I shared a little about our experience with Little Lion’s overstimulation in this post, but I also wanted to share some practical things we do at home to prevent and/or cope with these struggles. Some of these come from our fabulous OT and relate directly to overstimulation, but some are just good coping strategies for all toddlers in general.

1) Self Care – Yep, this is the first one, and in my opinion the most important. Toddlers and preschoolers require a looooot of patience, and when we aren’t taking care of ourselves patience runs thin. The best thing we can do for our kids is to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. For me, this means going back to work full time because I really enjoy my job, taking one night a week for myself and leaving bedtime duties to Mr. Lion, and prioritizing healthy eating, exercise, and sleep. Our little people pick up on our stress, especially extra sensitive little people. They need us to take care of ourselves too.

2) Basic Needs – When I start to see behaviors that indicate overstimulation (for us this means tantrums, screaming, out of control running, or random aggression), my first priority is to make sure all of LL’s basic needs have been met. Is he hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Does he need to go potty? All of these things are huge triggers for difficult behavior for us. These internal sensations can be overwhelming for kids with sensory issues (or all kids, really) but they don’t always have the body awareness to understand what they need, especially if something fun is going on that they would rather continue doing. When basic needs are met, often that is enough to resolve the issue right away.

3) Get Outside – At least for LL, being outside immediately calms his sensory overload. Something about being in nature is calming for him. If we are having a rough day, we add lots of extra outside time.

4) Heavy Work – I posted about this here, but heavy work is really great for kids who struggle with sensory processing. This is actually the first thing our OT suggested, and I was reminded of how much these activities helped when LL was smaller.

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5) Calm Spot – Sometimes, despite our best efforts at prevention, overstimulation still happens in our house. The first thing we try is going to our Calm Spot. This is a tool that we are using to help LL learn self-regulation. We tell him that his body is out of control, and we go to the Calm Spot together. We have a designated spot in our home, set up away from other activities. This is essentially a time out spot, but rather than using it as punishment, it is a place we can go to try to shift LL’s focus away from whatever was triggering him. When using the Calm Spot, either Mr. Lion or myself will stay with LL and help him engage in a new activity. This might be playing an instrument, reading a Highlights magazine, squishing some silly putty, or dancing to some music. While these don’t sound like typical calming activities, they help LL switch gears. Once he gets engaged in something new, it is like pushing the reset button. After a few minutes he is ready to go back to playing on his own. Our hope with teaching him this strategy is that eventually he will start to recognize that out of control feeling within himself, and will seek out an activity that will help him reset on his own.

6) Make a Plan – This is another activity to teach self-regulation. Often we will encourage this after we leave the Calm Spot, to help LL ease back into play. On our fridge we have a laminated card that has 3 sections with Velcro. LL gets to make a plan for his time, by choosing up to 3 different activities that he would like to do. We made cards with pictures of the activities that are available to him in our home, and he gets to pick any 3 that he wants and stick them to the card, in the order he would like to do them. The plan helps him remember what he wanted to do with his time, and if he starts slipping back toward his overstimulated behaviors, we can remind him to stick to his plan. He can always change his plan, and we don’t use this in a rigid way, but it helps him stay a little more focused. Over time we hope that this will help him to recognize when he is feeling unfocused or scattered and help him to refocus back on a meaningful activity.

7) My Turn, Your Turn – Another way to encourage self-regulation and flexibility is to do activities together that require turn taking. LL isn’t old enough for board games yet, but I try to incorporate My Turn, Your Turn into things we do together. So rather than just watching him play with his trains, we play together with each of us taking a turn to play with the train. I also push him out of his comfort zone a little with this, sometimes expecting him to let me play the way I want to, even though it might not be the way he wants me to. For example, LL might want to push the trains around the track in one direction. I might push this a little by flipping the train the other way during my turn. Often he will protest (sometimes loudly), but when I remind him that it is my turn and I get to decide, he will more easily accept that I am playing differently. When his OT first tried this I expected it to be really hard for him to do this, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly he has become accepting of letting someone else take their own turn. This activity teaches him important social skills that he will need when dealing with peers on his own.

8) Don’t Fear the Tantrums – Janet Lansbury’s books, blog, and podcast have been instrumental in helping me understand that tantrums are not the enemy. Toddlers and preschoolers have very strong feelings, and some children (mine included) express their feelings loudly and often. I have found that the more I understand that the tantrum itself is not “bad behavior,” but instead is just communication, I have become much more able to breathe through the tantrums, to listen to what my child is telling me (whether directly or indirectly) and to respond in a way that is calm and helpful. Don’t get me wrong, I am not even close to perfect in this regard, but I am finding myself much more able to cope with the outbursts when they do happen than I was in the past. Validating my son’s feelings almost always neutralizes the tantrum, and we are able to move on with our day.

9) Don’t Pick all the Battles – This is the best advice our OT ever gave me. We often hear about how important it is to be consistent with toddlers, and this is true. But if you try to be completely consistent with everything all the time you will exhaust yourself unnecessarily. So, we try to say yes whenever possible and save our no’s for when we really need them. As far as consistency goes, once we say no we stick to our guns. We might not fear the tantrums, but tantrums don’t change the no to a yes. But limiting the no’s from the beginning cuts down the amount of battles we fight, and this makes a huge difference.

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These are the strategies that have been the most helpful for us in dealing with overstimulation and the challenging behaviors that come along with it. Do you have any other ideas for things that work for you? I would love to hear about them!