Hello all, my daughter is eight years old. She is high functioning autistic. One trouble she has is she will either misunderstand social situation’s or become easily triggered. When these things happen her mind becomes disorganized and she will have meltdowns. She will not be able to gather her thoughts and ends up yelling at the other person (usually her older brother) but not in a way that is not productive to solving the problem…
I have talked to her about calm down techniques, but she is asking if there is ways that people with autism specifically handle these things. I know how I handle them, but I am coming from neurotypical perspective and even though I have done a lot of reading on this topic I feel it would be a good idea to reach out to the community to see if you all have any advice for her.
So what do you all do in a high stress situation where your brain just wants to yell? What helps sooth and calm, sooth, and organize thoughts?
In many emotional regulation frameworks (DBT, mindfulness) they talk about the recognition and pause as the first two steps. Noticing you’re feeling a certain way, and then learning to take a quick pause from doing anything - “one, two, three”. That gives you a small space within which you can then learn how to respond differently than instinct. Probably she’s not old enough to have learned those two steps yet. (Many adults haven’t either!) So maybe start there. Just “recognize” first, then “pause” after she’s learned the first one. It may take awhile, and that’s ok. Once she’s learned them they will be very powerful for many different things.