How to Cope with My Child’s Meltdown: Therapy for Parents in St. Louis (Part 1)
How can I cope with my child’s meltdown?
That’s a big question and there’s no one size fits all answer. Thankfully, you can turn to specialists, like Erin Kirkpatrick, MA, ATR, LPC, who can help you answer that question. Erin is a mother of three and a Clinical Therapist at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis. She recently developed our parent-coaching program with Compassionate Counseling St. Louis owner/founder Kelsey Torgerson-Dunn. Here’s what Erin has to say about coping with meltdowns:
Parent tips for co-regulation during your child’s most stressful moments.
Erin Kirkpatrick, MA, ATR, LPC
Parenthood is, no doubt, one of life’s most intense bags of extreme emotional highs and lows.
The immense joy of watching your child take their first steps, the exhaustion of a seemingly endless string of sleepless nights, the sweet comfort of countless hugs, and the chaos of a toddler’s (or teenager’s!) meltdowns are all things we anticipate as parents.
What we may not anticipate, however, is the difficulty of handling our own emotions during our child’s most difficult moments.
Sleep deprivation, the stress of balancing work and home life, or simply the emotional difficulty of seeing our children upset can all take a toll on a parent’s emotional health.
And, as much as we may always want to contain our children’s extreme anger or sadness in the midst of a meltdown, it can be very difficult to always respond to our kids in a calm and regulated way.
Need counseling for your child?
Maybe the meltdowns seem like a little more than just a rough day and you’re wondering if they might have anxiety.
Temper tantrums and meltdowns are common! How you respond is critical.
It’s natural to become stressed and at times angry with your child during a meltdown. But an angry, short-tempered reaction can add fuel to the fire. Yelling and delving out punishments can not only worsen the child’s emotional state, but it also models for the child that 1) yelling/screaming is an appropriate emotional response to stress and 2) they should feel ashamed for it.
Learning to co-regulate during a child’s meltdown not only can lessen the duration of the episode, but it can also provide an example for how to cope with difficult feelings. So, where do we start?
Moving forward: ditch the guilt and don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Let’s be honest here. Keeping a level head and calmly responding to our kids 100% of the time isn’t realistic. We are only human, and it’s natural to get angry and overwhelmed. Sometimes, we’ll have bad days. That’s okay! Learn to forgive yourself after these moments, discuss your feelings with your kids and move forward!
By becoming more familiar with your own patterns of stress, finding coping skills that work well for you and you family, and focusing on self-care, you can take small steps towards becoming more consistently regulated during moments of chaos and model healthier habits for your kids.
And, if it all just feels too much, you don’t have to manage it all on your own. Help is always available.
Feeling like you need some parent support?
Our parent coaching program is like therapy for parents, helping you come up with a plan for how to to handle your child's temper tantrums or model coping skills.
Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anxiety and anger management therapy for kids, teens, and college students. We also provide therapeutic parent support. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood.