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?
I didn’t know I had autism until my 30s but…
Maybe have her slowly learn to practice mindfulness? I picked up some aspects of it around that age while doing martial arts. https://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-for-kids/
If she can learn to realize she is about to have a meltdown she can hopefully have a less intense experience with it. Think of that as turning down the volume before a commercial break interrupts a movie with way louder sound.
Mindfulness is great, but in my case I noticed that the usual techniques don’t work. I needed to find my own techniques. For instance most autistics have some kind of special interest. Diving into that certainly helps me. It’s where my mind can roam freely.