Why does my child fall apart after pick up?
We’ve all been there - after a reportedly lovely day at daycare/camp/school they get home and basically explode - a mixed bag of tears, yelling, crying, hitting and general unpleasantness. At one point my daughter's post-daycare meltdowns were bad enough I questioned the benefit of sending her at all. More recently we had a very successful week of day camp, which was then followed by several days of emotional outbursts.
It turns out there is a word for this: restraint collapse. Put very simply, our kids spend all day on their best behaviour and when they get home all their big feelings come out.
On the positive side, this shows they feel safe and have a much needed outlet for those big feelings. Yay! On the negative - it’s just not much fun.
A couple points to consider to make this more bearable:
Know this is not only normal but necessary! The more you can welcome and make space for emotions to come out, the faster it will pass. TV and video games offer a distraction but will only delay the release of those big feelings.
Keep your schedule light after pick up and have a nutritious snack ready to go. Rushing a hungry child to run an errand is a generous invitation for trouble.
Focus on reconnecting after being apart. Before jumping into dinner prep, spend a few minutes mindfully connecting with your child. Just because they had fun all day - doesn’t mean they didn’t miss you.
With new routines we can expect bigger meltdowns. Hopefully, as our kids get more comfortable with the routine and build stronger relationships they won’t come home with as much unexpressed emotion. If meltdowns are getting worse instead of better - this is an invitation to get curious! Do we need to help connect our kids to their new caregivers? Can we help them feel closer to us, even when apart? This is something I love helping families with - please get in touch if you’re curious about support!