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Riding the Storm: Helping Children Maintain Inner Serenity
by Chynna Laird

As a mom of four children under the age of six, believe me, I “get” tantrums: The screaming, the arm flailing, the leg kicking, the carrying on—sometimes all four of them doing it at the same time! In our house, the worst sorts of tantrums stem from when Jaimie, our soon-to-be six year old, becomes so overstimulated with sensory information she completely shuts down.
Jaimie was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD, when she was two-and-a half. Although SPD isn’t a life-threatening disorder it can be debilitating for children whose sensitivity is so high they’re unable to function properly in their environments, or with the people in it. By the time she was three, I spent the bulk of my day putting out tension fires and avoiding potentially overstimulating activities in order to keep Jaimie calm because when she had a tantrum, it lasted for hours or until she passed out from exhaustion.
Being a pro-holistic mom, I tested out many non-medicinal calming techniques for Jaimie until I found a few that worked well within her comfort zone. These are terrific tactics for any family, whether there are special needs or not. Remember, though, before trying any calming tactic try to catch the tantrums before they hit nine on the Richter scale. By then, it’s too late.
Allow me to share a few of our favorite ways to maintain inner serenity, or, as we call it at our house, “Calming your insides down”:
Stretch it out. Stretching out or yoga are wonderful ways to help ease out tension and stress to reach inner calmness. There are some fabulous DVDs out there, some of which you can get at Sensory Resources (www.sensoryresources.com). The site has books, tapes, CDs and other tools specifically geared to Autistic, Asperger’s and sensory sensitive children so you know they’ll be perfect for calming down.
The best thing about yoga is that it teaches stillness so the child will learn to pay attention to what their bodies are doing when they’re upset. And if they recognize what’s going on in their little bodies, they’ll be able to calm down before a tantrum sets in.
Just breathe. Even adults need to be reminded to take a deep breath once in awhile when they get stressed. Deep breathing can be done with the yoga or on its own. The purpose is to say, “Hey, take a little time out, step back and regroup. Then we can try again.” We’ve taught Jaimie to go, “Breathe in…1-2-3…Breathe out…1-2-3…” and to repeat this five times. It doesn’t always work but a lot of times, when she gets to five, she’ll at least be able to talk to us.
Which brings me to the next point.
Use your words. This is an expression we use both at home and that we’ve taught Jaimie’s teachers to use with her. It’s difficult to get any child to tell us what’s on their minds. Half the time, they don’t understand why they feel the way they do. So how are they supposed to tell us? What we do for Jaimie is use actions with our words so she relates the action (what the body does) to the feeling or words. For example, if she’s worried about an upcoming event, we’ll put our hands up to our mouths, furrow the brow and talk in a quiet voice, saying, “You feel worried, Jaimie. Like this?” Then you can talk about the feeling, what goes on in their bodies then teach more positive counteractive ways he or she can cope with it. (Note: If you don’t guess the feeling right away, just work through a few until you are close to what they do feel.)
A box of calmness. We keep a paper copy box crammed full of different crafts such as beading, colouring, PlayDoh, stacks of notebooks for writing (Jaimie loves to write stories.), puzzles and little board books. These are all activities that help to capture a child’s focus and attention so they can bring themselves back down, sometimes without even realizing it! Plus all of these activities are positive counteractive ways to deal with stress or anxiety. PlayDoh, for example, is a fantastic way to work through feelings both with creativity as well as the squeezing action.
Deep touch. For some kids like Jaimie, a light touch is unbearable. When all else fails, we can usually calm her down a bit by giving her big bear hugs, deep pressure massages or having her sit behind one of us on the couch as we lean into her (which we call, “squishing.”) Massage is a great way to relax children as well as to help them re-focus as we put pressure on other places and rub them away. Plus, sometimes a big hug from mom can be all it takes to melt the stress away.
The only thing I’d add to our list is creating a space where your child can go for alone time. It should be a place that’s set up just for them and separate from the general hustle and bustle of the rest of the house. We set up a little pup tent for Jaimie where she keeps her favourite books, stuffies and a drawing book. That’s where she escapes to when things are too overwhelming for her or when she’s gone through a highly stimulating activity, like school.
In a way, I consider what we’ve gone through with Jaimie a valuable learning tool for all of us. She’s taught us the importance of inner serenity in relation to our overall health. And she’s also brought us closer as a family in helping her maintain it.