How parents unintentionally trigger emotional meltdowns at every age

Emotional melt-downs can be viewed as a sudden expression of emotions, with tantrums for the toddler, mood swings for the teenagers, and withdrawal for the adults. The trend is for the parents to ask the following question when meltdowns occur in the children: “Why is this happening?” What the parents fail to appreciate is the fact that well-intentioned practices on the side of the parents can potentially cause meltdowns in the child at any age group.

Hurrying children through their emotions rather than validating them

“Fixing” emotions often involves the parent saying something like, “Don’t cry,” or “It’s no big deal.” Although well-intentioned, this can make children feel like their feelings aren’t being listened to. Children may throw tantrums in toddlers, shut down in school-aged children, and become defensive in adolescents when their feelings are invalidated, and unexpressed emotions will escalate until there is a meltdown due to feelings of frustration and invalidation. Simply acknowledging the feeling allows the child to work through the emotional outburst in a safe manner.


Expecting emotional control beyond a child’s age
Children are sometimes called upon to exhibit emotional regulation as if they were adults too soon. These tasks would include acting calm as toddlers, acting mature as children, and acting rational as teenagers, and these are unreasonable requests, as most children are not developmentally equipped to regulate emotions as adults are. These unreasonable demands upon a child often create reactions that manifest as tantrums, tears, or withdrawal.

Applying logic in times of overwhelming emotions

Parents’ reactions to emotional events consist of explanation and reasoning. Though reasoning is a very significant aspect when it comes to parenting, it cannot be used effectively during the time the child is experiencing an emotional overflow. Children of all ages require reasoning and calm during the emotional overflow period. Toddlers have meltdowns, teens have arguments, and other children have walkouts during the usage of logic rather than empathy.

Inconsistencies in rules and reactions

Children will not be able to feel secure if the rules keep changing based on one's mood, stress, or convenience. Children will be confused by the changing rules that give them uncertain outcomes. Children will throw tantrums when they are toddlers, and school-going children will carry out limit-testing behaviors. Teens will do the same emotionally.
Overloading children with constant expectations and corrections

From reminders to corrections, children feel as though they are constantly being observed and judged, also even positive parenting can feel overwhelming when it’s occurring all the time. As a result of frequent emotional stimulation, emotional exhaustion ensues. Young children exhibit tantrums, but the older child exhibits irritability and shutdown. Giving children the luxury of failure and emotional downtime results in a child who feels accepted and regulated.