Across the Same Words collection
Overwhelm
11 prepared situations from 5 family areas. Choose the moment that is closest to yours.
You need the screen to get through the dayEvery Screen · When it’s more than a phaseThe problem may be adult exhaustion rather than one screen-time rule.→Birthday party or holiday leaves them too wired to eat a real meal afterAt the Table · Sweets, treats and bargainsA birthday party asks a young child's self-regulation system to do a lot at once — excitement, noise, sugar, new people, disrupted routine — and that system, still under construction at this age, runs out of capacity well before the excitement does.→The seam in the sockDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchChildren differ in how much input it takes before they notice it at all.→The room got too loudDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchRothbart's work describes reactivity along three lines: how little it takes to set a child off, how strongly they respond and how long it takes them to come back down.→It touched the other foodDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchA child who gags at a mixed texture is not performing.→The light is too brightDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchPluess describes children who register more of what is around them — sound, light, other people's faces — and are affected more by all of it.→Water on the headDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchTwo things a low threshold makes worse are both present in a bath: water arriving where they cannot see it coming, and a position that takes their head backward.→It smells wrong in hereDeep Feelings · When the world is too muchSmell is the input adults notice least and children this age report most bluntly.→The minutes when nothing is wrongTwo Children · When they get alongAdults are trained by the noise.→Hitting you during a meltdownBoth Parents · MeltdownsAn overwhelmed body discharges through the hands.→BitingBoth Parents · With other kidsBiting is usually a message rather than an attack: frustration with no words attached, teething, sensory overload, or the discovery that it produces an enormous reaction.→