01/19/2021
Our latest win in our home & possibly one of our biggest: My youngest (almost 6) hasn’t had a “meltdown” in almost a week. Sounds like no biggie but we’ve been experiencing these intense outbursts her whole life, almost daily. You should’ve heard her as a newborn😬 So many times I wanted to fast forward her first few months to her first birthday & then to her 2nd, 3rd...finally just feeling like a failure. Punishment, consequences, yelling, spanking never worked. I hated getting to the point of spanking & with a heavy heart I admit I’ve lost my temper a handful of times & resorted to that when all the above didn’t work. It’s taken time & the opening of my mind to other ways of parenting to realize that all she needed was my love & acceptance of her big feelings. She wasn’t screaming & kicking to p**s me off or be manipulative. She just didn’t know any other way to process her anger, frustration, disappointment (learning more about the capabilities of a child’s brain was a quick eye-opener!) Her emotions would escalate quickly & her only release was through screaming, throwing herself on the floor, kicking & wailing her arms (which would last 30 min or more). She was instinctively entering fight or flight & always chose fight. And once “in the red” I could tell she was panicked over her lack of control over her body & sound. Sometimes she couldn’t tell me what she was even upset about. She didn’t have the skills yet to handle this on her own & needed help. She needed a calm presence & to be held, told she’s okay & will be okay, told she has permission to have these feelings, told she’s safe & I’ll help her through this, told to breathe deeply & focus on her breath. At first it took her awhile to respond well to my new approach. But doing this repeatedly (a true test for me & my patience) began to pay off. Her recovery time from when a meltdown began was shortening. She slowly started implementing the breathing techniques & started putting words to her emotions. She started asking me to intervene when she began feeling out of control (recognizing her need for help BEFORE the meltdown began!). And then out of the blue, they stopped! (Continued in comments)..
