Webinar: Managing Meltdowns

Managing Meltdowns

Length: ~30 minutes
Presenters (for this session):
Dr. Ashley Morris – Executive Director of Montessori Schools
Shelley King – Senior Director of Classroom Experience

Welcome & Introduction

Opening Remarks

For the second parenting webinar this fall. With more than 30 years in business, Cadence Education has established itself as one of the premier early childhood educators in the United States. We’re proudly serving over 30,000 families nationwide, operating over 300 private preschools and elementary schools. At Cadence Education, we deeply value the partnership between school and home and are committed to providing meaningful communication to support your child’s development. We’re excited to offer parent webinars to help you navigate common parenting challenges with supporting your child’s growth and development. Thank you for spending time with us today as we discuss a topic many parents face, managing meltdowns. Big emotions sometimes leading to tantrums or meltdowns are extremely common and are indicative of the cognitive and emotional developmental phase your child’s in and they can be effectively supported with the right tools and strategies. So, let’s get started.

What We Will Cover

Over the next half hour, we’ll focus on understanding the developmental stages of children’s emotional development and how to support your child with many resources and strategies. We’re also excited to address questions from several families who submitted them ahead of time. We got a lot of great questions and these will be covered during the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. Additionally, we’ll do our best to answer questions submitted during the session through the Q&A in the webinar. Our Q&A is being actively monitored by a member of the Cadence Education team. So feel free to share your questions as we go along. Lastly, we want to let you know that all the resources we discuss today along with a recording of the webinar will be shared with you in a follow-up email. So there’s no need to worry about taking detailed notes. We’ve got you covered.

Speaker Introductions

Meet Dr. Ashley Morris and Shelley King

Before we dive into today’s content, let’s take a moment to introduce ourselves. I’m Dr. Ashley Morris, executive director of Monasury Schools and I bring 22 years of experience in early childhood and teaching teacher leadership and joining me today is Shelley King.

Hi everybody and thank you Ashley. As she mentioned, I’m Shelley King. I’m the senior director of classroom experience. I have over 35 years of um experience in early childhood with teaching training as well as leadership support. And I’m happy to be with you here today. Thank you for joining us.

Thanks, Shel. We’re honored to be a part of the cadence education organization and our goal is to support your children’s teachers, school directors, and families as we work together to create enriching educational experiences. Thank you for allowing us to connect with you today.

Why Emotional Regulation Must Be Taught

So, let’s start it off with a quote. Every child’s greatest innate resource is his or her ability to emotionally regulate. But this is a skill that is learned like math or reading. Our hope today is that we paint the picture that often times emotional dysregulation can be supported developmentally and you will walk away with tactics and skills that help your child. We want to support each child’s child’s mental health as they develop in these early years. Today we’re going to cover four sections. We’re going to explain emotional development for birth of five. We’re going to look at child development and specifically the brain and nervous system. And then we’re going to look at strategies to support your child’s emotional development and regulation. And then finally, we’re going to go over some resources.

Emotional Development in the Early Years

Infants and the Foundations of Emotional Development

Let’s begin by discussing emotional development for birth to 5 years of age. We’re going to spend some time in the first year with your infants. And this lays the foundation for emotional development. Infants are born with many cues, often as reflexes. They wake, startle, cry, sleep, splay their hands like this, arch their back, shift their eyes all through their reflexes and sleep awake states. Sometimes those cues can be a little hard to read, but they are the start of their sensory systems becoming integrated.

Through their interaction with the world around them, they’re experiencing sensory cues through their brain and nervous system. They may be expressing internal needs such as temperature, sleep, hunger, noise, movement, etc. If you take a look at this triangle of growth from birth to six, children are growing from their ability to regulate their senses, then emotions, then language expression. For example, a young infant will cry to express discomfort. A toddler who doesn’t have the language yet may show you their discomfort by tugging on a shirt or pointing. And then finally, they may be able to say, “I am cold and I would like my jacket.”

How Emotions Evolve and Become More Complex

Based on the work of Eric Ericson and Stanley Greenspan, there are also several basic emotions that are recognizable cross-culturally and appear to be hardwired in the brain. Happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, and disgust. Then around age 2 to 3, shame and guilt emerge as they experience the world around them. And there are also self-conscious emotions as the sense of self develops. Embarrassment, empathy, and jealousy.

If we briefly take a look at Greenspan’s six milestones, you will see from birth to 12 months as a trajectory from self-regulation and interest blooming into love and connection, communication, then an understanding of self all comes before an emergence of understanding their emotions. Similarly, Eric Erickson’s psychosocial model shows eight stages in the whole human lifespan. And if we zoom in on birth to five, you will see the child’s attachment and empathy to those around them develops trust. Then 18 months to 3 years, they move into independence and will. We all have our strong willed children, which is the emergence of shame, doubt, and guilt. Guilt continues into age 3 to 5. We mention this here as a way to show that the child is learning to identify simple to more complex emotions in just the first few years of life along with all of their other physical development that’s going on.

Understanding the Emotional Meltdown Cycle

The Five Phases of Emotional Processing

Now that we have an understanding of the foundations of emotional development, let’s consider the five phases of emotional processing. This is true for any age, not just toddlers. But remember this is the first time toddlers are often one experiencing the emotion at all and two experiencing this cycle and it can feel intense and overwhelming for them.

Let’s go over the process in the cycle. Number one, allow one’s emotions to exist. Two, recognize the perceived emotions. This will become easier as one’s association of the feeling and the emotion merge. Three, feel secure in experiencing a range of emotions over time. Four, seek support through coping strategies. And then five, moving on from the emotion by solving the problem or letting go.

Why Tantrums Peak in Toddlerhood

Let’s look at some application and real examples of these theories. Over the first year of life, children are developing their attachment to their parents, family, and caregivers, helping them feel a sense of safety. As they grow into toddlerhood, they begin to want to explore and be independent. As we mentioned with Erickson’s stages, these are contradictory impulses. As a child develops independence and increases their physical and cognitive skills, this growth brings curiosity and a push–pull between safety and exploration.

This duality of the child considering staying safe and close to their caregiver versus being curious and exploring can account for inconsistent reactions by your toddler. They will move between these states sometimes multiple times in the same situation. As your infant moves past their first birthday, toddlers want everything all at once. Toddlers lack prioritization skills and as they are beginning to experience these intense emotions, they’re having just budding cognitive and language skills as well. So, this sometimes leads to them struggling to process these emotions constructively.

Meltdowns and Tantrums as a Developmental Phase

Sometimes at this age, you may also witness your child having a meltdown or tantrum. Tantrums are intense emotional responses to stimuli and they’re often disproportionate to the situation from our perspective as adults. They can involve crying, screaming, hitting, throwing objects, or even breath holding. Tantrums are short-lived, lasting for about 30 seconds to a minute. And these behaviors are extremely common between ages 1 to 4, and they tend to lessen over time. As you spend time around your child, sometimes their emotional development, emotional dysregulation, and tantrums require a lot of support and involvement from you. Often times there isn’t even a specific logical problem to fix, like when a toddler gets upset about wanting the dog to come to the table for dinner. And maybe you don’t even own a dog. My 2-year-old regularly asks for milk and then when I give it to him, he is highly offended that I offered him the milk that he requested.

Brain Development & Emotional Regulation

How the Brain Responds During Emotional Overload

So, let’s put a pin here and explore how the child’s brain develops and why this plays a crucial role in emotional regulation. Let’s take a deeper dive into my favorite topic, the brain. Here’s a side view of the brain. We’re going to explore the amygdala, emotion center, and the prefrontal cortex, rational thinking, as they play key roles in how children react to situations.

If you think of your fist as a model of the brain, the downstairs brain or the bottom half is protection mode and the upstairs brain or top half is connection mode. The amygdala which is on the inside in the limbic system is the alarm system or the gatekeeper.

If we take your brain and divide it in half by its two hemispheres and you look at the center of it, take a look at the left picture. This little bean-shaped part is called the amygdala that we just mentioned. And the amygdala processes emotions and it’s often overwhelming children when they encounter new experiences. As we have learned, their ability to regulate emotions is still developing.

The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex

So now let’s shift to the right side. This is your prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is your higher level thinking. And did you know that this part of the brain is actually developing all the way to age 24? So over time, children will learn to connect emotions with logical reasoning, building pathways between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

If somebody says something to you that upsets you, your body wants to react. If you are really upset, you may react and push or even hit the person. And this is called an amygdala hijack. You have no access to language or problem solving.

Of course, as adults, we have more emotional regulation and we can quote unquote cross the bridge to our higher level thinking part of our brain before reacting. Crossing into the prefrontal cortex allows access to that higher level thinking and problem solving to help reframe the emotions.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

Intense emotions or experiences can also trigger the brain survival responses or fight, flight or freeze. And children lack the ability to self-regulate and they require guidance to help navigate these emotions. And this is also known as the amygdala hijack that we just mentioned.

So if we look at the hand model again, your child is stuck here and the prefrontal cortex or higher level thinking can’t be accessed here. And this is important to remember when we get to the next section.

Behavior as Communication

Now let’s look at some application and strategies for effective approaches for supporting emotional development and regulation. Let’s continue with a quote. All behavior is communication. We discussed earlier how an infant relies on their infant cues like crying, splaying their hands, arching their back, shifting their eyes to communicate to you.

Let’s consider an infant’s need such as hunger. They may start to root like where they turn their head and move their mouth and eventually cry. And as a parent or caregiver, you meet the child’s need by breast or bottle feeding. And this soothes the infant and now the baby senses safety and security. This helps the baby’s brain connect and start to make neural pathways between the survival part of the brain and the connection thinking part of the brain.

How Toddlers Communicate Without Language

Even the youngest baby is benefiting in their emotional development by responding to cues and meeting their need for attachment and safety. This is the foundation of emotional development and attachment.

Now let’s jump to toddlers. Remember the triangle of growth we mentioned earlier. Often toddlers are lacking in the language department and they can’t express themselves in this way. They’re still dependent on their senses and emotions. Toddlers are also exploring now and they’re encountering new experiences and many new emotions.

For example, did you know the feeling of embarrassment develops around 18 months of age? And as they develop their sense of self and they can recognize themselves in the mirror, there are going to be more emotions that come along.

Strategies to Support Emotional Regulation

Narrating Emotional Experience

Some ways to help is to provide language and narrate their experience. It seems hard to open that box. Is it hard? Are you getting frustrated? This also can work with positive emotions like are you happy?

Another strategy is to be aware of what is happening in their senses. For example, if it’s very loud, bright, overwhelming, this can be a lot for your child to take in, and helping them calm down before expecting them to make those logical decisions is important.

Keep in mind the bridge that is forming between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. It’s helpful to manage our expectations as adults and slow down the process for the child. They’re not going to be able to process their emotions that quickly nor be able to jump to a logical conclusion either. Remember the emotional processing phases. Remaining calm and narrating their experience can be very grounding.

Regulate First, Teach Second

One way to do this is to shift some of our own mindsets as adults around a child’s emotional meltdown. The overall goal is for the child develop self-control and collaboration skills to navigate different scenarios and environments. However, sometimes our initial perspective can be on the behavior and addressing the behavior like the falling out or the screaming or the rolling on the floor. And in the moment, we actually want to help the child regulate first and then address the behavior later.

Connecting with your child doesn’t mean you’re condoning the behavior. We’re supporting new skills here. And connection is where we want your focus to be on your presence and your connection with your child. It will be the most helpful thing to move them through whatever kind of intense experience that they’re going through.

Can’t vs. Won’t

And continuing along the same line, I’d like you to think about your perception of the behavior. Daniel Seagull distinguishes behavior through the lens of can’t versus won’t. If we hold the perspective of won’t, then this will alter how we react because we’re expecting the child to make better choices. If we hold the perspective of can’t, we see it as a skill set that they do not have yet.

For example, your toddler’s not trying to make your life hard by making you late for work or embarrassed at the grocery store. We want to model language and have boundaries and limits. For example, you can help me shop in the grocery store, but we aren’t buying anything extra today.

Name Feelings Without Judgement

When the child moves into a meltdown, acknowledge their feelings and add language around the situation. You seem sad, angry, disappointed. I know it is hard when there are so many fun things to see here. In summary, we want to help children regulate first and then address behaviors. View misbehavior as a lack of skill rather than defiance and model appropriate language and set clear boundaries.

Mirror Neurons

Daniel Seagull says in his book No Drama Discipline that a meltdown happens because the chaos and lack of control is showing that the child’s blocked integration and the child is unable to move from the emotion center of the brain to the problem solving part. And this creates a dysregulated child who is now in flight, fight or freeze mode. We talked about a minute ago.

The behavior we see from the outside may look like crawling under a table, crying, screaming, kicking, etc. And I want to mention mirror neurons here. An emotional contagion. A child’s intense emotions or tantrum can trigger very similar stress responses in us as parents.

It’s very easy for the parent to become dysregulated too and upset. If a parent, however, can regulate themselves by taking a few deep breaths and modeling and maintaining a calm presence, this can help regulate their toddler’s emotions.

HALT Triggers

One great acronym that I think is nice when you see your toddler’s emotional dysregulation coming is considering if the child is hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. HALT. H-A-L-T. Those four things are very easy triggers into a meltdown.

Sometimes when children are hungry or tired, for example, they do not have the awareness to always be able to ask for what they need. Normal everyday actions can all of a sudden become overwhelming and trigger big emotions which can lead to intense behaviors.

Again, we’re not dismissing the behavior, but in the moment, it can help you be able to calm yourself down and center yourself. If you’re able to see the root of the behavior, if you see patterns at certain times of the day or throughout the week, this can help inform your routine and your environment to head off some of the behavior before it gets to that point.

Sensitive Periods

For example, does a heavier meal for dinner need to be offered earlier in the day in an evening snack later when the child’s appetite is stronger at 5:00 p.m., for example. Children have heightened sensitivity to movement, order, language, and independence. Recognizing and supporting these sensitive periods can also help reduce tantrums.

For example, young children do not stop moving because they’re in a sensitive period for movement. They are also in a sensitive period of order. Children like order in their environment and their routines. Routines and awareness of transitions are going to be your friend when providing order and what to expect.

There’s a sensitive period for language when they speak. This is called expressive language. But children at a very young age can actually understand what you’re saying, which is called receptive language. They may not be able to say it back to you or communicate it back to you, but they can understand a lot of what you’re saying.

You want to use that to your advantage and you can model and provide language for them. When you see the child starting to get upset, you can start naming what you see as an observer. I see you stomping your feet. I see you using a louder voice. You seem sad. You’re providing language for them, not in a judging or disciplined way, but just naming feelings and the situation to help the child not feel alone, feel seen, and deescalate.

Sign language can also be very powerful.

Independence and Emotional Expression

The last sensitive period is independence. How can we support this? They are in a brand new stage of exploration and they really want to do everything that you do like sweeping, putting on their own clothes.

So, here are some strategies to utilize when your toddler is experiencing intense emotions and in the middle of a meltdown.

Connection and Redirection

Number one, connection and redirection. We want to recognize the amygdala hijack when the emotion is taking over. Try to stay calm and avoid power struggles. Use simple validating language and this will allow you to connect first then redirect. Using a distraction can work well with a very young child and then address the behavior once a child is calm.

For example:
“I see you’re sad because it is not your turn with the Legos. I know that is hard to have to wait for something we want. Let’s go over here and we can play with these blocks instead.”

This is a form of redirection.

If the child is doing a behavior that you need to stop, like grabbing the Legos from the other child, you can say:
“I see you are sad because it is not your turn with the Legos. Right now, Johnny is playing with them. I cannot let you grab them from a friend. Let’s choose another block.”

And this helps model and support regulation as well. You’re setting the boundary and expectation around behavior and also helping the child transition.

Grounding Yourself as the Adult

As I mentioned previously, this behavior can be very triggering to you as an adult, especially when you’re out in public, like in a grocery store. So, some questions in the moment that might help ground you are:
Why did she do that?
What do I want to teach her right now?
How can I best teach the lesson?

REDIRECT Framework

Using Daniel Seagull’s No Drama Discipline approach, he uses the acronym REDIRECT, which I find very helpful:

• R – Reduce words. Remember to use very simple language.
• E – Embrace emotions. It’s completely developmentally appropriate for children to have a hard time with big emotions. This is not a reflection of your parenting or the adult the child is to become.
• D – Describe, don’t preach. We want to try to be as objective as possible.
• I – Involve your child in discussion. Using language to connect with your child gives them agency.
• R – Reframe no into a yes. This means try to give them something they can do, a positive alternative.
• C – Creatively approach a situation.
• T – Teach mindsight tools, meaning put language around the emotion and model problem-solving skills.

Resources to Support Emotional Development

Suggested Books for Emotional Development

Let’s shift to resources in case you want some homework to be able to read further. Here are some books that will be included in that follow-up email:

• No Drama Discipline
• The Whole Brain Child
• Tiny Humans Big Emotions
• Positive Discipline series
• The Emotional Life of the Toddler

Summary of Key Takeaways

So, in summary, we’re supporting children’s sensitive periods, creating routines, and modeling emotional regulation. And all of these things can help emotional awareness and regulation and decrease tantrum frequency, which is what we’re going for. We encourage collaboration between parents and educators at your school to create supportive environments for children.

If you’ve been listening to what we’ve been suggesting and you just feel like you’ve tried these strategies and they’re not working for you or your child, please reach out to your school director or your child’s teacher in order to create a special plan that meets your child’s needs.

Q&A Session

“Is there a difference in how we should react to a tantrum or meltdown that happens at home versus in public?”

Yeah, thank you, Ashley. We had so many good questions that came in before our discussion today, and many of your questions may have been answered with some of the great content Ashley shared, but we’ve selected a few that we’d like to try to answer. Now, for any questions that we don’t answer, Ashley will share with you a link to our follow-up survey, and we’ll be sending out some resources afterwards that will include additional Q&A.

This first one, Ashley, is related to the difference we should react or how should we react differently in a tantrum or a meltdown that happens at home where we have a little more space and time and or in public and what are your recommends in terms of how each of those may differ a little bit?

Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, it is similar advice in how you interact with a child as far as acknowledging them, narrating what’s going on. But in public, that’s going to take a lot more self-awareness from you as the adult. Because in public, as an adult, we’re typically going to be prone to like some more intrusive thoughts and emotions ourselves. We’re going to be much more aware of possible like embarrassment or people looking at you or judging you.

And so in public, you’re probably going to have to have a more shortened and more logical interaction until you can get out of the public. And then once the child is in the car, for example, then they can react more and you have a little bit more leeway.

Obviously, at home, you have way more flexibility for them to be able to lay on the ground and roll around and have more time to kind of work through things. You wouldn’t want that to happen in a public restroom, for example, right? That’s very gross, like get up without rolling around on the floor.

But all to say, you’re still going to use the same methods. Acknowledge their feelings, add language, and narrate their feelings, and try to keep yourself calm. But you may want to use some smaller strategies to say, do you need a hug until we can get to the car where you can stomp your feet? Something to kind of give them a little bit of vision that they’ll be able to have more of a reaction once you get to the car, for example. It’s a little bit more work for the adult.

Yeah. Thank you, Ashley. And I would add that while you mentioned that sometimes we just feel a little bit nervous that others are judging, most people are coming from a place that they’ve experienced it or been through it. So give yourself a little bit of credit and know that they’re likely not judging.

“How do we manage our emotions during a child’s meltdown?”

The second question is another great one because it talks about how while our child is having those big emotions and maybe a meltdown, how do we manage ours? What are some of the additional ideas you have to help parents regulate and stay calm as it escalates?

Yeah, so remaining calm yourself really is half the battle and I realize that’s easier said than done. If you remember the mirror neurons, that can be helpful in the moment to remember that their dysregulation is going to automatically cause you to be dysregulated. That’s a biological thing that’s going to happen.

And then pay attention to your own self-talk. So, for example, just because your child is throwing themselves in the middle of the grocery store, you can tell yourselves that doesn’t mean I’m a bad parent. I can feel embarrassed because of this behavior. It doesn’t have to relate to my competence as a parent.

I think sometimes we connect their behavior to our sense of awareness and competence in parenting. And really bottom line is toddlers just don’t know how to process their emotions and so that is a normal reaction. But obviously it is a very emotional process for the adult too paralleling along with them.

Thank you Ashley. And I think sometimes our reaction can be normal too to be a little bit shocked or concerned in the moment. So a little bit of breathing and to your point take care of the self and just acknowledge it.

“What do we do when meltdowns become physical or a child seems to be hurting themselves?”

This other next question is a great one, too. It is related to how to help your child work through those big emotions and especially when they’re physical because sometimes they appear to be trying to hurt themselves or what they’re doing could hurt them. So, what kind of recommends do you have for that?

Yeah. So, this can obviously be very distressing for the parent seeing your child hit their head against something or be pinching themselves or punching themselves or something that’s physical.

So I think if you want to try to look a little bit beyond that and look at it more as that the child’s looking for some type of stimulation and movement to move through their own emotions and they’re moving that inward to themselves and trying to regulate themselves.

If they’re doing something that’s distressing and you’re concerned about it, try to figure out how you can give them an alternative. So maybe offer a pillow that they can hit their head into the pillow rather than the wall or whatever they’re doing or punch or pinch a pillow or stuffed animal rather than themselves.

But that is the suggestion honestly in the moment. A child might say, “No, I don’t want that.” and you’re just going to have to kind of be there present with them, continue the narration and try to get them to calm down and regulate so that then that behavior will stop.

Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate that.

Final Notes

That looks like all we have time for today. We had one other question that was related to transition and tantrums that happened during that. I know that that was a question others asked, so we’ll make sure that all of your questions as well as that one make it into our follow-up resources.

We would love your feedback. That helps us as we’re building out more webinars throughout this year that we can give you information that you want and need. So, we do have a QR code here on the screen and Shelley’s also going to put a link in the chat. So either way, it’ll get you to it. If you can just take 2 minutes to fill that out, we would love your feedback on what you like or don’t like or what you want more of.

A follow-up email, as Shelley mentioned, is going to come with today’s recording and all of the resources that I mentioned. And please mark your calendars. Our next session is on biting and hitting and it is on Thursday, December 18th. So we would love to have you back next month and thank you so much for attending. It was lovely to see everyone.

Thank you everybody.