Whether it’s during the holidays or just on the drive to or from school, meltdowns and tantrums are part of parenting life. In this short and sweet episode, you’ll learn why tantrums happen and get tools and tips for how to handle a meltdown, help your kid deal with the impact of their behavior and cut down the frequency, duration and intensity of big feeling cycles.

Why Is Your Kid Having A Meltdown?

You might call it a meltdown, a temper tantrum or a fit. I like to call it a big feeling cycle. I like to use this term for a couple of reasons. 

First, it reminds you that this situation is temporary. Cycles typically have a beginning and an end, and your child’s big feeling cycle is no different. This can be really helpful when you’re in it and it feels like it’s going to go on forever. 

Second, I want you to recognize that feelings are the root of this behavior. Sometimes, your kid has really big, overwhelming feelings that they don’t know what to do with. And the strategies they use to cope with those feelings (like hitting, kicking, yelling, blaming, etc.) might not be ideal. 

Their brain has thoughts about some circumstance that they don’t like or that is uncomfortable. This triggers the big feelings. Meltdowns are often triggered when you tell your child no or correct their behavior. 

They don’t know what to do with the big fear, anger, sadness or other feelings they’re experiencing, so their body takes over and they do anything they can in order to soothe themselves. 

Of course, we don’t want our kids to hit, kick, and throw things when they get upset, so what’s a mama to do? 

How To Handle A Meltdown

The first priority during a meltdown is to keep everyone safe. If your kid is doing some kind of behavior that hurts others, step in and use the Hard No. Say something like, “It’s okay to feel sad. It’s not okay to hit.” Be firm here. Separate kids if you need to.

The Hard No is just about facts (no moralizing, lecturing or logic). Your feelings are okay. Your strategy isn’t working. That’s all. 

In most cases, everyone is safe. You just have a kid who is melting down. Maybe they are complaining, whining or crying. The two things that calm and soothe a big feeling cycle most are connection and moving the body.

Step 1: Recognize that your kid is in a big feeling cycle

Your brain might see your kid’s behavior as a threat, so you’ll need to remind yourself that this is a big feeling cycle. It’s happened before, and it will end. 

Step 2: Validate the emotion

Come alongside your child to validate and help name their emotion, either out loud or inside your own heart. This is the Connection Tool. You can say something like, “Honey, you’re kicking and screaming. Are you feeling sad? Okay, that makes sense.”

Just your connection and validation will be soothing to them. It’s important to recognize that you can’t use the Connection Tool to end a big feeling cycle. You have to ride the wave and let the cycle complete itself. 

Our goal in validating and naming the emotion and offering solutions is not to interrupt the big feeling cycle but to decrease the length and intensity of it. 

Step 3: Offer solutions

Next, you can ask them to tell you more about how they’re feeling and what’s happening. Or, they might need to show you. 

The idea is to replace the strategy that they’re using with one that is more “acceptable”. We’re giving them a way to move through the emotion and push it out through their body. If they want to hit, offer them a pillow to punch. If they want to kick, tell them they can stomp their feet on the ground.

Look at how they’re naturally using their body, and use this as a clue to find a healthier way to process the emotion.

Step 4: Repair

Sometimes during a big feeling cycle, your kid might hurt someone, break something or cause another type of negative impact. Big feelings don’t excuse the impact of our behavior. So if your child used a strategy that impacted someone else, they will need to go back and repair it.

Parents often try to deal with these impacts while the big feeling cycle is still happening, but this only triggers deeper levels of overwhelm for the kid. Adding threats and consequences will intensify the meltdown and make it last longer. 

Instead, wait until they’re through the cycle and feeling calm again. With kindness and compassion, remind them of what happened and what the impact was. Then, ask them how they would like to fix it. 

We’re not trying to punish or shame them. The purpose is to show your kid that their behavior has an impact and that they are responsible for their behavior. 

We want our kids to feel really loved, supported and validated in their big feelings, but we don't want them to use strategies that hurt others. Their emotions are part of our life, and it's our job to teach them strategies to cope with those emotions.

I know that this process will have a huge impact on your family. You’ll have way fewer big feeling cycles, and when they do happen, they’ll be shorter and less intense. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why meltdowns happen
• A different way to think about tantrums
• My 4-step process to handle a meltdown
• What to do after the big feeling cycle is complete

Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I am your host. I'm

Darlyn Childress. I am a life and parenting coach, and I

help moms who want to feel

calm in their life so that they can emotionally coach their

kids and raise emotionally healthy kids. So today, I

wanna talk about meltdowns, and I wanna talk about how to

handle a meltdown. And I want this to be a Short,

sweet, quick episode that you can reference

during the holiday season or after a meltdown or just

on the drive back and forth from school, doing the school run, those kinds

of times where you just need a little bit of support, and

you can come back to this episode. So I I want you to mark this

episode. I want you to remember it because I'm gonna talk to you about how

to handle meltdowns. So let's get into it. First,

I wanna explain that I call a meltdown or a temper tantrum,

I call it a big feeling cycle. And the reason I call

them a big feeling cycle is because I love

the word cycle being part of this experience

of, you know, your kid having a big meltdown or having a big

temper tantrum. Because when you start calling it a big feeling

cycle, your brain Well, remember that cycles

end, that they have a beginning and then they loop and they

end. And so when you are looking at your kid and they're melting down

or They're having a temper tantrum. It can feel like it's gonna go

on forever and that you have no power. Naming

it a big feeling cycle for you. Hopefully, we'll help you

as you see it happening or you're experiencing it,

remembering, okay. This is a cycle, and it will end. Sometimes I

think about a big feeling cycle like a wave. Climbs, it climbs, it

climbs, it cress, and then it falls back down. And your child goes through

this process from emotional dysregulation. That's what

triggers the big feeling cycle. And they get Overwhelmed, and they're

doing all these strategies to cope with their big feelings. And then at one

point, their nervous system starts to calm itself, and they

soothe. And the big feeling cycle ends. So that's why I like to

call it a cycle. The second reason why I call it a big feeling

cycle is because I want you to recognize

that the root cause of that behavior, of

that meltdown, is feelings. Really big

overwhelming feelings that your kid is having trouble dealing with.

So if you had saw a meltdown this morning or you had 1 last

night, I want you to think about that big feeling cycle and think, okay. There

were feelings under there. Anytime your kid has a

meltdown or a temper tantrum, it's because They have

a feeling that they don't know how to

process. They don't know what to do with it. Maybe it's

disappointment. Maybe it's Anger. Maybe it's sadness.

Maybe they they have jealousy. Right? So they have some

feelings. Now their feelings that they have are because

of the way their brain is thinking about the circumstance. They are

responding to a circumstance, but it's because they have

the emotions of that circumstance that are coming onto

them like a wave, and it triggers a big feeling

cycle. So they have these big feelings that they don't know what to do with.

That's where all behavior comes from. So I want you to remember when

your kid is having A meltdown. And your brain's gonna be like, oh my god.

They're having a meltdown. Or, oh my god. They're having a huge temper tantrum, or

they had a big temper tantrum today. You can say to yourself,

Oh, wait. No. No. No. No. Yeah. No. It was a big feeling cycle. They

had big feelings they didn't know what to do with. They use strategies,

Hitting, kicking, punching, spitting, throwing, yelling,

crying, blaming, negotiating, lawyering up, they

had some behaviors that they were using

to cope with their big feelings. And those

behaviors aren't behaviors that we love. Right? We don't wanna see kids hit

or kick or punch or spit or throw or do any of those behaviors. But

I want you to see that the behaviors that your

children Have during a big feeling cycle

is a coping strategy. It's a way that

their body is responding to the overwhelm, to

the emotional dysregulation that's happening for them.

So they get overwhelmed. They get stressed. They get Fear activated

fear or anger or sadness or some big emotion. They don't

know what to do with it, and their body takes over, and they do anything

they can in order to soothe themselves. Your kid is having

a big feeling cycle. What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to

respond? Right? 1st, everyone stay safe. We wanna make

sure that our kids hitting, kicking, punching, you know, doing some kind of behavior

that hurts others. So it's okay

to step right in. I call this the hard no, and you

say, it's okay to be mad. It's not okay to hit.

It's okay to feel sad. It's not okay to throw your throw things.

Okay? So we wanna make sure that people stay safe.

Notice that In that firmness, the way I modeled it

is like, hey. No. It is okay to be sad. It's not

okay to hit that I'm not saying, that's not

nice. Don't do that. Everybody's looking at you. That's not you shouldn't

act that way. There's no lecture here. There's no moralizing here.

It's just the facts. Validating the feelings. Your feelings are

okay. Your strategy isn't working. That's

all. So we say the hard no. We separate kids if we have

to. In general, most of the time,

everyone is actually safe, and you just have a kid melting down. They're at

Target, and and they're mad about you not being able to give them

something or they're at a restaurant. And, you know, they are starting to

dysregulate, and they spill something and then you kind of are harsh

with them and then they start crying. Or you're at home and,

typically, that meltdowns are often triggered by when you tell them no or

when you correct their behavior. That's most of the time what happens.

So you have this kid. They start crying. They start using their

strategies. Maybe they're hitting. Maybe they're, complaining.

Maybe they're whining. Whatever that strategy is, I want you

to Come alongside of them. You can say

it aloud, or you can say it in your heart. I

want you to validate The emotion that's driving the

behavior, and we do that by connecting.

Connecting for them the feeling that's

inside with the behavior that you're seeing.

So you do that by saying, Honey, you're kicking and screaming. Are

you overwhelmed? Or, honey, you're kicking and screaming. Are you

feeling sad? You can even use a strong voice. Are you feeling sad?

Sometimes that strong voice helps them feel safe, helps them

feel like there's an adult in charge, that there's somebody paying attention. So you

don't have to use a sing songy voice. So we're going to look at

their feeling cycle and recognize these are feelings. We're gonna help

them name them. Sometimes if you say, are you feeling

sad? They might go, yes. And

you might then, okay. That makes sense. Tell me more. What's

happening? She took my toil. You might get

words. That's great. Words are amazing.

Right? You might not get words. You might have to be like, show me. Show

me how mad you are. Show me how sad you are. You're hitting. You're

kicking. Show me show me how strong you can kick,

you know, and give them something to kick this pillow or you're

you wanna kick some you Stomp your feet really strongly. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. So

we're taking what they're currently doing, and we're giving them a strategy

to use in place of that strategy

that they that they're using that we don't like. That doesn't work. Right? We don't

want them to be kicking other people or kicking The dog are kicking the couch

or something like that. They're like, you wanna kick? Here. You wanna use your legs?

Why don't you use your legs by doing this? Jump up and down. Stomp. Let's

go outside. Let's jump up. Let's run for a minute. Can you run to the

bathroom and run back? Show me. Show me. We're coming alongside.

We're recognizing the emotion, and then we're giving the child a

way to move through that emotion without

trying to stop The strategy.

We're trying to give them a tool to push

the motion out through their body. That's all they're trying to do. That's

what regulation is all about. Moving the body and

finding connection. Those are the things that calm and soothe a a big

feeling cycle. So your kid is crying. They're upset. You're

validating the emotion silently in your head or aloud. Let me

go to validating, why it's so important. When we

look at a child's big feeling cycle and we find it overwhelming

or we don't like it or we want it to end, We're not working

at validating the emotion and trying to help them push that emotion

through their body. We're looking at that behavior, and we're like,

how do I get this to stop? So if you're using the

connection tool, if you're using it in order to stop the big feeling

cycle, it's only going to escalate it because it's like a wave. It's

like a train left the station. It's gotta get to the next station.

You know, you can't stop the ocean, The waves from

from cresting and falling and crashing, you can't. You have

to just ride the wave. Right? Or if You're out in the ocean. You can

also go under it and let it pass over you. You can do that

too with your big feeling cycles. You can just let your kid work it out

on their own. If you're overwhelmed Where you can't handle it, you can just let

them cry for a while. That's also okay.

Crying is a way to soothe. You don't have to participate in

it. We're not trying to interrupt the big feeling cycles. We are

trying to help decrease How long

they last and how intense they get.

So coming in to the big feeling cycle and

connecting with your child's emotions, recognizing it is an emotion

will shift the way that you respond. So

just Recognizing the feeling that your kid is

having will change the way you interact with your

child, and it is soothing to them.

Having your emotion validated is calming.

It actually creates a very cool neurochemical

of oxytocin and serotonin, which balance

out cortisol and adrenaline. So your compassion, your

kindness, your calmness is

actually calming their nervous system.

They're borrowing your nervous system in that moment, and so they're coming

in and they're coming in alongside of them, and they're recognizing,

okay. I'm not alone. I'm safe. My parent is here.

They are taking care of me. I'm okay. I'm being

held. I'm being I'm being supported, and I'm

not alone in this. My parent trusts me.

They're here to help me. I trust them. So just

naming the emotion is huge. And then you can offer

some solutions of well, you have these big feelings. What do you

wanna do? You can't keep Screaming, you can, but it's really loud.

It hurts my ears. So I wanna help you, but I can't if you're screaming.

Do you want or do you need to scream? Okay. So why don't you scream?

I'm gonna count to 3. You scream as loud as you can if you're at

home or something. Or you know what? Let's do a quiet scream. Let's

scream let's scream silent. Ready?

Right, if you're in public. If you catch what I'm teaching here,

it's really the idea that your child

has a natural, instinctive, very

healthy way to process emotion that's working for

them. So we don't wanna interrupt their process, but we

wanna harness that process and channel it towards something

that actually works for everybody. That is, is

actually kind of acceptable, quote, unquote. So your

Child's having their big feeling cycle. The first part for you is

naming it a big feeling cycle. K? 2nd part for

you is looking at the behavior and trying

to figure out what emotion is happening here.

So we're gonna validate that emotion. So So we're gonna see

it as a big feeling cycle. We're gonna validate that emotion. We're not

gonna try to stop it, and we're going to give them

Solutions of how to process that emotion in

a healthier way using their body as a clue.

Now Some of you are like, I love all this. This is amazing.

I'm gonna do it. I've already been doing it. It's so cool. Thank you, Darlyn.

And then You might come across this thought

or you might have it right now of like, okay. I love

all this, but, like, they kicked their sister while they

were having their big feelings cycle. That's not okay. Or they

broke something or they, you know, they threw something or,

you know, or they they they hit me in the face. That's not okay.

Yes. You are right. When we

have our big feelings and we have our

behavior that we're using to cope with our big feelings,

That doesn't excuse the impact of our

behavior. Every person is responsible

for how their behavior impacts themselves and

others. I can

Regulate my emotions by screaming at my husband.

Maybe that helps in the short term. Maybe it relieves some pressure off me.

Maybe I'm feeling insecure. Maybe I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe I'm feeling unseen. And so then I yell at

him. That might be a a strategy that I use to

cope with my negative emotion. The problem is that strategy

has an impact on my relationship with my husband.

So that means that I now have to go and repair that

impact. Now parents oftentimes try

to deal with the Impact of

the behavior that's happening during the big feeling cycle while it's

happening. You want to Immediately

consequence it or immediately threaten to consequence it.

And all that does is it triggers deeper levels

of overwhelm for the kid. They're already

in a stress response. They're dysregulated. So adding threats

and adding consequences is only

gonna activate more of a meltdown, more of a

temper tantrum. It's going to Make the big feeling cycle last

longer and become more intense, but it does

feel like it's comforting you. Threatening

and, consequently, make you feel like you have your power back.

What I'm inviting you to think about is when your kid is having a big

feeling cycle, they feel disempowered, and you

actually have the power to ride

the cycle with them. That's your only job there. And then

once things are calm and they're through their cycle

and they're back into, like, either their limbic center of their brain where their

emotional center It's balanced and they're feeling good,

or if they're a little bit older and they're in their thinking brain, older

by being, like, over 6 years old. No matter

how old they are, if they're under 6, we wanna make sure they're

calm and they're kind of feeling happy again. And then we wanna

talk to them and say, okay. Remember at Target,

and you had your big feelings? Well, while you were there,

you, You know, you took a stuffed animal, threw it on the ground, or you

made a big mess. Mommy had to pick it up. Or remember we were at

Target and I had to go we had to go to the side so so

that you can have your big feeling cycle. Well, that took time from mommy.

I didn't get to get my shopping done, or I was we were at Target

longer than I thought. So I didn't I wasn't able to finish my chores,

you know, take care of the thing that I needed to take care of. Like,

is there anything you can do to Store back

to me the time or the energy drain that

was created. And we're doing this not to

punish them, not to shame them, not to get to teach them a

lesson. It it will teach a lesson.

Our purpose in that moment It's just to show them

that their behavior has an impact. So we're kind of

giving them the internal understanding of, like, These are

feelings, and here are all sorts of ways to manage your big feelings.

And when you have big feelings and you use strategies that cause

problems for others, You're gonna have to fix those problems.

So we're pulling impacts, and we're putting them back on the

child. And that does help them learn

that they are responsible for their behavior, and it is

in their best interest to learn

your strategies to cope in healthier,

more socially acceptable ways.

Now if you didn't do consequences and you just did emotional

coaching, your child would learn how

to validate their own emotion. They would recognize it. They would go,

oh, I'm sad. I've felt sad before. I can handle sadness. This is

how I handle it, and they will learn some new strategies.

But it might take a while. So when we bring those

impacts and we put them back on the child in a loving

way And but but logical where we're like, hey. Yeah. I

know that. It makes sense you had big feelings, and

those big feelings cause problems. And here's Ways you can fix those

problems. I always say, like, it's like the pivot that we're looking for.

So we're looking for an internal pivot and the external pivot. And

we've moved together. And those together help the

child be motivated to

Change their strategies. Trust that you have some good ideas.

So we want our kids to feel really loved, really

supported, really validated in their big feelings,

but we don't want them to use all of those

strategies that hurt others and then never Experience

the impact of that. Never see the impact of that.

That would be permissive in in terms of,

you know, allowing our children's emotions to

rule all the moments. Their emotions

are part of our life, and they are acceptable.

And it's our job to teach them strategies to cope with those

emotions. So that's the big feeling cycle process. While you're in the

middle of it, you're going to just coach them through it.

You're gonna be compassionate. You're gonna come alongside. You're

gonna name the big feeling either externally, like, out loud

or inside your heart. And you're gonna come, and you're gonna watch your

child Use their strategies, giving them new strategies

to cope with that big feeling and wait for it to end. Once it's

ended, you come back And you say, hey. So this is what

happened, and we're very kind. We're very

gentle, and we're very compassionate. We're still saying your

feelings are okay. It's just the strategy you used

caused a problem, and so here's how you can fix it. Or you can ask

them, how would you like to fix it? So I promise

between the doing both parts is going to have

a Huge impact on your family. You'll

have way less big feeling cycles. And when they do happen,

they'll last less time, and they'll be less intense. So I

always say in my programs, my goal is to decrease the intensity,

frequency, and duration of big feeling cycles. But

once they start, You've gotta ride them out. You

gotta regulate your nervous system and just ride those big

feelings. Ride that wave. Remember, it's a cycle, and it

will And okay. If

you have any questions about this, you can reach out to me.

You can message me. If you're on my newsletter, just reply

to an email, and I will, give you some guidance. Or you can

message me on on Instagram or wherever You connect with me.

Connect with me if you have any questions about this. And I'm always happy to

book a complimentary consultation so that you can, you know, chat with

me about it. And then, of course, I encourage you to take the emotionally healthy

kids class or the emotionally healthy adolescent class

because you we get deeper into the strategies that I'm teaching here

about correction and, like, using the connection tool. And you can ask

me for examples and, you know, tell me more about what's

going on with you, and then I'll coach you. So those are really great. Those

groups are amazing because they're taught live by me in a group dynamic

so you can ask questions in real time, which is cool.

Alright. Can't wait to hear how much you love this episode,

and, I hope you have a great week. I will talk to

you