DD7 started doing this, not coincidentally, when she was enrolled in school. The more time she spends in school, the more she does this. The harder the school fails her, the more intense the meltdowns. She is now on summer vacation, and we're already seeing this behavior diminish.
What we find is that whenever she's having a meltdown over something totally insignificant, there's something else underlying that we need to discover. For example, last month she was doing this, and I stopped her before it got too far, and I simply asked her, "Is there something you want to tell us? Something is clearly bothering you. Even if it's about me or Mommy, you can tell us."
Long story short... DD had only been riding the bus to school at her own request, some boy kept shouting at her face the whole ride in (among other antics), and she hadn't ridden the bus in a few weeks (again at her own request). But she was afraid DW would ask her to ride the bus again someday when DW was busy. With assurances that this wouldn't happen, DD's attitude problems subsided.
Another thing we try to do is counsel her on methods to express her emotions in more acceptable ways, rather than bottle them up.
