Right before non-compliance, the most frequent behavior that brings people in to see me is the tantrums. The aggression. The rages. Let me share with you some of the techniques I have used with families that have been successful.

The first question I often ask is What is the right way to be mad in your family? Your child may need some practice and coaching in the right words and body language to demonstrate the intensity and type of feeling he or she is having. We may use some anger scales to help the child first be able to recognize that they ARE having an emotional response, so they can learn to detect their own signs of internal distress BEFORE they hit the top of their anger scale, by this time, they are often no longer responsive to words or reason. We want them to catch it earlier, communicate it appropriately, and have a menu of options to use to manage the feelings. I often use a visual menu that shows levels of emotion, how the child looks, feels, and sounds, and things they can do to manage the feeling and return to their emotional baseline when they are better able to talk and reason. Parents and teachers can be very instrumental as coaches through this process. They can notice the child is showing outward signs of initial levels of distress, verbalize what is going on, and suggest to the child how they might be feeling and what they can do about it. We can identify thinking tools, social tools, relaxation tools, and activity tools (tonyattwood.com) the child can use to get their stress response down to a manageable level. As the child works though this with support, they become increasingly independent in the skills of emotional recognitiion, expression, and management.

We can also help the child become more stable and receptive to training by identifying triggers and pathways that underlie outbusts, and work with the environment and teach the child thinking skills to successfully adapt to changes in the environment. (cpsseminars@gmail.com)