Meltdowns are the not the enemy 🧐

PDA children melt down.

The experience sucks AND is part and parcel to the experience of raising a child with a nervous system disability and kids/teens who are ADHD, Autistic, gifted, etc.

I wanted to take a moment to remind you that your PDA child or teen still having meltdowns does not mean that you aren't "doing it right" or that you are on the wrong track. 

Meltdowns may also be the “cost,” in the moment, of your PDA child pushing their own frustration tolerance by trying new things, leaving the house, or respecting new boundaries in the home as they come out of burnout.

But there are four things we can learn as parents so the meltdown experience isn’t as painful along the way.

1️⃣ You can learn to not take nervous system activation personally. You can say to yourself “it’s just data.” Remember that meltdowns are often a tipping point, not solely related to what you did or what happened immediately before.

2️⃣ You can take a bird’s eye view and put your PDA child’s meltdown in the context of their baseline and progress. For example, even if it feels like shit to experience a few meltdowns a week after you have been accommodating for a year, it might be a HUGE improvement from multiple meltdowns a day when they were deep in burnout.

 3️⃣ You can observe how quickly your child comes back to a baseline of trust and safety (5 minutes of screaming vs. an hour of violence). 

4️⃣ You can start to understand the nuance of the nervous system where “mobilization” or fight or flight isn’t necessarily “bad” but rather an indication that they are coming out of years of masking or internalizing their threat response.

Let me give you an example from our home.

Yesterday, Cooper (11) had a snow day and was home from school. William (7) is unschooling, so they were hanging together and playing a new video game downstairs. There was a moment when William had an enormous meltdown because his character couldn’t make the leap across some cliff in the game.

He threw the controller, screamed, slammed doors, and hid in his room shouting about how he hates us. No fun.

Six months ago, this wouldn’t have happened for two reasons – he wasn’t leaving his room and he was stuck in freeze and shutdown.

So the meltdown was actually a sign of progress. Paradoxical, right?

During the first six months of burnout, the goal was to fully accommodate him so that he could climb back up the ladder of the nervous system to "safe and social" again.

But on the way to "safe and social," his little body must move through "mobilization" (fight flight) to get there.

The nervous system is hierarchical.

And that means recovery includes more difficult behavior - screaming, meltdowns, equalizing (“you are stupid, mom!” and “You are destined to fail at life,” yes, he said that to me) and requiring undivided attention. 

As an internalized PDAer who suppressed his nervous system stress for years, William is melting down more in recovery than he did in burnout.

Now he is pushing his own frustration tolerance to play with his brother. This is a good thing.

He is also no longer frozen or masking.

When a meltdown happens, my job as a parent is to help him back to safety.

This looks different for different kids, but the key with PDA is not to “correct,” “teach,” or try to “stop” the meltdown.

With William, responding might mean letting him scream in his room, slam the door and say "I hate you" without responding. Then waiting 5 minutes, offering a popsicle, and letting him slam the door in my face again.

Other times - because I am attuned to his body and energy - he will say "get out!!!" and I will stay, because I notice rather than pushing me away physically, he is leaning into me.

With his older brother Cooper who was much more externalized, those meltdowns were more active, and I focused on staying present in "de-escalation" where I would have to sit within sight, but without looking at him or trying to stop the screaming, and sit on the floor and "be a witness" to his pain. 

For years – and sometimes still – we would get the service dog to lay across him to settle his body.

The point here is that meltdowns happen even after you have made the paradigm shift and don't mean you are doing it wrong.

Remember, PDA is a fluctuating nervous system disability and there are INTERNAL demands and losses of autonomy that can build, even if you “do everything perfectly.”

Here are two links that can help you understand how to respond to meltdowns when they come (if there is violence and aggression and if there is no violence and aggression).

I hope this helps.