Emotion control

[seema]

dd14 (ASD,ADHD) has always had difficulty controlling emotions, it has not improved as she gets older. Laughing hard and long for silly things, something most teens may just smile at. What can I do to help her control laughter? therapist has asked her to think about something serious to keep neutral face, but she is unable to control. 

Thankyou

[Innisfree]

Sounds like we have similar issues! Did you see my thread on humor and mood? It's all really emotional regulation for us. The outer manifestation might be hard to control if she can't calm herself internally.

 

Have you seen Zones of Regulation? It's a curriculum geared at emotional regulation. We have had a very hard time getting dd to use it, but she does at least understand the vocabulary, so that is helpful. Others have had better luck with it.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Innisfree

[seema]

Sounds like we have similar issues! Did you see my thread on humor and mood? It's all really emotional regulation for us. The outer manifestation might be hard to control if she can't calm herself internally.

 

Have you seen Zones of Regulation? It's a curriculum geared at emotional regulation. We have had a very hard time getting dd to use it, but she does at least understand the vocabulary, so that is helpful. Others have had better luck with it.

Yes sounds similar issue. We just got Mighteor and have been using it for a week now, lets see. I will look into zones of regulation, she is at an age, where she does not want to listen, she complaints I nag all the time. I need to look at behaviorist option, it may cost$$$, as I believe Blue cross will not cover. Appreciate your help.

[Innisfree]

Yes, we have the same sort of reaction from dd.

 

We had ABA for about 18 months, and it helped a lot, but our funding ran out. Insurance won't cover it for us. We did private pay for a while-- ouch. I'm not sure we could do that again, but it got us past some serious safety sorts of issues.

 

I'm really hoping Mighteor makes a difference.

[PeterPan]

To me, Mighteor brings the physical, body awareness that lets them *apply* what they're learning in their other interventions. So it's not going to replace Zones of Reg, Social Thinking materials (understanding people have feelings, group plan, making choices, using strategies, etc.). They're going to work in tandem, with the one teaching you what to do and the other helping you realize ok it's time to do it.

[Innisfree]

Thinking about this some more...

 

I was reading one of Michelle Garcia Winner's books with dd today (Social Fortune or Social Fate). This one is a graphic novel geared at teens and tweens. The intro made the point explicitly that excessive laughter is not socially acceptable for this age group. So, I wondered if your dd understands that on an intellectual level, and it's just the physical/emotional control that is lacking, or if the social ramifications still need to be explicitly taught.

 

The rest of this book does not deal with the laughter issue, but it is very good at showing social consequences of different choices. As a bonus, dd thought it was (mildly) funny, so she didn't reject it out of hand.

 

Anyway, if you haven't seen Winner's materials at Social Thinking, you might find something useful there, especially if this isn't purely an emotional regulation issue.