My son, who has level 3 autism, really struggles when he’s out of his routine. His anxiety is high, and for him that means obsessive-compulsive behavior and sometimes aggression and self injury. A few weeks into being out of his routine due to COVID 19, it got so bad that we called a new doctor to help. This psychiatrist prescribed a medicine that worked great—for a while. Then James had a negative reaction to it, making his aggression and self-injurious behavior much worse than normal. It was a stressful and scary time for all of us.
He has changed medicines and is doing much better, but he still experiences meltdowns that include aggression. We have a team of doctors and therapists who help him (and help us help him), but today I want to talk about how to help ourselves after our children have meltdowns. The stress our bodies experience is real, and we need to recognize that so we can remain healthy and able to help our children when necessary.
There are times you will experience fear or stress that makes your body react. I’m talking about those freeze, fight, or flee moments. Our bodies react to the perceived danger in neurological and physical ways. Hormones kick in, your heart rate increases, you may be able to think clearer and make quick decisions or you may not be able to focus at all and shut down. Even when the threat is over (in our case, our child’s meltdown is over and he/she is safe and calm again), our bodies are still processing the stress. If we don’t deal with it, we can have negative results. But God has given us wisdom on how to help our bodies calm down after especially stressful circumstances.
In their book Burnout (affiliate link), sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski talk about what they call the stress cycle and how to complete it. They state: “You have to do something that signals to your body that you are safe, or else you’ll stay in that state, with the nerochemicals and hormones degrading but never shifting into relaxation. Your digestive system, immune system, cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal system, and reproductive system never get the signal that they’re safe.”
Source: Special Needs Parenting- Key Ministry
