honey can I come in?” from the doorway. When a child is in a stress response (any kind of meltdown or tantrum) the worst thing we can do is barge in, firing questions (or worse, threats and punishments). This simply pushes them further into fight or flight.
She agreed, and I carefully moved in and stooped to her level at the bed. I said nothing for a while – often we talk way too much – and just rubbed her back. A huge part of what our kids need in these stressful moments is to HOLD SPACE for their big feelings. To let them let the feelings out. How often was this not allowed when you were a child? We may have been told so many times to stop crying, be quiet, stop making a big deal out of nothing, stop being a baby… and so on. This is not how we need to respond. Allow the feelings to flow. They won’t hurt you. And remember – emotions are energy in motion. They need to be released!
After a minute or two I said, “You don’t want to go to the park huh.” She said “NO! I’m not going. EVER” in a big voice. Here’s where we can get caught up – taking this personally, feeling disrespected, and falling into the “Don’t you talk to me like that!” trap. Instead, I waited till she was a little calmer and asked her to tell me more. What happened next was powerful – because she felt like I was accepting, validating and curious, she opened up “I hate Pepper. She SMELLS!!”
Bingo. There's the real reason she ran out of the car. She was sensitive to the smell of our dog who was in the car at her feet. I remembered that my daughter does notice (and dislike) many more scents than the rest of us in the family. This is the gold – this is what is really underlying her ‘challenging behaviour’. Her sensitivity to our dog’s smell, which is of course heightened being in a closed space such as the car!
We talked more. She listened. I wondered aloud whether we could find a way for her to not smell Pepper whilst being in the car on the way to the park. (She said she did want to go to the park, but if she didn’t, we’d look at whether the boys go and we stay home and what options we had there.) I suggested her Elsa face mask, sprayed very lightly with her favourite perfume. I’m usually an essential oil not perfume person but for this situation it was fine! She LOVED the idea. I also suggested taking her lap table with colouring pages and markers, which she also loved. In the car a few minutes later and we were on our way! My husband did fist bump me and give me a “Go mummy!” look which I am still chuffed about.
Our kids don’t need our threats and punishment when they engage in behaviours that are simply showing they are out of their depth, and cannot handle a situation in a better way. As Dr Ross Greene says, “Kids do well if they can”. When they don’t it’s because they can’t. And that’s where Emotionally Intelligent Parenting comes in.
Allow the emotions. Accept and validate them. Acknowledge that this is your child’s experience and their reality. Work with them, instead of doing things to them. Bring creativity and playfulness back to your parenting. When you’re on your child’s team, wonderfully amazing things happen, and your connection grows stronger and stronger.
If you want to learn how to develop your child’s emotional regulation skills or know how to manage their challenging behaviour, I highly recommend you take my online courses - How to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids is FREE for a limited time, and the follow up course Decoding and Defusing Challenging Behaviours is my powerful 1 hour Masterclass.
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