My son Max, who is 8 years old, goes to school like most kids. His school, however, has a half day every Wednesday. He is home by 1 pm and, until recently, we had to fill up every minute with things for him to do so the explosions would be averted. Parents, whose kids are bipolar, or adhd, or pdd/nos, or another disorder will understand what I mean.

His current Wednesday schedule is to come home and drop off his backpack. He then goes off with his Wednesday mentor for an hour. After that his play therapist spends another hour with him and then at 3 pm he is off to a 3 hour program in the next town. He and I usually top off the night by riding bikes before bedtime.

Max loves structure. When something happens to disrupt it we can be subjected to a major tirade. When he was younger we were very new at this. Okay, so is this upset due to his bipolar disorder or is it just a typical tantrum that all kids have. It took us a long time to figure out the difference. At that time we believed that we should be ignoring the disorder related explosion and coming down on him for the typical stuff.

As a result he got away with a lot of things. Now we understand that we should not be overlooking any of the tantrums. Yes, some of them might be related to his disorders but just like any kid he has to learn that inappropriate behavior is still inappropriate no matter what the cause. Because he got away with so much when he was younger there are a lot of things he has to unlearn and relearn.

When Max was last in the hospital the doctors told us that added to his other diagnoses he also has Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). This is a fancy way of saying he has temper tantrums, is easily annoyed, and refuses to comply with our rules and requests. They had two recommendations that surprised us…and woke us up. They told us to watch “The Dog Whisperer” and “SuperNanny”*.

“SuperNanny”* was to show us how to discipline Max. Having disorders does not give him a free pass to act badly; we still have to teach him that he cannot do these things.

Cesar Millan is successful in “The Dog Whisperer” because when training his animals he is “calm assertive”, he doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t get angry, quietly and assertively he teaches these dogs to behave.

Too many parents either yell and scream or, like me, get a stern hard edge to their voices. Whichever way we choose we are not being “calm assertive”. As a result things can get worse rather than better.

I can’t say that I have this “calm assertive” stuff always working yet though I’ve noticed that when I do act like this Max complies with fewer melt downs and is much happier,

Yesterday afternoon he and I went hiking with his friends and another dad. It started out okay, Max was enjoying himself. Then something changed and nothing seemed to go right for him. The toy gun he brought appeared to break which upset him. We were hiking in a different direction than he wanted to go. The older boys kept running ahead and he couldn’t keep up. Well, the tantrums kept coming fast and furious. Dad was having trouble keeping his cool. It was so tough we both wanted to go home! It wasn’t until the end of the hike that we were both calm and walking hand in hand back out of the forest. The rest of the gang had long since forged ahead and we didn’t catch up to them until we reached the car.

Thinking about it later I can see that there were better ways to handle this rather than being part of the problem.

Today was a different story. I mentioned earlier about the structure we have set up after his half day is over. His mentor generally comes first. However, this morning he called while Max was in school. He informed me that he had to go to an emergency meeting at his office so he wouldn’t be able to keep his appointment today.

I knew Max would be devastated and would probably explode and have a very tough time before his therapist arrived. I decided to take him to lunch. We went to the 99 restaurant where he wanted prime rib. Whoops, another tantrum possibility…what if they don’t have it for lunch. Before we went he agreed that if this happened he would have a cheeseburger.

It turns out prime rib is only served Thursday through Sunday after 4 pm. The meltdown almost started until I reminded him about our earlier discussion. He settled for pizza and Caesar salad. And didn’t the boy who rarely eats lunch devour the whole thing! We then got home in time to meet his therapist.

Meltdowns were averted and as I write this he is off to his 3 hour program where, I believe, for the next few sessions they are having drama classes. Perfect for the boy who loves costumes!

So now I have a question for parents with kids who, like Max, have bipolar disorder, adhd, pdd/nos, or another disorder. How do you handle the meltdown situations? Have you found a way that works best? Have you had any success in retraining your kids so that they have better control?

*”SuperNanny” was originally posted as “The Nanny”