4 days ago
Co-Regulation During a Meltdown
Whether you call it a tantrum, meltdown or big feeling cycle, I think we can agree that these moments are overwhelming and stressful (for you and your kid). On today’s episode, we’re talking about what to do during a meltdown and the steps to co-regulation, which allows you to calm yourself and your kid at the same time.
If you're like most parents, you've had moments when your kid hits their sibling, they won't do their homework, they constantly ask for more screentime and won’t get off their device. Or you say “no” and it triggers a meltdown.
These moments can feel totally overwhelming. You might feel angry, resentful or like you are out of control and powerless in the situation. Your thoughts and feelings about your kid’s reaction can set off your stress response.
You have no idea what to do, so you yell and threaten. Then, you feel guilty and second-guess yourself as a parent.
There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re a great parent. Let's get you out of that spiral and back on the road to parenting with peace using the power of co-regulation.
Regulating Your Stress Response
When your stress response is triggered by a meltdown, you might feel like you have to do something about it right now. Fix it, change it, stop it, solve it. Your brain interprets your child’s behavior as an emergency and floods your system with a mix of hormones I like to call “stress juice”.
Your reaction might show up as yelling, threatening, talking too much, emotionally checking out or disconnecting. These reactions are all totally normal. They’re signals that you are becoming emotionally dysregulated.
Dysregulation, simply put, is a temporary emotional and physical state in which you’re struggling to understand and express your emotion in an appropriate way. We’ve all been there!
And it happens the same way for our kids.
The big challenge comes in when your kid’s dysregulation or big feeling cycle puts you into a dysregulated state, too. When you’re in your stress response, you can’t think straight. Your brain only wants you to react as quickly as possible to get out of danger.
As humans, we are going to get dysregulated. There are going to be temporary moments when we feel overwhelmed. The goals are to not get as dysregulated and to learn to calm yourself when you do.
This is self-regulation, and it’s all about calming yourself and your own stress response.
Steps to Co-Regulation During a Meltdown
My programs teach you how to regulate yourself and how to give your kid the tools they need to self-regulate. We want our kids to grow up to know what they’re feeling, how to talk about it and what to do with that feeling.
So, how do kids learn these emotional literacy skills? Through a process called co-regulation.
Most moms are experts at co-regulation when their kids are babies. We swaddle and shush and soothe because we understand that they’re newborns. They’re going to cry, and they need soothing from us. They need to learn that they are safe and okay.
This starts to become more difficult as we reach the toddler years. When we start to see tantrums and meltdowns in 2, 3, and 4-year-olds (and beyond), we think “they should know better.” But they don't. They don’t know how to deal with their feelings yet.
In the Calm Mama Process of calm, connect, limit set and correct. Co-regulation falls into those first two steps. First, you calm yourself. Then, you connect with your kid.
When your kid has a big feeling cycle, it is not your job to fix anything or change the circumstance. Nothing has gone wrong. Take a pause break to calm your stress response, and then co-regulate.
So, what do you actually DO in...