TIP of the WEEK: Keeping your Cool

It is crucial that we keep our cool during an incident- remain calm, keep distractions down, use a calming tone of voice. It is equally as important, however, to remember these tips after an incident has occurred:

1. Don't judge. Even if the trigger seems trivial to you, something caused your child to become extremely upset. Whether or not you think it warranted a strong reaction is not important. 

2. Remain calm. Your adrenaline is high, you are upset and if the incident was in public you are embarrassed and angry. Don't let those emotions get in the way of the final goal of keeping your child calm and teaching the appropriate tools for preventing this in the future. 

3. Teach. After the incident and recovery time, talk about what happened gently and calmly. What was he or she upset by? What can be done differently in the future?

4. Take time for yourself. You need some recovery time as much as your child does. Take it.

No one wants to see their child melt down but this will inevitably happen. Do what you can to prevent it but know that sometimes even the best plans are not going to prevent a loss of control caused by any number of possible triggers. Allow yourself the time that both you and your child need post incident to regroup and learn from the experience.

Patrice Carroll
Manager of PWS Services