When someone goes to find a recipe online, it’s usually nestled in a blog and there’s a TON of commentary with ads.  Sometimes there’s a little link near the top that says “take me to the recipe” so someone can skip over all the “grandma did this…” or “my mom lived here…” or “when I was visiting…”   

While I appreciate a good story, when it comes to unwanted or dangerous behaviors I really needed a basic recipe that’s easy to understand and apply.   Life with a chair-thrower is a difficult world to manage so the easier the application, the easier it is to live in this world (and hopefully, thrive).  I’m a huge fan of practical application.  It’s great to understand the neurology behind what’s happening but that’s not the same as applying an actual intervention.   

This is the basic recipe I started with and still use to this day.   

1. Observe behavior with curiosity.
2. Identify the emotion behind the behavior. 
3. Reframe the behavior as a form of communication.
4. Calm down the limbic system.
5. Begin the inquiry. 
6. Make a statement about the process and that the storm has ended.

Please note, none of these steps include a punishment or a consequence and each step requires something from me.  The reason for the first three steps are specifically to detach from the behavior and stay regulated.  Having a task helped me do this.  Mindful observation is a job that required me to move out of my lower brain and into my higher brain – and the more I did it, the more automatic it became.    

I’m going to try to break down each step (according to my perception). 

Observe.  Girly is screaming or carrying on.  I become quiet and observe (which I treated as a job duty).  If objects are being punted, I provide the her with an object she can beat on, twist or bite.  We settled on objects prior to the meltdown.  Kids are fully aware they lose it but once losing it is full throttle, there’s no turning back to discuss things.  Settling on an alternate object was done during a time of calm, not in the middle of a mess.  Input from her when picking objects was crucial and there was a lot of trial and error.    

Identify the emotion: I always assumed the base emotion was fear (because it usually was).

Reframe the behavior: I accepted the fact she was lashing out due to a lack of other available options. Either the options did not exist or she didn’t have enough practice using them. Behavior is a form of communication. It’s a regressive form but it is communication nevertheless. She was trying to tell me something – and it is my job to decipher the message.

Calm down the limbic system:  Showers were our “to go” calming activity (they still are).  She had her own gritty face creams she could play with in the tub.  I made bathtub play-dough.  She was given cheap shampoos to play with.  Epsom salt was a favorite.  I would measure her out the item into a small cup (something I learned to do after entire bottles of shampoo and face scrub went down the drain).  Other options were playing in the mud / dirt.  Digging holes looking for worms or bugs (something she still does).  Hammering nails into an old log. Ripping up old shirts.  Stuffing her hands into a big container of something slippery or foamy or sand.  (I tried using a big tray of squishy clay once but that made a HUGE mess).  Wrapping her up in a blanket like a burrito.  A weighted blanket.  Spinning.  Jumping.  Swinging.  Punching something.  I never, ever, started making inquiries until she was calmer.  Trying to do so only ended in frustration. 

Begin the Inquiry.  This will probably get its own dedicated post because this became such a big part of resolving issues.  There were times I had to apply high road / low road (for lying).  I had to be a true detective to find out what truly happened.  I had to patch choppy stories together and ask a million questions.  It was time consuming.  I called it an “expedition” because that’s what it felt like.  Depending on the issue, an expedition could take an hour (maybe even days) trying to patch a story together. 

Point out that it is over and everything is okay.  This was an important part of our process.  I wanted her to truly grasp that the meltdown ended.  In the middle of a meltdown, I’m not sure she could understand any concept of time.  I didn’t want to her think that anything she had done would be forever.  I would point out the process we went through and praise any accomplishments she made along the way. 

It is hard for anyone to actually learn anything until they move out of their lower brain.  This applies this to me as well as her.  If her behavior was triggering me, it was imperative that I keep myself calm and having a job really helped me do that.  It’s particularly difficult in public but, it control must be maintained. 

Grocery shopping was often a terrible experience but I taught myself to put blinders on and just handle things in the moment.  I could NOT worry about looks from strangers, feelings of embarrassment, or my own anger being triggered.  I learned to shut it all down, apply tunnel vision and armed with my recipe, I handled it.  I did figure out a lot of ways to make grocery shopping with her go smoother; showing her my list, telling her what aisles we were going down, about how long it would take and I gave her jobs to help me shop.  I let her weigh produce.  I asked her to fetch me things.  She was allowed to bag the groceries (which she eventually became really good at). 

Consequences aren’t part of this recipe.  This is a recipe for the middle of a storm, a life raft to get through the storm and pop out on the other side.  Sometimes consequences came later but that’s an entirely different issue.  In the middle of a storm, my only focus is to get her regulated and acknowledge that she succeeded (and make sure she knew she succeeded). 

*Each time I edited this, I move some things around or added some details.  It’s hard to really boil things down to just a basic recipe because each situation could be wildly different.  It is especially difficult when the child is in another location.  When I had her in a Summer program, all the kids were walking around Downtown and Girly decided to hop up on the bridge railing over the river and refused to come down.  This absolutely terrified the staff.  She’d already been kicked out of literally every other Summer program and they made it very clear if she did anything like that again, she’d have to go.  I wasn’t present during this incident so I had to find another way in.  She liked the lady that ran her group.  I knew explaining how dangerous her behavior was wouldn’t do any good so I took a different approach.  I told her how destroyed the camp lady would be if Girly had fallen into the river.  That nice lady probably spent years wanting to work with children and if one child she was in charge of fell into a river and drown, it’s possible she’d never get over it.  She might even get in trouble and that’s not very fair.  If she didn’t want to do the program, she should just say so and I’d find something else.  But, if she did want to continue with the program, she needed to follow the rules.  The idea of the nice lady getting in trouble was enough for her to agree to pull herself together for the remainder of the program.  But… had I only focused on safety and how dangerous risky behavior is for Girly… it wouldn’t have even made a dent.  Finding leverage is an art and I will eventually make a post about how I gained leverage after years of wasting my time.