A Day In The Parenting Life: A Walkthrough of a Meltdown

By Lilly Brick
Parenting for Wholeness content creator and group moderator
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It takes PRACTICE for a child to smoothly go through the brain activities of correctly registering an emotion, labeling it, identifying the most effective way to process and release the tension of those feelings, taking action to make that happen, then returning to a calm state. 

I imagine a meltdown being the result of a brain that doesn't know how to process an overwhelming new, unfamiliar, dangerous, or unexpected input. Could be a sensation or experience or emotion. And meltdowns reduce when the brain learns how to process these inputs and they become familiar, maybe even mundane. 

It's my job as a parent to help her practice experiencing (which includes fully feeling!!) emotions like frustration, and practicing/experiencing the visceral embodied sensation of returning to a state of calm and reconnection; of adapting and healing via coregulation and acceptance. You are developing their innate trust in themselves that they will carry all their lives, and the knowledge that even intense feelings have an end, and that feeling emotions in their entirety is what heals and transforms them. You’ll have given them enough practice that they can do this healing process on their own one day. Because big feelings are a part of life!!

I have a spirited and sensitive almost 4 year old daughter who is an expert in practicing her meltdowns. What does a typical meltdown in our house look like? Let’s take a look.

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My daughter wants something, so so bad. Desperately. And it can't/won't happen. Not getting something you really feel like you need, that would really make your life great in this moment, is truly devastating.

I can see when she is beginning to unravel, starting to get wound up with the first tendrils of frustration and upset taking hold. As soon as I notice that, I help her into our shared bedroom, which is a safe “baby proofed” space for her to rage in. I don't wait for her to do something “bad enough” to warrant a “punishment” of being removed to the bedroom – at which point we've devolved into opponents. Instead, it's early enough in the process that I’m not aggravated yet, it's more of a “I'm noticing you’re starting to have an uncomfortable feeling, I'm going to help you get it out of your body”. I haven't allowed it to escalate into a big overwhelming feeling and problem, I've intervened when the feeling and problem is still small. 

I bring her into our bedroom; sometimes I do snag her as she runs away and carry her as she thrashes and hollers. But because I'm early enough and I haven't knocked myself off her team, I'm able to keep my head and look at her with a calm head: she's having a hard time. Her brain is going haywire right now. No kid WANTS to be experiencing this red alert meltdown. As soon as we get to our room, you can see her body relax; we’ve done this enough times that she knows we're really gonna feel and get rid of all this gunk storming inside her. She is still MAD though, rageful, thrashing and screaming about both being in the room and whatever set her off. But there is a subtle relaxation in her shoulders and face; she knows now I can help her, now that we are away from prying eyes and distractions. That I'm not mad or frustrated that she is going off the rails–in fact, my matter of fact, blasé attitude indicates to her subconscious that her emotions are NORMAL. I have no judgement about whether her feelings are bad or good. They are her feelings, and they are real. I don't need to, and I SHOULDN'T, try to control whether she is “allowed” to have or express any emotion. My only job is to help guide her in fully and appropriately expressing and feeling the emotion to get to the other side where she will find adaptation, and then calm. That’s it! 

So I sit. Calmly, silently. Not much eye contact. I even sometimes pull out my phone and start reading an ebook. When a person (including children) is in the throes of a rage, they are processing and purging the tension from their bodies. Screaming, thrashing, punching, kicking, stomping, running–this is naturally how an organism processes adrenaline and cortisol hormones from their physical bodies. There has to be a physical element; rage and anger are felt under conditions of threat and induce an organism to MOVE and protect itself. Our culture’s discomfort with anger means that we are socialized to abort/stifle this process so those chemicals don't properly leave the bloodstream and continue to circulate. Your child is wise; they know what they are doing! 

In the throes of rage, most people (including children!) cannot tolerate bids for connection from their loved ones. Attempts at redirection, connection, offers of alternatives, soothing words, encouraging words, offering hugs or physical comfort, and even eye contact can feel like battery acid on your skin. It's amplifying this horrible feeling of acting incorrectly, because your witnesses are acting worried/frantic/upset/concerned in some way and trying to change you. It pushes you FURTHER into an overwhelmed meltdown. Instead, the best method to be a witness is simply quiet calm presence, only occasional eye contact with soft eyes. That's it. No words. Definitely no physical contact UNLESS she initiates and asks for it. I’m a statue in the corner. I get comfy, because it can take a while (sometimes as long as an hour for particularly charged stress releases).

But redirection and soothing is exactly what HELPS anger, right?? Yes!! But they help only AFTER the initial huge intense surge of feelings have been fully somatically processed. You can’t attempt soothing and connection and coregulation too soon, or it backfires. So I have to sit on my hands and wait. 

Because here is the secret. It's a mindset shift. My well meaning attempts to regulate my child’s emotions are frankly inappropriate. Unnecessary. For so long, I was inserting myself and trying to regulate (read: control) my child's expressions because of my own discomfort. Emotional expression of certain emotions is so taboo, that when we are confronted by immature little people naturally having these emotions, we are uncomfortable and uncertain and embarrassed and fearful. My attempts to regulate my child were actually very clever and subtle attempts to squash and minimize and rush to the end of it and make her emotions more convenient for me. That was my lightbulb moment. I was rushing my kid through the emotion because I was scared. But my kid can only mature and learn how to appropriately navigate these types of emotions if she is allowed to practice feeling it, properly and fully. Using the natural and powerful somatic processing abilities she was born with. Not rushed. Because skipping over the most rotten awful distressing bits so I can feel better makes it impossible for her to learn safer and acceptable ways to handle it when she INEVITABLY encounters those feelings again. 

Sometimes during the meltdown, she often asks for things that she knows I will say no to. It almost feels like she is asking so I will "thwart" her and so she can cry more and get another layer of somatic purging out when she feels the initial wave start to slow down. For example, she will ask multiple times to use her paci (which in our house, the rule is she can only use it for falling asleep). Or she will tearfully or angrily bargain over and over for the thing she originally wanted so desperately. I simply quietly say “nope.” 

At first pass this may seem cruel, but there's another reason I say no to using the paci when she is distressed during a meltdown. When she is in the throes of a meltdown, the emotion can feel so incredibly intense that she is desperate to avoid feeling it. She wants distraction to push it off, or is seeking a way to minimize or even mute it. Sucking and other soothing methods are very tempting ways to artificially lower the body’s alert state without having to actually engage with the underlying alarm. So when your child needs to be raging and somatically expressing, using a soothing method is actually counter-productive since you WANT your child to FEEL the emotion and process it.

Sometimes my child turns violent towards me. Which is not a surprise; she can't control her impulses, and angry impulses often protectively drive someone to inflict pain. But that is not a socially appropriate or acceptable way to express and process an angry emotion. In fact, this is the only rule I have as we process emotions: to be kind to my body. That means no screaming in faces, no hitting, no kicking, no aggressive nudges, no headbutting (all of which have happened!). And I was extremely firm with this rule. The first hit often happens on our way as I carry her to the room, and often she will wind up for another whack as soon as I set her down. I block her hit, and silently turn around and walk out the door, shutting and holding the door behind me. I mean it when I say I leave instantly. She knows the rule, I don't need to remind or defend my leaving to protect myself. I give her about 5-10 seconds (while she is often shrieking angrily) and then I will ask through the door, “Are you ready to treat my body kindly? No hitting?” And she will say yes. Then I say “Cool.” And I open the door, slip back inside, and silently go to my corner and get my book out with a nonchalant, relaxed air. If she ever approaches me aggressively or hits again, I silently and instantly leave the room again. And I do this as many times as is necessary. I don't get riled, and I might also recognize that her aggression might be because I'm inadvertently trying to rush her or I'm being too intense with eye contact or offers of hugs prematurely, and she is lashing out to prolong, almost protectively, her rage phase. Because she can sense me wanting to rush it to the end! It's almost like she is defending her space to purge. 

The only words I ever allow myself to say to her during the rage phase is the boundary of treating my body kindly (or a boundary where it's clear she is trying to get me to say “no” to purge more emotion). I back this violence limit up instantly with action and remove myself if she winds up for a smack or actually lands a smack. I will not argue or justify or defend myself with her. I silently remove myself for a few seconds, and even that short amount of time is completely sufficient to get the message across: “I'm not angry, but I will NOT EVER be hit. I’m ready to return when you're ready to treat me with respect.”
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As a side note, she VERY quickly learned to never smack me again using this method. Any waffling or staying nearby after a smack just prolonged the hitting. Hitting is very cathartic to little angry bodies, it feels so good to inflict pain upon the object of your anger when you’re angry! But you have to be firm and confident in the absolute knowing that you don't EVER deserve to be hit, and you don't have to convince anyone to not hit you. Leaving for a few seconds but returning easily and without shaming for such a natural reaction sends a powerful and positive message. After only about 6 meltdowns, she stopped hitting me entirely and now redirects herself to more acceptable alternatives.

Anyway. I sit. My lips are zipped, and I sit on my hands, and I mostly look over towards the corner or read a book, not at her (too intense), and only occasionally glance with warm, soft eyes to her. The name of the game is low intensity. No inviting or questioning her which can be read as pressure or demand or discomfort with how she is processing. I let her flail and thrash and shriek and punch and jump – as long as I am treated well. And eventually… it begins to slow, without me doing anything. It slows and quiets. No emotion can be sustained in the body forever. And eventually, she turns meek… and I stay in the corner, I do not approach, I do not say a single word.

I let HER approach ME. I let her come to me and I may feel it's appropriate to open my arms at that point in a silent offer of a hug. Usually she will crawl into my lap. Tears usually begin to fall; her rage has transitioned to grief. She wanted a thing, and didn't get it. Anger is often a defensive mechanism to protect more vulnerable feelings like sadness and shame. Now that the rage has mostly processed, it's revealed the grief underneath. I rock, do soothing humming, cuddles. And sadness naturally abates under these conditions; you've probably experienced that natural abatement because adults in our culture are a bit more comfortable and natural with sadness processing.

Sometimes we cycle back to rage again, and she leaps out of my lap to go thrash and scream again. I give her space by looking away, and wait for her to approach again and get a snuggle.

Finally, I can feel the air shift. And I test the waters to see if she has truly reached that stage of futility and adaptation, that she has grieved and mourned what she desired and is now in a place where she can let it go and adapt. Now, I can talk again.

I do a low key test first. “You can't have the paci right now.” Typically if I read her right, she will finally respond back with a watery, meek “Okay”. But if she goes into rage again or tries bargaining, I know she hasn't quite gotten to the point of futility and acceptance. But if I get an “okay” with no caveats, I know we’ve finally processed and released a significant chunk of the big frustration feelings. 

Once we get through my first acceptance stage “test”, I test the boundary or situation that originally set her off. “You can't have XYZ (whatever item she wanted originally) right now either.” and I check and make sure this also doesn't set off rage again; because launching prematurely into problem solving when she is still activated and needs to be in purging mode isn't doing either of us any favors. If she can say “Okay” with no caveats to that too, I know we got to the end and she is ready to adapt and problem solve with me. She couldn't before, not when all these feelings were still activated.

But once she can accept both of those thwarting “nos”, she has somatically processed enough to fully reach acceptance at the other end of those biiiig feelings. I know we are ready for the second phase: reconnect (coregulate with my calm nervous system) and problem solve. 

She snuggles in my lap. I give her snuggles and kisses. We talk about what happened, what that feeling was called. I empathize with what she experienced (and be sure to study up on the module that actually explains what empathy is, because you're probably doing it completely wrong like I was!!). I sportscast replay the scene and her experience  with her, and my goal is to get her to say “yes, that's it exactly, mom!” to every sentence I say. That's it! That's empathy. She feels completely seen and understood and therefore like her emotions are normal and accepted and I have no judgement about them or her expression. I can feel her little body get more and more relaxed with each empathetic sentence. My mom gets it. She gets me. I am understood and seen and loved. I am ok. 

And finally, we chat about what we could try next time instead when something similar happens. At this point, she is usually eager and willing to engage in this and has lots of ideas and is open to mine. We make a plan. (But it’s ok if the plan doesn't work next time, since meltdowns are no big deal!)

When she is ready, I give her one last snuggle. I usually now let her use the paci for a few minutes as we snuggle. We both feel the big crushing wave of emotion was fully and completely resolved, catharsis and release was achieved, adaptation and problem solving during a calmed brain state happened, and our connection is rebuilt and rock solid. We leave the room; she is happy as a clam and I feel amazing because I just experienced, again, the amazing transformation that happens with even the strongest most intense emotions, if you just leave them be! If you are a kind and accepting witness to them instead of feeling like you have to control or guide or redirect the expression of it. You can let your wise child do this hard work, and let the meltdown do the work it is naturally meant to do. You help her by simply being a steady rock and guide her back to fully, FULLY feeling the emotion all the way through, so she can finally truly, deeply move on when she experiences healing acceptance from a trusted loving person. It is really profound to witness and participate as this happens.

During calm or silly moments, completely unconnected to her meltdowns, I might show her and practice some ways to get emotion out. We might be playing in the living room and I might pull a cushion over and say “hey, did you know you can scream into a pillow if you ever get angry? Like this!!” And I'll show her and make it kinda fun and silly. Then we take turns and maybe I'll show her how to punch a pillow. Maybe I'll make a grumpy face and say “wow, when I'm grumpy it feels so good to kick and stomp on this pillow–like this!!” And then I show her and then let my face become happy and relaxed again. But I cannot, ever (!) attempt to show or redirect her to do these things when her emotions are actually activated in real life. Once these emotions are activated, she cannot process your words and your good-intentioned efforts to redirect are just experienced as “my parent is uncomfortable/unhappy with what I'm doing and wants to change me”. So it only works to show these anger methods in silly, low tension moments, and cross your fingers that she will pick up on it a tiny bit over time. But also, you can trust that your child is actually somatically wiser than you are; you have had decades of being socialized out of your body’s natural ways of releasing emotions, but your child still has the instincts to follow their unique effective release mechanisms. 

I want to warn you, we had a period of about 2-3 weeks of INCREASED meltdowns when I started doing this. But I felt the correctness of this process so strongly in my body, I didn't waver. Instead, it felt like now that I had finally gotten my shit together and figured out how to allow frustrated feelings, all her accumulated feelings and gunk that for YEARS I had squashed and minimized because of my own discomfort were now flooding out of her in a rush, now that it was safe. And then boom, 3 weeks after my first competent handling of a meltdown, it suddenly stopped. Completely. No more meltdowns. Instead we had small spurts of minor frustration, or minor upticks during periods of brain development, where now the meltdowns feel properly contained to the present moment.

And with those small, contained spurts, she often could almost do the steps herself. A few times she brought herself to the bedroom for a few minutes, I heard her stomp her feet a bit, and then she walked back to whatever was frustrating her and she changed tactics. With only a few months of “practice” with me, she had developed the basic brain blueprint for navigating from frustration to adaptation and calm, and for simple scenarios, she could follow it herself.

All I had to do was get out of her way.

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