Parenting Foundations: How to Manage Meltdowns | S.13 Ep.4

Parenting can be tough, especially when it comes to handling emotional meltdowns. Listen to this episode to learn tips and tricks on how to anticipate triggers and prevent parenting stress. You've got this!

Transcript

Barb Dunn Swanson
Sometimes the most difficult challenges faced by parents are their children's meltdowns. And depending on the age of the child, that child may not be able to tell us what's wrong? Well, in episode four of our parenting foundation season, Lori and Mackenzie are cohosts. They do a really nice job discussing the reality of what those meltdowns really look like. And they give us some really helpful strategies that we can use when the child is in the throes of a meltdown. 

Mackenzie DeJong
Barb, you are so right. Anytime those emotions rise to the surface, we have to look beyond the crying and the yelling, which might be frustrating, but we have to really understand what's going on. You know, definitely a time when that stop, breathe, talk might come into play. But I know that Lori and Mackenzie have some other ideas for us, too. So let's roll and listen in.

Lori Hayungs
Welcome. Hello. Welcome to the Science of Parenting podcast where we connect you with research based information that fits your family. We'll talk about the realities of being a parent and how research can help guide our parenting decisions. I'm Lori Hayungs, parent of three in three life stages, launched, in college and in high school, and I'm a parenting educator.

Mackenzie Johnson
And I'm Mackenzie Johnson, parent of two little ones with their own quirks, and I'm a parenting educator.

Lori Hayungs
So today we're talking about understanding and anticipating meltdowns or tantrums or falling apart or whatever else you might call it.

Mackenzie Johnson
Oh gosh. Yeah. I'd probably say falling apart. Ugh. And I include me, we're falling apart. All of us collectively, all the alls. Big feelings. There's so many big feelings in parents and kids.

Lori Hayungs
Yeah, definitely. So you know, when you think about it, gosh, there are so many times that meltdowns can happen.

Mackenzie Johnson
Oh gosh. Yeah. Like round the clock. Everything's at risk.

Lori Hayungs
Oh yeah. Before seven, right? When I think about meltdowns, do you ever think about like you know that a meltdown is always going to happen at a certain place or time. Do you have any of those?

Mackenzie Johnson
Bedtime in our house right now. Like it's coming, bedtime's coming. It's going to be hard. It's a surprise every time that we have to go to bed. Bedtime is in our house. What about you?

Lori Hayungs
I remember anticipating that when we would go out for dinner or, you know, mostly that kind of thing where we were going to go out and then sit down and be quiet. You know, a meeting or an event or that kind of thing. That's kind of where the meltdown would occur.

Mackenzie Johnson
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The times when we were just like it's coming. We know.

Lori Hayungs
Those are the times before you had kids where you were thinking, Oh, I know what I would do in that situation. Yeah. So our research tidbits today are about understanding meltdowns and tantrums and how we as parents can survive them.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yes. Yes. Getting through life, they will be a reality. But how can we like understand them and know when they're coming?

Lori Hayungs
Yeah, exactly. So the first tidbit we have is from McCurdy and they tell us that temper tantrums are defined as these overt displays of, get this, unpleasant behaviors that are extreme and severe in nature and disproportionate to the situation. That made me chuckle when I read that.

Mackenzie Johnson
And I love the disproportionate to the situation. You've made it seem like those posts on social media of the reason my toddler is crying today or is angry today or you know, you see those posts and it's like, yeah, this was disproportionate. That's a great word.

Lori Hayungs
The red bowl and not the blue bowl, right? Yes, yes. Here is some examples from Daniels, Mandleco, and Luthy. They didn't give us some examples of behavior that are associated with meltdowns. So pay attention, cause I want to know if you've seen or maybe experienced any of these. So, and these are across different ages. So here's some toddler behaviors or maybe preschool, too, toddlers and preschoolers. Let's look at these - shouting, screaming, crying, falling to the floor, flailing arms and legs, hitting, kicking, throwing, engaging in breath-holding. These are the ones your children have had, not the ones that you've had, right? Yes, yes. We also had adolescent behaviors as well. We might have becoming withdrawn, becoming violent, verbal outbursts, just becoming irrational, loud, hyperventilating. Yeah.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yeah, yup. That's a list. Any of those feel closest to home for you?

Lori Hayungs
We had them, definitely. I didn't really have any shouters. I'm not really a shouter, so yeah, I can see more of the crying. And just that complete loss of any rational thoughts or behaviors, you know? Yeah. And some of that dropping, you know, dropping to the floor in just that pure meltdown mode. And I took off sometimes and, you know, you might hear me as the adult say, well, I think I just need to go rock in the corner of my closet over there cause I am having completely irrational.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yeah, see, and I can't really say that my kids like necessarily shout all the time, but there's moments, like that's usually how I know, oh, this is big. This is hard. If they're shouting that is like, oh. Yeah, that's hard for you. So that one's a big one. Otherwise, I'd say common is, tears are most common? Yeah, tears are the common. And there's big feelings. It's this display of these really strong emotions. I love the word raw for little kids. It's so raw, like, oh, I am devastated. Or so mad. I'm furious. It is.

Lori Hayungs
I have these huge feelings. When I taught preschool, I had a couple of hitters, you know, or the pinchers. And still, I specifically remember a time where one of the little ones in my preschool class just had such big feelings and literally the eyes, they were looking at me like in a panic and they knew they were going to lash out and shout and pinch and hit. And he was actually kind of a spitter as well. Oh, the kid's eyes were already telling me, I am so sorry for what I'm about to do but I cannot control this, you know? So lots of behaviors. Oh yeah.

Mackenzie Johnson
Well, and pinching, it doesn't necessarily naturally seem like it comes from this specific feeling, but it is. It's like, I don't know what to do.

Lori Hayungs
Pinching you, right? Which opens up right into the research tidbit number two that talks about the reasons that kids have meltdowns. And you know, how cool that there's actually research about why kids have meltdowns. I think that that's what we always want to do for you as you're listening and watching us is help you know that our goal is to sift through the research. And you know, we want you to look at the research that we've sifted through and pick out the ones that really work for your children and your family. So, all right, let me read this. Kyle tells us that children may have tantrums or meltdowns to get what they want, avoid or escape doing something they don't want to do. Okay. Those are like vice versa. Yup. Seeking parental attention. So I'm going to stop there because I love, love, love watching infants, and I love watching infants out in public. And I think I even remember as my children were growing up and I would point out a baby and I would say, look at that baby trying to get its parents' attention. And I'd say, look at the eyebrows, look at her little fingers moving. You know, she really wants her mom's attention and you'll look at the toes. Oh my gosh. Toes and eyebrows and fingers have so much communicating to them. So this research article is telling us that, hey, they're trying to get parental attention. And so right before the meltdown came, the wiggling of the toes and the eyebrows. And so I heard, he tells us that also meltdowns can occur when children are tired, hungry, ill or frustrated. And then we have another one, but Brayton tells us meltdowns can be from sensory overload.

Mackenzie Johnson
Okay. Hello? Like guilty in me and I'm an adult. I talked about that last episode that I get so overstimulated. It's loud and I totally can relate to that like little kids, big kids, grownups that when there's a lot going on, it can be hard to hear yourself think or try to process, you know, this big feeling. I totally get the sensory overload.

Lori Hayungs
Right. And I think that's the piece where when you asked me, what's the most typical place that we would have meltdowns. It was going out in public because of that sensory overload. Oh yeah. That child, there was so much going on and that's when I always knew that a meltdown would occur when we had that sensory overload. One more. Schonbeck might summarize it best in saying that meltdowns typically happen when kids are lacking the coping skills to deal with their emotions.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yep. That sums it up. Can't cope like the hungry, angry, lonely, tired, frustrated, ill. It's hard to do hanger, right? We get hangry, in part that is because I'm having a hard time using my coping skills with my hunger.

Lori Hayungs
You just asked me to put my shoes on right now but I'm so hungry. Yeah, yeah,

Mackenzie Johnson
Yeah. I'm hungry and I can't think about the fact that I could just put them on. No, not shoes, that's what puts me over the edge because I'm already struggling this much over the top of my head with hunger.

Lori Hayungs
You know, I can't get my heel in there easily.

Mackenzie Johnson
This is too hard.

Lori Hayungs
Oh my gosh. Yes. You know meltdowns are common. We're going to talk about temperament later on but melt downs are common and it's common across different ages and I think that that's really important for us to remember. When we look at brand development, we can really talk about why they keep happening throughout the ages and it's not just isolated to toddlers and preschool.

Mackenzie Johnson
No, we know that it's developmentally appropriate. Right? For a two to four year old, they're figuring out, whoa, I have some choices here. There are things that I can control. And so that striving for independence makes it kind of prime time to see these tantrums, right? You know, we can kind of expect it in that age range, that's why they warn us about terrible twos and threenager and those kinds of things. So we know what's developmentally appropriate there, but not isolated. They're like, that's not the only spot we're going to see it.

Lori Hayungs
Exactly. Exactly. And I think that sometimes when I talk to parents of preteens and those early teen years that you said it right there, the threenager, right? Because guess what, it's going to happen again in those preteen years. And there's great scientific evidence behind why that happens. And you know, the brain is going through so much still. Last time we talked about the brain not being completely developed till the age of 25 and so there's this huge growth spurt, obviously in the brain, you know, early on those zero to three years. But then again, as you hit that preadolescence, the hormones and all the other things that are happening in the body or are impacting the brain. And so that kid that you just thought you had figured out, one day is a 12 and a half year old and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, where did that come from? Their kid in my house and they took mine and where did they go? And yeah, because those hormones in the brain take over. And sometimes I describe it as, oh, sometimes in the Midwest we get this crazy wild ice, this black ice and you can't even see it. And so the black ice covers the roads and so nothing can drive correctly on those roads, right? Nothing can drive correctly on black ice. The information, the cars just fly off, right? And so in the brain, that's kind of what the hormones do about the preteen years, you know, those hormones cover those roads, that information had been going down so smoothly. And now, man, it's sliding off to the left. We have no control because of those hormones that are covering the connections in the brain, those thinking processes are gone.

Mackenzie Johnson
Oh yeah. They've built those roads over time. Right? They're getting good. Like okay, maybe getting their shoes on is not a meltdown every day at 14 you know, fingers crossed. Right. But so they've built some of those coping skills but now they need new ones. Right. I need to be able to do new things and navigate these new hormonal changes in their brain. Like I need new skills. I was just getting, like you said, they were good at the old ones, and now they need new ones.

Lori Hayungs
And reminding them of those old skills that they used to, you know, they haven't had to pull them out of the box for a while. Wait, we've got to pull out those skills. Right?

Mackenzie Johnson
But there's a lot happening but kind of part of the beauty of, you know, this research and reality thing is that there is, you talk about that scientific evidence tells us there are times when we can anticipate, right? So like I talk about bedtime. You were talking about when you go out to eat. But when we recognize some of those things over time, we can start to anticipate it.

Lori Hayungs
Yeah. Yeah. And remembering there's always a reason, like there actually really always is a reason. There is not much in life that we actually do without a reason. Right? Why did we turn left? Why did we turn right? Why did we pick up the glass? Why did we choose the spoon over the fork? And yet when a child is having a meltdown, we go, well, it was for no reason. Yeah. It was. Yeah. And so those are some of my favorite things to talk about with parents is I know it seems like there was no reason, but actually, we just missed it. So how can we anticipate it? There is some really neat research that we looked up on how to prevent and anticipate meltdowns. So, let's dive into those ideas. How about it?

Mackenzie Johnson
Totally, totally. Let's do it.

Lori Hayungs
Alright, so the first one, okay. So wait, let's play a game. So first I want you to think of the time most often that a meltdown is going to occur. You think about it. Okay. Yeah, I pretty much know that this meltdown is always going to occur. You said bedtime. I said for one of my daughters, it was going out in public, right? Yeah. So I'm thinking about that my head and according to this list from Daniels, Mandleco, and Luthy, the first bullet point that we look at is to identify the triggers of meltdowns.

Mackenzie Johnson
Bedtime I say for me and the one, you know, I can anticipate, I can feel it coming. You know, that in itself is a trigger. Like right? She's tired at the end of the day. We've had a full day. Whatever I get to do once I'm finally home. You know, my daughter goes to childcare, so I'm home for the day. I'm settled in, I got to eat and now I have to go to bed and be done with this day? The combination of the tired and I wish I had more time here. That's the trigger at bedtime. Yeah. What about you?

Lori Hayungs
And for me that, that trigger, going out of the place that was the most secure. So she would go out in public, whether it was to shop, to go to an event, like I said, to go to daycare, you know, just that idea that okay, we're going out of our safe, secure place. We go out of that safe, secure place every day. But it's a new day. Right? And even now, as you know, even now as young adults going out of that safe, secure place, she has to adjust, and she doesn't melt down anymore, but I definitely can see, you know, different behaviors and trigger points in her.

Mackenzie Johnson
So yeah, still using those skills.

Lori Hayungs
Totally. Absolutely. Skills. All right. The next thing then too, because we've identified the trigger, having a plan for those common meltdown times, having to plan maybe like snacks or a place to rest or a place for quiet time.

Mackenzie Johnson
All right. I can say in our house, actually, I got this tidbit from you. I was struggling one day when we were on a call and my daughter was home with me. And she wasn't having a nap time. Like I said, we were all falling apart. Yeah, yeah. Mackenzie, you know this, a visual schedule. So a visual schedule is basically, for everybody who maybe hasn't heard of it or hasn't used one, a visual schedule is a concept for a child and honestly an adult, where you kind of lay out the expectations of the routine. So a visual schedule is they can anticipate, but instead of just using words, you're using pictures. And so that was a tool we started using. I knew that I needed to have a plan for bedtime. And so I started using this little visual schedule of a picture of putting our pajamas on and you know, those kinds of things. So I had to have a plan and then for us it was using that visual schedule tool.

Lori Hayungs
Oh, that's awesome. And so then the next bullet point that he talks about is maintaining a usual routine. Yep. Yeah, yeah. There it is. And then providing warning for changes. That was huge for us. We need to tell her that there was going to be a change. Now granted obviously sometimes things come up spontaneously and you can't, and then that's where we jumped back into what we talked about last week was that idea of respect. Like, I understand that you're upset. We didn't have a chance to warn you but you know, we've anticipated, we've planned, we've tried to maintain a usual routine and a usual routine for leaving the house might be like, literally I needed to tell her, here's where we're going, here's what we're going to do, here's who you might see there, here's what we might do there. Okay. And so, yes, those weren't the same words I used every time, but it was that same process. What we're going to see, who we're going to see, here's what we're going to do. And here's, you know, when we're coming back and granted she didn't always have a concept of time, but you know, even just talking through in that calm, cool, collected voice assured her that, okay, mom's got a plan. I'm going to be okay and we're coming back.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yes. We're coming back to my safe space. Yeah. Yeah. Our routine, that little visual schedule that we did did help kind of set us in a routine. We had kind of a loose structure of what that usually looked like at like bedtime and nap time, but it kind of solidified, okay, we're going to brush our teeth, we're going to get on jammies, we're going to read books, we're going to have some snuggle time. Right? But it secured that routine and then it was actually kind of a part of that routine became, okay, we have about 10 minutes till bedtime. Okay, we have about five minutes. This isn't a time we want to get a new toy. You know, and so those warnings became a part of that routine, too.

Lori Hayungs
Right. Exactly. What you did right there ties right into the next one, which is teaching feeling words and teaching words about the vocabulary, sharing words like what you did with the picture is, and the 10 minutes and the five minutes and you know, now's not the appropriate time to get out a new toy, et cetera. Yeah.

Mackenzie Johnson
And I think even helping my child recognize like, oh, I can tell you're mad. You're so mad that we don't have more time for that. And sometimes I get it wrong, right? Like the other day my daughter was upset about something. I'm like, oh, you're disappointed. She goes, no, mom, I'm frustrated. Okay. I missed it there, but I'm excited that you've picked up that like, I can tell you like, I'm mad at you for that. Or you know, when bedtime inevitably does come and it's a meltdown, oh, I'm mad that you made me put that away. But those feeling words, that emotion helping our kids. I mean sometimes it feels a little corny, but how do kids learn then? They have to be taught. It doesn't become distressed. Exactly. Exactly.

Lori Hayungs
And then the idea, the next one that they offer up is encouraging appropriate alternatives to tantrums. So I know that you're nervous about going into this building, so here's how you can show me that you're nervous instead. So instead, right now you're crying and whining and hanging onto my waist, let's do this instead. So what can we do instead? So instead we can get our books that we have in our bag. So instead and for her, I even offered her the opportunity to just close her eyes. You know what, what I want you to do is instead of hanging onto my waist and screaming, I want you to just close your eyes and hold my hand, close your eyes and hold my hand. And that's offering her an appropriate alternative. And for older kids, you can kind of talk through these things ahead of time and say, you know, I know that last time we went here you were frustrated. So what could you do instead in case you get frustrated again, you know. Talk to your elementary school age child about. I know you didn't enjoy it because it seemed like it took a long time, didn't it? You know, that meeting or that program that we were at, it seemed like it took a long time. And so instead of kicking the chair in front of you and bothering the other participants that were there, what could you do instead?

Mackenzie Johnson
Yes, yes. Instead, I think that word is the key. Right? Instead of falling to the ground screaming or for older kids, instead of not speaking to anybody or you know, and what can our plan B cause they can have a plan. Come up with your own plan when you're an older kid.

Lori Hayungs
Exactly. And that offers them this next thing that says, offering them choices and finding a way to say yes. So offering them choices. Okay. So which way? I get a choice on how I can behave. I have two alternative plans. My mom and dad or my mom and my aunt, my grandpa, my uncle, whoever the adults I'm with is okay with me doing option A or B. Right? Yup. And sometimes as the adult, we forget that just two choices is easy enough. Yeah, I'm totally okay with you closing your eyes and holding my hand or I'm totally okay with you sitting down and digging into your backpack. Which one do you want to do because what you're doing is not appropriate. So you choose which one? Yes. Yeah.

Mackenzie Johnson
Our big one right now is do you want to walk up the steps, two story house, do you want to walk up the steps to bed or do you want us to carry you? Sure. Like do you want to walk or sometimes if the walking is not happening, do you want us to carry you silly, which is my husband throwing her over his shoulder a little bit. Do you want us to carry you silly or carry you regular? Because we have to go to bed. Right, right. We're not budging on that, it's bed. But we can budge on how we get there. There's a choice and you can say yes to either of those things.

Lori Hayungs
I totally can say yes to either of those things. Absolutely. Yeah. And then modeling appropriately how to deal with the feelings, those big feelings. Right. Those disproportionate feelings.

Mackenzie Johnson
Unpleasant. Unpleasant behavior.

Lori Hayungs
Yes. And really modeling. You said the other week, we're the adults so we actually are in charge of modeling what we want to see in our children. And that's hard when we have big feelings, too. That's hard. Yeah.

Mackenzie Johnson
I said before in another episode that I'm a breather. That is something I kinda started doing in order to show my kid, my daughter and my son, that, you know, sometimes I need a breath. Like, this is hard for me too. I'm frustrated when you yell at me about bedtime. I'm frustrated when you're having this tantrum at bedtime even though I gave you the warnings. You know what? I need to take a breath or I need a break and saying that it's okay to not get it. To not have it perfectly. I need a breath. Yeah. I'm really mad right now.

Lori Hayungs
And even taking it a step further and say, wow, I should have really taken a breath there, right? Yeah. How about you and I take a breath together. You know? So I think acknowledging that, you know, sometimes we don't do the right things. Sometimes we don't make the right choices as adults and acknowledging like, wow, I just realized I yelled and screamed.

Mackenzie Johnson
And we have an episode coming up about that, you know, about what do we do when we lose it. For real.

Lori Hayungs
Yes. Yes. And so then the last thing that they talked about in the research was providing positive attention, lots of positive attention when children are doing the right thing. It's that idea of, in the heat of the moment, they are not going to be able to hear us and hear any logic or thinking correctly, thoughts that we have. And so when there is a quiet time or when there is a time where, you know, man, things are really going great. She walked up the stairs to bedtime, you know, we need to celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. We don't do enough celebrating. I know that especially with my daughter as she's gotten older, I remember vividly just a couple of weeks ago where we were sitting and what we were doing and I said to her, you know, I really appreciate that when we met that person, you said thank you and you looked her in the eyes. And because that's something that we really work on with her is, you know, verbally speaking in a way that someone can hear you and acknowledging that someone, you know, said hi. Thank you. So I said, you know, thank you for saying hi and, and looking her in the eyes then. Yeah. Acknowledging and celebrating those moments.

Mackenzie Johnson
Celebrating when we get it right. That can reinforce that. Hopefully in the future we'll have less, less tantrums or less meltdowns. You know, we're celebrating what you did. I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited. You got your jammies on right away. So, all right. So if that's the end of our list, I have a little bit of, you know, your reality if we kind of wrap up before we see Mackenzie DeJong. So for our listeners this week, so you've heard the research on tantrums and what defines a tantrum and the examples of what you might see in a tantrum. We have some plans so that you can anticipate ideas to anticipate them. So I just encourage you to do that this week. Like reflect. So yeah, bedtime and I still need to keep working on that one. But reflecting on when the meltdowns are happening in your home with your kids, kind of working on identifying that trigger and then coming up with your own plan. Like, so what's your plan going to be? Maybe it's one of these from our list that we've gone through here, from the research. And so figuring out what your plan is going to be to anticipate meltdowns. And inevitably when we can't anticipate everything, right, you can't prevent everything with meltdowns, come back next week. Next week we're going to talk about how to survive in the heat of a meltdown,

Lori Hayungs
Hopping into the heat and coming out alive.

Mackenzie Johnson
Do it, we can do it. So for this week, think about when those meltdowns might be happening, work on what might be triggering them, and what your plan might be to anticipate it. So there. That's the reality for this week.

Lori Hayungs
So excellent reality. Excellent. All right. I'm bracing myself.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yeah, I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready. I feel pretty ready.

Mackenzie DeJong
I think you're going to be ready for this one. So as we were preparing for this episode, I know that there were a lot of things that you wanted to include and there were some things that were left out that as we were going along, I kind of was thinking, oh man, so I'm actually gonna use this opportunity to hand it back over to you. Mackenzie, I know you have a list, so parents are thinking you're talking about meltdowns. Does that mean all meltdowns are normal? You know, my child is 10 years old and continually having a meltdown. Does that just mean I have to deal with it and it's normal? So will you share some of that information on how to tell if it's a normal meltdown or if it may be an abnormal meltdown?

Mackenzie Johnson
Yes, please. We did. We had a tough time putting together the episode content, there was so much good stuff to include. And so this was one of the things was, how do we know when, right? We talked about how it's kind of developmentally appropriate or typical for a two to four year old to be having meltdowns and things. But how do we know when maybe it's over the top and it might be time to scope out some help. And so I have that stuff. I keep all my research here. So, there were five things that I thought was such a good list. So this was from an article, a 2012 article. I think we cited the authors above. It was Daniels, Mandleco, and Luthy. So it was a really great article. So, ways to identify some red flags for a tantrum. I have my list here. If tantrums are regularly occurring after age four, so if it's a regular occurrence in your house and you have a child over the age of four and they're melting down frequently, right? I mean it's going to happen from time to time, but frequently, that could be a sign. When children are injuring themselves or others during a tantrum, right? We're getting into a health and safety concern there, that would be one. When tantrums are regularly lasting longer than 15 minutes. Now, I will admit, I remember one specifically that happened in my kitchen that like went on forever. Right? So that can happen occasionally, but in general, if they're regularly lasting over those 15 minutes. When there's more than five tantrums a day. I was so grateful to see somewhere that here's a number, you know? I'm wondering is this as often as I think it is. This feels like it's constant if it's more than five times a day. And then the last one was when a child's negative mood continues between tantrums. So, it's not like things might be going well and then all of a sudden we're melting down. But if it's pretty frequently that your child is experiencing that negative mood around the clock instead of just occasionally during a meltdown. So those were five things that could kind of indicate that, you know, these meltdowns maybe aren't just a part of kind of normal life with a typical child. Maybe it's time to ask for some help.

Lori Hayungs
Sure. Oh, right, exactly. And right there, you landed on it. It's a good to ask for help. It's okay to ask for help. You know, we don't have to do this alone. That's why there are people out there. You have a special education services, you have your family doctors, you have school districts, you have local home visiting services, you know, nurses, home visiting nurses, et cetera. And so I always tell parents, I always tell them, you know what? Listen to your gut, you're a good parent and you want what's best for your child. And if you're asking these questions and you're asking me these questions, keep asking and it's okay to be asking. It's scary. I mean, I do, I absolutely 100% remember asking those questions about is, you know, my child isn't doing this. Why isn't she doing this? And you know, I was the early childhood educator and so when you're looking at behavior and meltdowns, I get it. It's scary to say, I don't know what's going on and this is my kid and why don't I know what's going on? Oh, absolutely. Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask.

Mackenzie Johnson
And you know, sometimes people are afraid of like, oh, well if my child's behind, but ultimately getting help shows how much you care and are invested in your child. That is a great thing to do for your child and for you, you know, for yourself, too. But it's a sign that you are active in your child's life and that you're involved with them and that you care about how things move forward. So no shame in asking for help. That's a great thing. And that's why we believe, you know, at Science of Parenting that there's more than one way to raise great kids. Every kid's unique. Right? So we give you the information, you decide how to use it and how it makes sense for you and your kids. For sure. That was a great question, Kenz. I'm so glad you asked that because I want to tell everyone this good information.

Mackenzie DeJong
And sometimes as we're planning these, we want to keep it, you know, within a certain amount of time or within a certain amount of points. But sometimes you just have to have that extra tidbit. So I wanted to give you the space to do that.

Mackenzie Johnson
Well it's kind of like, you know, when we think this is our Stop. Breathe. Talk. section. That's kind of what we did. Right? And as a parent sometimes the stopping like, whoa, I'm soaking in, figuring out what's going on with my child. And that breathe might be over a period of several days before we talk and that talk might be asking for help. The breathing may be going to find more information and the talk might be asking for help. Yeah, absolutely. All right, thanks. Thanks, Kenz.

Lori Hayungs
So yeah, this week we talked about understanding why our kiddos are having meltdowns and understanding and then anticipating those children's meltdowns, right? That really diving back into there's a reason. There is a reason, and I have to play detective and come up with it and maybe I need others to help me play detective and come up with a reason. Yeah. So thanks for joining us today on the Science of Parenting podcast. Remember to subscribe to our weekly audio podcast on Apple or Spotify or your favorite podcast app. And then watch our recorded videos each week and especially once a month, join us live as we take your comments and questions.

Mackenzie Johnson
Yeah, so as always, come along with us as we tackle the ins and outs and the ups and downs and the research and reality around The Science of Parenting. Thanks. Thank you.

Anthony Santiago
The Science of Parenting is a research based education program hosted by Lori Hayungs and Mackenzie Johnson, produced by Mackenzie DeJong with research and writing by Barbara Dunn Swanson. Send questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. This program is brought to you by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.state.edu/diversity.