[written and posted after the fact and back-dated]

This weekend, O had a mini tantrum, and meltdown, the second in a few months. The last tantrum he had was in January. Prior to that, the last major tantrum was ages ago, although he struggled with sleeping and had a mini meltdown in December.

We were in a restaurant, so his tantrum was more controlled. But I was feeling helpless, so resorted to videoing the tantrum, which made him even angrier. And between him and I, the escalations got increasingly out of hand, that I imposed a 30 minute silence, which I then extended to 45 minutes.

During that time, he read his book, while I played Sim City on the iPad, so we didn’t quite notice that the food hadn’t arrived. Until 30 minutes into the silence time out, with F’s increasing impatience, I asked the waitress, and apparently she forgot to submit our order to the kitchen. Just great.

O broke his silence earlier than my imposed time limit, but since he was mostly calm, and complaining about the delay (a valid complaint), rather than being unnecessarily aggressive, I allowed it.

After he calmed down, I explained to him why I enforced a no talking / silence break where he reads and I play Sim City. I explained to him that anger is linked to our limbic system, our “lizard brain” which is quite primitive, and is not really rational. And I read somewhere that sometimes when our limbic systems are overactive, we can’t calm ourselves down and will end up escalating issues if we continue to engage. And the only was to ‘break the circuit’ is to allow the limbic system to calm down, and the only thing that works is to give it time – 30 or 45 minutes – because when we are in the grip of an over active limbic system, we cannot be reasoned with, and we will keep escalating, getting more enraged, and saying things we don’t mean. I explained that I know that I need time to calm down, and I need a distraction during that time – Netflix works well for me, or maybe a book, or a game / sensory toy – because it occupies the brain and gives the limbic system time to calm down. If we are not distracted (by Netflix, books etc.), we may end up focussing on the things that made us angry in the first place, and work ourselves up even more, and can’t break out of the vicious cycle of irrational anger.

I asked him if he meant what he said when he was angry, about “that’s why I prefer staying with Papa”, and other stuff he said which upset me – things which he said he had forgiven me for before, but was now dredging up again. He said no, he didn’t mean it, and that he just said that he preferred staying with Papa to upset me, and that he had forgiven me for the stuff I had said in the past (also in the grip of irrational escalation, that a select few can trigger, my sons among them).

I rolled back a number of the ‘consequences’ from our escalations, and we made up before he went to bed, because I don’t like going to sleep angry / carrying anger overnight, without resolving things. I know I used to have huge anger management issues as a child, and I probably still face some emotional regulation issues from time to time. I’ve definitely seen O with really bad tantrums that remind me of the occasional seemingly unmanageable rage I had as a child. F tends to be more easily angry and aggressive, which also reminds me of my general bad temper, and probably as a consequence of being a second child, needing to defend his ‘territory’ against an older brother. My mum spent a lot of time trying to teach me coping mechanisms when she was around, but I had to find my own coping strategies when she went to Saudi to work.

With the boys, I think I managed to provide them with emotional regulation strategies when they were younger, primarily through the “sensory bottles” to distract them when they were upset. But it seems like I need to keep an eye on this and help them with emotional regulation again, as they get to the next stage of their development. The good thing is that they are really sensible, lovely kids – they really listen, absorb, and try to understand and apply what I tell them, once I’ve taken the time to explain the situation to them. They also remember and call things out when I don’t do as I say, which is a good way to keep me accountable. 🙂