DS2 (7) has huge emotional meltdowns...

[SoupDragon]

I'll start this by saying that I don't think he has SNs is emotionally immature and struggling to deal with stuff ATM (his father left when he was 4). However, since the symptoms bear a lot in common with aspects of autistic type stuff, I'm hoping some of the coping strategies for those would help him.

He can't cope with things not going his own way, he can't cope with disappointment, with not being chosen for something, with people not agreeing with him... that kind of thing. He screams, cries, throws things, really melts down.

Why don't I think he has SNs? I don't know. Just a gut feeling. Maybe he does. He's very bright and when not in the angry place, he understands that it's not good, he knows he shouldn't get so worked up about stuff and he agrees that it would be best to go and calm down somewhere. However, when he's in the angry place... [sigh]

He's always been, er, sparky and it's as if he has way too much life contained in his little body. His father is, I think, very similar in character.

[waffle]

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions on how to help him deal with these excess emotions? I thought about having a card with a picture of a volcano on which says "I need to calm down" so he can hand it to his teacher and leave the class (yes, it happens at school, not just at home) but really, I'm clueless.

Punishing him doesn't work and it isn't fair because he genuinely can't help it.

What else does he teacher say about him at school ? and how often do 'things' happen?

With ds we needed to teach him to recognise when he was starting to get angry. We talked with him about how it felt in his body etc. Once he was able to recognise the signs he became able to monitor himself a bit and to take a time out to calm down when he was getting stressed. Unfortunately for us he is so stressed at the moment that he has lost the ability to do this but hopefully once he settles in at school he will calm down.

Another thing we used was an anger thermometer which ranged from blue (his colour choice for completely calm) to red for anger. He could then point to whereabouts on his thermometer he felt he was.

Ds has AS and ADHD and when he is calm he is also able to understand how to behave, what he should do when getting stressed, and the consequences of his actions however when stressed (like now 24/7!) he is unable to stop himself from losing it. I'm not suggesting that your ds has SN just that understanding what he should do doesn't rule it out IYKWIM.

I think you need to have a chat with his teacher and see what strategies they can suggest that they can use in school to help him.

Teacher & deputy head were mostly useless TBH. I brought it up at his parent consultation and his teacher said he'd grow out of it They did suggest he leave the class if he needs to but he'd have to tell the teacher he was going. Unfortunately, he goes from OK to angry like switching a switch and by the time he needs to leave to calm down, it's already too late. It's immediate.

It is at least once a day, sometimes more. Some days it seems almost constant. It doesn't help that I'm stressed and knackered!

I know what you're saying, Dustystar. My gut feeling is that he doesn't have SNs but I'm not ruling it out. Just going by what the rest of his behaviour is like makes me think he's probably NT. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't NT if that makes sense! This does seem to be the only manifestation of any kind of problem which makes me think it's an emotional thing that he (we) needs to learn to deal with and mature out of.

Another thing you could try would be an ABC chart - antecedents, behaviour and consequences. This can reveal triggers that maybe neither you nor the school have recognised. Sometimes a meltdown or outburst can be the result of something that happened hours ago and so seems to come out of the blue e.g. An incident in the morning which doesn't appear to cause much upset can lead to a meltdown 2 hours later over something really trivial. It needs to be done over a period of time as you are looking for patterns of behaviour.

Its a shame the school are being crap as even if it is something that he will just grow out of, if its causing him difficulties now there are plenty of ways that they could support him.

Thanks

have you spoken to school senco, she may have more of a clue.

His teacher last year spoke to both her 9the senco) and the head IIRC. Also, she actually taught his class one day a week and was treated to a meltdown both there and on a school trip.