Ahh, tantrums, the joy of parenting
August 9, 2007 by Sherry Osborne
Filed under Parenting
Tonight I took my girls to the park. We had fun until it was time to come home. Despite the time warnings (letting her know she had five more minutes, two more minutes, get your stuff ready, say goodbye to the other little girl), an enormous tantrum erupted. I haven’t seen a tantrum like that in awhile. She screamed the whole way home (about three blocks, whee) and occasionally peppered it with dramatic shows of throwing herself on the ground.
So that was fun!
I was embarrassed as all hell since it was a lovely cool evening after many humid days and so there were quite a few people sitting out on their front porches who got to witness my screaming banshee child. However, I did what the experts usually say and I ignored her other than to occasionally tell her to please keep up and to get up off the ground. I didn’t respond to her complaints or even to her screaming attempts to address me. I told her once that if she wanted to talk to me she could do so with a little bit of respect and after that I ignored her.
Meanwhile my youngest was baffled and walked quite calmly beside me, holding my hand, and occasionally looking over her shoulder to see if she could figure out why her big sister was sitting on the sidewalk howling. The only thing she said the whole walk was, “let’s go!” anytime I had to stop.
I was embarrassed when I got home and angry but once I calmed down (I gave myself a time out after I gave my daughters their bedtime snacks*) I realized I didn’t care that much. Although this is my neighborhood, none of those people outside are my friends and if they were I would expect them to understand. I think the worst thing about public tantrums is the misconception that a tantruming child is the result of crappy parenting and that’s just untrue. I don’t have a single friend who has a child who hasn’t experienced it at least once. It happens. Crappy parenting isn’t what drove her to freaking out; crappy parenting would have been taking her back to the park and letting her call all the shots.
BabyCenter has some fairly straightforward advice about dealing with public tantrums. If you’ve found a good solution, please do share!
* The snack wasn’t a reward to her lousy behaviour. A bedtime snack is standard procedure here, something I started doing when she was younger, and it helped her avoid waking up hungry at 4 am. I’m all for helping her sleep through the night by making sure her belly is full, tantrums or no tantrums!
i also give my kid his time to vent [read; tantrums]..actually, i sometimes leave him to vent his feelings.. i’ve tried this one after reading about it in parenting books..and the benefit goes both ways, to the mother-who has the time to gather her composure and her cool, and to the kid who more often than not, gets back his cool.
I am glad that I am fat!
I’ve had some people in the stores look at me like I was the worst mother in the world, as if I could control my kid and make him/her not throw a tantrum. One day I think someone is going to look at me like that at the wrong moment and I am going to snap at them.
Cuddlebug just turned 2. Boy, it didn’t take him long to reach the terrible 2’s. My sweet little boy has been throwing such fits and being extremely defiant. I hope this phase passes soon!
You’re right though, taking her back to the park would have been the WORST thing to do. Sadly, it is what a lot of parents would have chosen.