Diet and meltdowns and tantrums, oh my!

We had a recent break through in the battle against meltdowns, which I want to share with you. First, some background....

The Adventurer has always been high strung, strong willed, etc. A well-meaning parent gave me a copy of James Dobson's book on raising strong willed children, and as I read this book, I wanted to laugh and throw the book across the room in anger, fear & disgust. There's something quite daunting about reading his example of this terribly over-the-top strong willed little toddler, the most extreme example he can think up, and realizing his example of extreme is your idea of a good day.

I've joked before about the fact (yes, fact) we let The Adventurer eat (carefully screened for any disgusting or harmful ingredients) dog treats as a toddler, but let me expound on that for a moment: as you sit,  horrified by that admission, please know that it takes a weary person to decide that a battle over dog treats is not a battle worth fighting.

We've all heard, "Pick your battles. Don't say NO unless it's a NO you know you can win/stand firm on." Well, see, when your child makes *everything* a battle, not only the "don't do that!"s but also the "you need to do this..."s, you cut what you can. The Adventurer was (is) the kind of strong willed back then that I let anything and everything go if it wasn't a safety issue for him or someone else. I rearranged the kitchen cabinets so that he could safely empty the lower cupboards while we did school. I banished all Big Kid Toys to the Big Kid Bedroom so I didn't have to police whether he was trying to eat Legos or Magnetix, because I was busy making sure he didn't climb the bookshelves or cabinets. I put away all permanent markers and bought only non-toxic washables, so that when he would inevitably draw on himself, it would wash off easily, and when he also inevitably chewed on the marker tip, it would not make him sick.

This all sounds like I was incredibly negligent; I wasn't. I can offer the testimony of the Early Childhood Intervention specialists who came every other week; they can attest to his strong will, and his well being during that time. Case in point: the speech therapist who was flummoxed because he made progress at every visit, but never ever ever on whatever word or phrase she had instructed me to work on. Seriously. At 2.5 years old, he dug in his heels and refused to voice any word we specifically tried to teach him. He was just that stubborn.

As such, when I did have to say No, I  made sure it was something I could be more stubborn about than he could. Thus, mostly safety issues. For a long time. Because anything else resulted in the type of tantrum that special needs moms know all too well, but outsiders can't really imagine -- the meltdown. The inconsolable, child has lost all control and can't stop himself even though he wants to, screaming, raging meltdown. Those have been a constant in our lives since he was old enough to exert his will in that manner.

A while ago I realized that these meltdowns are worse if or when he's hungry, and can be shut off by feeding him a single m & m, quickly followed by real food (preferably protein), once he's calm again. I started making an honest effort to feed him well timed snacks, in hopes that would help. It did, but not as much as I'd hoped.

By this time, of course, we've added other things to the list of "NOs" -- no longer just safety issues, but manners, how to be polite, how to treat people with respect, all of that. It's one thing when a child is 2; it's another when he's eight. With the NOs increasing, so have the meltdowns, and so I've been investigating and journaling and tracking and trying to figure out any additional outside causes, just in case.

With the food/hunger connection, I started thinking about blood sugar. Once I started thinking about that, I started tracking what he eats and how his mood is affected afterward. One glaring thing stood out above all else -- cereal turns him into a raving lunatic. For a solid week, every single meltdown he had was exactly 2 hours after eating a bowl of cereal. Every.single.one. For a week. I decided to limit cereal.

I tried just limiting it; it is the boys' one and only junk food treat here, is often a morning meal, and even more often an afternoon snack. For all the boys. So I tried letting The Adventurer have it, if he ate protein with it. Didn't work. Two hours after a bowl of cereal, tantrum of epic proportions. With protein, it was better -- only a meltdown if triggered by a situation he didn't like (without the protein, he'd go into a rage just almost for no reason; things like, "Get me some chocolate milk!!!" would turn into him screaming at you if you didn't answer or comply in exactly the way he wanted. Not cool.)

This was my much longed for outside trigger; my big breakthrough. Would it make a difference?

Yes. With the family's support, I have banned cereal. Completely. For everyone. And while of course The Adventurer still has bad moods, and even yes, the occasional meltdown when he does not get his way, things are better.

I also implemented a new, easy to follow through on, method of handling the meltdowns. If he hits us  (key meltdown behavior for him), we go to his room for 15 minutes. I carry him, kicking and screaming and grabbing at door jams to try not to go, and then I sit in his doorway, blocking his escape. I carry a timer with me, and as he cries and rages and the meltdown washes through him, he begs to get out. "When can I come out? Why can't I come out now?" and I just reply with however many minutes are left on the timer. I don't engage. I don't argue back. I don't try to stop the rage, I just let it play out.

Now, it's not pretty, but I noticed something else since we started this. I implemented this routine before pulling cereal from his diet, and here's the thing. On cereal, I sometimes had to extend his room time to 20 minutes to give him enough time to calm down. Never, in a cereal-induced meltdown, did he calm sooner than 12 minutes. Seriously.

Off cereal, he has not once raged longer than 10 minutes, and often as short as five minutes. We spend the remainder of the time chatting pleasantly, reading a book, talking, playing, whatever. I still have him stay in his room for 15 minutes, just in case. The time apart helps us both reset. But the cereal, or more importantly the absolute lack thereof, has made a phenomenal difference.

If you have a child who rages, for whatever reason, don't lose hope. Track his eating, sleeping, raging patterns for a while, just in case. Maybe there will be a diet change you can make, maybe not. I had never thought one single food could make a difference. He doesn't respond to other wheat products that way, at all. Nor other sugar products. He definitely does better when he starts with protein in the morning, but the simple removal (of granted, his favorite food outside spaghetti or pizza) has been a huge breakthrough, as has my new calm method of handling this.

I hope, if you struggle with this, you find something here that might help. If nothing else, know you aren't alone, and that it can and does get better.