Emotion regulation coaching for 7yo on the spectrum
I am looking for someone who could help my 7yo build skills at regulating emotion. He is almost certainly on the spectrum (what was once called Aspergers). When he’s not stressed or upset and has time to think, he can be quite considerate of others. But he seems to have some sort of invisible tank that runs down, and then he becomes incredibly easily triggered to super intense emotion (e.g. he will have huge reactions to unwanted sound or touch, even when it is meant to be friendly; or have a complete meltdown because he is playing dominoes and his sister wants to also play dominoes nearby). Sometimes he seems to become unnaturally fixated on something he wants to do—e.g. play music while his dad gives a presentation from the next room—and it is as if he genuinely thinks the world will fall apart if he can’t do that thing, the way he planned, right now, regardless of the reasons we don’t want him to.
Once he is upset he can rarely go along with any of the things we think would help—like coming away with us to a quieter space, or eating something if he is likely too hungry. He seems to think “I can be calm only when this problem is fixed the way it should be; and I want to do other things only when I am calm.” Even if the upset will prevent something he really wants—like getting to a museum in time to see dinosaur bones—he can’t choose to set it aside.
Having recently figured out that he is autistic, I am trying to find more ways to protect him from sound, let him recharge, and so on. But I also want him to build more power, if it’s at all possible, to get an aversive stimulus and choose to ignore it, and to recognize proactively when he needs to take a break (or make some other change) to avoid boiling over. I want him to have tools he can use to calm down when he is really upset—and to accept calming down as a goal in the first place! And of course, I want him to be able to inhibit certain things no matter how upset he is—like trying to flee from us in a parking lot, or hitting me when I try to stop him.
If you know of an OT (or someone else) who sounds like a good fit for this, please let me know! I know there are OT recommendations posted already, but it would be really helpful to have a recommendation for this challenge in particular. We are in Berkeley but willing to drive a bit.
If anyone has time to elaborate, I would also welcome any insight into how OTs coach emotion regulation! Being one-on-one with an adult is pretty much his comfort zone, so he's not likely to get upset there.
Parent Replies
I highly recommend Outdoor Kids OT—it is a OT group in Tilden or Redwood Regional. It’s been really helpful for my kiddo. They work on emotional regulation & social skills, as well as other OT things like hand strength. Because they are in a group setting there are a lot of natural conflicts that come up between kids and this is a way to practice skills.
My kiddo also does private OT, our private OT isn’t taking new clients but many folks have recommended full circle ot in Oakland to me.
Good luck!
Suggest reaching out to Lee-Anne Bloom at Oak Bloom OT. She worked with my ADHDer + sensory issues for several years on emotional regulation, sensory regulation and social skills both before and after diagnosis. We found her incredibly helpful, patient and flexible to try new things and move on when something that had been working suddenly didn’t. All the tools we learned were practical and adaptable to different situations, enabling consistency and adoption by our whole family We still use tools and techniques from Lee-Anne many years later.
Autistic parent of 2 autistic kiddos aged 7 and 4. I have so much sympathy reading your post--the struggle with managing kids' big feelings is real!
What has worked best for us (after a lot of trial and error) is trying to stay ahead of the emotional dysregulation. We have learned what many of our kids' triggers are and try to mitigate them as best we can. Our 7-year-old loves school but finds it utterly exhausting, and once she's spent her regulation skills for the day her tolerance for things like loud noise, being touched, having to stop doing a preferred activity, go way down. We minimize demands on her after school as best we can, and pretty much assume that Friday night will be a wash and that Saturday morning is "recovery time" (ie don't plan anything there that can't be rescheduled or cancelled).
Your post suggests that you've just recently realized you're a neurodivergent family. I'd HIGHLY recommend finding some resources written by neurodivergent adults (if you're on Facebook, I'd start with Neurowild (an SLP) and The Occuplaytional Therapist) to help you get a better big picture of what might be going on for your kiddo. Parenting a disabled kid is hard, but we found it got easier as we learned how to reframe stuff and built our toolbox.
Happy to talk more about strategies. Feel free to ping me off-list if it'd be helpful.
We also recommend Outdoor Kids OT. They are in Tilden and San Joaquin. We did for 2 years for our 10 year old who has ASD/ADHD. She really found kidred spirits there and made some good friends. I think it really helped build her social skills and she got to be fully immersed in natures which is her happy place.