After a few years of TheLoadedDog’s patented “Raising Your Child Through Guilt, Fear, and Severe Emotional and Physical Abuse” Programme, my son is a little angel. But when I first met him (he’s my stepson), things were different, and he was out of control with daily tantrums.
These things didn’t work:
yelling at him
smacking his bottom (this worked, but long term)
ignoring him (once again, it worked a bit, but in the long term)
giving in to him
One day, after he had been yelling and screaming for two hours solid, I went out and did some banking and shopping, leaving him at home with his mum. When I came back, he was still at it. Bright purple face, and actually squirting tears like circus clowns do. His voice was hoarse from screaming. His mother was at the point of bursting into tears himself.
Anyway, the little guy was carrying on at this whilst standing behind a little “kiddie table” where he used to eat. I saw a half full glass of water on the table, and thought, “eh, what the heck”. I threw the water in his face.
Young Ben was stunned for a moment that a grown up wouldn’t “play fair”, and that The Ben Show had been brought to an abrupt and unscheduled halt. He stopped dead in his tracks, then spluttered a bit of the water out of his nose and mouth, and then started to cry. This time the tears were the genuine article. He cried for about a minute, and then stopped. Five minutes later, he was sound asleep.
No, I’m not saying you should chuck water in a toddler’s face as a regular punishment (I’ve only ever done it that one time), but it worked. Kids do need the occasional demonstration of power. I think that was Ben’s first “Hey, life isn’t fair” moment.
When I was little, one time my dad got a clever idea for solving the problem of me throwing temper tantrums. I got upset, and would throw one. He sees me do this, and gets on the floor and starts throwing a temper tantrum right next to me. I look over, notice what he’s doing, look at him as if to say, “do I look as stupid as you do right now?” and I’d stop. I didn’t throw temper tantrums much, if at all after that.
The above solution is really only apropriate for in-the-house correction of the problem. If it’s a public situation, take them out of the public area if they can’t heed one warning saying something along the lines of the following: “if you continue, you’re going to leave.” It normally works, and is helpful if, beforehand, you teach them proper behaviour for both public places and in the home. (I’d like to think that this includes proper conduct at any dining table, including your own.)
Chalk me up as another mom in the “ignoring” camp. I took it one step further with First Born Male Child, though. He would throw full fledged tantrums; on the floor, kicking and screaming. I stepped over him, so he knew I was ignoring him, and continued into the next room. Then stayed there for a few minutes, even if it was just to count to 120 slowly. He’d stop screaming long before I stopped counting.
Luckily tantrums don’t feature in most kid’s behaviour for very long if they are ignored. My first son had two incidents of head banging which was pretty scary but I guess it hurt because it stopped quickly.
His best (and about his last) tantrum was in supermarket. He wanted something and started screaming and throwing himself to the floor. I pushed the trolley around him and went to the next aisle. He picked himself up, ran after me, ran past and threw hiself to the floor to start again. He continued this routine as I continued down the aisles. Eventually he gave up and accepted a lift in the trolley.
That day I came to understand the meaning of “if looks could kill”, I’m sure all the older woman in the shop wanted me to do something more forceful.
I used to babysit for my next door neighbors. They loved me and I loved them. Krista was about three, I think. When she threw a tantrum, I would tell her, “If you don’t stop crying, I’m going to laugh at you.” If she continued, I would point and laugh. “Ha ha! Krista’s crying!” If looks could kill… but it worked, it really worked. Good times, good times.
My brother’s stepdaughter tried this on me once when I was babysitting. The howling and tears weren’t getting her anywhere, so she started thumping her head on the wall. I told her, “Wow, I get a headache when I do that,” and asked her little brother if he wanted to go play a game while she finished up. She quit before we even got the Candyland board set up, and that was the last time she ever threw a tantrum on me.
I’m no expert as China Bambina wasn’t too bad. However, I would underscore that prevention is part of the cure. If there hasn’t been a nap, if they are tired, hungry, missing Mommy or something, then be more careful. I helped in my case to be pretty in tune with the kid. Being careful to remember to ask (or just bring) Dora if that is this this weeks video.
So, just as I was starting to read this thread, the Sprout (21 mos.) picked up this little plastic chair that he has and whacked the dog with it. I scolded him and told him that I was going to take the chair away from him for a while. He picked it up and ran away with it. I got it, and chucked it down the basement steps. He immediately lay down and started screaming and thrashing.
But I’ve been doing the “ignore the tantrum” thing suggested by the folks in this thread, so I just walked away, and sat back down at the computer. He yelled for less than a minute, and then got up and started to bounce his basketball around the room, singing “woo woo woo woo!”
So, yeah, it works.
Sometimes, I’ll deal with more minor behavior with the “mocking” method. My mom sometimes used that on me, and damn, was it infuriating, but it worked, mostly because she could always make me crack up. So, if we’re in the supermarket or something, and Arthur is starting to act up, sometimes I’ll put on a really miserable face and a funny voice and say “Waah! I’m a baby! Waah! I like to cry! Waah! I’m a bayyybee!” It makes him laugh and act normal again, and hopefully see that random whining is annoying and unneccessary. (But he definitely suffers from the frustration of not being able to express himself with words, so I limit my “mocking” to times when he really just seems to be just being difficult.)
I’ll second what dangermom said about kids getting extra-tired from being in a new situation, and also that non-regular caregivers may not recognize the subtle signs of impending crisis. There have been times when we’ve been at my folks’ house and I’ve suddenly said that the Sprout is hungry or sleepy or whatever, and my folks have said “why? He’s fine!” So, I finally had to prove it to them by not putting him to bed or giving him snack right away. Then 15 minutes later, he turned into a monster.
So, Philosoph, just do the best you can at figuring out how to meet his needs, and ignore the tantrum.
How do you stop a toddler’s temper tantrum? About the same way you stop a runaway train. Which is to say, you can’t. You can work to prevent it, but once it’s rolling, all you can do is get everyone out of the way and wait for the wreck.
But if the child is a little older and has decent receptive language, you can sometimes derail the runaway train before it picks up too much speed. It sounds ridiculous, but it works reasonably often: you reflect the child’s feelings back. “Boy, you’re mad!” “You really want to watch your Dora video. I wish we’d remembered to bring it instead of leaving it at Gramma’s!” “You miss Mommy.” Then, instead of a horrible wreck that spreads debris across four counties, you may only get a few sniffles and a couple minutes of intense pouting.
Whether it’s worth trying with your nephew or not depends on how much he understands. If you’re planning on having a kid in the house long-term in the future, I heartily recommend a book called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
Jeesh! I’m such a retro Dad. A good smack on the ass always seems to work for me. I don’t know about a girl though. Its probably a good thing I have a boy because if I had a girl, I’m pretty sure she’d be spoiled rotten.
Whatever you do or don’t do, never ever say “one more time…, okay next time…, that its it…, etc on and on”. If you say or going to do a thing do it! You will look pathetic and your kid will own you if repeatedly threaten.
The trebuchet sounded darn good last night after 45 minutes of screaming. It went on for another 30 before it ended. She’s four. They’ve gotten better as she’d gotten older - she’s nearly grown out of them now.
