Posted on 11/11/2016
Do you find yourself telling your child or children to “calm down”? My guess is that maybe, possibly, you’re not exactly calm when you give that directive, either. Often, the effect is that those words — and the added stress of an extra responsibility (paired with frustration over clearly not meeting expectations) — are often counter-productive. If you’re at home, perhaps you typically send the child in need of calming to his or her room. Maybe sometimes, that works. But all-too-often, the effect is actually the opposite. Why? Kids lack the necessary self-regulating skills to know how to soothe themselves. (Let’s face it: sometimes we adults don’t know what to do with ourselves, either!) The good news is that they can learn. But they need a teacher, and that teacher can be you.
Understanding Your Child’s Emergency Mode
For children, feelings of panic can be prompted by any number of situations or stimuli. For a child with a Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), such feelings may be stronger or come on without provocation at all. For any child, though, a stress response can range from kicking and screaming or running away to hiding under the covers or covering ears and closing eyes. Even “zoning out” can be a subtle way of finding an escape. Everyone is different, here, but the basic idea is this: when a person is in a panicked state, the fight-or-flight reflex is kicking in, making rationalization pointless. There’s actually something physiological going on: “When the blood is diverted to the muscles instead of the brain, the brain is no longer in a cortical level of thinking or using executive functioning... it is simply in protective mode.”
Interpreting Your Child’s Panic Mode
The important thing to understand is that this kind of response may not actually be due to your child’s being in physical danger or even being personally “attacked,” verbally or otherwise. Some children enter into a fight-or-flight response due to over-stimulation, even in a fun environment, such as a carnival or party. Others may respond to tension between others nearby or even on TV. Your job, as your child’s guide, is not to judge their body’s interpretation of danger, but to help them respond in a way that helps them feel at peace again.
Responding to Emotions, Not Just Behavior
When you understand that calmness is an emotional state, that fact opens up all we know about emotions. Even as adults, we cannot simply will ourselves to feel a certain way. We can, of course, control our impulses enough to act a certain way, but children often lack that kind of self-control. And even when they can control their behavior despite difficult emotions, caring for them still means helping them soothe their difficult feelings. Especially when they’re particularly prone to feel all the different feelings. Can you put yourself in their place? Do you know what it’s like to feel panicked? A little empathy can go a long way toward helping you help your child.
For specific strategies, check out Part 2.
Read the Entire Calm Kids Series:
- Calm Kids, Part 1: Why Kids Can't Always "Calm Down"
- Calm Kids, Part 2: Sensational Calming Rituals for Kids
- Calm Kids, Part 3: Calming Bedtime Rituals for Your Child
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