In my work as a special education advocate and parenting coach, the one question I get most often is, “How can help my child calm down when he is overstimulated?” This could be a sensory issue, like spinning out of contro
l at a noisy party. It could also be an emotional issue where the child because overwrought from anxiety or anger. It can also just be from being too tired or overwhelmed.
I wrote Why Does My Child Meltdown After School? to help you figure out WHY your child needs calming. I know that hyperactivity and overstimulation are two of the biggest challenges parents face, but figuring out the WHY can help you figure out HOW to help! One of my all-time favorite strategies for calming is using a Weighted Blanket, which is why I wrote 5 Reasons You Must Have a Weighted Blanket.
For school I created the 18 Ways for Calming the Hyper Child printable to help teachers find strategies to help children sit still and focus. But I realize as parents we often have to calm our kids on the go. That is why I created this infographic with 12 calming approaches that an be done most anywhere. In my work I have found over and over that parents who regularly employ calming strategies can reduce or even avoid big time meltdowns.
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12 Ways to Help Kids Calm Down Infographic covers 4 areas to help with calming:
- Sensory input: Providing stimulation to the sensory system works the muscles and can have a calming effect for the whole body.
- Grounding: Simply another term for ‘knowing what the body is doing,’ grounding can be done anywhere in as little as 60 seconds. This has always been my go-to strategy when out in a public place. My card deck, Grounded for Life: 52 Exercises for Daily Grounding, makes it super simple to find the grounding techniques that are easiest for you.
- Crossing the Midline: This refers to exercises that cross the center of the body. These exercises activate the corpus collasum, the bundle of nerve fibers that connect the two sides of the brain. Doing this activates both sides of the brain, helping to integrate processing. Thinking with the whole brain create a calmer, more focused mind.
- Mindfulness: This is a popular technique that helps the child get in tune with what the mind is doing, and helping it find a more centered space.
Get a high-res PDF to make a Poster for home or classroom!
BLOGGERS: Feel free to share the infographic on your website, but please link back to this page to honor the copyright. Thanks!
These are such great tips, Bonnie! I love the infographic too. Grounding is something that really helps me when I feel overwhelmed or stressed. As a former teacher of children with special needs I’m loving these ideas. Thanks!
These are all really great ideas! I’ll have to keep them in mind when babysitting the nieces and nephews.
I love this infographic because it is something all kids can relate to. This should be shared in schools and community centers.
Love these ideas! We’ve been working on finding new techniques as we struggle with this at times and I’m going to give a few of these a try to see how they work for my kiddos.
This graphic is SO perfect! We use some of these, but my almost-3-year-old has begun his tantrum phase, SO we need all of the help we can get!
These are such great tips. I am having a hard time now that my toddler is getting older.