Some Parenting Advice

It flashes back in my memory as if just yesterday: a six-month-old baby on my shoulder and a three-year old holding my hand as we walked into the grocery. Without warning the three-year-old collapsed in a heap in the doorway and began to wail. “Wail” is too melodic for the banshee screams and howls exploding into the air from a body so much smaller than the sound.

My young son had wanted something in the car on the way to the store that I had refused to give him, now he was on strike at the entrance to Kroger. A group of uncertain and annoyed adults grew on the outside of the doorway as the ogre on the floor blocked the lane. Fortunately, my wife and I had been reading up on temper tantrums as they had been occurring with greater frequency. While knowing what to do does not ease the embarrassment or ameliorate the anger, it does allow for the necessary adult detachment from those emotions in order to address the situation properly.

Holding the six-month old in one arm and displaying a degree of calm that was total show, I gently but firmly moved the boiling lump of melted humanity off to the side so as not to impede the horrified shoppers. Filled with a toxic cocktail of embarrassment, shame, frustration, and impotence I nonetheless rocked the baby and greeted people passing by as if there was not a wounded wolverine at my feet. After a few minutes of not showing an inkling of awareness toward the tantrum, the trauma ended as abruptly as it began. My son, realizing that nothing would come of his violent demonstration, simply stopped making noise and stood up, then took my hand to continue into the store.

According to Amy Morin, LCSW at Very Well Family, “Make sure temper tantrums aren’t effective for your child. If he throws a fit in the store because he wants you to buy him a toy, don’t buy him one. Giving in might make things easier in the short-term because it will make the tantrum stop. In the long run, it will only reinforce to your child that tantrums are a good way to get what he wants.”

Here is a very abbreviated list of five common mistakes when dealing with a temper tantrum (www.verywellfamily).

1. Attention reinforces behavior, even when it’s negative attention…
2. Consoling a child who is pounding his or her fists into the floor and screaming, only reinforces the misbehavior…
3. Giving into your child’s demand will only invite bigger, longer, and louder tantrums later…
4. Repeatedly warning your child about consequences instead of truly ignoring the behavior underscores the tantrum’s potency…
5. Bribing the little tyrant invites recidivism…

As this awful national trauma continues and news media outlets and headlines suggest an equivalency between Trump’s behavior and that of Nancy Pelosi, please remember this nearly universal parenting advice about dealing with temper tantrums. Should Pelosi and the Dems reward the President in any way, we can be certain that the shut-down strategy will return again and again. Thank goodness we have a mother and grandmother as Speaker of the House.