How To Calm An Angry Child During A Meltdown

This talk offers a simple, three-step approach to help a child regulate during an intense emotional meltdown: staying calm and connected, reflecting their emotions back to them, and reassuring them that all feelings are safe to have with you. Rooted in child psychology, this practice is designed for parents of young children who want a clear, repeatable way to respond in the moment — helping their child feel secure and gradually build the capacity to self-regulate. Presented by Sabrina Ragan, child psychologist and certified play therapist.

Transcript

If you can think of a child on a scale of 1 to 10, Their emotions, 10 is the most intense, 1 is the least intense. When they've passed about a 5 or a 6, Their ability to regulate themselves has gone completely out the window. Their thinking brain has gone offline, Their ability for self-control and self-regulation has gone offline. You are their containment to be able to take those intense feelings and help them feel calm, Help them feel safe, Help them re-regulate to come back a space where their thinking brain comes back online. That's where the simple step-by-step approach to respond to them that works every single time. Here's what you do. They need hugs. They need cuddles. They need a rub on the back. They need a soft, Gentle voice speaking into them. Number two, Reflect their emotions for them. Anytime intensity increases and the upper brain goes offline, They actually lose access to words. They aren't able to tell you that they're mad or they're frustrated or they're sad or they're worried. So reflect the emotions that you see. You're so mad right now. You're so sad. I see that you're so frustrated. And if you're right, They're going to nod their head or they're going to cry more. If you're wrong, They're going to correct you. To the next part which is helping them tell the story of why they felt that way. You are so frustrated right now because you really wanted to win that game with your brother and you lost. What you're doing is organizing inside of them what happened. Giving them the words and the story to be able to get it out of their body. The more times you do this the better able in the future they're going to be able to tell you that they're mad, That they're sad, That they're frustrated and why. Number three is making sure that you reassure them that it's okay to be mad. It's okay to be sad if they didn't get their turn and that you're going to be there for all of these tough intense emotions because they need to know that you are their security. You are the container for all the yucky hard things that they go through. What ends up happening is they will keep coming to you because they know that you will help calm them down. You will organize them and you will make them feel good and put them back together as rapidly as possible. And over time, The more times you repeat this process, They're going to be more capable of feeling these tough emotions going through these experiences and be able to regulate themselves, Be able to not fall apart.