Our fae is normally quite well regulated and doesn’t need much input in terms of her emotional regulation. The past few weeks, however, have had me questioning everything I have ever done with her with regards to grounding exercises, distractions, and any other tool I have to help her through, and out, of meltdowns. We have been having at least one emotional crisis a day, if not more, and some of her meltdowns have lasted longer than half an hour. It’s exhausting her and us.
I have no idea what is at the root of it. I have gone through the most obvious causes e.g. back to school after the Easter break; the garden is being remodelled.. but neither of these things seem to be causing her any undue distress. We were able to maintain important aspects of her routine even throughout her break. Her regular after-school play date was still implemented, and because she now receives a direct payment worker (see glossary if you don’t know what a direct payment is) she was able to keep in contact with some of her teachers from school, and this is important to her.
Things that have in the last 24 hours caused significant meltdowns;
She was not allowed to have her umbrella open in the car. Yes, I accept it was raining, but my point was we were in a moving car, the windscreen wipers were more efficient at maintaining visibility, and the roof far better at protecting her from water. Neither of these points seems to be satisfactory.
She didn’t have her doll. The doll in question she had just thrown down the stairs at me. It was intercepted by her father and apparently he wasn’t supposed to touch it. He was, in fact, holding it about 3 inches from her nose, but this was too far for her to reach.
She had to brush her teeth. Yes, all of them.
I wouldn’t call the dentist at 8pm because she had a new tooth coming through.
She was prevented from greeting the landscapers who are building our new patio & outdoor space. I would hasten to add she was not prevented from greeting her “patio friends” by myself nor my husband, but simply because they were not there. They had gone to collect materials and were not due back until the afternoon. She was in full sit-down protest, in the rain (why must she always do this in the rain?!) demanding to be allowed to wait for their return, regardless of this making her extremely late for school. When it was pointed out that, if she didn’t attend school, she wouldn’t be allowed to attend any after school activity, she reluctantly relented.
Amazon doesn’t stock working jetpacks… yeah I’m not sure where to go with this one.
So, all in all, I’m kinda done with dealing with them. I’m at the point of walking away and just letting her get on with it, because she won’t tell me that the actual problem is and I have no idea how to solve half of these displacement outbursts anyway.
In fact, the next time she starts screaming and throwing things, I think I might join her.
Raising the Modern Fae 