Understanding meltdowns and what we can do to help | Lisa Galley

Let's crack on with this topic of the week because I think it's one that a lot of people are going to find very interesting.

What's the topic of the week?

So this week's topic of the week is one of those rare ones that I think are going to be relevant to every single neuro shambler out there without exception.

Because although neurodiversity can present in many different forms, one of the few experiences that all of our kids share to a greater or lesser degree are meltdowns.

So when we say the word meltdown, I think a lot of people think of the classic presentation of that, which is a child who is so overwhelmed that they have an explosive reaction.

So it's anger and shouting, throwing things, sometimes verbal and physical aggression.

largely the kind of behaviour that causes strangers to nudge each other and roll their eyes in your local Aldi, that kind of thing.

But I think the definition of a meltdown is broader than that because it depends how your child reacts when they're no longer able to regulate their nervous system.

So that can also include tears, running out of the room, hiding under the table, shutdowns.

So there's lots of other different presentations that I think is worth shining a light on.

So in this episode, I wanted to unpick the different presentations of meltdowns as well as looking at some of the things that can trigger them, what we can do to help our kids when they're in meltdown and some of the ways we can potentially reduce them before they happen, hopefully.

So we've got a lot on our plate for this episode, Lisa.

No pressure.

We

have no pressure.

So I think it's worth looking at what a meltdown is.

Firstly, what happens in our kids' brains and bodies when they experience it?

Yeah I mean you've described meltdown really well but it is literally our kids nervous system is it's just been pushed beyond its limits so it's in survival mode and so if we think about the nervous system having kind of different states that we all go through throughout the day and kind of the window of tolerance is that state where we're regulated it means we can cope with challenges as well it doesn't just mean we're calm it means we can cope with life and when our kids kind of fall out of that window of tolerance whether it's as you described into shutdown or whether it's into you know overload meltdown that's when they're they're in that dysregulated state and that's when they're not using that thinking part of their brain that reasoning part of their brain they are literally in survival mode the nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do which is to keep our kids safe you know to protect them from from threats and that's when they're in a meltdown that threat can be lots of different things um around them it can even be you you know often it is you you are the threat that they want to get away from

yeah it's interesting to talk about that window of tolerance because i think yeah everyone has a window of tolerance um and that is dependent on lots of different things typically for me the amount of sleep i get I'm afforded by my kids.

So yeah, everyone has a window of tolerance.

I think it's fair to say that with neurodivergent brains, that window of tolerance can be reduced by a number of things that we're probably not aware of very often.

very narrow our kids have a very narrow window of tolerance and they're often living right on the edge of it like most of their time is spent very close to the edge of that window of tolerance so it's so easy for them to tip out of it and that a lot of that is to do with capacity which and we'll talk about probably a little bit later on when we're thinking about preventing

And I think the window of tolerance, it's maybe helpful to think of it as it's just that they are subject to so many different variables that cause dysregulation that even things that we wouldn't necessarily see as an issue as neurotypicals or... adults as well because I think you learn tolerance a little bit more as you get older but they're subject to variables like you know lighting changes or just background noise maybe the neighbor's got the stream on something like that reduces that window of tolerance

I've explained to parents it's a bit like an oversensitive fire alarm smoke alarm okay yeah yeah you know it's going off all the time but it doesn't know whether it's a house fire or whether you've burnt some toast

yes so it's