Good approaches to teaching emotional regulation

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No problem with violence. The only destructive side is toward objects. (son sometimes knocks over a chair or hits his head against something, daughter slams her door frequently and there is a doorknob shaped hole in the wall at the end of the open door's arc, also hits her head.)

I am working with a different model that is focused on earning positive things rather than having them taken away as punishment. For example, my son tends to let the area around his computer become disgusting and often leaves glasses and plates there. Instead of saying, "if you don't clean this up, you will lose access to the computer" the idea is that the default state is that he doesn't have access to the computer but can earn it by cleaning up.

The result is the same, but the emphasis is different in a significant way: one says "I take away things that you love if you don't do as I say" the other says "You have the power to get what you want by doing what I ask."

But this is worked out very specifically for my son in consultation with his therapist.

The situation with my daughter, who has become more volatile, is a bit different. She spends hours every day listening to japanese pop music on youtube and bouncing on her bed. She becomes extremely upset if she can't do that (e.g. there are howls from her room if Verizon resets the router or does DNS maintenance!) She is very set on things following a certain routine--having certain foods in a certain dish and so on and tends to describe the situation if these routines are disrupted in the most extreme, hyperbolic language: "Life is over! I should just die! Everything sucks! I hate everything!" and so forth. She also tends to blame random events or accidents on people (usually her mother or brother.)

What I want most for her is that she just give herself a couple of minutes to feel things out before starting off on these tirades. I don't think she does this out in the world--it's more something she can do at home because she feels safe, so I am not really worried about that. I just wish she would find a way to ease off the immediate release of feeling and learn to find a little perspective.

Sometimes she is like a thunderstorm moving through the house. It looks like it must be exhausting and distressing to be in the middle of that and I wish I knew how to help her find a little peace and balance.

We also couch things in terms of rewards, when we can (in fact I am in the process of revamping ours to include more things, because we have gotten past the point where I need to emphasize just one thing at a time. The results are also not stellar but our son views it as fairer, and so he at least does not get worse (usually) when he fails to earn the reward and can be used less cautiously.

I don't know what it is called, but I wonder if you can upgrade the thing that stops the door from banging into the wall to something more effective than what you have. I would check out a hardware box store or maybe their websites.

The hyperbole your daughter uses is probably at least somewhat her age. Girls can get very dramatic at that age. My son is also that way, and has nothing to do with adolescence but I try in calmer moments to discuss that it is hyperbole. It helps a little, but to a point he has to vent and get it out. So, I guess it is similar. With girls in that stage (if that is what it is) she may have to let her ride it out a little more before attempting to attack it with reason.

Having too low expectations is bad, but expecting too much can lead to meltdowns, too. It seems like maybe you're describing a controlled meltdown. I'm not saying she is on the spectrum, but I've used strategies for my more typical child that were suggested for my child with ASD, so I wonder, if she were on the spectrum, what would you might change that might make her more at ease and less prone to melting down.

A suggestion is that there is enough social drama in this age group to confuse an NT child, and if your daughter were on the spectrum, you'd probably explain other people more to her and tell her what she should know less, and again I'm not trying to say she is or isn't, but you are seeing maybe BAP so I think it's worth trying a different approach and just see if she is calmer with more calm explanations of the world. Hearing that you're a disappointment no matter how lovingly said when you don't understand can be pretty devastating, though I think it can be appropriate and helpful to convey disappointment when our children are not doing all they can and could do more.

I feel this issue very personally from hearing from others my whole life what I should have known better than to do (I didn't) and as a veteran of having expectations of normal social behavior without extra support from my child who has AS because I was feeling pressure in that direction (doesn't help, makes things worse) and normal reading from my little dyslexic (yeah....that was really bad just everyone told me I was wrong and she was "anxious" but could read with a little more push to try......no!)......

We have to trust both our instincts and our observations of when things are or aren't working and do things differently when they aren't, and if I could go back in time and do one thing differently, it would be to give my children that gift of believing what I saw and knew inside but wasn't strong enough to go along with until there was official acknowledgment.

Life is too short and I suffered from that, unfortunately so I think did my kids.

Adamantium, you are on the spectrum, I think I remember you have a son on the spectrum, and you see some features in your daughter. I hope you'll think about the whole can't/won't dichotomy because it frees you from frustration to action if you see can't yet and work to move from there to can.

I am glad a reward system worked for you - for my son, there was no reward system that he couldn't turn around into a punishment on his own...sigh. (So, he would melt down if we asked him to "earn" computer time by cleaning up) That said, between development and just some dogged repetition of that system on our part, he is significantly better. Just wanted to add that in case there's another parent who is trying to do it that way and has a kid that is equally difficult to plan around.

Because kids on the spectrum have such an atypcial system of development, it's easy to feel like they will be "stuck" in a stage forever - because, at least in our case, we watched DS's friends get their emotions under control and waited...and waited...and waited...and then eventually, he did: not perfectly, mind you, but a definite enormous improvement all at once.

We are going through some boy-teen-hyperbole as well - I often try to re-frame it for him, so I might respond to "I HATE my teacher" - after finding out what happened (in this case, the teacher made a confused face after a question) with "Wow, that sounds really annoying. It would annoy me if someone reacted like I was odd in front of people."

I also edited this article a bit and gave it to my son to read, it seemed to help a bit: http://www.michaelteachings.com/anger.html (Keep in mind: this is not a professional site, it's some sort of new-agey religious website. I was looking for help explaining anger and how to deal with it, and this suited what I needed exactly, but be aware of the source proceed with caution.)

Instead of "teaching emotional regulation", I think you need to focus on figuring out what problems are setting off the emotional reactions. Solve those problems, and there will be less negative emotion to "regulate". This is the philosophy behind Collaborative Problem Solving method created by Ross W Greene. By using his method over and over, kids gradually learn how to solve the problems that are upsetting them.

For more info, read The Explosive Child, Lost at School, and watch the videos at: http://www.livesinthebalance.org/walking-tour-parents

We use a hybrid, partially because neither system works well enough on its own, and partially because sometimes there are feelings with no fixes that have to be addressed and put into perspective.

There are things I cannot scaffold, adjust or control for my son to compromise on. Sometimes the rational argument is too dependent on logical thinking that has not evolved yet; or often the consequences of not doing a thing are too abstract or far in the future. (also we are still mostly stuck in the "being a genius stage," and sometimes we aren't.

For instances like that, I think it does help to get into the emotional aspect. Also, aside from that, I think the intensity of emotions that are not understood is really scary and explanations help with that as well.

Think about the proprioceptive issues where someone does not feel anchored in space. I think that is how it feels to be unanchored emotionally as well.

In addition to hormones and ASD, I was under a huge amount of stress at 13. I don't think there would have been any question of stopping me from melting down. Trying to stop it only seemed to make it worse.

The best thing for me at that age was having a "meltdown zone." An isolated space where it was OK for me to scream, cuss, kick and punch and possibly break things, and generally totally f*****g lose it. I could hold them off in public (barely) if I knew I was going to be able to blow up when I got home without the s**t hitting the fan.

I had my bedroom (where I was allowed to do anything other than break stuff) and the hill behind the house (equipped with a cement pad and a large supply of beer bottles for throwing purposes).

I was MUCH older (late teens/early 20s) before I learned to defuse a meltdown (and even at that I can't always-- sometimes the only thing I can do is get the people out of the line of fire and blow).

The important thing for me is recognizing the "orange-zone signs" so I can get to that place where it's safe to let it blow. In my case, those signs are nausea, blurred vision, difficulty breathing, numbness in my feet and fingers, itching in the palms of my hands, hands that want to curl into claws, and the inability to keep this really predatory scary-ass rictus of a smile off my face.

The sooner I recognize them, the better. Because the other hard thing is getting other people to understand that, while I will be back within 30 minutes, I really do need to GO. NOW. That it's too late to calm it down or head it off, that by that point I've already used all my coping strategies, that any attempt by anyone else to talk me down or jolly or scold me out of it is only going to make it worse.

I've been poking around the internets and talking about this with DS, as he's been on an emotional-powderkeg kick lately and we haven't been able to figure out what's underneath it yet. We are continuing to talk about it during times when he's calm, and I keep making guesses...but so far nothing has stuck.

One of the techniques I found online that I thought I'd share because it really resonated with me: to develop a "scale" and during calm times, "rank" where outbursts were on the scale. For example I found this list somewhere:

12 infuriated; raging; rageful; boiling; explosive
11.5 fuming; smoldering; inflamed; outraged
11 incensed; enraged
10.5 seething; livid; “hot”
10 bitter; irate; inflamed; rancorous
9.5 heated; wrathful; vengeful
9 hostile; belligerant
8.5 riled; galled; agitated; pissed off
8 indignant; insulted
7.5 disgusted; fed up; exasperated
7 perturbed; piqued
6.5 upset; antagonized; cross
6 resentful
5.5 provoked; irritated
5 miffed; irked; chagrined; disgruntled
4.5 vexed; “hot under the collar”
4 irritable; irascible; grumpy: grouchy
3.5 peevish; petulant; testy
3 offended; provoked
2.5 frustrated; uptight
2 annoyed; chafing
1.5 impatient; edgy; distressed
1 bothered; troubled
0.5 displeased; disappointed
0 completely calm and cool; peaceful; tranquil; fully in control—both emotionally and cognitively

We actually went through the scale (we used a 1-10 and words DS chose) and picked an example of what might be an appropriate level of anger/irritation for that number - for instance, 10 we labeled "furious: and an example of a situation where that was appropriate was if someone hurt one of our pets.

Not only does it give a sense of perspective on when anger is appropriate and how much, it also gave us a frame to talk about it - so if he's reacting disproportionately, we have mutual language. ("Was that really at a 7? Seems like this is more of a 4 or 5 situation?")

Another technique for us parents: one site talks about watching Donald Duck. Most of the humor in that cartoon is about Donald exploding into a tantrum. The suggestion is to use that as a reminder on how to distance yourself appropriately.

That's not to say you make fun of them or don't meet their needs, you just become an observer and recognize that their anger has nothing to do with you in the same way that cartoon anger is not about you. Makes it easier to keep your own cool. I hadn't thought of Donald Duck, but I had sometimes successfully thought about other kids' tantrums and how much easier they are because of the distance, and tried to have that view with DS.