Parents of kids with “big emotions”

[meganew]

Both Ollie and Viv have big personalities- which has its pros and cons. They take after me in that they’re super outgoing and extroverted, but they also let their emotions bubble to the top in a second. Ollie is 8 now, and while he’s a much better listener and generally calmer, the minute he gets mad or upset it’s all hot tears and gritted teeth, and the level of hurt or anger doesn’t always match the cause. Like when a kid in class was breaking their dioramas they worked on, I get being that upset. But your friends not listening about what kind of tag you want to play? Mmm no. And once he’s there he takes a loooooong time to come fully back down. If he gets into an argument on the playground with a friend, the friend will be ready to say “see ya! Let’s have a play date next week!” And he’ll still be all “I’m NEVER PLAYING WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU CHEAT AT BASKETBALL AND I DONT PLAY WITH CHEATERS” (which, did the kid cheat or was Ollie just not good at basketball? Could be either one)

But I find myself telling him to relax and breathe and calm down BEFORE he acts. With varying degrees of success. Lol.

Viv is a completely other story. Just 100% sass and doesn’t listen to me at all no matter what. We’re just going to see who she turns into because I don’t think I have any sway there.

So what have you done that’s worked on building that emotional maturity? The ability to let things go? To ignore the things that irritate you or go somewhere else? What books should I read? Who wants to parent my kids? Haha

[lauren170]

Our reason was a bit different, but we did a few months of OT and it really helped. They read books about how to act in certain social situations, gave coping strategies, and practiced a bit.

[joenali]

We use “size of the problem” at school using a scale from 1-10. 1 being a small problem, I forgot my lunch, someone changed the rules of tag. A 1 sized problem should not have an overreaction. You might get upset, but no temper tantrums or outright anger or crying. You move on. On the other hand a ten might be someone you love is sick or someone is very hurt. A ten sized problem might look like screaming, crying, etc. but that reaction matches the size of the problem. You can start teaching into that when things come up or by using social stories.

Also, look up Yale university’s Ruler program and more specifically “meta moments”. Which are really hard to get the hang of at such a young age. But basically, when a child is upset they catch themselves before reacting by thinking of their best selves and acting like their best self rather than the opposite. This is hard for adults to do too! Lol!

[isabel]

No real advice, but DS1 is like O and pretty bossy too, so he’ll get really upset if his friends aren’t playing the way he wants to play. It’s pretty frustrating. DH recognizes this trait from himself when he was a kid and he is trying to do the same thing as you with getting him to simmer down before it gets out of control. It’s hard.

[roni]

Our school uses Kelso’s Choices for giving kids the tools to problem solve minor issues. I also recommend social groups; your guidance counselor at school might have these running. As you said modeling behavior is key. I always overemphasize my feelings aloud so my children understand when I’m frustrated and how I work through it.

[nessness]

DD1 (5) tends to do best when we talk about potentially upsetting situations before they occur. Like if she asks to play a game with me, I'll ask what she's going to do if she loses, and we'll talk through an appropriate response. Or if she asks to go the park tomorrow, I might say sure, if the weather is okay, and we'll talk about how to react if the weather is bad and what other activities we could do instead.

Obviously, I can't prepare her for every upsetting thing that might possibly happen, but when she prepares in advance how she's going to respond to a situation, more often than not she does respond that way.

[Patsy Baloney]

I try to encourage tear-free days and praise emotional maturity. We talk through potential situations that may lead to overreactions. I also use friends’ good behavior as examples to emulate.

I do think age helps. DD is almost 7 and we’re starting to get over tears being the first reaction to everything.

[Que?]

Honestly, your kid might need to face some social repercussions to realize the impact of not controlling his emotions. You can do everything in your power to help him with that, but you will always be his soft place to land, and that doesn’t make you the best influence of change here.
My daughters ‘big emotions’ manifested into anxiety as she grew older, it’s totally a need for control. We’ve worked on preemptive stuff to help her stay out of escalating emotional situations. In the end though, she really just had to learn that the universe outside of our home (where she is a totally doted on only child) doesn’t bend to her will and that happens fast once they hit grade school.

[morecoffeeplease]

I’m a special education teacher and we frame as much as we can in “small problem, medium problem, big problem”. We make a list of things we can do for each. It’s been helpful with a lot of my students.

[cleo29]

My youngest is definitely like this and C is a little bit. With K, I have found that when she is in full spiral, if I lean into her and say quietly in her ear, "I need you to listen to my words" it would cut through the haze. We do practice breathing and taking a pause before reacting. And really, I feel like it is starting to turn kids off. I just think it is a lot to be around. I think that has been one of the bigger things to show her she needs to learn to control her reactions better. I am also pretty blunt with my kids, so there is that. lol

[usuallylurking]

My oldest is like Ollie. He will be 10 in March (omg...next month?! 😭) and it’s been a loooong road for us. He actually just started meds for ADHD in December, and while that has helped, he is also going to behavioral therapy appointments every other week to try to work on these kinds of things. These appointments just started last month, so I am (not so patiently) waiting to see their effectiveness.

I tried really, *really* hard to give him the tools myself. But when he hits that level, even the most logical thing and calmest approach can’t always cut through his “seeing red”. Beyond that, even if I do manage to “talk him down”, he is on a hairpin trigger for whatever may set him back off to that level of upset. Some days just aren’t good days. However, from my understanding, he doesn’t act like this at school. I don’t know if that’s because he realized friends don’t want to be friends with him if he acts like that or because he just knows he “can” act like that in front of us/at home. Even using consistent phrases, talking about things when it isn’t just the heat of the moment, etc. he just has days that he is more irritable (best descriptor?) than others. Hang in there, but don’t forget to use outside resources if you have them available to you. The waiting list was incredibly long for our area, so maybe be aware of that if you do consider an appointment/evaluation. We started the ADHD process in 2nd grade. We finally got approved for meds in Nov of 4th grade. It was a painful waiting process for us, compounded because DS1 excels academically which isn’t what they traditionally see. What they didn’t understand is just how hard we all work at keeping him on his academic curve.

I think my youngest is sassy, and possibly like your Viv, but he’s only 3.5, so we’ll see what he grows into being!

[meganew]

Thanks guys- I’m going to look into some of these suggestions, if heard of Kelso’s choices (?) being used in schools but I haven’t read up on it. I might reach out to our pediatrician too, just so we can get a good look at whether his reactions fall in the range of typical or not. I think I’m especially worried because my family has a strong history of bipolar and other mental illness, so everything makes me nervous.

[campermom]

Check out Zones of Regulation. “Size Of the Problem” is in there. If you wanted to take it a step further look into Social Thinking-Superflex. There’s such good stuff in these programs.

[MixedBerryJam]

Feb 2, 2020 15:49:00 GMT -5 joenali said:

We use “size of the problem” at school using a scale from 1-10. 1 being a small problem, I forgot my lunch, someone changed the rules of tag. A 1 sized problem should not have an overreaction. You might get upset, but no temper tantrums or outright anger ...!

I’m just going too admit 63yo me thinks this is a genius perspective and I’m going to try to incorporate it into my repertoire. Not for anger management per see but for my ... let’s just call it my extremely, even sometimes obsessively emotional over- (and the occasional under-) reactions.

[kkfeb04]

My kids have autism so emotions are always high. We use size of the problem and zones of regulation. It helps. Sometimes.