How to deal with ds's melt downs

[bright_eyes]

We went on a short hike with some friends today and ds (3 1/2) for the first 20 minutes was having melt down after melt down. His friend kept running and ds would start crying because he couldn't keep up and then would be screaming at his friend to come back and to stop running. And when the friend would come back, he would be upset because his friend was walking too close, ect. He wouldn't stop whining over everything and was just unpleasant to be around. By the time we got to where we were hiking to, he had cheered up and for the rest of the time he was in a great mood and pleasant to be around.

My question is what do I do/how do I respond when he is being so moody? I kept saying, "Do we need to go home" and "if you can't stop crying/whining/being grumpy we are going to have to go home". But I know that if I were to turn around and take him home, it would have caused a huge, huge issue and he would have been heart broken. But staying and having him being so miserable, even if it is short lived is hard and really unpleasant for everyone involved!

The same thing has happened the last 2 Sundays when trying to get him ready for church. He has been so miserable and grumpy and crying over every little thing that both times I said "I'm sorry, I just can't take you to church when you are like this. You are way too tired to go today". The first time it happened I was insisting that we were staying home but he bawled and bawled and eventually came around and cheered up enough to get ready to go. I didn't want to change my mind and go to church and make him think that it was okay to throw such a tantrum as he did when I said we weren't going but it also felt unfair to make him stay home when he so desperately wanted to go. In the end, we went and he was pleasant and well behaved and nothing like he was at home.

Any suggestions of how I can deal with him when he is having such huge melt downs?

[Adasmommy]

I'd try not to make threats I wasn't willing to keep! Doing what you say you are going to do is the kind of consistency and predictability that helps prevent these crazy meltdowns (even if, at the time, it is a huge upset).

This may be obvious, but I would first make sure he is fed and rested well.

After that, I do make the choice to skip the activity if necessary, and I stick to it, but don't act mad or go about it in a punitive way (we're talking on one of my good days--lol!). Just a fact that with this much screaming, we're not going...but I will read you a book on the couch while you eat your lunch.

IMO, being calm and decisive is a lot more reassuring and soothing to the wild out-of-control kid than threats or deals, which just seem to keep it going longer.

I totally have these moments with my five year old. You are SO not alone!

[Aka mommy]

My 4 year old was like this, and what we've found to work the best was getting down to her level and completely stopping everything. It was a hard route for me to take as gentle discipline doesn't come naturally to me and i felt she was getting her way.

But what we've been doing is get down to her level, either sit her in our laps facing us or face away and hugging her, discuss her outbursts. We use adult words: frustration, anger, sadness, ect to let her know what we are seeing her actions portray. Now 6 months later, half the time she is able to calm down and tell us what she feels using those descriptive words. The other half we simply have to 'breath' it out. We repeat "In through your nose, out through your mouth". Then we ask if her brain and heart feels better? Once she responds that it does, we try to talk through it.

She is getting really good at identifying that she is frustrated that so and so is treating her such a way, or that daddy is rushing her when she wants to do it herself. We see that her blooming independence tends to frustrate her because she see's how fast we or her big sis can do things and she desperately wants to keep up. So we've also worked at slowing down the pace.

At the end of the day i feel it's more important to teach her the tools to express herself than expect a perfectly behaved child in every setting. The growth we've seen in her and the realization that communication is a tool really empowers her!