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SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
EP 140: Meltdowns, Decoded
✨ Click here for SENsory Mother - Laura Ellis
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What if the meltdown in your hallway isn’t defiance at all, but a terrified nervous system asking for help? We go straight to the heart of “challenging behaviour” with Laura, a teacher and mum of neurodivergent twins, who moved from daily crisis to a calmer, kinder home by changing how she understood panic, overload, and connection. Her story spans premature birth, early diagnoses, masking at school, and the moment everything fell apart—then slowly came back together.
We break down the physiology of fight or flight in plain English—what rising heart rate, redirected blood flow, and sensory overwhelm do to a child’s thinking brain—and why sticker charts and lectures backfire mid-meltdown. You’ll hear the hidden social demands most of us miss: the chirpy morning greeting, the barrage of car-ride questions, the insistence on eye contact. We swap over-talking for visuals and scripts, and share a deceptively simple morning playlist that turned dread into momentum. Curiosity replaces blame through a great example of literal thinking (yes, he handed over the red and blue food colouring—because that’s what was asked).
We also map the sensory layer—why kicking and slamming can signal a need for proprioception—and how a realistic sensory routine lowers baseline stress. A striking moment at a cricket match shows how the right environment can flip chaos to clarity in seconds. Boundaries still matter, but timing is everything: teach after calm, not during crisis, and make consequences predictable, visual, and discussed in advance. If you’ve felt hopeless, ashamed, or judged, this conversation will hand you language, tools, and the relief of being understood.
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Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr. Olivia Kessel. And more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we start the episode, I want to share something super exciting. The ADHD Warrior Mom Recharge Station is now open for founding members. This founding membership gives you access to group coaching weekly, interactive masterclasses every month with neurodiverse experts, monthly self-care sessions, and access to a community of moms just like you, where you can be you and not feel alone, and also a library of practical resources. Which is limited to 30 spaces until the end of October. You'll receive a special bonus offer too, which is a one-on-one coaching session with me, Dr. Olivia. You can cancel your membership at any time. You can join today at S END Parenting.com and Slash Join. Or you can click the link in the show notes. And as a gift, you can download my free guide with everything you need to know when considering ADHD medication.com and flash medication. What is really going on? Or why did it happen and because how strategies are helpless or exhausted in the face of your child's big emotions? This is an episode for you. So welcome, Laura. It is such a pleasure to have you on the Send Parenting podcast to talk about something that I think every neurodiverse parent is well aware of, and that is meltdowns. It's a gift that keeps on giving. In fact, over the over the summer holidays, I was sitting at lunch with my 83-year-old father, who's got undiagnosed ADHD, and he had a total meltdown. In fact, my daughter looked at me and she's like, mommy. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to use the same tools and techniques that I use with you with him. And it worked remarkably well. But you know, it is a gift that can keep on giving. And how we manage the meltdowns and how we we learn and how we regulate ourselves is so important because we can decrease the frequency and we can decrease the intensity. But it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So I'm really excited to have you here today to bring your expertise and knowledge to my listeners and to me as well, so we can learn some different tricks. Because sometimes one trick doesn't work and another trick, I shouldn't call them tricks. Strategies is what I should call them. But first of all, Laura, let's tell hear a little bit about your story and your journey, both as a professional and as a parent of Nerdiverse twin boys, and how that helped to shape your understandings of meltbox.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having me on here as well. It's really lovely to chat to you about it. But yeah, um, I think that my kind of experience of all of this now as a I've been teaching for nearly 20 years, but at the time when I had my boys, you know, kind of I was in my first decade of teaching, and I think that I put an awful lot of pressure on myself as a teacher to be somebody who would be, you know, parenting was gonna be an absolute dawdle for me. I knew all about behaviour management, I knew all about how to teach children, how to do all of the things they need to do. So I was absolutely blindsided when the meltdowns just took over everything, and I did not know how to handle the meltdowns. Yeah, so the background into me, um, my journey into parenting started very traumatically because the boys were born very prematurely. They were born at 26 weeks, and so we spent a long time in hospital and obviously lots of different health concerns. Um, and then around age two, my eldest twin was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which we obviously traced back to the hospital with the trauma that he'd undergone, he'd had sepsis twice, it was very, you know, all very scary. Um, so it it was sorry, go on, Olivia.
SPEAKER_01:No, I said goodness, that's a lot to to to deal with as a new one.
SPEAKER_00:It was, and I didn't know anything about cerebral palsy, and I, you know, I was absolutely terrified. As it's turned out, Max is very, it doesn't really massively affect him. Um, he's kind of stiffen his muscles and it mainly affects his calf muscles, but he's um he's kind of come through that really well, and we just manage it with physio. But the other twin, so Charlie, so we've got twin one is Max, twin two is Charlie. And Charlie had never had any signs of any type of neurodivergence. He had been totally sociable, really, really happy as a as a child, as a toddler, um, and just didn't show any of the signs. Whereas his twin brother, there were some classic signs around eye contact and solo play and things like that. So we were kind of more vigilant around potential neurodivergence for Max. Um and then, of course, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, so there was definitely um neurodivergence going on there for him. But with Charlie, he was he was fine, he was quite shy, and there was definitely separation anxiety going on there, but he, you know, he was managing fine, and as I say, he was so so sociable, always wanted to be around people. So when they got to school, he was okay and he made friends and he was kind of enjoying it, and he was happy to be playing, but his teachers started to notice that he wouldn't answer questions directly, he was very, very anxious in class, etc. But you know, generally we were fine. But then we got to year one and the wheels completely fell off because the demands in year one just became far too great for him. So at that point, we started to see horrendous meltdowns at home, only at home. And of course, when I'd speak to school, they would tell me he was fine and he was happy and he was with his friends and he was having a go at his work and all of this kind of stuff. And at home it was absolutely horrendous. And what I was seeing was a child who I thought was behaving really badly, and I thought as a teacher I should be able to manage that, and so I tried all of the classic behaviour management strategies, all the usual rewards and sanctions, and all of those things, and none of it worked. And as a result, not only did I feel a failure as a parent, but I felt a failure as a teacher because this was my whole career I dedicated to managing other people's children's behaviour, and I couldn't do it for myself, and it was really, really very, very challenging. Myself and my husband both teachers, so you know we were really struggling at home, and but like I say, it wasn't happening in school, and other people weren't seeing it. So, this kind of internalized belief I had that this was me, that he was only doing this when he was with me. So, this was all about my parenting. And when I approached school to start with, you know, I was sent on a on a course to learn about child brain development, and I was a teacher, and I felt so insulted by that. But this is a really common story that I hear from so many parents that the first port of call is your parenting, and as we know, people who are listening to podcasts like this, people who are reading books around send parenting, people who are putting the effort in, we are good parents. We have already started on a foundation of knowing what's right for our children and wanting to do the right thing for our children, and for me it was so insulting. But I think as I've over the years, as I've kind of learned so much more about being a send parent, I realised that I was in a kind of a unique situation because of my background in teaching. I was I felt able to approach school to tell them that I was struggling, and I know that so many of the parents I work with don't feel that level of confidence with approaching school because they don't know the system, they feel that they are going to be judged, that they feel that all of the mirrors are going to be turned on them, they worry that they might be referred to social services if they start talking about some of the situations that these meltdowns that are happening at home. Because sometimes the meltdowns can be incredibly aggressive and you know violent. You know, these are horrible words that we use, but that's how it feels when we don't know what's going on. So really for me.
SPEAKER_02:Laura, can I can I can I interrupt you right there? Because I think it would be really helpful if you could just maybe describe either your own experience or someone who you've worked with experience of of a really bad meltdown. Because I know for me and for also from what you've said that you feel so alone, and I think actually hearing actually what a meltdown can look like would be very affirmative for other parents who are going through it.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So one of the um one memory that I have that's really poignant for me, um I had arrived at school a bit late, and so my boys were the last ones at the school gates to be picked up. You know, I'm talking a few minutes, not in not terrible, not terrible amounts of time, but I'd arrived at the gate a few minutes late. So I was running down the pathway to get to school, and for the first time ever, because you would usually save this behaviour for when we were in the car, for the first time ever, as I approached the gate, he kicked me. So his teacher was standing there and he just kicked me and started shouting at me. And it was the first time that he'd done it in front of somebody else, because usually, as I say, he'd wait. This would start when we got in the car. So the kicking and the shouting, and he would shout horrible things. So he would like, I hate you, go away from me, I don't want to be with you, all of these horrible things he would shout because he was it felt like he was so angry at well, it felt like he was angry at me, you know. Um, and so yeah, so these meltdowns would this was how it would be, and that particular day he was just yelling at the you know, at such a volume, he was kicking the chair in the car. We got in, he was just kicking out, like lashing out, he was so frustrated. And um, of course, I sent him to his bedroom because you can't treat me like that, I don't deserve to be treated like that. And I went into the front room and I phoned my best friend who's an education mental health care practitioner, and I was sobbing on the phone and I said, I cannot live like this, I do not deserve for my child to be kicking and hitting and screaming at me. I'm not I'm not a bad parent, and and she, you know, she just listened to me. You know, I remember just feeling like I can't, I cannot live like this, and these meltdowns would carry on, and they would we would start every day with these meltdowns, and then as soon as we pulled up outside school, his whole body would change. His literally, I could see it, it was literally like he was putting on some kind of costume to get into school, and then he would walk calmly into school, he would go into school, and he would have a great day, he would be fine all day, and then he would come out and it would start again. So our house just felt like a war zone where he was yelling all of the time. I was yelling because I'm not gonna accept that type of behaviour in my home. And you know, my husband would look at me and he'd get his head bitten off. My other son, you know, at the same. And we were all literally at war with each other. And I was trying to manage this as behaviour. I was trying to take his toys away from him. I was trying to re anytime he did anything remotely good, I'd be trying to give him a sticker on his reward chart and all that kind of stuff because that was the type of behaviour management I I knew and had practiced for so long, which worked with so many of the children that I had taught over the years, and I could see these strategies working with my friends' children. These are the things they were doing at home with their children, and I just felt like an absolute failure because none of these things worked for me. So these meltdowns for us they were becoming increasingly aggressive and violent, things were being thrown around a lot, um, slamming of doors, kicking out, hitting the walls. He is physically, as I said, he was very prem, so he's always been physically small, and I would just look at him and I'd think, Well, it's it's fine now that you're so tiny, but what happens when you get bigger? This is and I would imagine what was going to happen, and that was that also was shaping how I was dealing with the situation. The thoughts in my head were shaping how I was trying to approach these situations, and ultimately, this went on for years, and I used to say to people, you know, I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship, but I can't leave. And if my husband had been treating me the way I felt my son was treating me, I say all this in inverted commas, but you know, I felt like he was treating me in such a horrible way. Had it been my husband, I would have left, absolutely would have left, but you can't leave when it's your child, and this is how so many parents we feel hopeless when we're in those situations, don't we? Because we can't see, we can't see a way out because everything we try doesn't work. I was paying hundreds of pounds for this parenting program, this online parenting program to learn how to parent better, but it wasn't designed for for him for our family, and you know, so this ultimately ultimately it led to me having a breakdown because I could not cope with living in such a hostile environment that I absolutely was not equipped to to you know, and I wasn't prepared to live in an environment like that, and at that point I was envisaging him having to go into care. You know, I just thought we we cannot function as a family like this, it's not going to work. Um, and I think when I started to have those thoughts about the fact that maybe our family was not going to make it, um, that's really when I hit rock bottom, and I ended up being signed off work, um, and I just kind of thought I have to do something different, something has to change because everything I'm trying isn't working, so I have to just find a new way. And so while I was off work, that's when I really started to dive into what is going on here, what is it that I'm missing? How can I what can I learn and how can I do things differently? And I think that's really a huge part of parenting a neurodivergent child when especially because I'm not neurodivergent, you know, when I do all the tests, I'm absolutely extremely neurotypical. My husband isn't, so we can see kind of the family line on his side, but um, I am neurotypical, so this behaviour was not something that I could relate to at all. I had never ever, I have never spoken to another person in my entire life the way he was speaking to me. You know, I had never I couldn't comprehend speaking to somebody like that in that way. Did you know he was neurodivergent at this point, or is that still a big question mark? Um, yeah, so school had started to notice that he was struggling academically. Um, of course, COVID came in in that same year one when he was struggling, and I I was literally praying to the gods by that March when we knew we were all gonna get locked down. I it couldn't come fast enough for me because getting him to school in the morning had become so traumatic for us that I was just like, I can't, I cannot carry on doing this. So, actually, for him, lockdown was a bit of relief, and I suppose realizing that the sending him into that school environment was causing him such trauma, I think that's really where I started to um to think that you know I we really there's something else going on here, and school to be fair to school, they were they in the end they were supportive of me and and helped. When it got to the point where I had my breakdown, yes, he had already been diagnosed at that point. So I think the years of me trying to push through and push through, and then we eventually got to that point, and I realized that a diagnosis doesn't change anything.
SPEAKER_02:It a diagnosis doesn't change it doesn't it'll give you a manual afterwards, do they? They're not like okay, now now here's how we feel this.
SPEAKER_00:It does not come with any kind of manual at all. It is literally, yes, there is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition at play here. You're just gonna have to get on with it for the rest of his life. That's it now. And so I think that just became so overwhelming, and he was struggling so much at school. I was struggling so much to get him into school, and you know, as a teacher, you know, I re I feel differently now, but as a teacher, it's kind of institutionalized in me that we get our children to school. As a teacher, we have been pushing and pushing attendance for such a long time that it's it was kind of it wasn't an option for me to just not send him to school without having an alternative. Um so when I eventually had that kind of time where I thought basically a breakdown, I didn't realise how poorly I was actually until until after it had passed, until I looked back and realised how unwell I had actually become at that point. But during that time, I then realised when I started to kind of learn so much more about what was going on, and I started to piece the puzzle together a bit more about the things that he was actually struggling with, and how some subtle you know, there were subtle things that I was missing. Um it wasn't until that time when I was off where I said I cannot send this child into this place. I felt like I was sending him into the lion's den every day, and the more I knew about what he was struggling with, the more I knew I needed to take him out of that setting. So I ended up through, you know, as we all know, a very, very difficult process of involving the local authority, the school, and various other external people. I got to a point where I was able to negotiate a reduced timetable for him. Um, we'd started to talk to a special school at that point as well, and which I think helped school to to agree, but I got to a point where I said he he cannot come, he I cannot bring him back to school unless I know he's only coming in for a few hours. I cannot bring him back to school. Um yeah, and another point around that was I had realized that he'd had this ongoing medical kind of physical condition. He kept breaking, he kept coming out in hives, he kept getting like this rash all over his body, and it was happening, it's happened a good few times, and every time I would take photos of the rash to send to the GP, and it got to that um that May half term when I was off work and the rash came back again, and I I I thought I need to go back through my camera roll and see is there a pattern of when this rash appears on his body, and there absolutely was. This rash was appearing during um any time where he was going back into school after any period of break. So after the October half term, it happened, it happened in the second week of the Christmas holiday before he went back in January, it happened in the February half term, happened in the second week of the Easter holiday, and then it happened again in the May half term. And at that point, I knew that we had this his body was telling me that his central nervous system could not cope with this stress anymore, and that was really frightening for me because I was seeing, I felt like I was seeing that direct result of the stress that he was under, and I could see it with my eyes.
SPEAKER_02:In a way though, that was almost helpful because I think you know it kind of you it it uh it strengthens, unfortunately. Like we don't we don't believe, it's harder to believe in something that we can't see. And then when you can see it, it actually validates for you as a mom that this isn't you, this is your child is really experiencing physical symptoms now from that stress where he was only showing a behavior before. I think you know what I mean, it it's horrifying to have to get to that level, and it's it's uh a need that we as parents need to change that what if what we can't see or isn't a physical symptom is still as valid. But yeah, poor little baby is.
SPEAKER_00:It's horrible, and and I talk about this a lot with parents about this the invisible nature of what we are dealing with. You know, in that case, when I see a rash on my son's body, I know this, I know that there's something not right, and I can kind of respond to that in a very different way than when we are just seeing these huge aggressive outbursts with our children, and all we can all we can see is behaviour, and this is what this is how it's so difficult for us as SEN parents to look beyond what we are actually seeing and look underneath the surface, and and it is so so hard, especially when we have this narrative that is often kind of supported by schools where we can't see it, so it's obviously something in your head, and and we internalise that and we we start to believe it, don't we? And it and it takes an awful lot of strength to to kind of go, No, I'm not making this up. I am not making this up, and I know that um one of you know I knew that when these meltdowns were happening and nobody was believing me. You know, I had friends and family who didn't believe what was happening because they couldn't imagine he was just this gorgeous, sweet little boy who was just so lovely when he was around them, and the things I was describing, he they were just like, Oh, I just can't imagine it, and you know, it was really, really horrible for me. But I would record on my phone, I would I would video what was going on, and and of course I could never share those videos with anybody, but I just wanted proof, I wanted proof that I wasn't making all of this up, so yeah, it's um it it's just awful. But yeah, when I had the when we when I had the breakdown, and I suppose the breakdown then I I hope that I've been able to turn that round now because that really was the turning point for me where I thought I have to put as much effort into learning all the academic stuff that I have to learn for my job, I need to put as much effort into learning about neurodivergence here, about autism. He was later diagnosed with ADHD as well, which he kind of I knew was coming. Um, so I then really really just dedicated myself to learning what was going on, and I did a whole lot of research myself. I did lots of courses and just a lot of learning and speaking with other parents who were going through similar things and really trying to unpick what was going on, and it took it took a long time, but I was able to develop strategies that really helped me then, kind of thinking about what what are the most important things that I have learned that I can really quickly use to kind of help my son out of these meltdowns and see when I started to see that the meltdowns were reducing, they were reducing in frequency, so I was actually getting a little breather in between them because you know when they are coming at you thick and fast, you literally don't have time to think about what your next move is, and so you will just kind of revert back into that shouting and yelling yourself. I mean, that's certainly what I would do. You know, I would get so angry, I would be so frustrated because I couldn't do anything about it that that would then turn to anger, and I would be responding with anger to him. Um, and so when I could learn about what was actually going on, it helped me to approach it differently because it stopped being so invisible to me. I started having things that I could actually look for, I could actually see them in in inverted commas. I I knew I understood a little bit more about what was happening, why it was happening, and then I could approach it with more empathy. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's it's it's it's almost like a light bulb moment when you start to understand what's going on in their brains and what's causing those triggers and how it's not personal, nothing to do with your parenting. It's actually the way that they're wired. And that's and I I don't know, for me as well, it was like an aha moment when I finally understood that. And it it it gives you compassion and it gives you empathy, which then takes everything down a huge notch because it's not personal anymore, you know, and then and then you're able to respond to it differently. So let's talk a little bit about what's happening in the child's brain and what some of the triggers could be and how you then decrease that to get those moments of calm between the meltdowns.
SPEAKER_00:So I think that understanding the the kind of the physical side of things is so important. That physiology is really important. So, in at in the time when I was signed off work, my best friend came round to see me, and we were um drinking coffee in the garden, and I said to her that um I said I've been feeling really weird the last couple of weeks, I think I'm drinking too much coffee, and she was like, What do you mean? Because I do love my coffee. Um, and so I said, Well, there have been two occasions when I've been um talking to people about what's been going on, and I have felt my lips start to go tingly, and I felt my fingers start to go tingly, and I felt like I'm going to pass out. And she said, Um, she said, 'You do know what that is, don't you, Laura?' And I said, Well, I think I'm maybe maybe I'm drinking too much coffee because I'm off work and that. And she said, Laura, it's nothing to do with coffee, you're having a panic attack. I was like, No, I I don't have panic attacks. I've never had a panic attack. Of course, I I know. I'm I'm really strong person, I don't have panic attacks. And she said, Laura, that is exactly what a panic attack is, and she explained to me. What was actually happening in my body in those moments? She talked to me about why my heart rate was increasing, why the blood flow was increasing around my body. And and I had no idea. And we talk a lot about fight and flight. You know, everybody knows oh the fight-flight response, but I don't think people actually understand what that means from a physiological perspective. I think they just think it means what it feels like. Yeah, I think they just think it means oh you go you get angry or you run away. But you do get angry or you run away because your brain is making your body do certain things. And when she broke all that down for me and she explained to me that this was this was essentially about blood flow, this is what was happening in my body, it helped me so much to understand what was happening. And the following week I started to feel the tingles again. I don't know what I was doing, but I was doing something, and I started to feel those feelings again. And because she had explained what was happening, I was able to just take a minute and to regulate my body and to understand that nothing scary is happening here, I'm not actually going to pass out. I don't need to carry on panicking more that I'm going to pass out. I can actually just because I understand what's happening with my heart rate, I can actually just try and calm heart rate down. And so then it alleviated all the rest of those symptoms. So I didn't get to the point where my fingers were tingling, I didn't get to the point where my um where I felt like I was going to pass out. I just felt a little tingle in my lip, and I thought, okay, Laura, just let's calm, let's calm down now. And I think that that understanding what was happening in my body was so important and not only important for me, but important for my understanding of what has is happening in my son's body when he is going into meltdown. This isn't about him going, oh, I think I just want to yell and scream, Mum, I want to say these horrible things. His body is making him feel terrified. The feelings that he has got in his body are frightening him. So when he is responding in this way, it is not because he hates me, it's because, like, there's an issue here with his heart rate. That's what's happening here. This is all fuelled by his heart rate, which is fuelled by the fear that he has in his brain, in his mind. So that kind of that understanding the physiology of what happens to us in those moments of panic really, really helped me to help myself in those moments because when he's yelling and shouting at me, of course, I am feeling panicked, and if I don't recognise how to get a control over my body, then everything is going to get worse because I'm just gonna carry on panicking more, and that is what's happening in our children's body. So, in order for us to really help our children, we need to approach that situation in the same way that we would approach a panic attack. You know, if we knew that our child was having a panic attack, if it was so obvious to us, then we absolutely wouldn't be shouting at them, telling them to stop messing around, telling them to be quiet, telling them to stop breathing like that, how dare you! I don't deserve a child who breathes like that. We wouldn't do any of those things. But when we don't understand what's going on, it affects the way we approach the situation, and that's what I that's how I want to work with parents. I want them to understand what's going on so that they can approach the situation differently because it's not about the child being broken, and it's not about the parent being broken, but it's about these ideas that we have somehow learned in our lives about what parenting is supposed to be, and we don't even we don't even know how we've learned these things, it's just we just learn them, haven't we? And when we are met with a child who is not responding to those traditional styles that we think they should respond to, we are just completely flummoxed by that, and being flummoxed by something generally means that we're gonna get angry, we're gonna get frustrated by that, and we will handle those situations in kind of you know, in ways that are not necessarily helpful to our children or to us, and that's a really important part of what I do. You know, I want parents to realise that I do and I understand what they're going through, and there are lots of things that we will try that when you know we look back, and there's so many things that I have done and said, There are things that I have said to my son, like you're going to have to go and live in another house, and it breaks my heart to think back to the things that I have said to him, the things that I have threatened him with when actually he was terrified, he was terrified, and he needed me to approach that in a completely different way. And this isn't about giving in to our children, it's not about saying, you know, oh, it's fine to speak to me that way. It's about understanding what's going on in the moment, and for me, that understanding what's happening in their bodies, what's happening in our bodies, what's happening in our minds that are contributing to the escalation of these meltdowns, it's it's so important that we understand that. It's not about sticker charts, it's not about rewards and sanctions, it's about really connecting with our children. And and and that's really what I am. Feel passionate about helping parents to connect with their children, to not feel like failures, to not feel like doormats that are being walked over all the time, but to actually understand what our children need.
SPEAKER_02:You say that so eloquently, Laura, and I think your story echoes a lot of what the listeners and myself have all gone through, and reaching that point of breaking where where you say things you wish you've never said, you know? And understanding, with that understanding and be able to look at it with that different lens, then you can start to take a step back and think with your cognitive brain instead of your fight or flight brain, and you can start to see what's causing these triggers, what's what's behind this? Why why why has it come to this? Because that's that's the emergency situation. And instead of joining them in the emergency situation, we're able to pull the handbrake up, use our brains, and look into what's triggering this. And that's really where the magic starts to happen in terms of decreasing. Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience and maybe with your clients as well, how you can recognize those triggers and how it then takes you from understanding what's driving them into these situations of fear and panic attack?
SPEAKER_00:There are there are so many triggers for meltdowns, and I think it's really important that we understand that the meltdown, or sorry, the trigger for the meltdown isn't necessarily the thing that just happened. It is, yeah, in fact, in most cases, it is a build-up of things that have happened up until that point.
SPEAKER_02:It's the last drop.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, and and that is you know, so many of us will just jump in and think, why are you yelling that you've just dropped your teddy on the floor? It's absolutely not something to yell about. And we start to kind of add to that in the way that we approach that situation, but you know, it was never the teddy that dropped on the floor that just caused that big outburst, it was everything that had led up to that point. And we talk about our children struggling to emotionally regulate, but the fact is that so many of them do emotionally regulate all day, you know, behind their mask, and they are somehow holding everything together, and often they will then get home and they will explode, and the tiniest little thing will appear to set them off, but it's not really that that thing that has set them off, it's everything that they've been through during the day. So, in the training that I have produced, I talk a little bit about kind of seven common triggers of neurodivergent meltdowns, and I think that um we are very good at understanding because the as part of the autism diagnosis, we know that social communication and interaction is a challenge for our children, so we know that it's written there in black and white as part of the diagnosis, and so we're generally very good as parents at understanding that you know making friends on the playground or going to a big family party where there's going to be loads of people, or you know, answering questions in class, those things are going to be challenging for our children, and but we're less less good at noticing those subtle social interactions that we expect from our children where we don't take into account anything to do with their diagnosis. So, for example, I talk a lot, I have one particular um free training that I give which talks about my mornings and how the morning routine was just absolutely horrendous for me. And I would go into his bedroom every morning with my positive hat on today, it was going to be different, it was all going to be different today. And I'd go into his room and I'd snuffle into his cheek and I'd give him little kisses and hi gorgeous, wake up, hello, have you had a nice sleep? All of that stuff, and he would just growl in my face, and I'm and of course I'm not going to be growled at. How dare you growl at me when I've come in to say good morning and I'm being so nice to you? And then I'd such a loud, and then I would like pick up the Teddies and ask, you know, did Ted have a nice sleep last night and all this. Sometimes I would um take in a video that I preset up on my phone of something he was interested in to oh have a look at this video, anything to try and wake him up on the right side of the bed where he wasn't growling in my face from the minute that he opened his eyes. But all of that is social communication and interaction, all of that that I've just described, and I was absolutely not even considering that that was social communication. I was well look, I just was completely ignoring the fact that it was social communication because I thought social communication meant when you were out socializing outside of the house with other people, I wasn't recognizing that from before he'd even opened his eyes, I was in his personal space. I was requiring him to respond to me, and of course, when he responded with growls and and yells, I wasn't accepting of that type of communication, that was not okay. So before he'd even opened his eyes, I was asking him to do something that he was unable to do in that moment, and when we actually think it in terms of our children's meltdowns, they are often caused with us asking them questions when we pick them up from school, you know, get in the car, how was your day? What did you have for lunch? Who did you play with? Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. And funnily enough, they are having an explosion in the car because we are asking too much of a part of um of them that they can't access at that moment necessarily, and so when I realised that I was that social communication applies as much to me as it does to the children on the playground, when I was able to recognise that, then I could change the way I was handling that situation. So I knocked it on the head, you know. I talked to him about how can we what can we do in the mornings? How is the best way for you to wake up in the mornings? And we talked about a plan which is so important for our children. So he and he was in charge of that plan. So we would decide absolutely and giving him those choices about you know, how do you want me to come in? We actually started using some music, so I said, but I'm worried that you're not going to wake up in time to get ready. And so we started to he loves music, so we created a playlist that went with our morning routine, and so we wrote it all down, it was all visually kind of prepared for him. But he chose a song that would be he'd have one song that would just be the waking up song where he didn't have to do anything, he could just lie in bed and kind of kind of you know get accustomed to being awake, and then the second song he he kind of attached a couple of tasks to going to the bathroom, um, you know, coming back in and getting his uniform out, whatever it was. And he came up with his own plan and the playlist to go alongside it. And oh my gosh, well, that was an absolute game changer for a for a few, you know, a few mornings. We had to tweak the uh the the um the playlist, etc.
SPEAKER_02:Um I think that's super important, Laura, because I you know it it you think you found the golden nugget and you have such a huge expectation as a parent then that this is the solution, and then it stops working.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you have to be so creative, they absolutely keep you on your toes. But I think that when we find something that does work, something that clicks, we can start to regain a sense of satisfaction or uh pride or oh, actually, I'm not doing everything wrong. Something actually has worked today, and when we can start to tap into those things that actually work for our children, we can start to feel like the parents we always wanted to be, and it might not last for the whole day, there might be loads of other things that go wrong, but when we can focus on something that has gone well, then that is it just changes everything because it's it's absolutely because until that point you feel hopeless, you feel like there is nothing that is going to work. So, um, yeah, so doing things like that, visuals are a huge, huge part of everything that I do. So, understanding that social communication is any time that you're in another person's presence, essentially, and certainly when we're using words and we're using spoken language to communicate with our children, that that takes an awful lot of their brain processing. And if we can reduce how much we're talking and use visuals, use familiar songs, you know, create plans, all of those kinds of things, it reduces the requirement for us to keep talking, keep nagging all of the time. So, um, yeah, so that's that is a really big trigger, and I think that for some meltdowns, you can kind of look and think, Oh, yeah, I was asking too many questions, that's why that meltdown just happened. Um, or yeah, I was in his personal space and he was trying to focus on a TV programme that he was watching, and I was just in his space, disrupting that for him, making that very unfamiliar for him, and that's what just led to the meltdown. So, when we understand about kind of some of those triggers, we can start to analyze the meltdowns a little bit better and make ourselves feel a bit more productive because even when the meltdowns are happening, we can look at them in a different way and kind of start to unpick them coming from a place of a bit more knowledge.
SPEAKER_02:And you know, it's uh you know what I love about that also is there's a whole bunch that you know, we always as parents are being taught that we know the solutions, we know the answers. Actually, we don't. Our kids are the ones who are gonna help us to find the right solutions that work for them as they get older. And my daughter's even now at a point where when she has a meltdown, she can look back and reflect and go, Well, this is because X, Y, and Z, and and I'm usually the one culpable for for for quite a bit of it, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I I think that curiosity, approaching things with curiosity is that needs to be where we come from. Instead of approaching it with blame, why have you done that? You shouldn't have done that, which is often what we think because as parents we're trying to be 10 steps ahead and we know what's going to go wrong and all of that stuff. If we can actually approach with curiosity, it just helps so much. I'll give you an example actually, because the other day we'd gone round to some friends' house, how we've gone around to a friend's house and he'd been playing with food colouring. I can't remember why we were doing think he was making slime. He's making slime, so we'd had the food colouring out. And next thing we were in our friend's house, and she noticed that her son had a blue mouth. Oh my gosh, I had no, I had no idea. He'd taken the food colouring with him, and of course, I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna be all over the bedroom, it's gonna be everywhere. It wasn't anyway. I called him down and I thought, and I'm not gonna I'm not going to, you know, we're not going to have a meltdown. So I just approached with curiosity. I said, Have you got have you got um I think for some reason I knew that there was red and blue involved, I don't know why. But I said, Have you got the red and blue food colouring? And he said, Yeah, and I said, Ah, that's it might it might cause a bit of a mess in the house, and I'm a bit worried about that. So, can I just take that and keep hold of it? So he took the red and the blue out of his pocket and gave it me, and that was it, finished. Because I thought, great, all over, nobody's gonna spill anything anyway. Anyway, um, about half an hour later, someone appeared with I don't know, yellow on their face or something, and of course I'm like, oh my gosh, how how disobedient is that? I told him to give me the food colouring, and he has kept he's got more food colouring, and he didn't tell me what was going on. So I went to him and I said, Why did you not give me that food colouring? And he said, But you asked me for the red and the green, or the red and the blue, or whatever it was. And I and I thought, I actually did ask you for the red and the blue or whichever. I didn't say empty out all of your pockets, give me every single thing in your pockets. Now, if I had done that and he hadn't and he kind of you know not done that and hidden some more from you, then that that would be disobedience. But he actually did what I asked him to do. He actually followed my instruction, he gave me the red and the blue with the teeth. And so I thought at that point, if I'd have just gone in and said, How dare you, you hid those from me. I I asked you for the food colouring and you've done the wrong thing, he would have been so frustrated with that interaction because he would have felt that's so unfair because you asked me for the red and the blue, and I gave you the red and the blue. I did what you asked me to do. What I didn't do was read in between the lines of what you were thinking in your head that you didn't actually say to me. And this is all part of that social interaction that some of our autistic children will struggle with, that you know, they they will often be very literal in their thinking, and they will not automatically understand what is going on inside somebody else's head, and it actually makes an awful lot of sense. So when we think in the neurotypical way about you know, if if somebody says to you, give me the red and the blue foo colouring, what they actually mean is empty out your pockets and give me everything that you've got in your pockets that you shouldn't really have, all the contraband in your pockets, then you know, which which one of those two ways of communicating is correct? Why is it that my way of communicating the one where I don't actually say what I mean? Why is that one correct? And his way of communicating where he actually says what he means, why is that one incorrect? And this is a lot that you know we talk about this on our degree programs at university where um you know that that idea of why is why is one way of doing things favoured over another way of doing things, they're just two different ways of doing things, and when we can understand what our children are doing and the fact that they are not they're not meaning any harm necessarily from what they're doing, they're not trying to be manipulative, they're not trying to be disobedient, they are they are just doing things in a particular way. When we can understand that and accept it, then then everything just feels so much better. You know, I didn't when I said to him the other day, why didn't you give me the other food colourings? He said, But you didn't ask for them. And because I understand his way of communicating now, I was able to say, Oh yeah, I didn't ask for them. I'm sorry, I should have asked for them because I didn't want you to have food colourings in the house, but I didn't, I wasn't angry with him because I understood that he, you know, he was just communicating in a different way to me.
SPEAKER_02:And there's a whole nother conversation about taking food colouring out of the house at another time.
SPEAKER_00:And that and this again, this is what I teach inside my programme, you know, the the way that we establish boundaries in families like ours, it we we can very much establish boundaries, but we have to do it in a different way. Yeah, and I think that a lot of parents, I know I was fe back back before I was kind of able to make sense of everything. I thought, this is it, I am doomed now to a life where my son is ruling this house, that he does what he wants to do. I can't tell him, I can't say no to him, I can't correct his behaviour. Every time I correct him, we end up in in a world war, and and I was very fearful of that because I am a good person, and we we, you know, we have high standards in our house, and we want our children to grow up knowing good ways to behave and good ways to treat other people, and you know that that's very important to us, and I felt like I was going to have to compromise on all of those values that I had because he wouldn't, you know, he just kept having these explosive outbursts every time I tried to correct him. But we can correct our children, we can correct them, we can teach them, but we have to do it in a different way than than our friends do with their children.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I I was at So talk about some of those strategies, uh Laura, uh about how to correct or how to have those boundaries within kind of the the uh uh the meltdown scenarios that you've been talking about.
SPEAKER_00:Well the biggest one is timing, thinking about you know, when do we have these conversations? Because when our children's brain is just taking over, or when this fight, flight, freeze, phone response is taking over, that is not the time to teach them anything. Any words that you say in those moments are going to add to the overwhelm that they are feeling. So when they have done something that we want to correct, right now isn't the way to do that. And I think that also for ourselves, right now isn't the time to do it because we are feeling so triggered by what's gone on, and the unhelpful thoughts that we have in our minds ourselves often skew how we are viewing the situation because we often we're not just looking at the um you know the the spilled drink. We're not just thinking about oh, a drink has been spilt right now, it needs dealing with. We're thinking of, oh my gosh, we're going out to a restaurant at the weekend and they're gonna spill the drink everywhere. Oh, we're never gonna be, oh, I'm gonna have to take this, that, and the other. We're not thinking about what's happening right now, we're thinking about what's going to happen. Sometimes, you know, 10 years down the line is what we're thinking of, and so we have to kind of think carefully about when is the right time to have these conversations with our children. How can we have the conversations with our children in a way that helps them to feel safe and secure? So I talk a lot about things like um role-play situations, especially for younger children, and kind of if we can talk about characters who are behaving in a certain way, it feels to often, certainly for my son, it can often feel less that oh, we're talking about me, we're talking about my behaviour, we're just talking about the squirrel and the rabbit and and how they're talking to each other. Um, so doing things like that, having role-play situations to talk about, using social stories, there's some amazing books out there to help children to um to just kind of visualize different scenarios and situations. But um, yeah, the big one is about the timing of the conversations, and then about putting a plan in place for our children, so talking with them about what we expect, and if they you know, if they do this, then this will happen, and letting them understand what consequence what the consequence will be, and so that they they can feel more empowered to make decisions because ultimately when we understand about the physiology of these meltdowns, we know they're not making a choice in those moments, so we can't we can't punish that behaviour in the same way that we might um with you know with some something else, some other type of behaviour. So I think that when in order to set establish those boundaries, we need to think about how we do it, the timing that we do it, the words that we use, you know, neurotypical or parents of neurotypical children don't usually have to create scripts for for the way they interact with our children, but we do, you know what scripts can be so helpful for us, just literally planning out what am I going to say, and um, and that's just so important. But when when we do that, then we can put boundaries in place. But I think a lot of the time as well, we'd need to reflect on what's actually important. You know, there are so many times where I just think, why why am I making him go and set the dining table so that we can all sit down and have a family meal together? Is that so important today? You know, family lots of families will struggle with meal times. And often I say, What is what are you trying to achieve here? Are you trying to get your child to eat food because they need to eat food? Or are you trying to teach them social etiquette at a dining table? Which which one of the two? Because you don't need to do both of those things at the same time all of the time. If the goal is to make sure that they are eating food so that their bodies are nourished, then it doesn't matter if they're running around the house eating food, grabbing it as they go, or if they're sitting in front of the TV. If if the goal is to get them to eat, then just focus on that goal. Focus on using a knife and fork at another time when you don't need them to eat the food. You know, think have just taking a step back and thinking what is important right now. Is it so important that he wears that particular outfit for this family meal that we're going on? Or is it alright if he just goes in his shorts and t-shirt? You know, what is it that we're trying to achieve? And just take a step back and think there are some times where we as parents put unrealistic targets on ourselves and our children, and actually they don't it doesn't matter, it doesn't it doesn't matter, so that that's another thing as well, and not and I'm not saying to for anyone to reduce their standards, I'm just saying that you know for me, for example, um you know, sitting at the dinner table it that's an important thing for me. I I want that to happen, but it doesn't have to happen every single night. And if I know that my son is particularly overwhelmed one day, then it's fine if he eats his tea in the other room watching TV that day, that you know that's okay. Um and I think that we have a tendency sometimes when we are struggling so much to manage our children that we can have a tendency to raise the bar even higher. We just kind of go zero tolerance, nobody's having any fun in this house, everything is going to be super super strict. We're on lockdown, and and and you know that that does happen, doesn't it, sometimes?
SPEAKER_02:So if we can get to a place and that's where I we're gonna get control when you're out of control, absolutely and it's as much for us as it is for them, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:You know, that's what they often are trying to achieve. They are trying to achieve some sense of control in a world that feels so out of control. For them, and we don't always um kind of empathize with that, but yet we do it ourselves. We absolutely do it ourselves when we when we run our household. So, yeah, it's a tricky one, and but I don't want any parents to ever feel that that's it, they have to compromise on everything that is of value to them. It's not that you have to do that, it's not that you're suddenly a doormat that you know your child is always going to win by having these meltdowns. Um, because it's not the meltdowns are not the same as a temper tantrum.
SPEAKER_02:But what's also interesting is when you start to to implement this and when you start to see those meltdowns going down, and when your child starts to feel safe and secure and isn't in this high fight or flight stress, you'll start to see them behaving in a way you never thought was possible. Do you know what I mean? Unloading the dishwasher on their own, doing, you know, doing things that you wouldn't expect of them when they don't have that pressure to do it. So it's it's a it's a chicken and egg situation, but they do hear you, they do see you, and they once they're in a place where they're calmer and and are being understood better, they flourish and then you see things that you never thought you would see.
SPEAKER_00:So much. And it breaks my heart because lots of parents will come to me and they'll kind of caveat everything they say. They'll start with, I love him so much, and I feel like I know, I know you love him, and you don't need to tell me that you love him, I know that you are. The reason that you just by showing up you know in a session with me or on the course or whatever it is, um, you I know that you love your child, that's why you're trying to look for a new way to do things. But I know myself, when I would describe these horrendous meltdowns that he would have, I would also most nights I was very lucky that most nights when things weren't absolutely awful, we had a lot of time where we would connect, we'd have lovely moments of connection, and they would happen in his bedroom, and we would sit and we would play catch with something. I talk a lot on the socials about playing catch. He likes catch, he likes that vestibular backwards and forwards movement. So we played catch a lot in his bedroom, and you know, we'd have the most lovely conversations sitting in his room playing catch, and I think, why can you not be like this all of the time? But actually, if we think about the sensory environment that he was in in those moments where he was so absolutely gorgeous, he was in a safe place, he was very familiar with the setting. There was me and him, there were no other noises going on to overwhelm his central nervous system. It was just me and him in a safe place playing catch backwards and forwards. His sensory needs were being met in that space, and and he could flourish. We had another example the other day. We'd I'd taken him out against all of my better judgment. We went to the cricket, um, and he was not coping, it was it wasn't it was just the wheels were coming off. So I was traip in the concourse trying to regulate him. He was having an absolute nightmare, and I came across a sensory room, and it we had a bit of a palava, but we eventually got into this sensory room, and it was like a light switch. He just instantly changed, absolutely, and it's and it's literally like that, isn't it? It's in an instant, yeah. And he was just he was talking, he we were able to watch the cricket actually. He was telling me everything that was going on, he knew all the players, he knew exactly what was happening, and up until that point, he had not engaged at all with the cricket because the the overwhelming noise he had his ear defenders on, he had his earplugs and his ear defenders on. Um, you know, we'd we'd got all of the sensory stuff that he needed that that I could manage, and he could not cope in that environment, and because of that, his behaviour, his behaviour started to become, you know, quite challenging for me to manage. And as soon as we got in that room, and it was just me and him in a safe, quiet place, he was like a different child, and this is what we see with our children. If we if we don't understand what's going on, whether that's from a sensory perspective, whether it's from an executive functioning perspective, where they just can't get the things done that they want to get done, whether it's from a social interaction perspective, wherever it is, if we don't understand what's going on beneath the surface, we just can't help them. So, um, yeah, so that that's so important that you know so many parents will come and say, They're so gorgeous, and I'll say, I totally believe you. It's like they're two completely different children, and and this is what's just so difficult for us to understand when we don't know what's going on. We just think, How can this possibly be? We start to think about all kinds of reasons why they might have two different, literally two different personalities. Why is that happening? Is this a medical thing? What you know, it it's really, really um, it's frightening for us. But when we can start to understand, we can just we can just approach it differently.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and knowledge is power. I mean, that's you know, one of the reasons that I started this podcast because it's so helpful to hear from other parents. You've done such a wonderful job today of describing your situation and how you've come through it, and then how you've now turned it into something really positive to help other parents to help them on their journeys, which is just fantastic. And we'll have all of those uh details in the show notes. I like to end my podcast if you can believe it, Laura. We've been speaking for over an hour now. Um if you could, and you've given us so many great tips, but can you think of three top tips for parents who are probably right where you were, where you were thinking, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to put my child in care? And it's not an uncommon thought I'd like to tell all listeners. I thought I, you know, I had to give another mother a chance with my daughter because I was obviously failing so badly. When when you're in that because that's really I think the hardest place to be. What three top tips would you give to a mom or dad listening?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think just keep hope alive. That you can change things. There is a different way to approach this, and there is hope, and it takes a lot of hard work, you know, there's no magic wand here, it does take a lot of hard work, and that's where the courses that I have um I have developed really focus in on that because I know that I didn't really have capacity to do an awful lot of learning when the meltdowns were coming thick and fast. So the pause method for meltdowns that I have created is absolutely aimed at being kind of bite-sized, really accessible for parents, and it's not overwhelming them with theory about what's going on, it's simply focusing on the meltdowns themselves. Because if we can get if we can find a way to just pause that meltdown cycle so we can breathe in between, reduce the meltdowns so that they're less frequent, we can actually have capacity to to learn more then about our children. But if we can't get a handle on those meltdowns, we're not in we're not in a state to be able to learn more about what's going on. So, in terms of three top tips um for actually managing you know these meltdowns really quickly, the first one reduce spoken word, just you know, stop talking as much as you can, just stop, say as few words as possible, and sometimes we don't need to say any words at all, and that's so important, you know. Just sometimes just stop if we want our child to stop instead of stop, that's gonna do this, and you're gonna do and you're gonna and all the rest of it, just just the one word would be helpful. So reduce those spoken words. Another way to do that is to increase the way that you are using visuals. So my son reads, which is very helpful. Other children don't read, but pictures can be used instead of words so that they don't have to process the spoken language. So using visuals to communicate with our children as much as possible, and then thinking about a sensory diet. Um, people panic when I say diet, and they all say, but they're very restrictive in their eating, and it's got nothing to do with any vegetables or anything like that. The diet is simply a routine, thinking about how you can support a sensory routine for our children because a lot of the lashing out that they do, it's actually them looking for some sensory input. So hitting, kicking, all of those kinds of things, it's something called proprioception. And if we can find safer ways for them to do it throughout the day, it doesn't become such a huge, massive need for them at the end of the day to start lashing out at you or your home. So, yeah, so reduce spoken words, use visuals to communicate and to think about the sensory routine for our children is really important. And a shameless plug for the pause method, which could be really helpful to you if you are struggling and you want to break that meltdown cycle.
SPEAKER_02:No, I think that a lot of listeners will be reaching out to you, Laura, because it's it's such a scary place to be. And you know what? Not only do you have the knowledge and the expertise, you also have the lived-in experience and the empathy and the compassion. You're not talking from over here, you're talking from you've been through it, you've lived through it, you're living through it because it's it's a never-ending story. I hate to tell you. Like I said, my dad's 83. But you get better at it and you learn so much yourself. And it's actually it can be an incredibly good journey once you figure out how to harness it and how to get through it. And, you know, as I said, my daughter now teaches me. And, you know, so it's it's beautiful that the little the people that we are gonna turn them into and how they're gonna help others as well from the tools and strategies that we give them and how how to navigate our nervous systems, basically. So um, thank you so much for coming. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Happily, it's been wonderful.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for listening, Send Parenting Tribe. If you'd like to go a bit deeper into how to cope with emotional dysregulation, I really recommend you joining the ADHD Warrior Mom Recharge Station. One of our first masterclasses is with Sarah Fisher, author of Connective Parenting and NVR for Nonviolent Resistance. And she's going to be talking about how we can calm the mindfield and handle emotional and physical outbursts. You can bring your questions, your scenarios, and actually interact with Sarah and get some help with this topic. So sign up, go to SEND parenting.com backslash join, or just click the link in the show notes.