It took me embarrassingly long to internalize this: a tantrum is a strategy (the child wants something and is using behavior to get it), but a meltdown is a response to overload (the nervous system has hit its limit and the child has no control over what's happening). They can look similar from the outside. They are not the same thing, and they don't respond to the same approaches. What changed in our house once I stopped treating meltdowns like misbehavior: - I stopped trying to negotiate or c…