My toddler has a temper. Advice wanted

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’m not YogSosoth but I’m pretty sure he (she?) is adding a loud WHOOOOOOSH to the scratching and ghost noises :wink:

I do like the idea of having a time-out timer - your son will learn fairly quickly that when the timer is counting down, he can tell his time will be over soon. Aside from that, lots of good strategies suggested here.

We had pretty hellish toddlers. As it turned out, Dweezil was autistic which didn’t help things. He was very verbal - until something set him off then it was nonverbal, screaming, totally unreachable. When I was pregnant with my daughter, and supposed to be on bedrest due to my body’s attempt to self-destruct, there was the time where I was home alone with him (while my husband was stuck on the other side of a bridge), and he just kept following me around and screaming incoherently at me. This was the worst possible scenario (and I do believe it contributed to my health worsening and emergency delivery a week later). The only thing that stopped him was my screaming right back and bursting into tears - I think that scared the hell out of him because Mommy Doesn’t Do That. (of note it was as well that I couldn’t move well because at that point, the only thing I could think of was doing him physical violence. I might well have resorted to hitting him :().

So… there’s a vote for lying down and screaming as a way to startle them out of the tantrum.

22

I don’t have children, but some people have told me that throwing water on a child who’s having a tantrum will often stop it dead in its tracks.

23

My 3 year old son usually accepts timeouts, but occasionally he has an out of control tantrum and I know having him sit quietly in timeout for 3 minutes is not gonna happen.
When he’s screaming, crying and flailing out of control, I calmly pick him up, carry him to his bed, darken the room, close the door and leave him alone to cry it out.
Within a few minutes it will get silent. When I go get him, he’ll say, Momma, I’m alright now or I feel better now or he ends up falling asleep.
He’s learned that throwing a tantrum will get him nowhere and he knows I won’t tolerate him disturbing the rest of the family with his screaming.

24

When my son was that way and threw a tantrum I just let it go unless he started throwing or trying to break things.
Then I would grab him up and put him in my lap, wrap my arms around him s I was holding his arms down and wrap my legs around him so he couldn’t kick. I’s turn my head away so if he swung his head back he couldn’t get me in the nose - that hurts like hell.
I would hold him and tell him you can get up when you can control yourself. Until then I am going to hold you so you can’t hurt yourself or anybody else. When you are ready to control yourself I will let you go.
He’d fight me for a while and I’d keep repeating, when you can control yourself I will let you go.

It always worked.

25

Thanks for the replies. I think I’ll take the lock him into a dark room and make scratching sounds at the door approach. I’ll also advise him to start saving his future allowance for the years of therapy.

OK, back to being serious. Yes, for clarification, the time-outs have been for two minutes. The twenty minutes of screaming were his being upset about the original time out, but refusing to be consoled.

We’ve gotten into a routine where he gets made, throws things and then if the thing get taken away, he gets into a tantrum and sometimes gets the thing back. Typing that out, I can see exactly why we’re getting into this problem.

I guess that we just didn’t have as many tantrums with my daughter so I wasn’t as forgiving. She learned quicker so we didn’t have as issues.

With my daughter, we only had the continued screaming for a couple of times. Once when she had decided she was through taking naps at 18 months. Sorry girl. You are taking a nap. She screamed for 20 minutes the first time, five minutes the second and a couple of minutes the next.

When it was with my daughter, because it was screaming for something which we had decided she wasn’t going to get, then it was easier to shut off. (We had a friend visiting that day, and he said he wasn’t able to stand that much crying, and I know that this is something which the cry it out vs. don’t camps get into.)

Anyway, the point of that was that these are different circumstances, and I had decided in the case of my daughter that I was going to endure the screaming no matter how long it took, because I wanted her to take a nap.

For my son, I realize now that I was frustrated because I was trying to console him after the time out and he was refusing to be consoled.

I talked over with my wife, and we clarified what we will do with the tantrums and we’ll try that.

Thanks for people’s input. It helped me clarify my thoughts.

26

Sounds like you’re well on your way to a plan!

One tip: posters are absolutely right that little people often need to make little choices. But there’s also a danger of going too far with that. Too many choices too soon can become overwhelming, and you can just see their little barely-verbal panic, as if they’re thinking, “Fer chrissakes! I picked out the socks and the shirt and the book and the song! What more do you want from me?! You’re the grownup! *You *pick the breakfast!!!” Only in 2 year old language, that sounds like, “WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

So choices good, but also try to note if too many choices seems to stress him out. All kids crave control, but some don’t actually handle it all that well until they’re a little bigger. And the secret to keeping kids happy is gradually but constantly *increasing *amounts of control (choices) over time. If you blow your wad letting him make all his choices when he’s 2, you have few things to add when he’s 3 and then 4 and then 5!

27

I am. I’m against corporal punishment but I don’t see serious problems in terrifying a child with non-existent ghosts and monsters. I wouldn’t terrify him with physical threats or say mommy’s going to kill herself or I’m going to gut him in his sleep, but children already believe in ghosts and monsters so I’m just taking advantage of their ignorance. What’s the harm?

As for scratching and ghost noises, I’ve done this to younger siblings. They hate it, but it shuts them up quick.

28

The harm is when they start having night terrors and I don’t get to sleep, so in my sleep deprived stupor I stab you 37 times in the throat with a spork.

29

Eh, night terrors are a very specific type of illness. You don’t just get it cause get scared a few times

30

I think we’re doing OK, with this. I tend to fall on the side of less options and my wife tends to give too many. My choices for breakfast are at times “this or wait for lunch.” At four, my daughter can chose her clothes. She gets some input into food, but I subscribe to the limited choice model as well. This morning, I initially couldn’t get the lid off the jar of jam and Beta-chan was throwing a fit. My wife would have spend more time trying to fix the situation, but I’m more “well, it looks like it’s plan bread this morning.” Fortunately, the lid did eventually come lose, but I was willing to put up with the fussing.

Speaking of which, I think it’s time to reassess the level of tolerance for whining. The kids are spending more time with my wife and she tends to give in more.

The funny thing is that even at two, my daughter knew there were “Mommy Rules” which are less likely to be enforced. While Daddy doesn’t make that many rules or capriciously enforce ones on the book, the few ones which are there are fairly consistently upheld.

I grew up in the ultra authoritarian model of parenting, so I’m pretty immune to people who reminisce about how great old fashion parenting was.

To each his own. I also think that siblings can do some things which would be much for for the kid if the parent does it, as the child is dependent on the parent for support. Sort of the reverse of the nice uncle. There were many things which I would do for my nephew and niece because I’d only see them once a year. Spoiling them as such isn’t going to be the same issue which it would be as for one’s own children.

31

Kids already believe in ghosts and monsters. We give them knights and warriors to help them defeat the monsters, not continue to fuel their terror of them.

32

To me its ok because at a certain age, the kids know they’re fake. They’ll grow out of it. Unlike threatening with physical violence, the kid’s not going to grow up thinking the boogeyman is in his closet. For me, that allows me to scare them with impunity

33

Yeah, I think my brother would have been a lot more damaged if our parents had shut him in a wardrobe than when I played “great escape” with him while babysitting. He thought it was fun, but if Mom or Dad, who were a lot bigger and stronger than him, did that?..

34

So you are admitting he’s damaged because of your action and it would have been worse if it had been your parents? :wink:

There has been a fair amount of research and documentation on the effects of parents and guardians not providing the basic security which children require to grow up as healthy individuals.

My cousin used to work for CPS fact finding for abusive homes and says that ours was on the really ugly side of what she’s seen. Not knowing myself how much is too much, I’ve really spend considerable efforts at controlling any anger myself when dealing with the kids, no matter how frustrated I’ve been.

One thing I was really surprised at was how completely different it is for my kids when I do get mad than when my father would get mad. While I guess it shouldn’t be surprising, I’m never going to send any to the hospital with injuries for example, I was amazed how little concern my daughter had when I yelled at my son.

It’s rare I do, and I surprised myself. I looked at my daughter and she had barely looked up from her games. I told her that TokyoBoy wasn’t picking up his toys and Daddy had gotten mad. Then she just nodded and went back to playing. This episode just fit within her model of how the world operates. Don’t do something which your parents really want you to do, they get mad, but it’s OK afterwards.

Honestly, it’s only after I had children did I learn that the world can be like that. Whenever my father would lose his temper, the terror was so great for everyone in the household it didn’t matter if you were the one who was being attacked. Of course, it was likely that any and all would be abused by the end of it, so there was good reason for fear.

Back to locking kids in closets and making scary noises. This depends on the age of the kid. If you were to do it my kids when they’re 12 or so, then I may laugh (although not to their face, and not if you didn’t let them out if they started to get really scared), but if you did that to TokyoBoy (who is 2, as I mention in the OP) then you’ve got a Daddy grizzly bear to deal with.

35

…how 'bout the old Floating Head of Death gambit?

36

I see no difference between this and beating the crap out of the kid, other than one being physical abuse and the other psychological.

That, and parents then also have a furious AND thoroughly terrified screaming out-of-control toddler on their hands.

37

The Little One, at two years of age, rarely threw things, but she would work herself into easily half-hour tantrums over things we didn’t even understand (although we would figure out what some of them were later: e.g., Daddy walked in front of her! Mommy sang a song to her! Seriously, these were the sorts of things that would set them off).

I tried several things. Finally I just started ignoring her. I’d tell her at the beginning, “Mommy loves you no matter what, and you can get a hug anytime you want,” and go to another room (or place her in another room, depending on which was less trouble – she’s an only child, so sometimes the former was easier) and read a book (or some other very conspicuous way not paying attention to her, although I usually remained visible). If she came to me and was still yelling and screaming, I’d pick her up and carry her back to the other room. Rinse and repeat until she stopped yelling and screaming.

I… got a lot of reading done during that period. I made sure to pick books that didn’t take much mental energy, because yeah, screaming toddlers are loud! I am not sure if she eventually stopped because of this method or simply because she outgrew it, but I like to think that at least part of it was because she realized she wasn’t getting any attention or sympathy for her actions.

38

When the kid throws a tantrum, just point and laugh. Gather the rest of the family and all laugh together while pointing, making funny faces, and calling him a little crybaby. When he quiets down, act like it never happened.

39

No, don’t do any of that. Humiliation is a terrible parenting method, and at a young age can be traumatizing.

40

This thread goes to show you that the advice you get is worth exactly what you pay for it. Locking a kid in a closet or dark room and making ghost and scratching noises so that they are in fear for their lives? That’s at least 1000 times more damaging than a spanking.