
Why Is My Kid Overwhelmed After School?īefore we start discussing strategies to minimize the possibility of your child having an after school emotional meltdown, let’s take a few moments to discuss why they happen in the first place so you can identify triggers and put together a plan to help your child regulate her emotions when she’s feeling out of sorts.Įxhaustion. Keep in mind that each child has a unique way of displaying her feelings, and while some kids become whiny and clingy and benefit from hugs and snuggles, others may become defiant and explosive and require a bit of alone time before they’re able to calm down. Your child may be more moody than usual, she may seem irritable and cranky, and you may notice her crying over seemingly inconsequential things. While there is no textbook definition as to what an after school emotional meltdown looks like, they’re pretty easy to spot once you’ve experienced a couple. What Is An After School Emotional Meltdown? The good news is that most of my university friends had kids well before me, and when I mentioned the after school meltdowns that started to dominate our afternoons a few weeks later, my mom friends were quick to tell me it was 100% normal.Īs it turns out, most kids experience an after school emotional meltdown at some point during their school career, and after talking and researching about it ad nauseam, and then experimenting with different strategies with my daughter, I’m happy to say after school tantrums are (mostly) a thing of the past in our household. Now, I realize the grocery store is the last place a child wants to go to after a long day at school, and while I initially blamed her outburst on my poor meal planning skills, that wasn’t the last after school emotional meltdown she threw. She’d seemed so happy when she saw me at school pick-up that afternoon, but when I pulled into the grocery store parking lot instead of driving straight home, all hell broke loose.

Shortly after my daughter started junior kindergarten, she had her first ever after school emotional meltdown, and while temper tantrums certainly weren’t anything new to me by that point in our lives (hello, Terrible Twos and Trying Threes!), I remember feeling completely at a loss.
