Recently, my three-year-old had a meltdown over wearing her seatbelt on a flight. She wriggled and squirmed and hid. She laughed using “baby talk” under the seat in front of me. I felt terribly on display as I used every technique I knew to help her re-regulate and get her belted.

I knew her laughs were more a sign of anxiety than her finding the scenario funny. I also knew her baby talk was a signal of her own stress. We were going to visit family, and she was excited but stressed about it. Co-regulation is key at this age as children need to “borrow our calm.” The problem was that in that moment of turbulence, my calm was not supporting her in re-regulating quickly enough. For her own safety, she needed to be belted. I had to pick her up off the floor........

© Psychology Today