Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could carve out as this wee bit of time with whether you're driving in the car or wherever you're sitting listening and whatever you're doing. So glad you could join us today.
I wanted to talk today a little bit about about what rhythm does for tantrums. Essentially focusing in on tantrums, regardless of whether they're the classic two three-year-old tantrums or whether they're a little more evolved and they're not so infant-like. But kids can have those what we call tantrums meltdowns, don't we, when they get a little older.
It's good we shift our language a bit, it's a bit more respectful, but it's certainly no easier to deal with. You know, tantrums and meltdowns, it's a kind of, like all stuff with kids, it's multi-layered. But I wanted to look at this one layer today of rhythm and what rhythm and ritual and predictability and previewing, although they're like the four siblings, right? Rhythm, predictability and review, preview, I mean all these things sort of orbit around each other a little bit.
And the the key to how to prevent meltdowns or at least make them a little more malleable when they occur is to have really clear, strong rhythms and rituals around children. I've mentioned before rhythm is like the big when, you know, when we have our meal times, when we have our snack times, when we have our bedtimes and the big when, when we have our bath times and so on. But rituals are like the little micro rhythms, right? The little tiny ones.
And the micro rhythms are the little how, how we do things, how we go about it, how when we sit on down for a young child to do some drawing, how we lay things out. There's my box of crayons or my box of pencils and or when I do my projects, here's the shelf that I have my project things on and here's where they go. And there's little rituals, little setup rituals, and they're pretty much repeated, you know, each time.
Now the reason rhythm, rituals, preview, predictability, all those things help with meltdowns and tantrums is that children don't have to invent what it is they're doing. First of all, they don't have to kick around so much and just get into mischief and literally kick on things, push their siblings, just start to create turbulence because rhythm takes care of that to a fairly good extent in that this is the time we do this and this is the time we do this. And so the day has a kind of a predictability to it.
And what this predictability does to help our children is that it gives them a big picture of the day. In a sense, it gives them more of activity connected to the frontal lobes. Because the the frontal lobes of a child, that executive part of the brain, is not in any way, you know, developed as it will be when an adult.
What rhythm and ritual and preview, what this does for a child is that it gives them the big picture and helps ameliorate, helps them not go back into that fight-or-flight, back into that amygdala. When a child doesn't know what's coming next, it's very hard for them and it can result very quickly in a little bit of anxiety and then back into that fight-or-flight response. So if a child knows what's coming next, it provides almost like an external scaffolding.
It's like a kind of externalized frontal lobes, really, and it gives them the picture that holds them so that this adrenaline and cortisol that is secreted from the, you know, as a part of the amygdala response, the anxiety response, is significantly eased. And therefore, when a child has rhythms through their day, then they are held in a way within this executive picture, this big picture, and it also gives them the feeling of security because my mum or dad or guardian knows what's coming next, and it does. And then they tell me what's coming next, and then it happens.
It's true. And that is deeply securing for a child. It's one of the most the most the most depthful ways we can give a child a message that, indeed, you are secure.
When we have rhythms and rituals and previews that run through our day, and the reason that, you know, as you probably can see where I'm going with this, is that it relates to meltdowns and tantrums, is that then a child isn't imagining what they're going to do. They don't have to always be inventing stuff that is sometimes just not possible to do. It has no real relationship to the right time, so that they're wanting to do this great big construction project right when it's suppertime, and there's just this like this collision between what they want to do and what the day is calling for.
Just normally, it's not that we're trying to control them and prevent their creativity in any way, in no way, but it's the right thing, but it's spectacularly often at the wrong time, and that is the seat of so many tantrums. It's this thing that kids want to do, and or they don't want to stop doing, right, and they can't stop it because they invented it, they're doing it, and they just want to keep doing it. If we have rhythms in the day and little rituals through the day, then they know when it's time to come to lunch.
They know when it's time to start putting things on project boards, and putting things away that can come back tomorrow, but now it's getting ready for bath time. Or an older kid, a teenager, just needs to sort of pack up whatever they're doing or transition, and because it just happens that way, and this is the way we do it, and this is the way we pack up, and here's where things get put, because there's an organization to it, and again, do you see this is like the frontal lobes kicking in again. There's an organization to it.
Here's where we, you know, if it's a nine or ten year old, here's where we put your stuff. That's right, it goes in those containers, it goes in, yep, it goes on that shelf, and it's very securing, but it's also tons easier to transition a kid without a huge meltdown, because they know it's almost like a kind of family biorhythm on a larger scale, and it's not that this is magic, but to a very large extent, the parents that I speak with on a week-by-week basis find that when they introduce rhythm, predictability, rituals, all the little things, the meltdowns, the tantrums tend to ease, and when they come up, it's easier to move a child on, because they know that at this time of the day, we do this, and it's just what happens. Now, you've got to do it for like months.
This isn't just like going to happen overnight, but when we become very intentional about our rhythms, and our rituals, and our previews, these kind of things can be enormously helpful, so that a child doesn't feel that they're in a kind of a, they're lost in space in terms of how the day goes, because that is, that is just setting a family and yourself up for having to deal with these kind of refusals and meltdowns. So this is a way in which we can be much more proactive about meltdowns, as opposed to wondering what on earth do you do when a child's having one. Okay, so that's it for today, and don't hesitate to reach out to me on Simplicity Parenting website if you'd like to have some, you know, private and personal family coaching, but that is it for today, and as always, I sure hope that's helpful.
Okay, bye-bye for now.
