Sometimes I get upset when things are new or different.

I look like this when I get upset…

When I feel upset I can say, “I need a break.”

When I take a break I need to be calm.

I will feel happy when I am calm…

These are lines from a story that we read to ten-year-old “Daniel,” one of the children with autism in my class. I share this with you because of a momentous event that occurred at work. I’m trying not to get too excited about it or let it go to my head, but it’s just so damn awesome that I have to share it with you, and I think it has a lot to do with self awareness.

Last week when Daniel got upset, he asked to go take a break all on his own.

This may not seem like a big deal, but for Daniel, his teachers, and his family, it’s huge.

As the story goes, Daniel has a really hard time adjusting to unfamiliar situations or circumstances that aren’t unfolding the way he wanted them to and as a result he has a tantrum.

According to the Encyclopedia of Children’s Health, a tantrum is an episode of extreme anger and frustration characterized by crying, screaming, and violent body motions, including throwing things, falling to the floor, and banging one’s head, hands, and feet against the floor.

Think about when you are meditating and a thought comes up. What we do (or try to do) is acknowledge it and let it go and come back to the breath, right? Well, what if you didn’t know HOW to let it go? What if it just kept looping in your head constantly and you couldn’t come back from it? This is how I think of Daniel’s tantrums.

For instance…

…if Daniel has a cheese sandwich for lunch when he thought he was going to get chicken, this can set off a tantrum. If a door is closed but he decides he wants it to be open…tantrum. There’s a sticker on his desk on the left side and he wants it to be on the right side…tantrum. Sometimes there is no obvious cause – he just gets upset. Sometimes he is able to calm himself down, but often it becomes a cycle that turns into a tantrum. These tantrums consist of high pitched whining, crying, vocalizing randomly, thrashing around violently, destroying objects in his path, being totally out of control.

When he has a tantrum, we follow a very specific procedure to get Daniel calm and out of the tantrum. He is given the direction, “Go take a break.” A break is not the same as a time-out, because it is not a punishment. The break room is a small, quiet room with only a single chair in it for Daniel to calm himself down so that he can return to class. He sits in the chair for as long as he needs to in order for him to regain his composure and be able to respond to directions.

The problem with this system is that Daniel only goes to take a break when told to do so. If we didn’t tell him, his level of aggression would escalate and he’d wind up getting even more upset. Never before has he made the connection between being upset and taking a break to calm down. Ideally we would like to teach him to go take a break all on his own before he has a tantrum, at the onset of anger or frustration. The goal of the work we do at this school is to help these kids be as self-sufficient as possible down the line, and obviously having a violent tantrum over an opened drawer or the wrong kind of food is not going to help anyone be independent.

There’s a level of self awareness that Daniel and many autistic children do not have, that a person without autism takes for granted. You and I can identify when we are angry or pissed off or frustrated and can come up with ways to self soothe. For a child like Daniel, the skill must be taught and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced some more.

This disparity bothered me so much that I decided to experiment with something.

It was risky. There was the possibility that if misunderstood it would just make the tantrum worse, but I wanted to try. The next time Daniel had a tantrum, instead of immediately telling him to go take a break, I began to recite lines from the story we read him every morning, which he has memorized by now.

“Daniel,” I said, careful not to be within reach of his swinging arms, “You are upset. When you’re upset you can say…”

“I need a break,” Daniel filled in the last line in between some whines and tears.

“Oh, you said you need a break, okay, let’s go take a break.” I pointed Daniel to the break room.

I continued to practice this with Daniel every day that week that he had a tantrum. Instead of just telling him right away to go take a break, I let him be more active in the process.

Last Friday, I saw another teacher, Mary, working with Daniel. She was trying to teach him how to blow his nose, which is something that frequently annoys Daniel and incites tantrums because it is so in-your-face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Daniel start to get upset – his body rocking began, his face was contorting into that anxious look, his voice started to get whiny. Suddenly he put his hands down and made beautiful eye contact with Mary and told her:

“I need a break!”

Mary was so startled, I think, she said sort of flabbergasted, “Oh…oh, yes, okay, Daniel, go ahead, take a break.”

As the two walked past me on the way to the break room I asked, “Did he just say what I think he said?” Mary nodded emphatically.

There was a moment of clarity for Daniel. I swear I saw it in his face when he looked up at Mary. Something inside him realized…this is what it means to be upset. What do I do when I am upset? Oh, I remember, I go take a break. I guess I should tell someone. Mary is right here, I’ll tell her. This was the happiest moment of my teaching career. It will probably take much practice to get the connection to be more consistent, but at least we know that he’s capable of it. It’s amazing.

Like Daniel, everyone has certain things that are triggers for them. Seeing Daniel’s struggle with this has made me super aware of how I deal with “tantrum” situations in my own life:

What do I get upset about?

My triggers often have to do with feeling overwhelmed, like I just can’t deal with everything.

How do I calm myself down? What does my “break” look like?

I phone a friend, watch a funny movie, take a hot bath or shower, take a walk, listen to music.

How do I tell people I need to take a break?

“I need to go relax for a while.”

“I’m going to lay low tonight.”

“I’m going to go home and chill out.”

“I need some down time.”

“I’m tired, I’m going to go home and rest.”

“Excuse me, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Hey, it’s Emily…Do you have time to talk? I’m just having a hard time today.”

I don’t like to use meditation as my “break.” I don’t want to associate the cushion with feelings of stress. If I’m stressed when I meditate, fine, but for me personally I think it’s not the place for me to go to immediately. I think pairing one of my other self-soothers with a session of sitting later on is a good thing for me to do, but it’s not where I’ll immediately go.

What are your triggers? What does your “break” look like? How do you tell people you need to take a break?