“I don’t want to get dressed!” A spiral of emotions followed this statement. I consider it a meltdown once it is no longer an easy redirect or bounce back. Transitions back into a routine are challenging in our house, and we had a four-day weekend with President’s Day. My six-year-old son, with an Exodus thinking style, is sensitive and becomes sad and overwhelmed fairly easily. We have been working hard on helping him build up a toolbox of things to try when he gets in high emotions. Recently, he responded, “I can’t calm down,” when his high emotions were lingering, and I had told him it was time to be done. That statement sat with me for a moment because I actually believe him. When our emotions flood our body, we get to a point where we can’t think straight; the emotional side of our mind has taken over and has blocked out our logical thinking part. At that point, we either need to wait for the adrenaline to run its course or use tools to activate the thinking brain once again.
You can use many tools with your child to restore calm and logical thinking, including getting them to think by answering questions or moving their body. In those moments, though, my son has decided he doesn’t want tools or to be told to try them! We are working on helping him discover the ones he likes rather than my ideas. I used a sneaky new tool today: we sat on the stairs, and I asked which tool he wanted to try. He responded, “None. I don’t want to use any tools.” I had him list all the tools he didn’t want to use. So he started listing them: “I don’t want to take a deep breath. I don’t want to count backward from 10. Umm, I don’t want to count the spindles.” Guess what happened! His emotions came down, and some calm was restored. I got him thinking, pulling out that logical brain to the front again. I don’t know if this tool will work again as he will catch on that it is a tool, but an interesting experiment nonetheless!