MELTDOWNS: When Rewards and Punishments are Not Enough

What is a Meltdown?

The family of a first-grader came to see me with concerns about their son. He had a challenging Kindergarten year. The school described him as a bright young boy with unpredictable outbursts. I met with his mother alone to get the background information on him. She explained how kind he was, yet misunderstood by those at school. The next week Mom brought him in to see me.

He entered the waiting room with a Game Boy in hand. I said with a cheerful tone, "Hi Chris, it's so good to meet you." He would not look up at me or respond, just continued with his Game Boy. I knew from his history that he could hear me. I tried to win him over, "Chris, what's that? A Game Boy? Can I see?" No response again. I said, "Can we talk for just a moment, you can bring your Game Boy in with you." No response.

I turned to Mom and asked what she usually does when this happens. She said, out loud, that she might take the Game Boy away. I said, trying to be positive, "Wait, don't do that. Chris, why don't you just bring the Game Boy in with you." He then put his fingers in his ears as I spoke and said, "Na, na, na, na," ignoring me.

I felt pretty powerless, much as I had the night before with my own kids when they ignored my efforts to get them to bed. This did not feel good. I began to wonder if it might be easier to work with adults, and let the rest of my staff work with the younger kids. Nevertheless, I tried one more thing, I took off my shoe, put a pencil up my nose and spoke into the shoe, "Chris, hello Chris, are you there?" I saw him smile. Without a word he followed me into my office.

I knew we were not home free yet, given our shaky start. I decided to quickly implement a little reward program to get him in a good mood. Mom told me he loved chocolate so I told him, "Every time you talk with me I am going to give you one of these fake dollars, and when you get five of them, you can have any of the chocolates in my bag over there." I began by asking him non-threatening questions like what his Dad's name was, his brothers', etc. Within a minute he earned five of the fake dollars. I said, "Look how many you have: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Go ahead — you can have any of the chocolates you like." At this point he squinted his eyes with an angry look, crawled under my desk, kicked over my chair, and began to knock his elbow into the drywall of my office hard enough to put a hole through it. He would not respond to me as he began to destroy my office.

This was a full-blown meltdown, the same kind seen in school as he began first grade. Did this young boy just need some firmer discipline? Was this a remnant of lack of discipline at home or in school? It seemed from the history that both school and home had offered rewards and doled out punishments to this boy fairly consistently. His mother's threats of more punishment after the session certainly had not calmed him down. A series of embarrassing hula dances I performed was enough to get him to laugh once more and calm down, yet the question remained: why did this happen, and would it happen again?

Mom clued me in to what might have happened. He was struggling in school with adding numbers and, as much as I thought I was rewarding him when I said, "look how many dollars you have," he thought, "This guy is doing math," prompting him to try to fight or flee from this threat.

These challenging moments are exhausting for all. They may involve any upsetting behaviors that are hard to control, such as kicking and screaming, refusing to listen, physical aggression, or bad language.

From my point of view:

"Meltdowns" are escalating negative emotional reactions.

The Usual Parenting Advice: Start with Consistent Rules and Consequences

Most good parenting books tell us that we need to create rules and be consistent in enforcing them. According to this straightforward advice, we need to control our own tempers and calmly follow through with the rules that we ourselves set if we want our children to behave. Not only is it difficult to stay calm in the face of meltdowns, but following through with rules and consequences is not always enough, as we will soon examine. However, creating rules and consequences is an important starting point, and the advice bears repeating here.

Most of us understand that kids need structure and discipline to help them learn and behave. We set rules so they know what is expected. We have consequences, both rewards and punishments, to make clear the importance of following those rules. Without rules and consequences, our lives would be chaotic.

One family I worked with complained about the difficulty they had getting their two kids to eat dinner with them at the dinner table. After some discussion, they acknowledged that their rules about eating dinner had been unclear and inconsistent for some time. If the husband and wife were tired after working late, they sometimes gave in and let the kids eat in front of the TV. Then, when they wanted everyone to eat together, it became a battle to get them to the table. With some coaxing, they agreed to make eating together at the table a consistent rule. The positive consequence of following the rule was some TV time later. If the kids violated the rule, there was no TV later. This consistency brought order to their home after two days, during which the children tested the new rule. A triumph for good old structure and discipline.

The Limits of Discipline, When Rewards and Punishments No Longer Work

Sometimes, when our rules are not being followed, we intensify our disciplinary efforts by handing out still more consequences. Let's look again at Chris, our first grader. He refused to do his work in class one day. The teacher told him he could not go to recess unless he did his work. He got angry and threw over his chair. She then said he must go to the principal's office and he responded by stating he hated her. The principal reprimanded him for his behaviors and said he would not be allowed to go to recess for two days. Chris became so upset, he tried to leave the school building. As a result, he was suspended. When he returned to school, he once again began to refuse to do his work and the cycle started over.

As another example, a seven-year-old child I worked with had trouble sitting at the table throughout dinner and would frequently get up, sometimes play with his food and, on occasion, throw food. His parents told him that following the rules to stay seated and eat his food would result in a favored dessert and TV time, but...