Emotions

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being new here, I'm getting little overwhelmed trying to read everything, so I'm gonna ask this one because it's my most dificult thing to handle with my son. Dean (12) has emotional outburst over the smallest things. For instance, in first grade, he did not break through the line when playing "red rover" and I had to pick him up from school because they could not calm him down. If he drops food or drink, he starts crying, and I don't know how to calm him down. It takes me minimum of an hour to get him to stop crying, and then he is moody for the rest of the day. Moody as in anything will make him cry or make him angry.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to help him realize that not everything is as devistating as it seems? I absolutely hate seeing him so upset all the time.

Hi. My 7 year old AS son can be a bit the same although maybe not to the same extent, so I don't know how much help this will be... I've tried to start with the little things that he gets upset about to try and show him that if he stays calm he will solve things a lot quicker. For example, he'll often get frustrated and cry if he can't find something around home (his glasses, a particular pen etc.) and I'll try and get him calm and stopping the crying to show him that then he has time to think and focus on where the stuff is, rather than the emotion and frustration of it. Half the time he'll find things within a few minutes, and then I talk to him about how it worked to stop the tears (so he could actually see to look in the first place!!) and it meant he got a solution a lot quicker. He has learned a lot from these smaller situations, and then I progress to attempting the bigger ones.

The other thing I use is distraction, which is a bit hit and miss, but often worth a go. If he's upset or having a meltdown or something, I'll sometimes use one of his special interests to distract him and make out that I need his help to work something out. eg. I'll get a map or atlas and sit really close to him, and then tell him that I need to find something...and it will often snap him out of it.

Also, I have just bought a social skills picture book ("The Social Skills Picture Book" by Jed Baker) which has photos with cartoon captions that illustrate "right ways" and "wrong ways" of dealing with situations. One of the sections is on emotions - keeping calm is one of them. These sorts of things illustrate how someone who uses counting and deep breaths to calm down and eventually be happy again is far better off than the person who just keeps fighting it and goes to pieces.

Don't know if any of these suggestions are a help, but I wish you all the best.

my 9 year old is like this....we've been trying to work on getting her to understand that she won't always get her way. she won't always win. she will have disappointments in life...........not really certain that we've gotten anywhere. i think it's hard to teach this to anyone and not feel like you're shattering their world. mostly we've been working with her ( when she's not upset) on learning and practicing ways to lose graciously. ways to help calm herself down. what to do if she's really upset ( at home, this is: tell adult, ask for hug, go to room if really out of control). i can't say that it always works. we're all still a work in progress.

My son is now 11 and used to be a little bit like this and can still have some moments where he is not in control of his emotions, but then again, so do I. It has really improved as he has grown and matured. When he was younger and in public school (we homeschool him now) some of the ridiculous pressure they place on young kids didn't help the situation at all. We used to never be able to finish a board game because he would get upset over a rule infraction or the dice weren't coming up with the numbers he wanted, etc...we continued to make him play games and learn that is NOT an appropriate way to act. There is such a thing as losing (and winning) graciously and you don't always get your way and things do go wrong sometimes. Sometimes there were real consequences for him when he acted that way, sometimes we just let him go to his room if he really was just having a bad day but most of the time we didn't want to let an opportunity pass to teach him.

With much patience and repetition from me and my husband and with maturity he has gotten to the point where he can say "Oh well, better luck next time, oh well, that didn't work out" This doesn't happen all the time but enough where he has himself under control in situations where he isn't in control. IMHO it's an important lesson for my son to learn that it's OK to have strong preferences for the way you like things to happen and how you want others to act but when the universe doesn't cooperate you try to get control of your emotions and not waste a whole day pouting about it (something he often did in the past).

Thank you all so much for the advice. We have been trying the "Deep breath in, let it out slow" until he can compose himself enough to talk. It used to work pretty well, but due to recent events at home, all of the techniques i've used in the past have not been working to well lately.

A couple of months ago we lost our house and all of our belongings to a fire. This has thrown Dean's progress back about a year. I've put him in counseling, and that's starting to have a positive effect. But it has been tough. For all of us, it has been tough, but he's taking the changes in schedules, atmosphere, etc. really hard. sometimes he doesn't even know why he's crying, which makes it even more difficult to calm him down.

I'm going to definately try to apply some of the suggestions here. i know the more i try, the more chances I'll have at finding something that actually helps him.

Thanks Again!

sounds like he could be suffering some effects of PTSD.....

back to the inappropriate display of emotions~ took my daughter rollerskating. the rink was crowded. i could see her agitation level increasing, so i asked her if she wanted to go home. she replied: " NO. I want everyone else to leave ! !! !!" and then started growling and crying and stomping.......oh my ! if i wasn't in the moment with her, it probably would've been pretty funny !