Tempering Tantrums

When my son was 18 months old, friends, family members, and other well-meaning people warned us about the tantrums to come and the Terrible Twos. Still enraptured in my son’s perfection, I said, “I hate that term: The Terrible Twos. It labels kids without even giving them a chance. It’s like labeling inner city black kids as troubled or delinquent when they haven’t done anything wrong.”

            “You’ll see.” They said. I, of course, hate it when people say this too. It makes me feel like I’m being talked down to.

            When my sister said that she preferred the term “The Terrific Twos,” because it’s a terrific age and it’s terrifically hard, I agreed with her. I thought it was dead on.

           

Now that my son is two, we’re getting a few tantrums in between all his Terrific Two-ness. One day this week, I served up my husband’s and my lunch in the kitchen and took our plates to the table. My son grabbed his plate off his shelf and threw himself on the floor face down waving his empty plate around and kicking his legs in traditional temper tantrum style as he shouted, “food!” Because my son is a grazer, my husband and I feed him off our plates, so I said to my son, “the food is on the table. Let’s go to the table.”

            He wanted no part of it. More plate waving. More crying. More kicking.

            I looked at him. I asked, “Did you want me to serve your plate the way I did Mommy and Daddy’s?”

            The plate waving, kicking, and crying stopped. He picked himself up from the floor.

            “Yes.”  He said.

            At the table, my husband said, “I don’t know if we should give in to his tantrums. He might think that’s how he gets what he wants.”

            “I don’t think he’s throwing a tantrum to get something or to be difficult or manipulative. I think he’s frustrated because he hasn’t figured out how to ask for what he wants. As soon I guess what he wants to say, the tantrum is over.”

            “I can see that.” My husband said. Then we did as we often do in such situations: we scrolled through the ways our friends and family members parented in such situations. We consulted our examples.

Our options spanned the parenting spectrum. We had friends who when their children threw tantrums, they locked them in the garage, friends who held and rocked their child through the tantrum, others who said, “Throw your tantrum. When you’re done and need me, I’m on the couch.” We had friends who just walked away and ignored the tantrum all together. I have an uncle who when my cousins threw a tantrum, he’d throw an even bigger tantrum to show them how it was done.

But none of these examples fit us. We’re more the type to lock ourselves in the garage if we feel challenged by our child’s tantrum. I maintained that when he’s not sick, hungry or tired, our son’s tantrums are because he’s frustrated he can’t make himself understood, not because he’s trying to be difficult.

In the end, we decided not to follow any of the examples of the people we knew. We decided that in such situations, we should treat our son how we want him to treat other people who are upset, We decided his tantrums could be an opportunity to teach him empathy and compassion, that generally when people are upset, they just want to feel heard.

The next morning, my son woke up at 6am and asked to watch TV.

            “No,” I said.

            His tantrum began.

            “You want to watch TV?”

            “Yes.”  He said.

            “But I don’t want to watch TV first thing in the morning.”

            His tantrum continued.

            “Are you angry and frustrated because you can’t have what you want?” I asked him.

            “Yes,” he said.

            “That’s fair. Can we play trains instead?”

            “Yes.”

            Back in the land of the Terrific Twos, we played trains.