They Know All the Coping Skills but Won’t Use Them
By: Kelci Beus, CMHC, RPT-S
If this situation sounds familiar to you, you’re reading the right thing: Your child has just started having a meltdown. They may be yelling at you, screaming, hitting or scratching, maybe even throwing things. You’ve done what you know how to do, which is remind them that they’ve attended therapy and learned coping skills, so you ask them to use them. What happens? The noise gets louder. The behaviors may be more intense. So, what’s going on? You’ve invested time and money in getting them the help they need, so why aren’t they using it?
There are no short answers to the questions above. That’s because we’re dealing with people. In addition, these people are children and teens that don’t know how to fully regulate their emotions yet. This post will cover a few reasons why this may be occurring and how you can help your kid work through it.
They May Not Know What They’re Feeling
One major reason why coping skills “don’t work” has more to do with a person’s emotional intelligence than anything else. Oftentimes, we ask people to use coping skills for uncomfortable feelings, like anger, sadness, or worry. The tricky part about this is some people don’t really understand their bodily sensations of these emotions, so it’s hard to know when to use them. For example, a child may be exhibiting clear feelings of anger to you as a caregiver. But if you were to ask them about what they’re feeling, they could say, “I don’t know,” or even just yell more because they don’t have the words to express what they’re feeling yet.
How can caregivers help with this problem? Talk about emotions a lot more when you’re together. It may be helpful to pick a time of day where you’re checking in about what feelings you had during the day and make it a ritual.
They Haven’t Found What Works for Them Yet
Learning what works for a person to cope is very individualized. Sometimes adults have a picture in their heads that when we ask a child or teen to calm down, they will just take five deep breaths, squeeze a stress ball, and move on throughout their day. In reality, that isn’t so. What really needs to happen is for the child in this scenario to explore lots of different coping skills and pick the one to three that work best for them. The best strategy is to explore ones that utilize different parts of coping, such as having a variety of ones to choose from.
This can look like one that is movement based (going for a walk), one that is done alone that they have complete control over (coloring/drawing, other art supplies), one that is done with another person (talking to an adult or friend), etc. Caregivers can help in this situation by practicing coping skills with their kids. It may even be helpful to talk about when you need to cope, because then you will be modeling the wanted behavior.
They’re Too Emotionally Flooded
Emotional flooding occurs when we have a sudden and strong wave of intense feelings overcome us. It also triggers the “fight or flight” response in the brain, which forces us to feel like we need to protect ourselves. We don’t expect this, but when a child experiences something that’s hard for them to see, hear, or feel, it can trigger this response. Have you ever been in the middle of an intense feeling and someone told you to “just calm down”? You’re probably remembering that it didn’t end well. The same thing happens with children and teenagers, because they have even less than adults do in the way of navigating these strong waves.
Caregivers can help in these moments by not putting pressure to cope, as long as the situation is safe. This may mean telling your child you’re going to take a break and come back to them in 15 minutes to talk through the situation. It may mean discussing your experience with them afterward, as well as what the desired outcome should be next time they have a flooding experience. An example of this may look like, “I know you were really mad about this. That’s ok. What wasn’t ok was breaking things, yelling, and slamming doors. Next time, can we work on talking about how we feel or taking deep breaths first?”
Helping a child grow into an adult is no easy task. There are also many things you didn’t bank on having to help children learn, such as how to regulate their emotions. If you find that this task is harder than you anticipated, we encourage you to reach out to mental health professionals that can help you and your child become proficient. The therapists at Become You Therapy are happy to be on your list of resources, if needed.
