THE FUSE

Just the other day, during a counseling session, Beth, who is the mother of 10-year-old Daniel, before she even sat down, said, “It came out of nowhere.” Obviously curious, I asked Beth (I am using different names for both her and Daniel) what she meant. Beth described to me how the day before, one minute Daniel “seemed fine” and then the next minute there was a "whole lot of screaming" from Daniel in response to Beth attempting to limit his screen time. As if the yelling was not stressful enough, for an encore, Daniel reportedly kept his meltdown going with crying, door slamming, and big-time arguing, followed by the silence of a complete emotional shutdown.