*If they are in immediate danger of injuring themselves or someone else, use your body to prevent them from doing so, but do not use prone restraint where the person is on their face with you sitting on them. Avoid touching the autistic person mid-meltdown unless they are in danger. Even if the autistic person is usually fine with being touched, it may still worsen upset during a meltdown. Many autistic people have sensory aversions to being touched, and being touched during a meltdown can cause things to escalate quickly.
Don’t make a sudden grab for the autistic person.*.A meltdown is not something an autistic person does, it’s something that happens to them. If you try to explain how embarrassing or hurtful or angering the meltdown is as the person is having one, it will only cause trauma and make things worse. It is critical that you do not center yourself or your own emotions when a meltdown is occurring. I covered some of this in the article I wrote for the embarrassed parent. Don’t center yourself and your feelings about the meltdown.Your autistic loved one is already at capacity for how much sensory input they can manage, and yelling at them will send them right over the edge. Yelling may release your frustration for a few seconds, but it can devastate the autistic person, and it will lead to a worsening of the meltdown. I understand how overwhelmed you must feel when a meltdown starts to happen, but do not yell. Don’t yell at the person having the meltdown.So here’s what NOT to do when your autistic loved one is having a meltdown: However, I’m here to tell you that if you avoid doing the following during a meltdown, things will go much smoother, and you will be far less likely to make the meltdown worse and/or traumatize your autistic loved one. Us autistic people are startled by neurotypical people all the time because we both see and process the world so differently.
If you’re neurotypical, and a meltdown occurs in front of you, you may get scared, embarrassed, and worried, and you may have the urge to flee the scene with your screaming autistic loved one in tow.įirst, these are normal human responses to being startled like this. And, it’s a good idea to get that education from autistic people (like me–and my autistic partner who helped me come up with some of these suggestions based on her experience working with autistic children as a paraprofessional). That’s why it’s important to educate yourself on what to do before they occur.
#Adhd meltdown vs autism meltdown how to
When your autistic child, student, or adult loved one is having a meltdown, it can be difficult to know how to handle it in the moment.
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