On public tantrums and special-needs kids: Keep calm and carry on

On public tantrums and special-needs kids: Keep calm and carry on

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SALT LAKE CITY — We've all been there. We have all witnessed a toddler having a mad stink of a tantrum in a public place. While not really a pleasant experience, it sort of comes with the territory when toddlers are around. Because of their burgeoning desires and their still-developing communication skills, toddlers can get frustrated real quick.

But what happens when the child having a public tantrum is 9 years old or 12 or 15? It's a sight that can make people supremely uncomfortable. As a culture, we aren't prepared to see a big kid falling on the ground, kicking and screaming.

For parents of special-needs children, a group that is growing in size and scope, public meltdowns can be a major ongoing issue that lasts far beyond the toddler years.

Two of my sons have mental disabilities that have given me years of practice with the art of handling a child's tantrum in a public place. It's not a skill I dreamed of acquiring in my youth, but life surprises us that way with unexpected gifts.

Here's what I've learned about the public tantrum.

There are two major issues at play for the special-needs parent whose kid is going off the rails behaviorally in a crowded place. First, the child is generally overwrought and doesn't know how to calm himself or herself down. As with toddlers, children with mental disabilities can fall apart because they are tired or hungry or frustrated.

They may also be experiencing sensory overload with unfamiliar sounds, smells and sights. The fluorescent lighting in a big box store combined with crowds of people everywhere can be enough to send an overwhelmed kid over the edge.


As a special-needs mom myself, rest assured that as a group we are fully aware of our limitations, but we cannot parent away the disability, even when it makes life uncomfortable.

With my two boys who experience this hypersensitivity to the world around them, my priority is to help them process it and learn to cope with it. When they give off behavioral cues of being overwhelmed, I direct my energy at strategies for calming them. There is no magic bullet in these scenarios. It takes problem-solving, patience and a sense of calm that I may or may not successfully exude from my countenance while they are throwing arms and legs.

Second, with an audience to the public meltdown, there is mounting social pressure to get our acts together. For many people, seeing a tween or a teen screaming, hitting and trying to bite his or her mother can be shocking and uncomfortable. Trust me, for the parent handling the tantruming child, it is no walk in the park either. But this type of episode doesn't have to be fraught with so much discomfort.

Every parent of a kid with behavior problems has a story of a stranger in a store or a restaurant telling them that they are failing as a parent. These episodes are ironic, not to mention painful, because they are addressed at parents whose days are filled with trying to manage difficult behaviors that the average person knows little about. As a special-needs mom myself, rest assured that as a group we are fully aware of our limitations, but we cannot parent away the disability, even when it makes life uncomfortable.

And yet for every awful incidence of public spectacle, I've experienced strangers reacting with understanding in our times of difficulty. Like the time at a sporting goods store when my 10-year-old suddenly went berserk. It was the type of situation where alarm bells were ringing inside my head along with the words, "Abort! Abort!"

As I hustled my screaming kid toward the exit, a couple of people said encouraging things to me as we passed by: "What a handsome guy. Looks like he's had it!" And "You're doing a good job, mom," meant a lot coming from people who implicitly showed me that they didn't fear or condemn a special-needs person in their midst. In fact, they could even engage us with friendliness during a meltdown.

Recently, my friend Heather had to stop her car when her 11-year-old son with autism fell apart and began attacking his siblings. She took him out of the car to cool down, and that was difficult in the 100-degree heat on a sidewalk in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

A woman saw Heather's son trying to hit his mom and came out of her house asking if she could help. When Heather responded, "No, thanks. We will be Okay. We just need to sit here and calm down." The woman left and returned with two bottles of cold water.

As spectators to a public outburst, we can channel our discomfort at the situation into empathy.

We can replace casting judgement with simply going about our business and not stopping to stare. We can decide to just be cool. Keep calm and carry on, people. We got this.


Megan Goates holds undergraduate and master's degrees in English, teaching, and writing from Westminster College and Utah State University. She blogs at tooursurvival.com

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