Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Helping DD learn to calm herself

DD is very intense and always has been. As she gets older, her tendency towards intense, stormy crying spells is becoming less and less age-appropriate. These can be brought on by all sorts of things, including fear, sadness about a storyline, or anger. She would like to be able to calm herself down but says she "can't" once she gets going. We use deep breathing with minor success, and if she's winding down, visualization sometimes works, but I need more tools. I worry that these episodes are going to result in her being bullied.

How old is your dd and how long her episodes last? I am asking, because my ds is very intense as well and I was worried, especially because he also says he cannot stop himself. When he was tested, that is one area the tester looked into and to my surprise he is doing fine for his age. He is 6 and his "episodes" do not last more than 10 min. I was told that he is doing much better than other kids his age because he understands and can verbalize what is going on. They suggested for us to use deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. She suggested we read McClowry's book Your child's unique temperament: Insights and strategies for responsive parenting.

I should have included her age! She is 7 and a half and entering second grade in the fall.

I guess I'm not absolutely sure how long they last, but certainly it can be well over 10 minutes and more like 30. I should time it. They SEEM long.

She had about 3 or 4 of these episodes at school last year and it caused concern for the staff. However, we are switching schools in the fall.

My son had anxiety and meltdowns at school (and at home) that were very similar to what you describe. He'd become overwhelmed by either anxiety, sadness, frustration or anger and then lose it. The social worker helped him create a 5-point scale that he could use to monitor how he felt. It was something like this:
1- I feel really good right now
2- I'm a little worried/tense but can handle it for now (take deep breaths)
3- I'm starting to get upset and should tell someone
4- I'm so upset I need some help
5- This is bad. I need help now!

The scale was set up with his input, so the words were his (I paraphrased, don't have the scale in front of me right now). He paired the words with icons for each number that had a different color (one was green, 5 was red, etc). Then he had a "full version" of the scale in his desk and a 3x5 card version with just the icons on it taped to the top of his desk. She also made him a small, laminated version to carry in his backpack or pocket.

This worked really well for him at school, most of the time. He used this during 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. There were still times he lost it. And, unfortunately, the kids learned how to push his buttons and get the full blown reaction from him. And, also unfortunately, the 2nd grade teacher was not very supportive in general. But the 3rd grade teacher really tried to help him use this scale. You need to have someone on board in the classroom to help out, so your daughter has someone to go to for help with calming down - whether that means leaving the room, finding a quiet corner, or whatever.

Hope that helps. best wishes for finding something that does help. I know how hard it can be!

Thank you so much for your reply. So was the point of it that he could show this to the teacher or that he self-monitored or...? I'm having trouble seeing exactly how this works in practice.

What is his contingency plan if he does melt down? DD does well if allowed to cool down by herself with a book, but this can take some time and she can be very distracting to others in the meantime. Her former school had no staff available to sit with a child in distress, and considered doing this to be a "reward" for her in any case, which is part of the reason we switched to a larger school with an on-site counselor and social worker. Does your son have a diagnosis other than giftedness? DD does not. We have toyed with trying to get one but are not sure she is really diagnosable with anything specific. (Maybe anxiety.)

My DD7 is similar as am I. I took many tactics that were not helpful.

What finally helped was talking her through it so she had a higher understanding of what was going on inside of her.

First, I normalized the behavior. I let her know that I too have felt that way, and still do but that I learned many ways to help myself through it.

Second, I validated whatever she was feeling. You felt scared, you felt mad, you felt sad.... then followed that up with talking about the behavior.

When you felt you were angry, you came in your room, threw your shoe and then jumped into crying and not knowing why?

Here is what worked REALLy well for DD7: "Was that scary for you to feel so out of control? I've felt that way too, like I couldn't control or understand why I was crying so hard..." and on & on.

I knew I hit the mark as she was shaking her head in YES, YES, YES!

From there on, identifying early warning signs that we're headed into the abyss and different concrete behavioral things we can do...get an adult, draw, read, run around outside... early intervention points.

Intense or not, bottom line is we are all entitled to feel our feelings - they are not right or wrong. How we express them is the key and helping DD7 understand self respectful ways to express & manage them seems to have helped.

We are also working on this issue as we put together a plan for my 6 year old DD. For her the meltdowns tend to come when adults don't give her a chance to explain herself. She really can't handle being accused of things that she didn't do. Part of it is that most people don't expect such a little kid to have the vocabulary and verbal skills that she has. This means that even if she tries to express herself adults tend to be thrown by the words she is using and don't pay attention to what she is telling them. I am asking her new school - and have had it included in her IEP - to assure that she has the opportunity to be heard.

The other thing we are hoping will work is a request that if she gets upset the school call me, at least until she has established a rapport with a safe adult there. I assured them that I will not pull her out of school, thereby rewarding her behavior. I just give her the opportunity to tell me what happened and that is usually all it takes to calm her down. I made sure the school knows she doesn't get her way just because she is upset - the answer is very often "no" or an explanation that she was wrong. That is ok with her as long as she knows that she had a chance to be heard.

From the time she was a baby (maybe 18 months old) she would put herself into time out when she got upset - after calming down she would come out and try to explain what was bothering her. If she was not allowed to remove herself like this she got more and more upset until she hit full blown meltdown. Now that the anxiety from kindergarten has abated over the summer we see she is doing this again - first time we realized she had stopped while in her awful school situation last year. The IEP allows for her to remove herself from her classroom to take a walk or get a drink if needed. I think it will really help.

Not sure if this is your child's issue but thought I would throw it out there. Good luck figuring it all out!

We use a calm down time. Its essentially the same as a time out, but HE can choose how long to sit there and calm himself. No closed door, no forced sitting etc. It happens in his room, on his reading beanbag and he has learnt to use that space as a safe place. there is paper and pencils for drawing and writing, his favourite books and his bed with his favourite sensory calming things. It helps for anger and those times when he cannot express himself properly.

I have also started using affirmations with Aiden to help him feel more in control of himself, and to help him understand what is happening in context. It's also helping with his perfectionism issues. We have him say the following:

1. I like challenge; challenges are good
2. It's okay to make mistakes; we learn from our mistakes
3. Mommy and Daddy love me even when I make mistakes.

It's taken two and a half months and they are finally starting to become part of his self-beliefs. It's helped with all tantrums stemming from the inability to perform at the "perfect" level. It's helped him realise that he can tackle his stressing issues like a challenge; and as he calms himself more easily each time, he feels like he is mastering himself and this new ability.

hope some of this helps...