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Ryan Rivera is the founder and publisher of CalmClinic.com. As someone who spent seven years of his life suffering from, as he calls it, the “whole package” – panic attacks, severe anxiety, agoraphobia, social anxiety, unbearable physical symptoms, headaches, neck pains, constant tension, diarrhea, palpitations, pounding heart, he understands the effects of anxiety and how it can spread to others.

Your child has a lot to handle when it comes to her or his autism. Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience a great deal of fear, frustration, nervousness, and anger over changes in their routine, anxiety, and problems communicating. When those struggles occur, it is not uncommon for your child to have a meltdown.

One of the most important ways you can help your child is to stay calm. But it’s not uncommon for parents to experience a considerable amount of anxiety themselves when their child is going through one of these meltdowns. That anxiety can be transferred over to the child, and the meltdown itself may worsen or be prolonged. That’s why it is important that you are able to address your own anxiety when your child is in a meltdown, so that you can handle the meltdown calmly and give your child the care that he or she needs.

Personal Anxiety Tips

Develop a Checklist: Anxiety often comes from not knowing what you need to do next. While you may read books and have experience dealing with meltdowns, in the moment, these meltdowns can be quite scary, often with behaviors that may be harmful to your child. Rather than let yourself panic as you figure out what to do next, try to develop an internal checklist for yourself that you mark off one at a time, in order. That will give you something to focus on as you deal with the meltdown.

The checklist can contain questions and next steps such as:

• Is he in danger of hurting himself?
• Is there an obvious cause of the meltdown?
• Try to redirect her toward something productive.
• Reward appropriate behavior.

Creating this type of mental checklist will give you something to focus your mind on so that you’re not caught up in the somewhat chaotic nature of the meltdown. It will allow you to move forward one step at a time and know everything is okay.

Take a Deep Breath: It often sounds like a fairy tale coping tip, but one long, deep breath is often enough to help calm your mind and body. Once you know your child is not in any danger of hurting himself or others, stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, and take one long, deep breath before moving forward. In the worst of the meltdown, it’s easy to forget to take a full breath, which could make your heart work harder and cause you to feel greater levels of anxiety both during and after the meltdown.

Work on Your Day-to-Day Anxiety: Anxiety is often an additive mental health problem. If you regularly experience generalized anxiety, the meltdown will affect you even more physically and mentally. That’s why it’s important to work on your daily levels of stress and anxiety as well. See a therapist if necessary, use relaxation strategies, take supplements, and find a way to experience greater levels of relaxation so that when the meltdown hits you are not already stressed.

Sing a Song/Hum a Tune: The most stressful part of the autism meltdown is focusing on the meltdown. You may be able to reduce this focus if you try to sing a song while you’re dealing with the meltdown symptoms. Choose a song that you personally both love and find relaxing. Then learn all of the lyrics or how the song goes and sing the song to yourself the entire way through. It should be easy to sing the song and multitask, and if you can put some of your attention toward the song, the meltdown should go along faster and less stressfully.

Relax After the Meltdown: Finally, make sure you also relax after the meltdown is over. Sometimes the anxiety is exacerbated waiting for the next meltdown after one is completed. Remember, your child needs you to be as relaxed as possible, so taking a few moments to relax in any way you enjoy is worthwhile not only for your mental health, but for your child’s as well. Some examples of effective relaxation strategies include deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, and autogenics.

Keep Calm through Meltdowns: It is important for both you and your child to easily handle the stress of a meltdown. Make sure that you employ anti-anxiety tips that can help you keep that level of calmness that your child needs.

The above list represents just a few of the options available to keep yourself calm during a meltdown, and ultimately help your child calm down quicker.

Ryan Rivera provides information on generalized anxiety disorder and coping strategies at www.calmclinic.com/anxiety.