The Problem with The Calm Down Bottle
We finally landed in the waiting room of a therapist who would see a child under the age of 5. After a short intake, I left my small son in her small office, and sat in the waiting room feeling hopeful, nervous, and out of place. After a while, they came back to the waiting room, his little run toward me eager but polite. He had made what we were all wishfully calling The Calm Down Bottle. It was a repurposed plastic water bottle filled with blueish-purple liquid, glitter, and beads.
“He wasn’t really interested in the project. He said you already made one at home.”
Yes, we made one at home. It’s the first strategy that came up in my Google search: how to help your 3 year old calm down.
Both calm down bottles were soon relegated to the black-hole of the minivan, rolling around in the back seat for weeks after hopeful attempts to use them to manage meltdowns on the way to school.
The point of The Calm Down Bottle was to shake the bottle during distress, stirring up the glitter and beads, and setting the liquid inside the bottle into a swirling tizzy of chaos and dizziness. I suppose, looking back, that it was supposed to distract him, give him something to watch settle as he attempted to settle his body, matching his insides to the insides of the bottle.
But, you can’t attune to a plastic water bottle.
A three-year old nervous system in distress is seeking to attune, or match up, with the fully developed nervous system of a safe adult. I was, in those days, shaken up like my own version of a calm down bottle, my own swirling tizzy of chaos and dizziness, glitter and liquid. We were asking the three year old to “use your calm down bottle”, and my nervous system was shouting to his, “See? This is bad! You know it and I know it. Look at this beautiful bottle! This is just how shaken up we both feel. Can you calm down? Can you calm down? Can you calm down?”
I wish now that I could take The Calm Down Bottle, unscrew the lid, release the pressure built up inside, and let the glittery liquid pour out.
“You can cry. You can cry. You can cry.”
