Lisa came into my office a few days ago in tears.

“Life’s just out of control, that’s all,”  she said.

Three days earlier she had experienced a melt-down. After volunteering at a local food pantry, she took one child to gymnastics. Then she picked another up from school and drove her to piano, ran back to her oldest daughter’s school, and picked her up. She went back to gymnastics, back to piano, then drove her oldest to a birthday party at 5:30 pm. After that, she had planned to swing into the grocery store, find food for supper, go home, and make dinner. But her melt-down disrupted the evening.

“While I was driving to the birthday party, one of the kids began to complain. I snapped. I pulled the car into the nearest driveway and started screaming at all three girls in the back seat. My 7-year-old told the 9-year-old to ‘shut up,’ and my 12-year-old started yelling at my 7-year-old because she said that she should never say ‘shut-up.’

“Suddenly, I burst into tears. The car became stone-cold quiet. I turned the car around and went home. No birthday party, and we had canned soup for dinner. Do you think…