15: After-School Meltdowns — What Parents Can Do
In this episode, I sit down with psychotherapist Matthew Fishleder to unpack why after-school meltdowns happen—and what parents can actually do in the moment. We talk about the pressure-cooker effect of long school days, the role of hunger, exhaustion, and transitions, and why kids often fall apart with the people they feel safest with. You’ll hear practical, doable strategies for creating calmer after-school routines, connecting before correcting, and supporting your child and yourself through one of the hardest parts of the day.
Key Takeaways:
After-school meltdowns are a sign of exhaustion and overload, not bad behavior. Kids are often running on empty after a full day of demands & transitions.
Connection helps calm the nervous system. Naming what you see and leading with empathy makes it easier for kids to settle and feel understood.
Snacks and downtime are preventative. A predictable decompression routine can head off bigger meltdowns later.
Timing matters when talking about school. Waiting until kids are fed and regulated leads to more meaningful conversations.
Parents’ regulation matters too. Noticing your own stress and triggers helps you respond more intentionally in tough moments.
Resources:
Whole Brain Child by Dr Daniel Segel & Tina Payne Bryson (affiliate link)
5 Ways to Make Transitions Easier blog post
Conquering After School Restraint Collapse blog post
Connect with Matthew:
Connect with Scotti:
Transcript
15: After-School Meltdowns — What Parents Can Do
[00:00:00]
Matthew Fishleder: People often talk about that kids can feel safe to fall apart once they're with their parents, once they're with their family members caregivers. And that can be true. It's incumbent on, on us to help them through that, to help them figure that out and to navigate through our own dysregulation.
Welcome to Unlocking School Success, a podcast with the smart strategies and support parents need to help their kids thrive. I'm your host, Scotty Weintraub, parent coach, school navigator, and your go-to guide for turning School Stress and Chaos into clear strategies that work. Let's get started.
Scotti Weintraub: Hi there, and welcome back to another episode of Unlocking School Success. It is my pleasure today to welcome Matthew FishLeder. He's a psychotherapist. He works online with parents in Maryland and in California. So sort of bi-coastal in that way.
And [00:01:00] he helps people slow down in the chaos of everyday parenting, noticing the patterns we've inherited and respond in ways that reflect our own values. And I just love that for your bio, Matthew, 'cause I think it really resonates with me. Welcome.
Matthew Fishleder: Thank you for having me. It's what I love to do.
Scotti Weintraub: I am pleased that we are gonna talk today about a topic I think a lot of parents contend with, but maybe don't totally understand or have strategies, you know, in their back pocket to manage when it comes up. And that is after school meltdowns.
Matthew Fishleder: It can feel like. Pressure cooker for kids that period after school, transitioning back into the home, feeling hungry, feeling exhausted, tired from the day.
And we find that it's a lot touchier at the end of the day.
Scotti Weintraub: Okay, well let's dig into that because I think that's just like a good place to start. Why is it that kids are [00:02:00] touchier at the end of the school day?
Matthew Fishleder: Kids have been holding it together throughout the day. Staying in class as best that any kid can.
In class focusing, following the transition from one activity to another one part of the day to another. They've been active, hopefully during the day. And by the time they get home, they're tired. They're often hungry if they haven't had some sort of late snack, their executive function is stem and they're running on these on these fumes of adrenaline that are that are increased by the fact of being tired and hungry.
Those are stressors for our bodies and it causes the release of more adrenaline. That adrenaline can make emotional regulation hard At the end of the day part of what adrenaline does is it overrides our capacity for emotional regulation. So kids are already and working at [00:03:00] a deficit in terms of being aware of and making choices about how they're reacting when they get home at the end of the day.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah, this just brings me back and my kids are teens now, but remembering those elementary school days where I would pick them up on the playground and they seemed, bright and happy. And then what would happen is we'd have a very quick crash and there was always a little, hard to handle, I think, for parents like, wait a minute, you were just happy a minute ago.
Matthew Fishleder: Dysregulated kid, especially at the end of the day for a parent, because we're at the end of our days as well. At that point, we've been holding it together, doing whatever it is that we're doing throughout the day. We wanna be present with our kids. We want our kids to be happy. And when our kids are dysregulated, it can dysregulate us.
Scotti Weintraub: I think that's an important point because when we, pick them up, or now that my kids are older, they walk in the door, after school [00:04:00] and we haven't seen them all day, and so we wanna catch up. Maybe we wanna connect with them,
doesn't happen the way we want it to.
Matthew Fishleder: What did you, I know you had art class today. What did you do in art class? How were things with this friend or that friend? And at the end of the day. When a kid is coming home hungry and tired and having gotten through this huge chunk of their day at school getting questioned about it can be dysregulating for them getting feeling probe and feel dysregulating.
Scotti Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fishleder: It can be. It's this time when they're, they're already in this tender place and it can be important to give them some kind of wind down time. Yeah.
But it can be shocking when it's seemed to be having a good time when you get to them, like on the playground at the end of the day, and once you get them in the car or at home, it's like they switch.
Scotti Weintraub: That's confusing.
Matthew Fishleder: Yeah it's confusing. It's a shift in the environment. People often talk about [00:05:00] kids can feel safe to fall apart once they're with their parents, once they're with their family members caregivers. And that can be true. And at the same time it's incumbent on, on us as their caregivers. And to help them through that, to help them figure that out and to navigate through our own dysregulation when we're at the end of our days and our kids are going from having fun on the playground to being resistant or loud in the car at the end of the day to figure out what is it, what is this bringing up for me and what can I do to help my kids?
Scotti Weintraub: So I think you've touched on a couple of really important things here. The first being that it's a transition period and just like acknowledging Oh yeah. Even though as adults we're used to usually like moving from one thing to another and we go to pick up our kid and then maybe we've gotta stop at the store and then we've gotta, you know, drop them at soccer practice or whatever that chain of events [00:06:00] looks like.
All of those are tiny transitions, or not so tiny in some cases. So I think acknowledging those transitions is huge,
Matthew Fishleder: and the hunger and tiredness magnify everything. The kids have been navigating the transitions throughout the day at school, and suddenly there's a transition into another relational environment.
Now I'm in the car with mom or dad or whomever. And the shift from one entire. Relational context with fears and features into the shift into a family context. And in this moment when a kid is tired and hungry and running on fumes in their brain can be, again, very dysregulating.
Scotti Weintraub: So if I'm that parent in the car and.
I'm realizing, oh yeah, this is the transition time. What's some, what's a strategy I can employ in the moment?
Matthew Fishleder: Connect first. I always [00:07:00] say starting with connection is is hugely important. Finding something that you can name that's going on that you see going on.
" You sound tired. "
Can really help. I always like this acronym that somebody turned me on to queue tip, quit taking it personally.
So noticing when there's something that our kids are saying that's that's poking at us. ' cause they do that. They know then and they see it when they do. And when we take it personally, we can react and frustration and anger and that actually escalates. The intensity of the kid's stress and it can escalate their responses and they can lead to arguments in the car. They can lead to more back and forth and less connection. So starting with some kind of connection acknowledging the feeling that that you're hearing about. If they say, my gosh, mom, stop asking so many questions.
Being able to say like. It's kind of annoying.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah. Annoying. Okay. All right. Maybe later we can chat.
Matthew Fishleder: Or saying it's hard to get a bunch of questions [00:08:00] from your mom as soon as you get in the car. I'll shut up for a little bit. Right. Being able to acknowledge the feeling before trying to correct anything before going into that's a disrespectful way to talk to me .
Scotti Weintraub: Right. I love that. Focusing on connection. I found personally, you know, one of my best tools in those moments was to always have snacks just in my purse, in the car. Always have them at the ready.
Matthew Fishleder: The quickest way to the heart - food. Here you are, you're done with school. Welcome to the car. Here's a snack.
Without following up immediately with questions or probing the peers to staff. Even depending on the kid providing two options. Do you want this or that? Giving them a sense of power, they're right away. Having predictable routines like a snack quiet activity after home when you get home from school?
Having predictable routines, like consistent that time [00:09:00] quiet activity when they get home from school, some sort of decompression time can be really important in giving them an opportunity for adrenaline recovery where they're not producing more adrenaline, they're actually reducing the amount of cortisol, which is a adrenaline agonist in their body.
So that their body, so that their adrenal glands starts to reduce more adrenaline again 'cause they're kind of at this adrenaline deficit.
Scotti Weintraub: So, yeah, when we, I think, you know, we talked a little bit about that transition place being the car or the walk home or maybe a kid is taking the bus and then when they get home. That's such an interesting point about needing downtime. 'cause I know it's easy for us to, as parents to say, and I remember this from when I was a kid, like, you have to do your homework first.
You have to take care of your chores before you can play. But what you're saying is sort of like flipping that on its head a bit.
Matthew Fishleder: Absolutely. And not to say that there's no place for [00:10:00] chores, for homework. These are things that are important in different families, in different ways.
Certainly part of life. And at the same time, when we get home from work. It can be hard to be told now. Wash the dishes, now do the laundry. We want maybe a couple minutes to do something that's not actively responding to responsibility, that's not actively following through on some action.
Having some downtime at home and those, whether it's, even if it's five or 10 minutes and parents can provide their own kind of parameters for what that downtime might look like. And some families, screen time might be totally fine. They'll go play a game for 20 minutes. Some families it might be, that might be the furthest thing from what they want their kids to be doing and finding something that your kid is gonna be, interested in or just saying you have some downtime, do whatever, [00:11:00] whatever you want, as long as you're safe in the house for 10, 20 minutes. And after that, we're gonna start working on homework, chores whatever it may be to to give them a sense of the structure. Because part of another, part of the challenge of going from school to home is that home is largely.
Unstructured, much less structured than the school day typically, and the lack of that structure can be can leave a kid feeling groundless to go from all of the structure to the, the groundlessness of being home. So having some sort of consistent kind of menu of afterschool quiet activities can be helpful, giving them some sense of goals.
And having a relatively consistent, you know, after school we have snacks, we have downtime, we do homework, then you can have more downtime after homework or whatever. [00:12:00] Right. However a family might structure.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah. And especially given, I know a lot of families feel very scheduled between sports and other activities and.
I think that downtime can be so, so important, especially for some kids need it even more than others.
Matthew Fishleder: Using humor can be a huge help. It can be a very quick way to connection when you know your kid's sense of humor, when you know that they're in the mood of some kind of humor, or even using some sort of humor to disarm a meltdown in some way. Like saying, I see my, my son, I have a 6-year-old and he has a tendency to.
A physical trail of chaos. When he gets home, he leaves the front door open, he leaves his, it's in this, it's in a predictable order. The front door is open, his backpack is on the floor. Then his jacket trailing through the hallway [00:13:00] and he takes off his shoes once he gets to the kitchen where his snack is ready.
And it's just this trail of chaos. And and I've, I've started to, to try to use humor and I say, I see four things here that we need to take care of, buddy. Which two are you gonna do and which one of us is gonna finish first? You kind of use a little bit of humor and gamify something. It's like, it's very different from you've left a mess in the hallway.
Please tune that up. So offering these kind of quick wins. And humor gamifying something ever so slightly. And helping to take some little thing off your plate to develop the habit of picking up after yourself after school or putting things. Yeah, putting, putting things where they're supposed to go.
Yeah, well
Scotti Weintraub: this, that, that example is very much something that might happen in my house too. So I love that kind of rethinking about [00:14:00] the scenario because I think it would be really easy to say like, oh, every day he leaves his backpack and his shoes and his jacket and, and express that frustration.
In that kind of ugh way that might land in a in a negative with our kids.
So I love that you, sort of make it slightly fun while also, holding 'em accountable. You gotta pick up your stuff, right? That's what we do. But without the judgment.
Matthew Fishleder: I try to extract judgment from, from what I do as much as possible.
Scotti Weintraub: So if we, are thinking about, that transition to, sort of meeting them where they're at. In those afterschool moments, whether that is a need for, some downtime, some snacks, some quiet maybe without the questions, when is a good time for us to circle back around and maybe try to engage with them about the school day
Matthew Fishleder: I think once we have a, once we have a sense [00:15:00] that. We are out of the immediate meltdown territory once a kid is fed, once they've had some downtime perhaps during that downtime, depending on the kid to to try and gently inquire with open-ended questions. An open-ended question would be a question that can have some answer other than yes or no.
So, closed-ended question might be, did you have a good day at school? Hmm.
Scotti Weintraub: My kids hate that question. Uhhuh
Matthew Fishleder: an open-end, question would be, might be if a kid, let's say, had art class today, you, what kind of materials did you use in art class
Scotti Weintraub: and so what, what is the difference that we're doing when we do that? I understand the difference between the open and of a closed, the, the types of
Matthew Fishleder: question.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah. But what is happening in those moments?
Matthew Fishleder: We're inviting a kid to share some kind of detail. It's not so much probing for I wanna [00:16:00] know, did you have a good day or a bad day?
Because I need reassurance. I need reassurance 'cause I haven't seen you all day. I wanna know how you're doing. It's it's, do you wanna share something with me about this particular part of day?
It's engaging in that connection, engaging.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah. And I think it, it also just gives them more possibility in how they can reply. They get more agency.
Matthew Fishleder: Exactly. And we can sometimes feel like asking a broad question is not probing, but it, it can be subtle. Kids can see through oftentimes our efforts to to hide the probing nature of our questions. If we, if we ask them a broad question did anyone do something funny at school today? First, that's a yes or no question.
Mm-hmm. And second, kids can often tell that you're probing to [00:17:00] find out that something positive happened at school today. So it asking questions about specific aspects of the day. Even if it doesn't yield results, it might, you, it might lead to less resistance.
Scotti Weintraub: Yeah. That probing is an interesting word to use, I think, because I.
If we sit in our kids' seat, when, think about what it might feel like to have all those questions coming. It's sort of like poking. Well, and then what did you do and what happened after that?
Matthew Fishleder: And what happened with this friend? Was this friend nicer to you or they still being mean to you?
Or it's about, kids can tell when it's about a parent. Trying to navigate their own anxiety. And we have anxiety as parents. We wanna be the good parents. We wanna hear that our kids are having good days at school, that they're navigating the social and academic aspects of their world effectively.
'Cause it can reassure us as parents, [00:18:00] it's not necessarily a kid's job after school to provide us with that reassurance as much as we mm-hmm. Desperately might want it. And I know I asked my 6-year-old, he doesn't wanna tell me much either.
Scotti Weintraub: I think that only gets worse as they get older.
Matthew Fishleder: That's what I hear.
Scotti Weintraub: Yes. I think this is such an interesting point too, because, you know, when I looked at your little bio and you mentioned specifically in there about parents noticing patterns in ourselves and. I think this is so interesting what you're talking about, that need for the probing or the need for the calm after school and what does that say about us, and not in necessarily in a negative way, but it is an interesting reflection point to think about what is my need here that I'm trying to get met?
Matthew Fishleder: It's not a negative thing at all. It's a, it's a question of, of our humanity as. Parents, as adults, as [00:19:00] people, we are humans having lived life up until this moment in which our kids are tired and hungry and coming home from school. And we have needs, we might feel the need to have some sort of control over our day when we have haven't throughout the day.
And that may guide us forward. It's seeking to have some more control over kids' behavior after school when kids have a hard time controlling their behavior after school because they're tired and hungry and mm-hmm. One transition after another. I also do a lot of work with parents around the things that we carry with us as parents who have been parented in the past.
It's something that can absolutely apply to what we're talking about here in, in the sense that what our experiences may have [00:20:00] been as kids coming home from school and inform how we experience and how we respond to our kids coming home from school and having meltdowns. So we may be pulled toward reactions that we saw growing up.
We may have discomfort with our kids meltdown because it may remind us so much of our own that mm-hmm. That a parent, our own parents may be had a hard time containing, despite their best in nurturing effort. After school may have been an, an unsafe environment, either actually physically unsafe or just emotionally.
Unsafe environment after school that can make us more susceptible to our own dysregulation during that time of the day. So that's another piece of the work that I do with parents is understanding more about what, what we are bringing as parents to that [00:21:00] moment.
Scotti Weintraub: Wow. It definitely has been a part of my parenting journey to try to think about this in regards to my kids and their school challenges, you know, which is what I'm help other parents with now.
So if a parent just heard what you said and thought, wow, that, that hits a little close, what is a suggestion you might take or might offer for a parent? To use that information. They might have just gathered about, oh, maybe there is something here. What Now what should they do with that?
Matthew Fishleder: I think it, to, it, that's a, in a way it's starting a journey of growth in terms of, developing the skills to do what I'm, what I'm about to say, but essentially to recognize that the the reaction to that memory or that, that activation that's your brain braining, that's your brain [00:22:00] doing what your brain does.
As soon as you can recognize that your brain is braining your brain is functioning right. The awareness of that shifts the activity in your brain from the stressful response to the memory woven together with the present moment into the awareness of the present moment and that awareness of the present moment when you can accept, oh, my brain is doing a human brain thing.
I'm reacting to my kid because I'm, and I'm also. Reacting to these things from the past, whether it's earlier in the day or childhood. Recognizing and accepting what's going on in the brain is a stepping stone to being able to make your own decision about how you want to respond to your kid. Or even the decision to. Pause and take a breath before you respond to your kid, before you react or respond to your kid. And I like to differentiate [00:23:00] those things, but noticing, oh, there's some stuff happening in my brain and that's okay, but that stuff is happening in my brain. I get to choose what I do now.
That's where it becomes a skill to develop over time that my clients are still developing. I'm still developing. Right. Yes. It's, that's the growth journey. It's not necessarily somewhere that we arrive because we have, every day is a different day and some days can be easier to access that stuff.
Some be harder.
Scotti Weintraub: And for our kids too. Some days
Matthew Fishleder: exactly.
Scotti Weintraub: Maybe that afterschool period is okay and some days. It might be really not. Okay. So as we sort of wrap up our conversation, and I feel like you and I could have a whole other segment on the podcast specifically about the pieces that we bring as parents to our kids' school challenges, which is a, a fascinating conversation I love having, but we'll do that on another [00:24:00] episode. Sure.
But to wrap up our conversation specifically about this afterschool period, is there some encouragement you might give to parents who are listening who might be in the thick of the afterschool meltdown, feeling frustrated, trying to implement some of these things we've talked about? What's some encouragement you can finish on?
I think
Matthew Fishleder: remember that afterschool meltdowns are a sign that your kid's brain is full and. They may just need some decompression. And a snack. And a snack. Yeah rather a snack first probably. Empathy and structure and snacks are fairly predictable, road fewer battles and more learning. I also hope parents can remember that meltdowns are an opportunity to.
Teach kids coping. It's not evidence of a parent's failure or of a kid's failure. Mm. And to that end, remember that you're [00:25:00] allowed to be frustrated too. As parents. It's a human moment and we have to cope with our own frustration, our own dysregulation in order to show up as best we can. For our kids to teach our kids those little things.
And yeah, those are a couple of, of big takeaways. I love it.
Scotti Weintraub: I think yes, empathy, being empathetic towards ourselves and towards our kids in those moments can go a really long way. I like to finish my conversations, just sort of asking if you have a resource or a website or a book or a podcast that you would suggest as a next step for someone who's interested in more about what we've talked about today.
Matthew Fishleder: So I would suggest taking a look at the Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Peanut Payne [00:26:00] Bryson. They go into a, a lot of detail about how kid brains work and grow, and the intersection with the parent brain and how brain comes into the process of connecting or regulating.
Scotti Weintraub: Great. It's always a good classic to, to revisit if you haven't already checked it out.
I will include a. To this book in the show notes, but how can parents listening find you, Matthew? Where, where are you online and what do you offer?
Matthew Fishleder: Parents can find me at growingpresent.com and I offer individual therapy to adults. I'm doing virtual sessions only. Parents can reach out to me through the website and I'm seeing people in California and Maryland.
Scotti Weintraub: Okay. So if you are in one of those states, you can reach out to Matthew. I'll put his website link of course, in the show notes as well. But thank you so much for being part of [00:27:00] this great conversation today. It was a pleasure to meet you and to bring you into the unlocking school success world.
And. I know that parents will, this will give them a lot to think about the next time they encounter those afterschool challenges.
Matthew Fishleder: So I would suggest. Taking a look at the Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Peanut Payne Bryson. They go into a, a lot of detail about how kid brains work and grow, and the intersection with the parent brain and how brain comes into the process of connecting or regulating.
Scotti Weintraub: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Matthew. It's been a pleasure.
Matthew Fishleder: Thanks so much for having me.
Scotti Weintraub: And until the next episode, this is Unlocking School Success. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking School Success. If you're finding these episodes helpful, please hit [00:28:00] follow, leave a review, or send it to another parent who's also navigating the school maze because no one should have to figure this out alone. You'll find full show notes reframeparenting.com/podcast and you can come say hi on Instagram at Reframe Parenting.
Thanks again for listening. See you next time.
