Masking at school, meltdown at home

Teachers say they see no problems. At home you are living with explosions, tears or complete shutdown Shutdown A shutdown is when an overwhelmed child goes quiet and still instead of exploding. It is the same overload as a meltdown, turned inwards. Read the full definition of Shutdown from the moment school ends. Both reports are true, and the pattern is so common it has a nickname: the Coke bottle effect. The child is shaken up all day and holds the lid on, then the bottle opens where it is safe to open, which is with you.

Holding it together at school takes enormous effort. It is a form of masking Masking Hiding or holding in the signs of being autistic to fit in, often without meaning to. It is a big reason a child can seem fine at school and fall apart at home. Read the full definition of Masking : working constantly to appear fine, copy others and keep reactions in. That effort does not disappear, it comes home.

Two things follow. First, the meltdowns Meltdown A full loss of control that happens when a child is completely overwhelmed. It is not naughtiness and it is not a tantrum: the child is not choosing it. Read the full definition of Meltdown at home are not evidence of bad parenting. They are evidence of effort spent at school, and of your child trusting you enough to stop performing. Second, school seeing no problem does not mean there is no problem. Keep a simple record of what after-school evenings look like: it is exactly the home evidence an assessment needs, and it fills the gap the school report leaves.