If you’re a parent, you know that meltdowns are the absolute worst. You can almost sense something in the air right before they happen. You pushed too hard, stayed out too late, asked your kid to do one thing too many, and suddenly, your kid is losing their mind. They’re screaming, crying, dropping to the ground, running away. You’re in too deep and there’s no way out until they say so. 

If you want to prevent these meltdowns from happening in the first place, you need to ask yourself what your child is trying to communicate to you by losing their shit.

• Is the room too loud or too bright, causing sensory overload?
• Did something change in the environment that is throwing them off?
• Do they have physical needs, like hunger, tiredness, illness?
• Are too many demands being placed on them?
• Does your child have difficulty communicating?
• Are they receiving too much attention and they want to be left alone? Are they not receiving enough attention and want to connect with you?

What they are communicating is going to change based on the scenario. Your job is to figure out what typically triggers meltdowns for your child. Once you’ve figured out your common triggers, you’re going to want to do two things:

1. Avoid the triggers.
2. Learn to identify the little signals that your child sends you just before they meltdown. It’s that little thing you sense in the air right before the meltdown. Maybe it’s a look in your child’s eyes, maybe their body gets a little bit tense, maybe they say “no,” and when you push, blow up. Learn to spot and respond to these little signals so that you’re able to avoid the meltdown.

Now that you’re able to avoid the triggers, it’s time to start using some strategies to teach your child what to do when these triggers actually occur. As nice as it would be to avoid triggers forever, that is not a realistic plan.

Strategies to Prevent Meltdowns:

Embrace consistency and structured routines.

When your child knows what comes next, they are going to be much less stressed out and anxious. Fewer surprises means that their day is predictable. When their day is predictable, the expectations for their behavior are clear; they know what to do to make sure good things happen in their day. A routine also helps you, as the parent, to prepare any necessary preventative measures to avoid triggers or guide your child through the steps of the task successfully.

Fall in love with predictability and visual supports.

You may not love having pictures and instructions posted all over your house, but you’re going to have to get over it if you want your kid to be successful and independent. 

• Visual timers can help your child know when a favorite activity is going to end, or when it’s time to share a toy with a sibling.
• Picture schedules can help your child know what is happening in their day, especially when you need to transition to different locations or activities.
• Step-by-step instructions with pictures can help your kid become more independent with routine tasks at home, such as washing their hands, which means less reminding from you.

Learn to model desired behaviors for your child.

Use naturally occurring opportunities to demonstrate better, more socially appropriate responses or the desired behavior for your child. This is especially useful when you can recognize the signals your child sends prior to a meltdown, because you are able to model an appropriate response before everything blows up in your face.

Get comfortable with giving your kid a choice.

Autonomy empowers kids to make simple decisions. Offering your child a choice will reduce power struggles, and may reduce frustration. Rather than demanding your child play with the play doh color you choose, hold up two different colors and allow them to point to or tell you the color that they want. You can also create a choice board that includes visuals of your chid’s favorite items or activities for them to choose from during free time.

Not all communication has to look the same.

Give your child an alternative mode of communicating with you. By teaching them an alternative method to express their needs, you meet them where they are at, which will improve  their behavior, their ability to communicate, and therefore, their confidence. For example, maybe you place an “all done” picture on the table, and you teach your kid to point to the picture when they are all done eating. Wouldn’t you rather your kid point to a picture rather than throw their food on the floor? Me too.

Behavior goes where reinforcement flows.

Make sure you reinforce desired responses. Provide praise, high fives, or whatever motivates your child when they do the thing that you want to see more of (for example, pointing to the “all done” picture rather than tossing their dinner). Reinforcement encourages repetition, and you want your kid to repeat that pointing behavior.

Meltdowns are going to happen. Everyone has an off day, and no one is perfect when it comes to managing challenging behavior. Remember to give yourself some grace. If you’d like to learn more about how you can prevent challenging behavior, download the free Prevention Strategies Cheat Sheet. 

If after all this reading, you still feel like you would benefit from additional support, sign up for parent coaching from The Behavior Place. Behavior can be tricky, but that’s what makes it fun.