Helping My 5YO Son with Emotional Regulation

Hi! I don't have a great answer, just more reaching out to let you know you aren't alone. It is so hard on us, him, and the family. Everyday is a struggle. My son has very similar tendencies and has a 2 year old sister and has always struggled with her. We have done OT and play therapy, which didn't seem to help too much. We tried have a schedule written out and that didn't help much either. 

We have hime get dressed in the evening with clothes for the next day, so that saves us time in the morning. 

We are on the waitlist at UCSF to get him evulated for possible senosry porcessing, ADHD, or anything they may find. 

You describe a really hard situation. I'm sorry. I was in a similar situation with my older child who is now a young adult. Children don't act out to spite us or because they're bad. They act out because that's the only way they know how to cope with what they're experiencing. For some children, typical structure and reward-based child-rearing techniques can have an adverse effect (definitely the case with my older child). I sought out support early and often. I'll share what I would do if I knew then what I know now, particularly given that times and approaches to overall wellness have changed. 

First, talk with your child's pediatrician about your child's concerning behaviors. Consider asking for a recommendation to a developmental pediatrician for an assessment to check for underlying developmental or neurological differences. With an assessment, you may be able to gain access to resources such as child appropriate counseling (which is really skill building around emotional regulation), therapeutic playgroups which can help with interpersonal skill development, and occupational therapy (again, child appropriate and play based). A thorough assessment can shed light on what might be helpful. Some children just need a little short term support. For those who need more, best to get started sooner rather than later.

Consider getting support for yourself (and partner if you're in a co-parenting relationship), perferably from a therapist who's knowledgeable in these types of child and family issues. It's hard raising kids like this, and people in general can be quick to blame and shame (as if we don't do enough of that to ourselves). Raising children is hard! And when you have the added bonus of having a delightful and challenging child, get the support you all need so that the challenge is manageable and you are able to keep a balance of joy in your family life.

Hi! I'm sorry your whole family is dealing with this.  I was dealing with this exact issue last year, around when we transitioned to a new school year. I was at my wits end with the huge emotions, hitting her brother, etc. We did get a professional involved, but I'm actually not sure that did anything (still, its a no-regrets move). We discovered a figurative silver bullet on accident one day. She was so challenging that we sent her to bed probably an hour early. (I think it was at or slightly before 7) She was a different person the next day. We have let this discovery rule our afternoons. We permanently moved her bedtime (originally up an hour and it settled about 1/2 an hour early), AND if there is any crying in the afternoon/evening (not reasonable, I hurt myself crying, but emotional dis-regulation crying or anger), her bedtime moves up the add'l half hour. We use a Hatch Sound system for the evening, and when the Hatch goes on its bedtime. So we don't even tell her it's earlier or later... we just change the program, the Hatch goes on, and poof, bedtime. It was actually remarkable. So, food for thought, your not-so-little one may actually be way too tired. Best of luck!

Hello Fellow parent! This sounds tough and you are not alone. My kiddo struggles with similar issues. Occupational Therapy has been incredibly helpful in building my kiddo's emotional regulation. Is your child in Kindergarten? Sometimes, the transition to kindergarten can be really tough for kids and shines a light on areas where they are struggling. We had a nueropsych evaluation of our child when he was 5--and it started us on a path of understanding (which we are still on several years later). Private assessments/evaluations are very expensive (like $6,000-$8,000+), so it might not be the right thing for your family, but it is something to consider. If you can't afford a private assessment, you can request one through your local school district (even if your child isn't enrolled) and they will do it for free. In my experience, those are less comprehensive and more focused on academics, but it is still worth doing to better understand your child. 

I do not want to guess what is going on with your particular child--but there could be a whole host of things impacting their regulation. Something as simple as they are 5, tired and hungry, OR it could be something like sensory processing disorder, anxiety, Autism Spectrum, a language-based learning disability, other learning disability, slow processing speed, or giftedness--to name a few. I know hearing that can be scary at first, but really all those labels do is help you access toolboxs to help you support your kiddo.

When you aren't sure where to start, I think occupational therapy is wonderful place. OT is fun for the kids (lots of swinging, jumping, sensory toys, games, whole body engagement) and it is supportive. For my kiddo, OT does not feel like a therapy or intervention.  You want to find an OT who specializes in emotional regulation and who enjoys working with challenging kids (they are out there! I promise!). I do not know where you are located, but I have heard the Full Circle OT in Oakland is excellent. The OT we work with isn't taking new clients, but I know there are a lot of wonderful folks out there. Some OTs focus more on motor skills (like pencil grip and body strength), which might be part of what is dysregulating your kid, but make sure that you find someone who works on the emotional regulation level as well. 

I have heard good things about Leiya https://leiya.com/ in Berkeley, but they are new and were not open when we were first figuring this all out. 

A book that was really helpful for me on this journey was Ross Greene's The Explosive Child. I cannot tell you how much seeing and understanding my child's unmet need underneath his "bad" behavior helped both of us. There is also a Podcast called Tilt Parenting that is really helpful and has a lot of wonderful guests--the podcast might feel overwhelming to you because it is for parents in the thick of understanding their "differently-wired" kids, and you might not be there yet. But for me, hearing stories from parents and experts that sound just like my kid was incredibly helpful and helped me find the right resources.  

Good Luck! I promise it will get better. You got this!!

You are not alone! My experience with my oldest child(now20) was e remedy similar to what you are experiencing and I was often overwhelmed and felt isolated because other parents just can’t understand. 

We had enormous success with a family therapist who was able to interpret my child’s behavior and help US change our expectations and approach to parenting. I resented it at first — I wanted my child to change — but it was life transforming and I now have a very good relationship with my young adult ❤️

The therapist was Sheri Glucoft Wong but she’s not taking clients — she does have a book, which could be a good place to start re-orienting as parents. 
Another crucial part was a neuropsych eval — we could understand our child’s way of seeing and experiencing the world and help support him better — we could finally truly understand him. 
Also I was able to meet regularly with a non-judgemental individual therapist who helped me engage in self-care. 
Feel free to contact me off list. 

Sorry to hear you’re going through this. Our kid struggles with self-regulation, though he’s a bit younger (just turned 3). We’ve had a really hard time finding the right support, and I know just how stressful and defeating those screamfests can be.

The thing that’s helped us the most is Dr. Becky’s workshops on “Deeply Feeling Kids” through her website, Good Inside. Otherwise we spend a lot of time teaching our kid about emotions and calming techniques. We have some emotions posters around the house and some books, like The Boy With Big Big Feelings and Slumberkind Let’s Go with Hammerhead.

You may also need to experiment with the kind of input your kid needs once the storm starts brewing. Some kids need a dark, quiet place and zero stimulation; others need physical touch, like being hugged tightly or getting under a weighted blanket; others need movement, like a swing or trampoline. Ours likes getting a back massage :) Hang in there!

Hi There - I have a 5.5yo who also struggles with regulation, yay solidarity? Initially he was identified as a Highly Sensitive Personalty type by a behaviorist, check out the book The Highly Sensitive Child by Aron and see if it resonates with you/your child. Understanding some common HSP traits helped us to realize where he needed more support and where those personality traits can overlap with neurodivergent diagnoses.

While we thought it was just a personality trait we found an OT that specializes in regulation of lower/upper brain, navigating & building the skill set to avoid that fight/flight response that can look like yelling, pushing and big meltdowns. A personality type is not a true diagnosis but can benefit from practicing the skill set to manage dysregulation.

We have also started some assessments for neurodivergence & I'd recommend you take a look at signs of ADHD, PDA and ASD low-support needs. I'm not saying that's your case at all but after educating myself on what those can look like in more mild cases my eyes were opened so much. You may start to recognize a pattern with primary and secondary common traits - make a list, share with your pediatrician. Feel free to message me.

Hi, 5yo here also with sometimes quite big emotions.  Some things that help us are:

• Think back to basics and make sure the kid is well rested.  Sometimes I forget that a couple of nights with a later than usual bedtime end up escalating things unnecessarily.
• Is hunger also a trigger?  For my child, having a healthy high calorie snack after school or mid-morning is really important to avoid ending up in situations where emotions get too big due to hunger.  Also seems basic but it’s easy for me to forget how hunger can act as a trigger.
• For transitions, we talk a lot about when we are going to move into a different activity/place.  We talk about time and how in eg 15’ we will go somewhere, now 10’, etc so that there is awareness of it.  We also plan few after-school activities to avoid having many transitions.
• Books about feelings are really good, to be able to name them and the accompanying sensations.  
• Act out your feelings, if you are frustrated, angry, sad, say what you feel and how it is impacting you, the feelings you get so they start connecting sensations with feelings.
• We adults show that when we are angry, instead of yelling, we give ourselves a 5’ time out in our bedroom.  We say I feel like yelling so I’ll better go to my bedroom to breathe, we go, decompress, and come back more relaxed.  This can show that you can you to your own room by yourself instead of yelling.
• We have a “relaxation bag” in my child’s bedroom. When emotions are too much, we go to the bedroom, take out this bag full of sensorial activities like a kaleidoscope, squishy balls, balls that have soft spikes to roll around the body and have this safe space to start relaxing.
• Finally - sometimes there is a situation (like starting a new school year, family visiting) that will spike emotions for a while.  It will take some time to get re-adjusted and back into a better rhythm so sometimes, just give yourself a pat in the back and wait for things to resettle.

My otherwise delightful kid started having big flare ups and tantrums around that age. 10 years later, we’ve discovered they have ADHD, and that emotional regulation is a big part of their ADHD-related challenges. When they were younger, though, we found through trial and error that keeping their blood sugar steady went a long way towards helping them get through the day more smoothly. We added a snack to their daily schedule, and it worked wonders.

Maybe try adding a healthy (low-sugar) snack and see if that helps? And in the longer term, consider getting a neuro-psych assessment?

Wishing your child and family more peaceful days!

DITTO and just yesterday I received a book that came highly recommended by a co-worker called The Explosive Child. It's in its sixth edition, so there must be something there. I'm only one chapter plus introduction in....but I feel very seen and could have written your post myself (including that my kid is also 5), so didn't want to hesitate to reply.

Autistic mom of autistic kids here: I could've written your post about my 5-year-old. He is really struggling right now with transitions of all sorts and with thwarted preferred activities (any time we have to tell him "no" there's a risk of a meltdown). It's really REALLY hard some days: my husband and I are very intentional about things like giving each other breaks from dealing with meltdowns and helping our other kid (8) feel safe and supported even when her brother is having a rough time and getting violent. And we're exhausted a lot of the time and our house constantly looks like a bomb went off in it. I try to think of it as helping everyone get through a rough stage feeling loved and supported, and we still have bad days. 

We have changed the way we parent in a lot of ways in the last year, becoming more "low-demand." Safety rules (you may not hit your sister) are non-negotiable; for everything else, we've tried to drop as many expectations as we can. He doesn't have to pick up if he's not able to do so; he doesn't have to sit at the table with us for meals. The way Dr. Ross Greene (The Explosive Child) explained it made a lot of sense to me--kids do well when they can. Your child knows what your expectations are, but is really struggling with meeting them. The book that was really game-changing for us was Low-Demand Parenting by Amanda Diekman.  

Things that help mitigate and give him more resources to meet expectations and cope with challenges: SLEEP. He goes to bed at 6:30 most nights. "Big muscle" proprioceptive and kinesthetic play. Pouring water, doing "heavy work" like moving the outdoor trash cans, messy stuff like painting. If he's on the verge of a meltdown sometimes engaging with him in that way (lemme grab your arms and swing you around) will help redirect the energy. Making sure he has "safe" (preferred) foods available and lots of time to do preferred activities is important: he doesn't do well when he's overscheduled or asked to cope with lots of new things (or hangry). 

As others have said, getting an autism evaluation for your kid might be useful just in terms of getting more information about the kind of brain they have. We did our evaluations at Cortica and chose not to pursue any of the behavioral therapy they offer (the autistic community is pretty much in agreement that ABA therapy is a bad scene--that's something you can research if it feels relevant for you), just got our piece of paper confirming that our kid had a diagnosed disability and walked away. 

I just read "Bad Therapy" By Abigail Shrier, it was a hard pill to swallow, but helpful for me. I am putting way more limits on my kiddos and being a bit more ridgid with rules and its helpful! Also for some "good therapy" I highly reommed the Child Therapy insitute for 1x1 play therapy for kids. http://childtherapyinstitute.org

My now-grown son got so upset at Camp Galileo when it was time to transition from Legos to the next activity that the camp staff just let him keep playing with the Legos and told me about it at the end of the day.  It wasn't exactly psychological, but many years later we got a neuropsych evaluation and it turns out he has executive functions issues, specifically with switching tasks, among other things.  We cut the tags out of his clothing, and he chewed on his shirt collars.  He and his younger sister aren't friends.  In retrospect having my husband and me see a seasoned child psychologist at least for a few meetings back then would have been helpful, or getting a neuropsych evaluation earlier maybe would have been even more helpful.  He went to public school and struggled socially and I think a private flexible school like Aurora would have worked better.  You are doing the best you can for your kids, you tried the parenting coach and now are writing to BPN.  I think people here will have a diversity of ideas or resources.  You know, I would just try the suggestion from BPN members that makes the most sense to you and see how it goes. 

I haven't read through the many replies you already got so I don't know if someone already said this, but you should reach out to your pediatrician and ask to be referred to a neuropsychologist. If your pediatrician asks, or if you get a questionnaire to fill out, be as specific as you can and include as many examples as you can or what triggers your child, and how he responds. It might help to write down outbursts as they happen so you can even tell the pediatrician how often it happens, and how long each outburst lasts, etc. You should also add what his preschool/Kindergarten teachers say about his behavior at school (if you don't know, ask this before you go to the pediatrician). Our son had some language issues and was so easily frustrated when he was a preschooler, but I never thought to go through my pediatrician. When we finally did when he was 5, the pediatrician sent him to a neuropsychologist, who referred him to speech therapy. It didn't solve the issue, but it helped a lot, and I wish I had gone to the pediatrician for help earlier.

Hello, 

I'd like to add my recommendation for LEIYA in Berkeley. My daughter was very similar to your son, and is an ASD kiddo. We got a full assessment through LEIYA and she's been seeing Victoria Green for OT for about 7 months and there has been a night-and-day difference in her ability to regulate her emotions as they relate to sensory processing. Coping skills, in general, have increased substantially. My daughter also took Dr. Meghan Luby's Emotion Experts group class at LEIYA and it has helped us tremendously in communicating her emotions and needs. Often she is now able to warn me that she's feeling a certain way and we can work together to either redirect around the trigger or work through it together. 

Hugs to you, I know it is very overwhelming. 

ITU everything that you're experiencing with your son and the impact on you and family dynamics. Our son, now a young adult was exactly the same, his nervous system was in overwhelm or close to overwhelm and it did not take much to upset him. One of the things that made a big difference to calm his system was the Safe + Sound Protocol (nowadays there are many trained providers). There's a lot of science behind SSP to support the use of modified music to retune the nervous system-ASD, ADH, PTSD, etc.

You can check out the website and see if that resonates with your needs.

https://integratedlistening.com/case-study/safe-and-sound-protocol-ssp-…

 SSP helped this child to "grow socially, the SSP provided him with the building blocks to be calmer and more attuned during both social interactions and his day-to-day life."

HTH

Hello - My daughter is now 13 and I went for years mystified by extreme reactions and challenges with transitions, etc.  She was really sweet and always had issues with loud sounds, etc, but sort of "turned" at around age 8.  I tried play therapy, therapy-therapy, etc.  It was always about me not being a firm disciplinarian.  I was advised once to do 1-2-3 Magic and my daughter would freak out once I got to two...  

After witnessing extreme behavior, a friend suggested I get her assessed and a family member who is a speech pathologist also suggested same.  The family member mentioned some disorders can result in hypersensitivity.  The list fit my daughter to a T.  I had the assessment done at the Summit Center (public schools won't do unless there's severe behavioral issues).  It was costly but they do a very thorough evaluation (you can possibly write part off on taxes).  A few things popped up, one being an auditory processing disorder.  I had her assessed more thoroughly by a specialist and yes, her challenge was quite extreme.  A piece that wasn't even considered before came to light with yet another therapist:  Anxiety.  And it made sense, when you really struggle to follow what people are saying, you worry you missed something.  We got accommodations at school and now she's doing much better.  (She now has a therapist that has a Ph.D. in EdPsych, but she's best with teens. We also did OT at Child's Play in Lafayette.  Generally, they were terrific.)

On dealing with the behavior, I definitely advocate staying as calm as can be and dropping your voice low, even physically getting down to his level and commenting on the emotion,  "It's clear you are really frustrated, what can be done to feel more in control?"  Another idea is to break the tantrum with "let's find three things with the color green" or something like that.  Sometimes tapping your head, arms lightly and in a silly manner while you say it switches things up as well (I have no idea why).  Never get into it or raise your voice - I don't mean as a condescending parenting rule but if you get angry or stern with him, it will only ramp things up.  Threats are also not wise - when kids have this sort if disregulation it is more defeatist for them.  It means to them their losing out and there's no reason to change.  Instead, find small rewards...  "Johnny, if you get your shoes on and help with X, you can have a Goldfish cracker..."

I found really prepping my daughter for situations also helped.  "Here's what's going to happen..." "Here's the plan for the day..."  So I try to find out as much as I can in advance.

Hope this is somewhat helpful and that you know you are not alone - not kids are cheery perfect little joy-bundles but they all have potential to become decent adults.

Another "Been There"