263: What’s Really Behind Your Child’s End-of-Day Meltdowns

It's just a mix of like, we're on our toes constantly trying to gauge how she's going to respond, what she needs, why we can't get through a task, but then also this feeling for me of mom makes it harder, like she wants mom there, but if I also, if I'm present, it's harder. And this kind of like, just internal like, feeling of like, well, if I wasn't there, it might be easier for dad, but that's kind of like a really sad, silly feeling to have trying to get through dinner time, you know? So I feel like I've used a lot of tools from these classes and stuff, and my response is calm, but it's relentless. It's just absolutely relentless.

Hi, I'm Adrian in suburban Chicagoland, and this is Your Parenting Mojo with Jen Lumanlan. Jen is working on a series of episodes based on the challenges you are having with your child. From toothbrushing to sibling fighting to the endless resistance to whatever you ask, Jen will look across all the evidence from thousands of scientific papers across a whole range of topics related to parenting and child development to help you see solutions to the issue you're facing that hadn't seen possible before. If you'd like a personalized answer to your challenge, just make a video if possible, or an audio clip if not, that's less than one minute long that describes what's happening, and email it to support@yourparentingmojo.com. And listen out for your episode soon.

Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Does your child fall apart at the end of the day? Seems like everything's fine, and then suddenly they're melting down over dinner, refusing to eat, making transitions impossible, or just choosing what you might think of as the wrong option every single time. Today's coaching call is about those ends of day struggles, and even if your child is doing okay in the evenings, the strategies that we're covering work anytime that your child seems to be struggling more than usual. In this conversation, you'll hear from parent Kathleen, who has a three-year-old who just started full-time preschool. By the end of the day, the child is falling apart over everything, eating, potty time, bath time, bedtime. She wants mom there for everything, but when mom is there, it somehow seems to make things harder. And that leaves Kathleen wondering, maybe it would be easier for dad if he just did it himself without me. If you've ever had that thought, you probably know how painful it is. What you're going to learn in this episode is why kids fall apart at the end of the day, especially when they're spending more time away from you than they used to. You'll hear about the connection between a child's capacity and how much energy they have left for transitions and tasks. And you'll get concrete strategies for addressing the core issue instead of just managing the behavior. We are going to talk about special time again, which you may have heard before on these coaching calls, because when you're consistently meeting your child's need for connection, so many of the other struggles get easier. You'll also hear how to have conversations about feelings and needs, even with kids who won't talk when they're upset. If you want coaching on your parenting challenge, sign up for free at yourparentingmojo.com/beyondthebehavior. These calls happen once a month and you get real support on whatever's making parenting hard for you right now. So let's jump into this conversation about end of day struggles. So Kathleen, what's coming up for you?

Hi, just sending a big hug to Lindsey, Lizzie, because I'm feeling all that. But we're, we're in a little different situation because my three-year-old is our second child. So we have a five-year-old. And yeah, I mean, but very like similar themes. I think what's really cool is that I've done some of these classes before with Jen. And like, I feel like my response to a lot of what's happening is really calm. And I'm like thinking through different strategies. But our three-year-old, she just turned three about a month ago and is in full-time preschool. She started part-time earlier this year. So, and the five-year-old is now in kindergarten. So it's like big transitions in our house, schedule changes, very understandable. And she only naps at school if we're home on the weekends, she will not. I mean, we try to get her to lay down, but she needs someone to do it with her. Early on in September when she started school, I noticed just a lot of upset feelings in the evenings after school, trying to get through dinner, bath time, bedtime and I started laying with her. So trying to build that connection with mom. So we got through that. It's like she goes off, you know, about anything. It's like we give her choices and she always chooses kind of the harder choice or the choice that makes her upset. Whether it's eating, potty training, needing to go potty, taking a bath. It's like she just kind of is upset with the transitions that we have to do. So we try different things with like, let's cook together to prepare the dinner. And then maybe you more likely want to eat it. But she gets distracted and moves on. And so like we can't get her to sit and eat her dinner. She just wants snacks, treats, like she'll just leave the table, start doing something, then ask for something else to eat. We're struggling a little bit with going potty.

And like we go and she only wants mom with her. And then she starts like singing songs and doing other things. And it's like we can't finish the task. Earlier it was like she'd throw the food or the bowl if she didn't want to eat it. And we got through that. And I feel like we've been calm and she doesn't do that as much anymore. There was one time where I really kind of hit my limit because she'd want to sit with mom to eat, but then she'd sit on my lap and not eat at the table. And so I took the five-year-old and went upstairs and kind of was like, dad, get her, help her eat. And it worked. Like it was like things just kind of narrowed in and he was able to get her to eat a meal. It's just a mix of like we're on our toes constantly trying to gauge how she's going to respond, what she needs, why we can't get through a task. But then also this feeling for me of mom makes it harder. Like she wants mom there. But if I also, if I'm present, it's harder. And this kind of like just internal like feeling of like, well, if I wasn't there, it might be easier for dad. But that's kind of like a really sad, silly feeling to have trying to get through dinner time, you know? So I feel like I've used a lot of tools from these classes and stuff and my response is calm, but it's relentless. It's just absolutely relentless. And it's like how more structure, less structure, more connection, less connection. I mean, it's just like what in the world? And also just that same feeling that Lizzie was talking about where it's like, they just kind of grow out of it, right? It's really about like getting through this because the five-year-old did. And it looked different for the five-year-old, but you know, she's in like a really good groove in kindergarten now and it's like awesome. And so then I feel bad too that I'm not able to enjoy the five-year-old groove as much because we're so focused on getting the three-year-old through basic needs and tasks to get to bedtime.

Yeah, okay. I'm not sure if you said, is the three-year-old in daycare, some sort of?

Yes. She's in full-time.

Full-time.

Yeah. Okay. Got it. And when did that start? Did that start this year?

Yeah. She started part-time in March and still had grandparents helping because we both work full-time and now full-time September.

Okay. So I think, again, we're looking for patterns, right? We're looking to understand why is this happening? What need is she trying to meet? And I am wondering if it's sort of a combination of a couple of things. Firstly, full-time sort of daycare preschool can be really tiring for kids and their capacity can be super, super low at the end of the day. And so there could be an element of that to it. And then plus she's spending a lot less time with you than she had been up to recently. And so connection is probably more important to her now than it was before. And in some ways, it makes sense that if she's longing for a connection with you, then when you're available to be connected with, yeah, she doesn't want to waste that time eating right? Why would you? You want to play. You want to do something fun. You want to sing instead of pee on the potty. So when you see it from that perspective, in a way it makes a lot of sense right? So I am wondering, we come back to special time because it is a practice that addresses a core need for young kids so effectively. And it's almost like a differential diagnosis process, right? What we're doing is we're looking at the ways that we can meet needs that kids commonly have so that when, obviously special time doesn't fix everything, but what we do is we then say, okay, yes, there are still some situations that are challenging. And that means there are other needs present in those situations, but we've addressed the really big stuff first. So how is your special time practice with your child? Are you getting 10 minutes of consistent, predictable daily time with her?

I mean, definitely not as a planned, like acknowledgeable, this is our special time. Yeah. She definitely monopolizes a lot of my time in the evening and she's getting a lot of attention, but yeah.

And so when you think about, well, how could I possibly add special time to my day right. You're spending the time either way. You're spending that time trying to get her to do the things you want her to do. And so what you may well find is that when you institute special time, she's absolutely going to love it. And if that loosens up some of the reasons why she's resisting doing other things at other times in the day, you might find it actually gives you time back. So she will likely resist it ending for the first few days, right? It's going to start. You're going to set the timer. Okay. Special time's over. And there may well be a meltdown for the first day or two or three. And then once she knows it's going to happen every day, then she's able to relax into it, right? She doesn't have to protest and wring another five minutes of time out of this interaction because she knows she's going to get it again tomorrow. So would you be willing to try starting there? Because I would hypothesize you might see some shifts on some of this other stuff as well, just by instituting that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we definitely can. Cause like you said, we're spending the time there anyway, especially midweek evenings. I'm kind of curious, like thinking about needs with hunger, you know, all the stuff before bed, is it, do you think it'd be better to do it? Like the second we come home, maybe before they've really eaten dinner or it's like during dinner to be able to talk about it. Okay like, what do we want to do for our special time? You know, after dinner, like I'm, that's what I'm just thinking about is like, how do you build it in?

I would look for where she has the most capacity. So maybe she needs a snack right when she gets home from school maybe. And for some, some kids want to go right into connection with a parent. Other kids are like, I need mental space. I don't want to talk about anything for half an hour right. And so it's really going to depend on your kid's personality and building in the sort of snack piece you can, you know, maybe over dinner tonight, you could talk about, Hey, I've been thinking about having special time. And that means 10 minutes every day. And you get to decide what we do. And when do you think would be a good time for that? Because I'm, I'm not sure if you're going to be super hungry when you get home from school, we could do snack while we're having special time, if you want to, or snack first, and then special time, what do you think? And what are some of the things you might want to do in that time? And if she's not sure you can think yourself about, well, what does she always ask to do? What kinds of things when you suggest them, does she always say yes to doing? Those are always good places to start for what do we actually do during special time. And then sort of addressing the capacity issue. I think to the extent that you can kind of come towards her a little bit in acknowledgement of this is a huge change, right? We're not that far into the school year. And she's probably still learning how to cope with being apart from you all day and how to manage your energy, how to be in an environment where she doesn't get a lot of autonomy and a lot say over what happens and how we do it and when we do it. And so a couple of things, firstly, to the extent that she can have real autonomy, real choice, right? And that's very different from giving choices. When we give choices in air quotes, we are deciding, okay, these two things work for me. And I'm not even really going to consider whether they meet your need. Because they work for me.

These are the choices. And we instead try to give the child real autonomy. We're saying, yeah, you want to make this decision. That's really meaningful to you. I get that. And I think that either of these options probably work for you. They work for me. What do you think? You know, what works for you? Or do you have another idea? If my need is for ease right now, and your need is for, I don't know, comfort or joy or fun or play or whatever it is, how can we meet both of our needs? Yeah. And if you go to the feelings and needs list that I mentioned at the beginning of the call, you can print those out. There are picture-based versions. You can stick them on the fridge. And the more that you're sort of talking in this language of feelings and needs, the more your kid is going to be able to start identifying them. Even over the next few months, right, I've seen two-year-olds who are able to pick it up by around their third birthday when the parent is consistently talking about this stuff. So it's not too early. So there's the autonomy piece. And then the other piece I think is really important is the capacity. And, you know, even if a three-year-old, you know, a three-year-old is capable of feeding themselves. When my daughter was that age, she would very often ask to be fed at the end of a preschool day. She just did not have the ability to get the food on the spoon, to keep it on the spoon all the way to her mouth. And I think we get ourselves stuck in this idea of, for goodness’ sake, I know you can do it. Why can't you just do it? And instead, when we can say, wow, it's so hard right now when you're so tired and it takes so much mental energy to make that happen. How about I just help you with that right?

Yeah, definitely. I mean; I think that's where I struggle is she'll sit on my lap and want me to feed her. It's like, okay, I can do that. And I have the capacity to do it. But then it's like, she doesn't want to eat. She wants to start climbing on me. She wants to start playing, you know, and it's just like this balance of, do you try to like make time for that and then come back to it? Do you try, you know, taking bites as it goes? And I feel like we keep trying different things, but we're at the same solution where we're frustrated. She's frustrated. And so it just, it's like, okay, what's not working? But, but what's nice is we have two parents, two kids. I'm like, this special time, I know the five-year-old wants it too. And if she saw a three-year-old got special time, she'd be like, where's my special time? Yeah, absolutely. Maybe it all happens at the same time and, and even like switching with each parent. But I can also see both kids saying, I want special time with mom, not dad, which is always so hard.

Yeah. So, so dad's role can be to, you know, support the other kid with whatever they need while, while, you know, the kid you're playing with has special time. I'm also going to post a link in the chat to a blog post. And so for folks who are listening to this, yourparentingmojo.com/schemas, S-C-H-E-M-A-S. And so a schema is a repeated pattern of play. And this is how I won the first week of COVID. You know, remember that week when everything was shut down and we had no idea what we were doing. And I found this massive box of crayons. And I said to my five-year-old, do you want to sort this box of crayons? And she's like, yes, because she's in a sorting schema, right? She loves to sort. There'll be other kids who are in trajectory or, you know, there's like six or seven of these things. And when you propose an activity that's based on the child's schema, they're going to be gung-ho for doing that, right? It's very different than picking something randomly off Pinterest and saying, here's the thing you're going to do while I'm playing with the other kid. This is, okay, I see that you are really interested in this. Here's an activity where you get to do the thing you love to do. And I'm going to be over here playing with the other kid. So, that could sort of reduce the load on your husband who's supporting the kid who's playing with the schema while you're doing special time. So that may help as well. But yeah, so around the, the sort of dinner time thing, I would be looking at, well, how much capacity do I have as I'm doing this, right? Does it make sense for me to have a snack now and then adults eat dinner later? Because it's just not relaxing, right? We might, we often get this idea in our head of family meal time and we're all going to sit and we're going to share about our day and it's going to be beautiful and kind of doesn't sound like that's where you're at right now.

Yeah.

So instead of trying to like get into the thing that isn't working for you, what is working for you? Does it, does it work to have a snack and then meal for you so that you can support them in their meal and then have your meal later? Or do you want to eat your meal first and then they eat or like what, you know, what arrangement again of bodies in space can we think of that won't feel frustrating to you? So you're not trying to meet your need for, you know, for personal space, for nourishment at the same time as your child is trying to meet a need for connection. How can we separate those two things a little bit so that I can be fully present with you and also not be hungry and frustrated and overwhelmed as I do that, right? Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely.

Okay. Anything else you want to ask or say about any aspect of that?

No, I think those are some good things to try next.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Feel free to come back next month if you would like to sort of let us know how it's going and get some more support for more targeted issues. So thanks Kathleen. So I hope that was helpful, whether your child struggles at the end of the day or at other times when their capacity is low. The main insight here is that challenging behavior often happens when kids are feeling tired, overwhelmed, or they haven't gotten enough connection time with you. And when we can address those underlying issues, especially through practices like consistent special time, a lot of the surface level struggles get easier. If you want to bring your own question to a coaching call, head on over to yourparentingmojo.com/beyondthebehavior to sign up. These calls are free. They happen once a month and you can get coaching on whatever feels difficult right now. If you can't wait that long and you want more structured help with your challenges, you might consider the Parenting Membership. Right after you sign up, you get to schedule a call with my amazing community manager, Denise, who will help to connect you with the resources in the membership that will help you the most. Find out more about that at yourparentingmojo.com/parentingmembership. Enrollment is open year-round. I hope to see you in one of those places soon.

If you'd like Jen to address the challenge you're having in parenting, just email your one-minute video or audio clip to support@yourparentingmojo.com and listen out for your episode soon.