The emotional minefield of meltdown moments
Ireally thought I was starting to get it right. He had refused to get dressed, even after I’d asked him if he needed help, crouching down to make eye contact, touching his arm and addressing him calmly by name.
After the third time, I didn’t yell, and I didn’t yank the toys out of his hands. I just breathed deeply, unbuttoned his pyjama top and helped him pull on his clothes, while he fussed vaguely like he couldn’t possibly, at age five, have managed it by himself.
He had accepted the offer of another piece of toast, but after I’d made it, he told me he hadn’t asked for it, so I stayed calm, and ate it myself.
I’d given him a 15-minute warning before we were due to get in the car, which meant I had a sneaky 10-minute buffer up my sleeve. He immediately panicked, because there were still two more things he wanted to build out of Duplo. I confirmed that he still had a few minutes left to play.
I gave him the two-minute warning, and then the gentle tinkle of my phone alarm sounded for 8.30am.
‘‘Time to go,’’ I said. Frantic shrieking.
I patiently put the bags into the car, buckled the three-year-old in, and returned to the breach.
‘‘It’s time to go,’’ I said firmly. Much furore about a page needing to be turned in the Lego instruction book before the project could be left.
I obligingly turned the page and began hustling him towards the front door. Total meltdown. Apparently, he needed to do it himself.
Jaw clenched, I confirmed that if I allowed him to go back and re-turn the turned page in the booklet, he would then get straight into the car.
Fussing and nodding. The page was showily turned.
As soon as the front door was locked, he was urgently, desperately hungry and thirsty.
I said, with closed eyes, that he hadn’t wanted that second piece of toast.
I told him he’d be at kindy soon and could have water there.
I said, through tightly gritted teeth, that when he calmed down, he could have a banana for the three-minute car ride.
As I backed the car out, he shrieked that he had been calm (I hadn’t specified a time frame for the calm – his interpretation was the two seconds of silence while drawing breath).
My patience evaporated. I threw the banana into the back seat. It bounced off the car seat and fell to the floor. Panicked screaming.
I jerked the car over to the side of the road, got out, and started walking down the street, hating that this was my responsibility and that my child wouldn’t just behave like a rational adult.
I got back into the car and directed big ugly sobs at the steering wheel. Should I turn the car around and take him back home? Tempting, but also horrifying.
I needed the gentle arms of an early childhood professional to take him, because I was losing any ability to be kind to my beautiful little boy.
I yelled at him that I hated yelling at him. I told him that it wasn’t fair that the days started like this.
I heard how stupid and unhelpful my words were. It crossed my mind, unbidden, that no child development expert alive would recommend throwing all of your raw emotion (or fruit) at your child to solve such a problem, and I started driving again.
I kept my sunglasses on in the kindy foyer. I gave his teacher a tight smile, but couldn’t alert her to the emotional time bomb I was delivering, because if I unclenched my jaw, I would sob at her, too, and frighten the other children.
I returned to the car and made my three-year-old hug me from his carseat. He cheerfully obliged.
At pick-up, I nervously asked my son’s teacher how the day had gone, and we had a quiet and prolonged word about the behaviour she’d seen and the methods she had used to deal with it.
I silently noted the gentle and respectful way that the inevitable aberrations had been handled.
She had not thrown any bananas. My jaw ached but, despite my best efforts, I cried again, and the wonderful teacher, who is 10 years younger and 200 years wiser than me, enveloped me in a sympathetic hug and discussed strategies and offered hope.
That evening, while we were constructing an elaborate marble run in the lounge before bedtime, my fiveyear-old suddenly said: ‘‘Mum, I’m sorry you got sad in the car today.’’
We’ll try again tomorrow.
I was losing any ability to be kind to my beautiful little boy.