Meltdowns, Tantrums and Big Feelings: What’s Really Going On?

Now you might be wondering, how did I know that something else was going on? Probably some instinct, something or a wondering of a different way of doing things.

The, in inverted commas, old me would probably have responded in a frustrated, annoyed way.

I probably even had the thoughts going through my head.

Could he just deal with it? It's just a banana.

Does it even matter? If I had added to his frustration and responding in a way that shut down his feelings or told him to stop crying, then I would have...

really made things worse now you might be thinking that i make it sound really easy i will tell you this i have certainly not always gotten it right and i still don't even after 13 and a half years of parenting there are times where we for whatever reason are not able to tune into what's going on for our child sometimes there isn't the luxury of time to do that because of the busyness of day-to-day parenting the demands of other siblings our own needs getting in the way.

And even in those moments where we rush through and we don't tune into their feelings, that's okay.

Our children don't need us to tune into their feelings 100% of the time.

That wouldn't be particularly healthy for them to always have someone attuned to them 100% of the time.

And that's not how real life relationships work.

But there's a difference between not being tuned in 100% of the time and not being tuned in at all.

And when I haven't gotten it right, usually the escalation of the behavior or the meltdown that continues or the upset that happens is a pretty good signal to me that I'm not quite on the right track with what's going on.

And that's okay.

I always bring myself back to, I wonder.

I wonder what's going on in this moment.

I wonder what's going on for me that I'm so triggered.

I wonder what's going on for my child that's causing them to be so upset.

When we're checking in with our children about how they might be feeling it's really important that we don't put words into their mouths or assume that we know how they're feeling.

With our older children they will tell us if we get it wrong.

I'm sure some of you can think about a moment where you've said to your child you're mad or you're sad and they yell back at you I'm not mad or I'm not sad.

And that's usually because there's something else and we haven't quite landed on what the feeling is or they're feeling super vulnerable and defensive against those big feelings.

However they respond, if we can stay in a space of curiosity and wondering about what might be going on, then that will lead to us being able to figure out what's really going on.

We mightn't be able to solve it immediately in that moment, but giving ourselves time to reflect and wonder afterwards can be really helpful.

So when your child is out of sorts, melting down, behaving in ways that aren't usual for them, it is always a sign that something isn't right in their world.

And the challenge for us as parents is to work out what's really going on, what's driving these loud, messy, out of control behaviors.