Category: Behaviors

Weathering the Storm: Public Temper Tantrums!

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Very few people care if your kid is sleepy or hungry or displeased with life…until that kid starts to make a scene in public. Then you care and everyone around you seems to too. It’s so much fun having stress sweats in front of strangers at the grocery store. So. Much. Fun.

Writing as one who has experienced this scenario many, many times, I can tell you one thing for sure: you sweat a little less after the 1000th public outburst. Like anything in life, temper tantrums (especially public ones) get easier with practice. Good news if you have a kid who lets you know that they really, really want those gummy fruit snacks…NOW! 

So what can you do to help yourself weather the storm of a public temper tantrum?

#1 Decide before it happens how you want to handle it!

Temper tantrums are bound to happen in young kids especially while they learn to navigate their seemingly overwhelming wants. So getting ready for it before it happens is probably a good idea.

If you know that you are unready to teach a life lesson in the cereal aisle, no sweat- decide before you go that if you encounter a tantrum, you will simply remove your child from the store. Poof! You might have to wheel the cart back to the front and smile apologetically at leaving it full of things, but you had a plan! And you stuck to it!

If you think that you’re ready to stand your ground amid the chaos and sideways glances, great!- decide before you go that if you encounter a tantrum, you will stick to your guns, not give in to your child’s demands and work to remain as calm as you can. Voila! You might still sweat, but maybe you thought to wear a shirt that wouldn’t show it. So there, another plan to stick to!

The essential thought of this is that there is no right way to handle a public temper tantrum. If you are feeling more fragile today than you were yesterday, then just figuring out what you can live with for this one outing should be as far into the future as you look.

#2 Decide how you will try to handle your stressed feelings before they arise!

We all know that it’s coming. That stressful situation that you think will put you over the edge- perhaps your kid’s temper tantrum at your local restaurant.

You can feel the color come into your cheeks. You can feel the urge to harshly whisper at your child to cut it out. You can feel your jaw tightening. Is there anything that you can do to calm yourself down before you feel like how your child is acting?

If taking deep breaths works for you, give it a go! If closing your eyes and picturing being anywhere else works for you, do it! If singing your favorite song in your head (or outloud) can relieve some tension, try it out!

Needing to have a plan to deal with your own behaviors and reactions is just as important as having a plan to deal with your child’s.

#3 Applaud yourself for returning to the scene of the crime!

After an especially loud (albeit baby) outburst that my daughter had at a class, I was scared to go back for a little while. What if it happens again? What will the other moms think of me? What if I can’t get her to quiet down again? What if I get embarrassed again? But a little bit of time passed and I felt strong enough to try again. And might I just say, way to go me!

Moving on from the little traumas of public embarrassment should be celebrated. They might have a little meltdown again, but maybe it’ll be after 20 minutes instead of 5? Whatever the outcome, give yourself a real pat on the back for trying again. Brag about it to your partner. Put it on Facebook and get some likes.

Building resilience in ourselves will only make those other 999 public outbursts that we have to live through a bit more bearable.

A look is worth a thousand words?

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Last week, I had the fun-fortune to attend a continuing education class (for my social work license) on non-verbal communication. We watched little dialogues and assessed the unspoken messages that were sent. We communicated nonverbally in small groups. We looked at micro expressions and tried to distinguish what whiff of emotion was coming through. It was kind of fun as well as informational. And it got me thinking, as many things do, about how parents can use non-verbal skills with their kids. I’ve written about keeping quiet, but want to take it a step further and actively communicate with kids while being quiet. Impossible? Not with a little practice.

Though I do think about staying quiet with kids, I still wrestle with when to and when not to open my mouth. {Sometimes I even say to a child, “I’ll just close my mouth. Too much talking from me.”} I try to respect their ability to solve problems on their own and to know what steps to take next. I’d rather teach them to do something by themselves than find myself always in the position of telling them what to do next. So, first things first:

#1) If you have explained how to do something or when to do something many times, try not doing that and see what happens.
Don’t ask your child to put their shoes on every time it’s time to leave the house. Just say that it’s time to leave and see what happens. Try to limit your verbal directions to them on things that they know how to do.
Ex. “Don’t forget to clear your plate from the table.”
“We have to hold hands to cross the street.”
“After your bath, you have to brush your teeth.”

#2) Try prompting these known activities with non-verbal cues instead!
When it’s time to cross the street, I simply beat the kids to the curb (though they are now great at waiting on the sidewalk since we’ve practiced this) and then stand with my hands out waiting for them. This has done a couple of great things. First, it’s made me less annoying in this one situation. Yay! Second, it allows the kids to enforce the rules themselves. Since I don’t mention holding hands, sometimes they do. They police each other and have taken more ownership in the activity of safely crossing the street. Awesome! That means that someday they’ll be ready to do it by themselves.

#3) If they need a lesson in your non-verbals, give it to them.
You can do this in everyday situations or during a specific “game” to test their knowledge. Sometimes if I want to guide their behavior in a small way, before saying something, I’ll just look at them. If they don’t seem to get whatever message I’m trying to convey with my body and face, I’ll ask them what my face is telling them. Even if they don’t get it right, this still allows for us to talk about how I’m feeling. Rather than me telling them to stop something this gives them room to figure out what they should be doing instead.

#4) Try praising with your expressions.
Just as with other verbal cues and responses, praise can become something that kids feel like they need. Verbal praise should be used a lot when kids are first getting the hang of something. Yay you! You took some steps by yourself! You put your clothes in the laundry basket all by yourself! Once your child knows how and when to put their clothes in the basket, you naturally don’t praise them for it anymore. You come to expect it instead. So when they’ve got something down and you’re ready to take away your verbal praise, you can scale down your enthusiasm with non-verbal praise. It’s also so much fun to give your kid some “secret” praise or attention when other people are around. Instead of yelling “Great job!” across the playground, you can get their attention and then silently cheer or give them a thumbs up or jump up and down.

So, what is my face telling you? (Besides that I’m a goof…)

What is ‘spoiled’?

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The date on the milk says 9/4/12. Just two days past “good.” You sniff it to check it’s viability. It’s smells just a tiny bit funny, but you pour it on anyhow. Is it spoiled?

Milk metaphors aside, what does it mean for a child to be spoiled? Is it the age-old idea of giving them “too many” material things? Can it be something else? Is it something to be proud of? Is it something to dismiss? Is it an outdated term? Does it mostly happen for kids of wealthy parents? What is it? And if a child is conventionally spoiled, does that automatically mean that they’ll be a jerk as an adult? Once spoiled, are you spoiled forever? Does anyone believe that in the aftermath of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory that Veruca Salt grew up to be a nice person?

I don’t know the answers to all of the questions that I posed, but I have a few thoughts on spoiling and what it means today.

#1 Too many material things?

In our current American culture, acquiring things can seem like second nature to us. Even with economic troubles and worries, objects can “make us happier” and serve as status symbols. For many middle class parents, providing a rich and entertaining environment at home is a strategic goal of parenting. By flooding a kid with new and varied toys and objects, a child may come to expect that a) their wishes will be granted all the time and b) their toys should be entertaining them, with the real possibility of getting something new when they lose interest in something.

Besides giving kids an unrealistic view of the world (that material things are simply to be gotten, used, replaced and thrown away), providing them with too much doesn’t encourage long attention spans or imaginative play. It negates having a favorite object or toy, which can bring such comfort to kids. It also gives them very little sense of money. Kids don’t need to know all of the particular stresses and concerns that go along with money making and spending, but having an idea that it exists and that it’s not infinite will begin to give value to it.

Finally, buying buying buying simply makes more waste for the world. If we teach our kids that consumption is key, then the world of their adulthood will be littered with discarded and unwanted things.

#2 Spoiling in other ways

How do we spoil our kids without buying them things? And is this a real problem? I think that the overall idea of “spoiling” is that we are conditioning kids (or people) to expect immediate gratification and to expect that their environment will change to fit them rather than the other way around.

Parents contribute to these skewed ideas in a number of ways. First, by being too readily available to our kids, we give them the impression that being on the phone or talking to another adult is no reason for them not to have their wants attended to right away. Eh. Second, when parents work to control/change school or social environments for their kids when they meet an obstacle, kids are shown that if something is hard or unpleasant, they should simply give up or leave. If cries of “I’m hungry!” are immediately met with a snack, then we are teaching our kids that all they need to do is raise their pleading voices to get what they want. When parents create these expectations in their kids, they are setting themselves up to disappoint their youngsters when eventually they can’t control the environment or do need their kid to wait for something.

#3 Are you spoiled forever?

It seems to me that the answer to this is pretty straight forward: If you continue to expect the world to change for you, then you will continue to be “spoiled.” If you continue to expect attention to be paid to you on your terms, the same is true. The way to undo this is to come up against a real life situation when a teacher won’t let you do a make-up assignment or when you can’t continue to be the first in line. The world generally works to combat spoiling. It doesn’t work to change for us, it expects us to change for it.

So a little spoiling might not be the end of the world. It’s fun to break the rules sometimes or splurge on something at the toy store. But hopefully it’s not an everyday occurrence, else real spoiling could be the outcome. And once milk is on its way to being spoiled, it’s hard to stop it.

I want the world,
I want the whole world,
Give it to me now!

Positivity Pays

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Don’t touch that!
Don’t hit your brother.
Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
Stop banging on the table.
Don’t run in the house.

When you’re feeling disgruntled, tired, overwhelmed, stressed or just annoyed, it’s hard to remember that negativity isn’t usually the best way to get your point across. So often when I’m saying “No,” I don’t even notice that it invariably becomes the theme of my kid-centered talking. No to this. No to that. Please stop. Even when I’m still trying to be polite, it still comes out with a negative word in it.

Negativity escapes in other ways as well. Bringing up past misbehaviors when dealing with current behaviors. “Praising” kids’ work with a caveat that something still needs improving. Looks and tone of voice give us away too. It’s difficult to stay positive. It’s difficult to try to see things from someone else’s point of view. It’s difficult to be patient. But these vague, amorphous skills will only help us be the people and the parents that we most likely strive to be.

Cheering kids on is more effective in promoting certain behaviors than telling them “don’t” is in deterring “bad” behaviors. Giving positive attention when you see something that you like is more effective than giving negative attention when you see something that you don’t like. This is true in most parts of life. Motivating others to do certain things is the secret to good leadership. Praise, positivity and being the positive person that you’d like others to be are the best ways to accomplish this.

In The Trouble with saying No, I discuss having replacement words and directions that tell kids what to do, not what not to do. This can be a good place to start without having to change your entire attitude. Just change some small words first and maybe it’ll be easier for your demeanor to follow.

If you can become the master of positivity, just think what messages your kids will glean from that. Just like you, they’ll know that positivity pays!

Young at Heart

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Now that summer is here & kids are out of school, it is time for grown ups to embrace their inner kid as well. If you don’t like visiting the playground or spending time at the pool or playing in the backyard or going for walks or riding bikes or any of the other myriad of summer activities that kids tend to L-O-V-E, you might need a quick refresher on being young at heart.

So how does one get back in touch with their inner child? I have a few ideas. Some sound a little unpleasant at first, but we adults need to push through some uncomfortableness before we see the fun on the other side.

1) GET YOUR CLOTHES WET…WHILE YOU’RE WEARING THEM
This can be a water balloon toss, a trip through the sprinkler, chasing each other with the hose, playing at the water table, exploring the creek in the woods or whatever else you can think of. I don’t like to get my clothes wet because besides being a little uncomfortable once your shorts are sticking to you, it also means that you have to do some extra and immediate laundry. But this is the perfect reason to do it. Forget about the responsibility that goes along with cleaning up after yourself and just try to have some sticky fun.


2) BLOW BUBBLES
Bubbles! Another great example of something icky, sticky and wonderful. Kids love chasing bubbles & even adults have to admit that there’s something pretty magical about a cloud of bubbles floating on the breeze. Don’t worry about the fact that the bubble bottle is getting low (get some backups!) or that your fingers are glued together with soap. Just blow bubbles and watch your kids have a good time. I dare you not to laugh.


3) CLIMB A TREE
Ack! What? Climbing trees is a dangerous activity! And also just about the coolest skill to have as a kid. Find a nice low tree (with sturdy branches) and climb on up. Have a sit. Look at the world from a little higher off the ground (even if it’s only about 5 feet). Imagine what it must be like to be a bird or the Swiss Family Robinson and actually LIVE IN A TREE! Teach your kids how to do it a little too. They’ll want to with or without your guidance and spotting, so you might as well be there to spot them.


There are plenty of other ways to try to bring kid-dom back into your mind. Get hot and sweaty chasing your kids (or other adults). Stay up late on the longest day of the year and wait until it’s completely dark out before you go in. Eat outside. Take a ride on a swing. Smile. Laugh.

Happy summer! I hope you’re having fun, finding free-time and putting on sunscreen with a sense of youthful adventure and possibility.