When I started in this field, I never imagined I’d be advising parents to take measures like those described in the story below—interventions that might sound harsh and draconian, seemingly completely counter to my mental health training. Then I began working in the trenches with big reactors. Every day, I was hearing stories and receiving recordings of children completely out of control, with parents desperately trying everything to calm them down—only to find that their well-intentioned efforts were making things worse, escalating the situation for both parent and child. I began to see that, when kids are spiraling, less is often more. Sometimes, the most loving response is for parents to set a clear boundary rather than continue trying to calm their child, creating the space for the child to regain control, ala the story below.
_____________________________________________________
Tayler, 5, flips out at a restaurant because her little sister, Stella, is sitting next to Mom. Tayler starts screaming and pushing Stella out of the chair. Her parents, Andrew and Lizzy, can’t get her back in control. The more they try to reason and problem-solve with her or offer calming tools, the more escalated she becomes. (Dad calls this Tayler’s “street fighter” mode.)
In situations like this, Lizzy and Andrew often acquiesce to whatever demand Tayler is making to head off the inevitable explosion, especially in a public place. Understandably, they are trying to prevent a meltdown, but the pattern is creating a dynamic that is increasingly difficult for the whole family. Often, Stella just gives Tayler what she wants, taking on the role of pacifying her sister to keep the peace.
Lizzy and Andrew are very concerned about this dynamic for several reasons:
It’s reinforcing Tayler’s thinking that she can always get her way and that ruling through intimidation and threats works.
Tayler isn’t learning to accept and cope with limits.
Tayler’s reactions are consuming so much of the family’s emotional energy that her parents are finding themselves having increasingly negative feelings toward her.
Stella is learning to be a pleaser and to forgo her own needs to prevent Tayler’s meltdowns.
Andrew, Lizzy, and I have been working on an approach that enables them to stay calm and in control while holding boundaries that help Tayler learn to be more flexible and accept limits. We use the restaurant incident as our “case study” to develop a plan that could be adapted to other similar situations.
Here’s what we came up with:
Before their next restaurant outing, they explain to Tayler that public places have rules to keep everyone in that space safe and comfortable, just as they do at school. In restaurants, this means sitting at the table, using inside voices, and keeping bodies safe. If she has a hard time doing this, Mom or Dad will be her helper and take her to a quiet space to give her a chance to calm down so she can return to the table—that’s the goal. They are clear that they want her to be with them, but that can’t happen when her behavior is unsafe. Their job isn't to punish her for becoming dysregulated or to force her to calm down. It's to maintain the boundary, help her get back in control, and support her in rejoining the family when she is ready.
A few weeks later, they have the chance to put their plan into action. They are at a restaurant. The trigger is Tayler’s insistence that Stella’s helping of ice cream is bigger. She demands that Stella give her some of her portion. Lizzy tries to reason with her. Tayler—in the red zone, processing nothing—storms over to Stella and starts aggressively digging her spoon into Stella’s bowl. No strategy is working to get her to stop.
Andrew enacts the plan. He simply says, “I’ll be your helper” (the less language, the better) as he guides Tayler away from the table and takes her to the car. He puts on her favorite music, hoping this will calm her, but she starts attacking him—hitting and scratching. Realizing that his presence is escalating the situation rather than helping Tayler regulate, he tells her he will wait right outside the car. His immediate priority is to reduce the intensity of the interaction and prevent further physical aggression. When she’s calm, they can return to the table. (One important detail: Dad had intended to buckle Tayler into her car seat, but she was too physically dysregulated for him to do so safely. She continued hitting and scratching him, and he ultimately stepped out of the car to protect himself and reduce the intensity of the interaction.)
In less than five minutes, Tayler sees that kicking and screaming at the window isn't changing Dad's response. He remains close-by and calm. She begins to settle. Dad opens the door and just gives her a big hug. He refrains from any lesson-teaching (which almost always just riles kids right back up to no avail. Remember: the limit is the lesson.) They return to the restaurant, and Tayler eats her ice cream. (Lizzy had asked the waiter to put it back in the freezer.) Tayler is a delight for the remainder of the night.
Note that I hear stories like this frequently from parents: when they hold a limit calmly and weather the storm, their children are noticeably more content and connected. As uncomfortable as it can be for parents to hold a boundary that may seem draconian, they may be giving their child exactly what they need: a calm adult who can maintain limits, reduce the intensity of the situation, and help them regain control.
The takeaway: Don’t judge an intervention by its cover.
It’s all in how it’s implemented. In this case, the parent didn’t shame, berate, reject, or abandon his child. He remained calm and connected, validated her difficult feelings, and showed her that he could be her rock. He did what it took to prevent her from being destructive while helping her return to a place where she could rejoin the family and feel good about herself.
What a gift.
If you’re still feeling uncomfortable with this approach, I encourage you to ask yourself the following:
What are the alternatives, and what might each one teach your child about limits, relationships, and managing difficult feelings?
The whole family has to leave the restaurant. The child controls the family; the sibling grows resentful of the big reactor.
You give in to what the child is demanding. Your child misses critical opportunities to learn to manage when they can’t get what they want, increasing inflexibility and a sense of entitlement. Children also quickly figure out that their parents will cave to their demand in order to avoid a tantrum, especially in public.
You stay in whatever safe space you’ve taken your child to and let them beat up on you for fear that separating yourself would mean abandoning them. What parent can stay calm—exactly what children need when they are spiraling—while being physically attacked?
What children need when they’re in “red zone”—their downstairs brain has taken over and their bodies are acting before their brains—is a calm, connected, warm, loving, and sturdy parent—a mental and physical state that is difficult to sustain when a parent feels out of control and under attack by their own child. Absent a clear boundary to end the unwanted behavior, no one is safe, emotionally or physically.
End Notes
When I posted this story on Instagram, it generated a lot of big reactions that I thought might be useful to share in case you have similar responses or questions.
Some declared that this strategy would never work for a neurodivergent child; that they would never calm and be able to go back into the restaurant.
Indeed, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for children, neurotypical or not. I never assume what a child is capable of based on a diagnosis—or the absence of one. Determining appropriate boundaries and effective support requires a deep understanding of that child's behavior, development, and individual needs, informed by both the parents' observations and my clinical assessment. Accordingly, some families might make a decision not to go to restaurants at all because they assess it’s too challenging an environment for their child. The stimulation and stressors inherent in that experience are more than the child can be expected to handle, even with support. Their parents don’t feel like they have the ability to set the necessary boundaries if their child gets dysregulated.
And…I have worked with many families with kids who have a diagnosis such as ADHD or ASD for whom boundaries like this are very loving and effective. (See my last newsletter that goes deep on how to support versus accommodate kids with neurodivergence.)
Some felt that giving Tayler the ice cream was rewarding her behavior—that the natural consequence for having an outburst should be to miss out on the ice cream. That’s one way to think about it. The way I see it is that Tayler was not in control of her actions in that moment—she was acting in downstairs brain mode. What she needed was help getting back into control, which is exactly what her parents did. The limit was the lesson, the natural consequence: you can’t stay in a group environment when your behavior is unsafe, inappropriate, and negatively affecting other people. When your body is acting before your brain, we will be your helpers and set a boundary to help you be safe. You can rejoin when you’re calm.
To me, preventing Tayler from having the ice cream would be unnecessarily punitive and a missed opportunity to reinforce a different lesson: that when she is able to respect boundaries and participate safely, she can continue enjoying time with her family.
Finally, this is a context-specific account, not a blanket recommendation to put a child in a car or physically restrain them. I share these stories from the trenches not to prescribe a particular intervention, but to show the process I guide families through to solve challenges: understanding what is driving a child's behavior, identifying appropriate boundaries, and figuring out what support will help that particular child regulate in that moment.
The strategies I share will not be right for every child or family. They emerge from a careful understanding of an individual child and family through our consultation, rather than from a one-size-fits-all formula.
My hope is that these stories will give you new insights into what your unique child needs—the expectations, boundaries, and support that will help them navigate difficult situations and nurture their ability to self-regulate over time.