Autistic Meltdowns: Why They Begin Long Before the Meltdown

Why do autistic meltdowns seem to happen over something so small? In this episode of The PDA Parenting Podcast, parent coach Amy Kotha explores why the visible trigger is rarely the true cause of a meltdown.

Through the fictional story of Emma, Amy illustrates how sensory challenges, masking, unexpected changes, and accumulated stress can overwhelm a child's nervous system long before a meltdown occurs. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of why meltdowns aren't manipulative or intentional - they're often the result of a nervous system that has simply reached its limit.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the final trigger usually isn't the real cause of a meltdown
• How stress and sensory overload build throughout the day
• Why many children hold it together at school and melt down at home
• How meltdowns can change as children grow into teens and adults
• A compassionate question that can transform the way parents respond to challenging behaviors

Looking for additional support?

Amy's 16-week Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors course + coaching program helps parents better understand their child's nervous system, reduce conflict, and build stronger family connections using brain-based strategies adapted specifically for PDA families.

The course was developed by Robyn Gobbel and is facilitated by Amy. Each week includes a live discussion/coaching session to help you integrate the concepts and apply - in real time - to your specific family. 

👉 Learn more here: PDA Parent Course Details

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the PDA Parenting Podcast. This show will be dedicated to supporting parents raising kids with PDA autism. I'm your host, Amy Kotha, a parent coach and a mom to a PDAer myself. This podcast is here to provide you with practical insights, real-life experiences, and expert guidance to help you better understand your child and to parent from a place of connection, empathy, and understanding. Whether you're new to PDA or you're already familiar with the journey, you're in the right place. Hi, friends, and welcome back to the podcast. If you've worked with me or if you've been listening to my podcasts, you know that I firmly believe something that can completely change the way that you see your child. And that is that all behavior makes sense, even when it doesn't make sense yet. And today I'm going to be talking about one of the most misunderstood behaviors in autism and especially in PDA. And that is meltdowns. Now, I'm not going to be giving you a simple three-step strategy to stop meltdowns, okay? Because while that sounds really helpful, and I would actually listen to that podcast myself and take notes, it might send this episode viral. But that's just not reality. And I completely believe in being honest and authentic with you. Okay. So in the spirit of sustainable support, I want to talk about how to understand meltdowns. Because, you know, once behavior starts making sense, everything begins to change. Now I'd love for you to throw on your detective glasses and listen with two questions in mind. What if the meltdown isn't the problem? What if it's actually the clue? So today I'd like to introduce you to a fictional child. Okay, she isn't my child, I promise. Not my child, not one of my clients' children. I've actually created her story with elements taken from many neurodivergent kiddos that I know and that I know of, but I have a feeling you're going to recognize pieces of your own child in her. So today I'd like you to meet Emma. Emma is seven years old. She's bright. She is often absolutely hilarious. She's extremely perceptive. Like this girl notices everything. And sometimes it even feels to uh, you know, the grown-ups around her that she has a sixth sense because she can just read people so well sometimes. Like many seven-year-olds, Emma loves animals, but she has a deep, deep, deep love. I mean, really bordering on obsession for sharks. And if you spend any amount of time with seven-year-old Emma, you would know that sharks never run out of teeth. They lose and regrow up to 30,000 teeth in a lifetime, and new rows of teeth move forward like a conveyor belt to replace lost ones. This is Emma's absolute favorite shark fact. And, you know, she regularly tends to surprise people with her level of knowledge, definitely about sharks, but you know, also in a few other subjects. And she has a knack for asking questions that leave adults speechless. And today, Emma is going to melt down. But here's the interesting part. If this was a video and you only watch the last five minutes of this upcoming event, you're going to think you know why, but you won't. Because the story actually started hours earlier. So today, Emma gets home from school and her mom offers her a snack. Emma asks for toast with strawberry jam, which is one of her favorites. Mom makes the toast. She adds a generous glob of jam because she knows that's how Emma likes it. And she brings the toast over to her, cut into nice clean little triangles. Well, Emma wanted rectangles. Suddenly, Emma is screaming. The toast is flying. She is cry screaming so hard that she can barely even catch her breath. She throws something, a plate shatters on the floor, and she keeps yelling over and over, you never listen. And if you walked into the room at that exact moment, you'd probably think, oh my God, that was a ridiculous reaction over toast. So let's pause here. I want to point out that your thoughts reflect exactly what our brains do. Our brains love simple cause and effect. So we think, hey, she looked okay five minutes ago, and now she's melting down. So our brains naturally assume that the toast is what caused it. But nervous systems don't always work that way. Sometimes what we're witnessing is not the beginning of the story. It's simply the moment that the pressure became too much for her to hold. So if you find yourself thinking something like, oh my God, what a brat. Or I would never have acted like that when I was seven. Was that really what was happening? Or did we simply maybe arrive at the very last page of the book? You know, I think that's what happens with these meltdowns. Parents are handed the last page, right? They are confused and they're worried. And then they're told by everyone around them, you know, people who are trying to help and that parents really hope can help, they're told to really, really concentrate on the words of that last page. And somehow they're expected to understand the entire story, the entire novel from a couple of paragraphs. So let's jump back to seven o'clock this morning. So instead of starting with the toast, let's rewind. Let's go back a chapter. Emma didn't sleep well. She woke up already tired. She got dressed, and the tag in her shirt was scratching her neck when she put it on. She had to try six different socks before she found two that didn't feel weird and completely uncomfortable. Breakfast felt impossible because nothing sounded good today. Even though she had four of her favorite options, nothing sounded good. She got a little scared during the ride to school today because someone pulled out in front of her mom, and her mom had to slam on the brakes and then started calling the guy some words that Emma is not allowed to repeat. She got to school and the classroom lights were buzzing very loudly today. Some of the boys were pushing each other, and one of them accidentally fell into her and bumped her backpack. And then to top everything off, the teacher announced that there would be a substitute for math class today. And normally that might not seem like a big deal, but for Emma, predictability is safety. So now her nervous system is working overtime. Her stress hormones are being pumped through her body, like it is a complete cortisol overload. She spends the next six hours trying to look like she's okay. She's smiling when she knows she's supposed to smile and she's answering questions. She sits as still as she can. She's keeping herself together. She is, quote unquote, being a good girl, just like she's always been taught by all the big people in her life. And no one notices how much work she's doing. In fact, no one really notices her at all, which is exactly what she wants, because she's doing such a good job of hiding it. And that's the thing about masking. Success can be incredibly deceiving. Sometimes a child who looks like they're coping the best is actually working the hardest. So by 3:30 that afternoon, the time that mom hands her those toast triangles, Emma's nervous system has been building pressure all day long, much like a volcano, right? So every uncomfortable moment, every unexpected change, every social interaction that she had to navigate through, all of the sensory irritations that she was pushing through, you know, the socks, the lights, the sounds. It was all building up beneath the surface. And I want to make sure that you notice Emma didn't erupt at school. She didn't erupt with her teacher. She managed to hold it all together and she got home to the person whose nervous system finally felt safe enough for her to let go. And as confusing as it is, that's often what we see with our kids. They spend the entire day using every ounce of energy that they have to hold themselves together. Then they walk through the front door, they see their safe person, and their nervous system says, I can't hold this together anymore, and now I'm safe to let go. So the triangles didn't create that volcano. The eruption wasn't caused by that final event. It happened because the pressure underneath had reached its threshold. The final event was simply where that eruption became visible. A meltdown, remember, it's not a tantrum, it's not manipulation. It isn't a child who is just trying to get their way. It's not a kiddo who's choosing to lose control. I mean, if you talk to a child about meltdowns, they'll tell you how bad they feel about them and how much they hate them and how scary it is for them. A meltdown is what happens when a nervous system has simply run out of the capacity to keep holding everything together. And then, you know, parents ask me all the time, but why that? Right? Like, why was it the toast triangle? Or why was it the blue cup? Or why was it me asking him to brush his teeth? And the answer is that the nervous system doesn't get to choose which tiny demand finally becomes one demand too many. It's not about how big that final demand was. It's about how much pressure had already built up beneath the surface. So this is why I talk so much about being curious and doing our detective work, right? Because if all we ever look at is the toast, we're gonna miss the entire day or days or weeks that came before that moment. Because if we only investigate those last five seconds, we're always going to think that the toast was the culprit. But the toast wasn't the cause. The toast was just a clue. And we're going to be so confused and probably very extremely frustrated. So let's fast forward a few years. Okay, Emma's not melting down over toast anymore. Now her days include things like group projects and having six different teachers in a day, testing into her math and English classes and friends and text messages that maybe suddenly stop, and then trying to figure out if someone's making a joke and if she should respond or not, trying to figure out what that Snapchat meant. She spends an hour writing one text, she deletes it, she writes it again, and she never even ends up sending it, and no one sees it. People just see the moment that she refuses to go to school the next morning. Because again, the big people in her life think that because she resists walking through those lobby doors of the school, that the school is the problem. But maybe school isn't the problem. Maybe carrying the invisible weight of social and academic uncertainty all week, maybe all of those things added together is what is the problem. And Emma, Emma has zero idea of what is going on. All she knows is that she really does want to go to school, but her brain tells her that she can't. And then she gets in trouble. And the big people just keep asking over and over why? Why? And they start guessing at a bunch of different reasons, none that Emma actually experiences. And that just ends up making her feel weird and different and ashamed. This is one that I know so many of you are going to recognize. Emma has been hearing from all the adults in her life, and on TV, in the movies, and social media, that turning 18 means that she is an adult. Now she has to do things like sign all her documents at her doctor appointments. She has to open a bank account and learn what that means. She has to be in charge of all the decisions now, right? Because she's an adult. Or at least that's what she's made to think. Emma wants to go to college. She really, really wants to go to college. She is so excited. She spent hours and hours creating multiple Pinterest albums full of dorm decor ideas. She applies to some colleges. She gets accepted to one that is close to home. So she picks that one. She chooses her classes. She starts talking to people about independence and what she's going to be doing. Like she is really excited because all of her peers are excited, right? She has been dreaming her entire life about finally studying marine biology. She is still completely obsessed with sharks, right? Like, did you know that their skin feels like sandpaper? And she can't wait to learn so much more. And everyone around her keeps saying, see, you're ready. We are so proud of you. They even throw her a graduation party where she hears that line over and over and over. But then it's orientation day. And one of the speakers talks about how many students will drop out during their freshman year and how to avoid that by doing so many things and doing them right. Her new roommate emails her to discuss what they're going to be putting in the room. Her college portal has a long list, maybe 25 different forms, that she has to complete by a certain date. She needs insurance cards, medication schedules, a meal plan. She needs to find her class buildings and then the classrooms inside them. She meets professors, she meets other staff members. There are so many new people with so many new titles and roles. And then before she knows it, classes begin. Now she's trying to read a different format of syllabus from every different professor and realizes she has no idea what they mean or how to even begin to organize her time. And she keeps hearing warnings in every class about how many freshmen flunk out. She's living with someone now that she doesn't really know and they smell weird. She's trying to make it to social events so that she can make friends because, hey, everyone says that friends are the key to success in college. She's calling the pharmacy, she's figuring out her laundry, she's searching for vending machines where she might be able to buy her comfort snacks. And suddenly, one afternoon, about two weeks later, an Uber pulls up outside her parents' house. It's Emma. She's back at home, unannounced, and she refuses to go back to campus. She literally can't get out of bed. And everyone is so confused, but this is what she wanted. Yes, it is. But wanting something and having the nervous system capacity to manage everything that comes with it are two very different things. And I think this is one of the hardest things for parents to understand. Because we naturally assume that motivation equals ability, but nervous systems, they don't work like that. Executive functioning skills, those don't just suddenly appear. And here's another thing that people don't always realize. And that is that meltdowns don't disappear when our kids get older. They just stop looking like what they did when they were younger and maybe what people expect them to look like. So maybe Emma isn't screaming anymore. Maybe she's locking herself in a room for three days. Maybe she suddenly quits her part-time job over what everyone else thinks is just one little comment. Maybe she blocks every friend she has on her social media. Maybe she throws her phone across a room and accidentally breaks her favorite mirror. Maybe she can't stop crying. Maybe she curls up under a weighted blanket and she literally can't even speak to anyone. She could be pacing around, she could be hitting herself in the head. Maybe she's just yelling, I can't do this. No one understands. Her nervous system is still completely overwhelmed. It just has an older body. So now imagine that Emma is 20, and yesterday she answered about 50 emails and she made pasta for dinner. She went to class, she laughed with her friends in the hall after. But today she couldn't decide what shirt to wear. And she's not answering your text messages. She's snapping at everyone. And you're wondering, oh my God, what happened? Maybe nothing happened. Maybe everything happened. Maybe she slept only four hours. Maybe she's in pain today. Maybe she has another migraine or her period started. Or, you know, maybe there's something she's grieving about that she hasn't talked about. Maybe the apartment next door to hers is being remodeled and it's so loud and it's slowly exhausting her nervous system over time. Maybe she forgot to add protein to her sugary breakfast. You know, it's really likely that she used every ounce of her energy yesterday, and there just simply isn't enough left to even start today off. We spend so much time thinking about demands and measuring demands, and we think things like, okay, it's the same request, using the same words at the same time of day. Why can't she do it today? But instead of that, maybe we should spend more time measuring capacity. Because while the demand might have stayed the same, the nervous system did not. And I know how discouraging that this can feel as a parent, because it can be like maybe you've had three really good weeks and you're just starting to maybe stop walking on eggshells, and you're thinking, okay, finally, I think maybe we've taken a step forward. And then one afternoon, there's a meltdown. And it's so easy to just impulsively automatically think we're right back where we started, and to feel all those feelings like the pain deep in your chest that you feel when those thoughts come up. But really, I promise, one hard day does not erase all the progress that your child has made. It really does not. And also, it is so important to make sure that your child knows that as well. Capacity changes day to day. Some days your child has more resources available to them, and some days they have less. And that's true for all of us. I mean, think about yourself, right? I mean, I know for me there's days where I can handle, you know, a bunch of emails, I can run some errands, I can take some interruptions while I'm trying to work, and I can get back to it, and it's not that hard. But then there are other days when someone might come in and ask me a question and oh my God, I just want to bang my head against the wall. And the demand didn't change, but my my capacity did. And our kids are exactly like this. So, what does this mean then when it comes to supporting our kids in terms of their meltdowns? So we can best support them not when we suddenly discover the perfect strategy, okay? But when we stop asking, how do I stop this behavior? And start asking, what has this nervous system been carrying? Seriously, that one question changes everything. It changes how we walk into the room, it changes the words that we choose, it changes the expression on our face and the tone of our voice. And it really changes whether our child experiences us as another demand or as a source of safety. And maybe the next time your child melts down, instead of jumping to that thought, that autopilot thought, right? What's wrong with my child? You'll get curious and wonder, what has my child been carrying that I couldn't see? Because meltdowns don't begin when we notice them. They begin far, far before that. And when we start understanding the whole story instead of judging the ending, we actually become that safe space that our kids have been hoping to find. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you found this episode helpful. And if you did, I hope you will share it with another parent who you think might also find support in this space. And if you're looking for more support in your parenting journey, I still have a couple of spots available in my upcoming Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors course, which was developed by Robin Gobel. It was adapted for PDA and is led by me. We spend 16 weeks learning from Robin's course and discussing and coaching every week in small group sessions. So that next cohort kicks off in the next couple of weeks. So if you're interested, you can find out more information through the link in the show notes. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you on the next one.