The Super Useful Guide To

The Super Useful Guide To

MANAGING   MELTDOWNS

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UNDERSTA NDING INT ERVENT ION PREVENT ION

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Bec Oakley

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This file is an edited preview version of The Super Useful Guide To Managing Meltdowns available on the Useful Stuff page of the Snagglebox blog!

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www.snagglebox.c om Copyright 2013 Bec Oakley www.snagglebox.com

The Super Useful Guide To Managing Meltdowns

Welcome! If you re the parent or teacher of a child who is prone to meltdowns, or you experience them yourself, you know just how challenging they can be to manage. Meltdowns are a frightening, confusing, frustrating and exhausting experience for everybody involved. The key to managing meltdowns is understanding why and how they happen,

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when you should intervene and how you can plan ahead to reduce the fallout. This guide will help you through all of that and show you how to create an

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individualized action plan for managing your own meltdowns or those of someone in your care.

The guide has four sections:

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Understanding Meltdowns Planning & Prevention

Creating An Action Plan Handy Resources

You won t find the magical solution to eliminating meltdowns forever (because there isn t one), just all the information you need to understand them better and manage them successfully. Okay, enough with the boring introduction. Let s go!

Copyright 2013 Bec Oakley www.snagglebox.com

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Table of Contents

Welcome! Understanding Meltdowns

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What are meltdowns?

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Stage Two: Escalation

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Summary

What are meltdowns not? Why do some people have meltdowns?

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What happens during a meltdown? Stage One: The Trigger

Stage Three: Explosion

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Stage Four: Recovery

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A meltdown case study: At the supermarket A meltdown case study: In the classroom

Planning & Prevention

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Creating An Action Plan

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Resources

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Copyright 2013 Bec Oakley www.snagglebox.com

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What happens during a meltdown?

When we find ourselves in a stressful situation from which we can t easily escape, the brain becomes flooded with emotional, sensory or cognitive input which jams the circuits and kicks off the fight or flight responses associated with panic. Executive functions like memory, planning, reasoning and decision making start to shut down, which makes it even more difficult to find a way out of the situation. The neurological pressure builds to the point where it trips internal circuits (like

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language) or is released externally as an outburst of physical energy (crying, screaming, hitting, running away). Although this explosive reaction often seems

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to come from nowhere, meltdowns happen in stages that are fairly easy to recognize once you learn the signs.

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EXPLOSION

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Understanding the differences between these stages is the key to managing meltdowns. Identifying the triggers can help to prevent the cycle starting, and knowing the signs of escalating pressure allows you to take steps to reduce the chances of an explosion. So let s look at each of these stages in more detail.

Copyright 2013 Bec Oakley www.snagglebox.com

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SECTION 4: RESOURCES

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How to spot a...

Meltdown

Meltdown

Tantrum

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& PREVENTION SamplePLANNING Action Plans

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The sample action plans on the next few pages are also available as individual images in the zip file that came with this guide

Want to keep reading? Grab the full version of The Super Useful Guide To Managing Meltdowns on the Useful Stuff page of the Snagglebox blog!

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