This post on Sensory Processing Disorder: System Overload is the 4th in the series of our journey with Sensory Integration Therapy, and I hope it can help others in some way.
If you would like to read some background on Sensory Processing Disorder and the start of our journey with Sensory Integration Therapy, this is my first post in the series: Sensory Processing Disorder & Our Boy With Down Syndrome
Our gorgeous boy has Sensory Processing Disorder and is now 5 years old and is in his second term of mainstream school. He also happens to have Down’s Syndrome, to which his nine year old sister haughtily says, ‘he’s just a normal person you know!’
To the unfamiliar eye, it looks like our boy is having a tantrum, or being downright unpleasant and needs disciplining. To the familiar eye however, I know his system has overloaded and he’s in no fit state to hear anything that I, nor anyone else, might have to say. We’ve learnt to predict when he’s more likely to behave like this:
- Rainy ‘indoor’ days
- Busy places
- If we’re running late or rushing him
- If we’re stressed
- Sudden change of plan
- Persistently noisy environments
- People in his personal space
As you can see from my list – a day at school in particular, covers this list quite nicely! Add a bit of rain to force ‘wet play’ and I can be sure of a ‘chat’ with the teacher at the end of the day.
So why are all these things triggers for him?
One thing we know with our son, is that he really does need proper down time (like his mother) and he needs a change of scene. Several times a day. We all have our breaking points on how much noise we can tolerate, or children jumping up and down in our faces demanding this that and the other, or fighting and needling at each other all day. That frustration we can feel as parents when you just YEARN for five minutes peace and for everyone to just buzz off, is just what he feels, but he can’t articulate it to himself or anyone else, and so his behaviour goes up the spout.
His toleration levels have improved hugely over time, but he still has meltdowns when his system goes into overload. For him, his main triggers are being rushed, feeling claustrophobic and noise. His natural rhythm is much slower than what life demands of him. This is often true for younger children (and many adults too), but most can cope with being rushed and without feeling totally overwhelmed. When it’s just the two of us and we do everything at his speed, he’s an absolute angel. He’s engaged, chatty, curious, eager to learn, fun, sociable, impeccably behaved and tolerates difficult environments much more easily and for longer. He’s happy to bounce in and out of play with me, and life is good. All day.
Add siblings to the mix, school runs, school days, trying to leave the house, life…and suddenly your own environment is one that’s packed with triggers, just waiting to cause a massive meltdown… Me being me, I always try to treat the cause and not the symptoms. So, I always strive to prevent the meltdowns as much as possible, rather than try to fix things once they’ve occurred.
It’s hard if not impossible to get the timings right and especially at weekends and over the holidays when siblings are flying around adding to the general hectic and overloaded feeling. He loves his brother and sister and they do all play together, but there’s no doubt that the three of them together can make your brain rattle mercilessly heart sing.
So what’s helped to reduce the number of meltdowns?
Pre-empting the effect of these triggers
For us it’s about recognising when he’s in a high trigger environment and hence only has a limited time he can spend in it comfortably. To everyone else he’s playing fine, but I’ve learnt to recognise the tell tale signs…his attention span reduces, he becomes more of a perfectionist and gets stressed if he’s struggling with something, he starts to become clumsy (including the way he uses his hands).
Then it builds up to the next stage, when he lashes out, shouts, refuses to co-operate, doesn’t want to do anything, everything is wrong and until finally we find ourselves in the middle of the lion’s den, with everyone’s nerves fraying wildly at the edges.
The Meltdown.
Meltdown Management
So what do we do then? What works really well for us (and of course, it’s not always possible) is for one adult to take him outside to an area where he is free to roam (a park, an empty school playground, the garden), remove all stimulation and ignore him totally. We might start sweeping up, pottering about, poking at the soil with a stick but we are silent unless he talks to us and then we reply in a very calm quiet voice, saying as little as possible. Think companionable silence.
Building frequent breaks into his day with a change of scene
We know roughly how long he has before he starts to feel overwhelmed and so we build in breaks through the day, which are exactly the same as our Meltdown Management tactics. Nothing is demanded of him, just peace and quiet and time for him to just be and play quietly at his own pace. His school have been fantastic about this and we’ve got these outside breaks built into his timetable. Since these have been in place, his focus and learning have improved dramatically because he’s much more receptive and engaged. At school we also have a set of ear defenders he can wear in the lunch hall or classroom if it’s particularly hectic, and more often than not he chooses to wear them.
It does take some micro-management to start with, but now it’s something we all just ‘do’ and it’s really helping. As time goes on and his breaks come shorter and less frequent, we can all work on me instead 😉
If anyone has any other tips on how to prevent or manage meltdowns, please please leave a comment because what works for us, may only work for us for now! I’m all for pooling ideas for us all to try. Thank you.
You may also like my other posts in the series…
Sensory Processing & Sensation Avoidance
Sensory Processing Disorder: Sensation Seeking & ‘Antisocial’ Behaviour
Please also see Potty Training A Child Who Has Zero Interest
The Power of Puzzles. A guest post that I wrote for World Down Syndrome Day over on Downs Side Up.
Sensory Processing Disorder: Therapeutic Listening – a guest post by Carole
***
If you’re still in the exciting phase where your child believes in Father Christmas, and you want to keep the magic for as long as possible, Elfie’s Christmas Letters (advent letters) and our North Pole Christmas Letters are absolutely perfect! You can preorder these for Christmas 2016 now, so please pop into the shop or join the mailing list. Elfie’s Birthday Letters are available in the Shop too!
Come and join us on Facebook for non Christmassy posts until much later in the year, or find us over on Christmas Traditions & Magic For Children for all year round festive chat.
To receive our blog posts, please sign up at the right hand side of this page or for Product or Christmas News and promotions from the International Elf Service, please sign up at the bottom of the page.
Love
Elfie x
Leave a Reply