When Kids & Parents Feel Overwhelmed

What does the word overwhelm mean?  To be covered or buried beneath something, to be overpowered.

What happens when we are overwhelmed?

Our brains and bodies are always taking in sensory information. If any of this input is perceived as threatening, a small almond shaped part of the brain called the amygdala, automatically activates either our sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous systems.

If we believe we can do something about the perceived threat, our sympathetic nervous system is activated and our body prepares to fight or to flee. This is called a hyper-aroused state. If we don’t believe we can do anything about the perceived threat, our parasympathetic nervous system is activated and our body shuts down. This is called a hypo-aroused state. In both of these states our nervous system is dys-regulated.

When our nervous system is regulated, we are within what is called, our "window of tolerance."  If we are able to deal with things without going outside of our window of tolerance, (not going into hypo- or hyper-arousal) then we are in a regulated state.

My daughter went into a state of hypoarousal (see 5/2 post). All energy went inward.  She was overwhelmed and shut down. At that time, parts of her brain were not accessible. She could not access her Pre-frontal cortex. The Pre-frontal cortex is the CEO of the brain. It plays a vital role in planning, organizing, deciding, analyzing, sequencing, attention, and more.

When it seems we’ve lost our minds, we kind of have, at least we’ve lost access to the rational parts. We can’t use logic and explanations to connect to a child in this state. For example, my questioning her, wasn’t the way to connect.

How do we connect? The topic of the next post…