‘You’re HURTING ME!’ they cry. ‘Stop SHOUTING!!!!’ they yell.

What’s happening at these moments, when your child is beside themselves and they seem hypersensitive to every small thing you try to keep them safe and calm? When a whisper appears ear-splittingly loud and a featherlike touch is like being branded with a hot poker?

The Thinking Brain

When a child perceives a threat, their thinking brain, the curly grey matter or cortex (we’ll call him Cory) processes the information and decides how best to respond. Cory might override the emotional amygdala (Amy) and tell her to calm down, because it was ‘just’ a car door banging. And miraculously, Cory stays in charge and Amy has a little huff, but sashays out of the way.

But there are times when Amy decides that this is serious, so she punches Cory and seizes control. What happens next can seem wildly disproportionate, extreme, intense. Your child is in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode, an automatic response to danger that’s run by the amygdala (Amy). For some children, Amy is more sensitive than others, constantly alert for danger and likely to respond with greater intensity than other (neuro-typical or non-traumatised) children.

When Cory is in charge, a person is regulated. When it’s Amy, then they’re dysregulated (also known as hyperarousal).

Regulation

Regulation is our default mode. It is when we can think, process, listen, learn, respond, react. We can draw upon knowledge and experience to size up situations and respond. As parents, we need to remain regulated to handle our child’s amygdala hijack. Things are likely to go downhill quickly if we panic or get overly stressed by it, because two dysregulated people adds up to utter carnage.

When we (or our child) are regulated, we’ll be relaxed, our movements will be fluid, our pupils will respond appropriately to light levels, our breathing will be calm, our limbs will flow, our skin will have good blood supply. We will adjust our volume, tone, pace to suit the conversation. We might be sad, excited, anxious, frustrated; and yet we remain regulated.

Dysregulation In An Instant

But something happens (we might trip and fall), or emotions build slowly until they hit overload and we push out of our window of tolerance and into dysregulation. Amy is the fear and panic centre of the brain and has a limited range of responses (fight/ flight etc). Our children act like rabbits in the headlights, goading, or running at full pelt. My daughter flees; my son freezes with a side of fighting.

When Amy is in charge, then our bodies will be tense, angular, our pupils might dilate so we can see better. Our breathing will likely be fast, short, panting; our heart will be racing in our chests. Our faces may pale as blood diverts to our muscles. We might get sweaty palms or goosebumps on our arms. We might shout, yell, push people away, run away.

Many children struggle to identify the early warning signals that are clues to an imminent amygdala hijack – my own children have sensory processing issues such that feeling hot or clammy or noticing a racing heart is beyond them. Which makes life tricky as we can’t take evasive action to disarm the hijacker (Amy).

An amygdala hijack is when Amy is in control of their brains and we have to deal with her, because Cory is offline.

How To Make Things Worse…

We can’t reason with Amy. She’s not listening. As parents, by trial and bruises, we discovered all the things NOT to do:.

• Touching the person – a hug, squeeze, even a light touch, makes our daughter explode. She’s not all that keen when not aroused. Remember in fight or flight mode, all our senses are heightened. For children who are sensitive to touch, then any physical contact at this point is like punching them. I cannot tell you how many times our children yelled ‘you hurt me‘ when we tried to hold them during a hijack thinking we were doing the right thing to keep them safe.
• Raised voices. I get it. The whole situation is super stressful. You might be freaking out (and even dysregulated). But, as above, children who are already sensitive to noise hear even a raised firm voice as unbearable. My children would yell ‘stop shouting at me‘ even when we didn’t think we were and sometimes burst into tears at the unbearable pain that a loud voice inflicted on their super sensitive hearing.
• Being too close. My children’s bodies ripple with tension that I dearly want to soothe away. But they want to be left well alone. Stay safe and out of kicking or hitting distance if that is what your child needs.
• Soothing, calming noises. Sounds like the right idea, but if I’ve learnt one thing, asking a dysregulated child to ‘calm down’ is like pouring petrol on a fire in the hope of putting it out. It’s only going to make things worse.

How To Make Things Better…

It’s detective time. What works for one child may not work for another, and what went brilliantly one day, might exacerbate things today. For my children, the generally successful (but not guaranteed) approach is:

• Breathe. This is about keeping yourself calm. You might put your hand on your stomach and deliberately breathe deeply so that your child might notice your hand rising and falling. But often Amy doesn’t give two hoots about breathing, because she’s not all that keen on relinquishing control.
• Stay close but do not touch. Depending on the situation, we might be sat outside their bedroom, across the room, or at the other end of a bench. We stay close (to keep them safe) but well out of arms (and kicks) reach, leaving clear air between our bodies. As they calm down, we might gently stroke a hand (but only by moving our hand slowly towards and backing off if they flinch away). You’ll get to know when they might be able to be hugged.
• Stay silent. Nothing we say is going to make this situation better. Because talking is processed by Cory, and he’s not here. Amy speaks fear and panic only, so the less you say (preferably nothing at all) the better.
• Hugging Toys. Whilst touching other humans can be triggering, some children can find hugging something cuddly tight to their body (a pillow, coat or toy) soothing. I’ve been known to stroke my daughter’s face with the ear of her favourite cuddly bunny and that’s met with more success than touching her directly.
• Wait. Time is the most powerful tool you have. I’ve read that it takes six seconds for the adrenaline rush to calm down. That’s your golden window for quiet space. Whilst an amygdala hijack is often instantaneous, the reverse process can take minutes, hours, sometimes days (depending on the trigger, the child, their brain, neurodiversity and more).

Then What?

As the child starts to calm, then having specific extra-calming activities to hand can help to reset their bodies and help them recover from the stress hormones that have flooded their system.

• chewing (gum or sweets)
• sucking (particularly thick liquids like smoothies or milkshakes through thin straws)
• eating (to reset their blood sugar levels which can be disturbed by the fight/ flight response)
• listening to music, movement, and
• distraction can all help.

My son (who freezes) would respond really well to Lego as a distraction. I’d rattle the box, chatting merrily to myself about whatever it was I was building. He couldn’t get himself out of a funk, but his natural curiosity and love of Lego would gradually overcome his mood and he would slowly come out from under his duvet, peek at what I was doing and eventually join in, building with me.

Safety Is Your Priority

As Sarah Fisher says in her book “Connective Parenting” the two most essential steps are keeping people safe, and staying regulated. Everything else can wait.

Sometimes you sit outside a room whilst your child throws stuff around (and you pray they don’t up-end the box containing a thousand pieces of Lego). Amy is unpredictable and wild. So you keep your distance and keep yourself safe. And you wait for them to calm. Because they will, eventually. Amy is no marathon runner. She’s a sprinter. Thank goodness.

Yes, I know how hard it is to handle these situations when Amy hijacks them in a busy public place (when a stranger touches her hair, darn them). But knowing what to do, and how best to react, gives everyone the best possible chance of calming down and recovering the situation. We try to make sure we (or the children) always carry fidgets, worry stones and chewing gum for emergencies.

What are your best strategies for helping a child who is dysregulated/ hyper-aroused or experiencing an amygdala hijack? Let me know in the comments