Reminder that excitement and anxiety feel similar in the body. Getting pumped up for a holiday (esp one with frightening ghosts and abundance of candy), children can be unintentionally full of adrenaline and primed for an emotional crisis.
They aren't misbehaving because they are spoiled, they are flooded with neurochemistry they don't know how to manage or interpret.
Here's what you can do.
Create concrete expectations (ie. How long will you trick or treat? Specific number of candies consumed that night? Where will the candy go after? What time will the evening end?)
And then put an expectation for a meltdown on your list. That way YOU aren't disappointed when it comes. You can then give more empathy and support and help your child process all their emotions from the fun to the fear to the "it's not fairs" to the flat out exhausted.
Hope that the night goes as smoothly as it can and that whatever bumps you hit, you'll hit without shame or blame towards yourself or your kids!
In this video, the speaker discusses "Compassionate Transportation," a technique for safely and empathetically getting children to cooperate when they are overwhelmed by emotions and immediate actions are necessary.
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In this video, the speaker discusses time outs from a perspective based on attachment research, emphasizing the importance of taking breaks to help reset our brains when we are dysregulated and the need for calm co-regulation rather than isolating with shame or pain as a lesson, adding that the lesson we want to teach is that our bodies need breaks sometimes to calm down so our brains can make good, safe choices - and this lesson applies to marriages as well!
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Join your child in their delight and communicate to them that their instincts and preferences are valuable and valid - this is key in developing their self-esteem, and play is the perfect context for learning and bonding.
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