Ming from Agents of Speech shares how to handle meltdowns in autistic children. Find the trigger and remove it when you can. During a meltdown, use less talking and touch, keep distance, stay safe, and wait for it to peak before offering calm activities like water or bubbles, not their favorite reward.
Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're going to talk about how to deal with meltdowns, tantrums of autistic children. Okay? And why we want to talk about this is because I feel like a lot of times we don't know how to handle it and when we handle it, it gets worse. Until where it's a point of we'll just wait until the kid gets really tired and then we can do something else, right? So I'm just sharing about what works for me and what works for the parents who like when I work with and so on. So the first thing is always to find a reason, ok? There's a reason to all behavior. At least that's the truth or that's the assumption that behavioral therapy is about. Right? So we'll always start off with what triggered the child. Okay. And when you find it, you think of a way to like either mediate it away, right? Or you think of how to remove it. Stop doing certain things. Try to stay away from those stuff, okay? If you're doing something that triggers your child, don't do it, okay? Especially in the public. You're just setting up your child for, for failure. Don't do that, okay? And I've seen it many times. It's like one of the parents told me, ah, he's scared of like hair clippers or whatever. So I'm going to like show him more of that so he get used to it. That's not how you do it. Or else, you know, that's how you get traumatized, right? Don't do that. Okay? So whatever you're doing, maybe it's the way you eat, the way you sit, the way you. Whatever, Try not to do it first, okay? Slowly work with another professional to eliminate that fear, eliminate that trigger, okay? Don't do it yourself in a way that you know it causes more harm, right? But there are times when the tantrum or meltdown happens when they want something from you so bad, don't give that to them because it will serve them as a reward, you know, for throwing a tantrum and whatnot. But you should give it to them and show them a different way of getting it when they're calm. Okay? So let's talk about how to get them calm when it does happen. The finding the reason part is about preventing and whatnot, right? So first of all, less physical contact, less talking. This is a problem that I learned the hard way is that whenever a child got really angry, what I would do first Is like I would try to hold them and like, you know, cuddle them or whatever, or talk to them or ask questions or whatever. Right? So that's actually not the best way. Because when a child is throwing a tantrum, you want to find a reason. And finding a reason is sometimes quite hard for, you know, for even for me or even for you who are like parents who interact with them every day. Right. It's difficult. So if you add one more variable which is like physical touch, which some children do not like, they will escalate even more and that really sucks. Okay. So when you talk to them, they also don't hear anything because they're in a tantrum. They're melting down. All they hear is noise. Alright, so when you are irritated, you wouldn't want someone to go up to them and ask like, what's going on? What are you doing? Are you okay? Even if your voice is very soothing. Okay. Even if that's the case. Okay. But a really good example is when a parent told me about whenever my child gets angry, all he says is, why you do that? Okay? This is Asia. Okay? The reason why was because the mom would ask why you do that whenever he was in a tantrum and destroying things in the house. Okay. So it doesn't help out because they cannot answer you. If they could answer and describe their feelings, they wouldn't be in a tantrum in the first place. So keep silent, keep a distance, make sure they're safe. I know, like sometimes we do have to remove a kid from a scenario to a safer place, right? So that's the physical portion that like physical touching portion that you should do. Other than that, stay at a safe distance and observe. First you want to calm them down without being more intrusive. That's what I mean. Okay. So once you know the reason, you can remove it. And then once you're. You're not talking or whatever, you can observe more and see where you can go in and try. Okay? So whenever anyone gets anxious, let's talk about how to really calm a child down. Actually calm anyone down, right? We get anxious, we do a lot of stuff, right? Some people bite their nails, some people play with their hair, some people shake their legs. That's me. I shake my leg a lot when I'm anxious. Some people have a smoke a cigarette or something, have a beer, you know, play a board, gameplay, play a video game, the list goes on. We always find a comfort thing, a routine that we're into to soothe ourselves. All right? Sometimes it's not that great, you know, like, for instance, biting nails. Some people get even more anxious when they're doing it, all right? But you can find these little routines or little things or activities or whatever to show a kid, all right? Whenever they're calming down a little bit, obviously start doing this when they have peaked and they have starting to come down a little bit, like blow some bubbles, give them a drink of water, which helps a lot because when they're drinking, they cannot scream. When they cannot scream, they're listening to you. And you can now talk in a soothing voice and say, good boy. Nice. Staying calm. That's right. Oh, I know you. You're. You're. You're having a rough day. You know, these. These words can come out now because he's not shouting anymore, right? So you can give him a drink. You can give her, you know, a little pat on the head or whatever. Those little things can happen when they're having a drink, sipping. And then you can start trying to incorporate the routines that, you know with them, like singing a song or whatever or having them watch a video that they love on iPad. But don't go to, like, the a thing that they really love, because then you will teach them that whenever they are angry, they will get the best thing, like, the thing that they love the most, right? Then that's the wrong idea for them. That's all for this video. And otherwise, if you haven't, you should grab our free checklists, all the tools and toys we recommend parents to have. You can go to agentsofspeech. Com Checklist. And I hope you stay safe. And that's it for this video. See you in the next one. Bye.
