Dealing With After-School Restraint Collapse? 5 Ways to Help

"You pick up your child from school, ready to hear about their day, and within minutes, there are tears, meltdowns, or angry outbursts. Or maybe it looks different in your house: Your child gets silly, wild, and harder to settle. Welcome to the wonderful world of after-school restraint collapse. All day at school, kids work hard to manage themselves. They follow rules, use polite words, sit still, and keep their emotions in check. They are exercising enormous self-control, and their brains and bodies get depleted."

"The moment your child walks through the door is not the time for verbal processing. That part of the brain, the left prefrontal cortex, is especially taxed after a long day of holding it together. Asking "How was school?" is like waking you up at 2 AM and demanding you immediately write a term paper. You sometimes have that capacity, but right now, that part"

After-school restraint collapse is a common pattern where children release self-control after a long day. Children expend significant cognitive and emotional energy at school managing behavior and deplete brain and body resources. At home they may become tearful, silly, cranky, or explosive as they let down their guard. The phenomenon is predictable and not inherently pathological. Practical strategies include connecting first rather than immediately asking about school, addressing hunger, thirst, and toileting needs, offering movement opportunities, and recognizing that post-school meltdown is a biological response rather than a personal rejection.

Read at Psychology Today