My oldest child is in preschool, and my youngest is in daycare. During the school year, I have experienced a pretty regular scenario: either one or both of my children will often have a meltdown, usually within the first thirty minutes after pick-up. For some reason, these meltdowns tend to occur more frequently in the summer.
The apparent reason for their upset may vary from day to day, or even moment to moment: their shoes are on, and they should be off; the stuffy that they brought into the car in the morning, who was perfectly fine then, is now the last toy they would ever wish to say; the car window is open; the car window is closed. Often, it seemed like no matter what I tried to soothe them, I ended up making the upset worse.
I was really feeling pretty defeated—and a bit guilty—about how upset they would be at preschool/daycare pick-up. However, I did find some solace in the fact that this seemed to be a pretty common phenomenon, so much so that it has a name: “after-school restraint collapse.” This phrase describes the high energy and high emotions children can feel after being in school or daycare, where they have used a lot of mental and physical energy paying attention, listening carefully, following school rules, and spending much of their day away from their regular caregivers. All of this is so much for little people to handle, and the result cannot often be emotional dysregulation.
I have found that these strategies for managing summer meltdowns help make my children’s transition back home a smoother one:
1. Let them take turns picking a song to listen to on the ride home. Sometimes, they even pick the same song (and when they do, it is either our personal favorite the Gummy Bear song, or Going on a Bear Hunt).
2. Coming up with a silly story, with each of us contributing something to keep the story going. My four-year-old loves this and so does my two-year-old even though he pretty much only adds a couple key words here and there.
3. Talking with each other about what our favorite thing was that day. This helps all of us take a moment to reflect and think positively about our day.
4. Offering a snack and water in the car. Usually, all their snacks are gone and their water bottles are empty by pick-up time. Making sure I have a little something to get them through the ride home helps a lot, especially in the summer when they have spent much of the day outside.
5. Take a deep breath and count to five! This one is just as much for me as it is for them and gives us all just a momentary break to have some quiet and hit the reset button.
Have you used any of these strategies for managing summer meltdowns? Are there other strategies that you would recommend? Let us know in the comments.
