Arc of a Meltdown

Understand what’s happening during a meltdown and know how to support your child through each stage.

When your child is melting down, it can be hard to know what they need.

Do you hold the boundary? Give them space? Try to calm them down? Talk it through? Wait?

The Arc of a Meltdown is a simple, practical guide that helps you understand what is happening in your child’s nervous system as a meltdown builds, peaks, and comes back down.

Instead of reaching for a different parenting strategy every time things get hard, you’ll have one framework you can come back to again and again.

Inside, you’ll learn:

• The different stages of a meltdown

• What your child may be experiencing at each stage

• What tends to help, and what often makes things harder

• How to adjust your support depending on where they are in the arc

• Why the same framework can be useful with young children, older kids, and even adults

This will help you look beneath the behaviour, understand what’s happening, and feel a little more grounded in what to do next.