Managing Child Meltdowns & Tantrums - Tips From A Board Certified Behavior Analyst

when a student is overwhelmed and escalated it can be challenging to know how to respond how to respond in a way that will help that student calm down and reduce those challenging behaviors in the moment while keeping everyone safe right I'm Sasha long I'm a former special education teacher and a board-certified behavior analyst and I'm going to share five tips for working with a student who is extremely escalated in helping them work through that challenging time all right tip number one two words safety and space before you do anything before you get involved before you

talk your first thought needs to be safety if the student is engaging in any aggression extreme disruption property destruction eloping anything like that your first thought is safety because the most important thing is keeping that child and the other kids in your classroom if you are a teacher safe so think about removing other students from the area removing damaging items things that they could throw or maybe bang their hat on removing those things if the student is throwing themselves to the ground maybe you put some soft pillows there but you're are giving them space you're

in that moment if there's like that kind of blow up there's that extreme Behavior you're going to give them space but keep them space safe so think of those two words safety and space removing other students we're not yelling we're not getting involved that's all we're thinking about first safety and space all right number two this is the hard one you got to get yourself in check you gotta get yourself in check first before you do anything else so we are giving that student space while keeping them safe but before we get involved we have

to get ourselves in check because sometimes we contribute to the problem by overreacting we don't want to react here we want to respond there's a difference between responding and reacting a reaction is filled with emotion a response is thought out so you want to respond so take a minute which feels hard when it's a stressful situation and it could be dangerous or there's extreme behaviors happening take a minute get yourself in check this is not about you right now this is about helping that child who is having a really hard time helping them through this

time helping them through the situation helping them get through to the other end that's what this is about right now this isn't a personal attack on you this is about right now helping them so get yourself in check all right strategy number three we've given them space we're keeping them safe we're putting ourselves in check now we're gonna model calmness you're gonna walk over in a quiet calm voice you want to be very aware of your body language you want to be very aware of your tone of voice you want to model what you want

them to do if you rush over hyped up with your anxiety and your stress level and all your feelings at an 11 out of 10. that's what they're going to mirror so keep your voice slow be aware of your body language your facial expression and model calmness now step four this is one of my favorites now we're going to offer choices oh my gosh choices are so powerful and I think it's really important to give choices when someone is escalated or upset now there's a lot of great coping strategies we can teach and offer but

we're not gonna be like hey you should go for a walk or you should take deep breaths we're going to give choices I love tools like visual Choice Sports that give options for what to do I'm going to show a few of those in a second because we want to empower that child to decide how to calm down when I'm upset I don't want someone to tell me how to calm down I want to give choices so give some options of things they can do hey do you want to go for a walk do you

want to stay here do you want to get a drink of water again slower than that I'm going real fast right now if the student has lower receptive language or struggles with receptive language processing we'll use those visuals let me show you a few examples of those here are a few of my favorite visuals for offering choices when someone is Con is escalated giving these calm down strategies giving written options because remember text is a visual too um offering different calm down tools and having a choice board for that if you're using something like a

social story again we can pick a calm down strategy here's how I feel and here's what I will do so lots of things that have options and choices whether it's visual choices or written down choice or just a verbal choice will be helpful with empowering that student to pick a strategy that will work for them and strategy number five is to offer support instead of accusations while we are still calming down while we are still in that escalated State we're not back to regular levels yet we are not pointing out what they did wrong hey

you threw over that bookshelf you punched Johnny now is not the time to highlight the problem they know likely what negative choices they made and what not negative behaviors they engaged in now is not the time to point that out now is the time to offer support especially for our kids that have a history of trauma we want to show them and tell them that I'm still here for you even though you engaged in negative behaviors I am still here for you learning and those problem solving steps will come later but while we're still escalated

it is not the time for learning people do not learn when they are in an escalated State I don't learn when I'm really upset or overwhelmed now is the time to show that student that you are there for them offer support instead of accusations alright those were the five tips for helping a student who is overwhelmed and escalated if you'd like more Behavior strategies and behavior tips please follow my channel for more coming your way