if you see someone at the verge of a panic attack that means they’re fully in their head spiraling - you can try to calm them down the normal way, but you can also try to force them out of their own head and ground them by saying something weird, ideally a question so their mind can latch onto it. It won’t always work, but it might shock them just the right amount to ground them!
The idea of someone just sobbing then you come up and yell “WHATS THE OPPOSITE OF YELLOW ON A RUBIKS CUBE!?!?” at them is so funny to me.
I think it’d probably work on me.
I was told that one way to help a young child break out of a tantrum is to ask them an odd question, something like “What color shoes are you wearing?” It does seem to work sometimes, usually by annoying them so much that they forget what they were upset about in the first place. I can well see it working for someone who needs to get out of a mental spiral.
I was actually asked this as a kid while on the verge of a meltdown, it annoyed me so much it pushed me over the edge and I responded with throwing a chair. I then started swearing and looking for anything that could be used as a melee weapon, I settled for a table. So yeah your mileage may vary when it comes to autistic kids on that one.
Oof, yeah I could see how that could happen. I guess you really should know the kid before trying something like that. I usually find that making mine laugh is enough to start to reset them, and then helping them calm down is a lot easier.
Also, a question like that is definitely for small kids, not those who can fling furniture.
Reminds me of the “make an angry child laugh” trick. Which I absolutely loathed as a child, because it worked but it also wasn’t taking my emotions seriously.
Sometimes their emotions have gone so far past reasonable that the first thing you need to do is bring them back to the point you can actually reason with them. After that, yes it’s really vital to take their emotions seriously, they need to understand them and trust that the people around them will take them seriously, but they also haven’t yet built the skills to moderate their own feelings, so sometimes you need to add those externally.
honestly, this is not a terrible idea
if you see someone at the verge of a panic attack that means they’re fully in their head spiraling - you can try to calm them down the normal way, but you can also try to force them out of their own head and ground them by saying something weird, ideally a question so their mind can latch onto it. It won’t always work, but it might shock them just the right amount to ground them!
The idea of someone just sobbing then you come up and yell “WHATS THE OPPOSITE OF YELLOW ON A RUBIKS CUBE!?!?” at them is so funny to me.
I think it’d probably work on me.
White.
Don’t yell if you don’t want to get assaulted. Some of us are having flashbacks with our panic attacks.
I was told that one way to help a young child break out of a tantrum is to ask them an odd question, something like “What color shoes are you wearing?” It does seem to work sometimes, usually by annoying them so much that they forget what they were upset about in the first place. I can well see it working for someone who needs to get out of a mental spiral.
I was actually asked this as a kid while on the verge of a meltdown, it annoyed me so much it pushed me over the edge and I responded with throwing a chair. I then started swearing and looking for anything that could be used as a melee weapon, I settled for a table. So yeah your mileage may vary when it comes to autistic kids on that one.
Oof, yeah I could see how that could happen. I guess you really should know the kid before trying something like that. I usually find that making mine laugh is enough to start to reset them, and then helping them calm down is a lot easier. Also, a question like that is definitely for small kids, not those who can fling furniture.
I was 7 or 8, but that didnt matter too much since I had already started puberty.
Reminds me of the “make an angry child laugh” trick. Which I absolutely loathed as a child, because it worked but it also wasn’t taking my emotions seriously.
Sometimes their emotions have gone so far past reasonable that the first thing you need to do is bring them back to the point you can actually reason with them. After that, yes it’s really vital to take their emotions seriously, they need to understand them and trust that the people around them will take them seriously, but they also haven’t yet built the skills to moderate their own feelings, so sometimes you need to add those externally.