Tragic Misdiagnosis
April 23, 2007 by piereth
So what I thought was pain and suffering was actually a tantrum of heroic proportions. The reason I know this is that we’ve had three or four since. Observing one of these under laboratory conditions, and not caught in the throes of blind panic, I have noticed three things.
a) No tears.
b) His ‘I-want’ line, the crease down the middle of the forehead which comes out when you frown, is very much in evidence.
c) He stops periodically to see how much of an audience he’s got.
The back arching and drumming heels are simply the icing on the cake of his commanding performance, so now all I need is a management strategy!
Diversion is the key. How to stop a child from going postal? Well, they say the trick to learning to fly is learning how to miss the ground… this might turn out to be something similar.
Ah yes. Been there, done that. This is what worked for me … ignoring. It’s very hard to do, but it works.
T had a temper tantrum in the grocery store (she was a year old) because she wanted cookies and I wouldn’t buy them. She was screaming, I kept pretending that she wasn’t. We kept passing the same older couple each time we went down an aisle … the lady staring at me (I, of course thought that she was judging me and wanted me to smack T because THAT would stop her. NOT! I don’t do that.). About three or four aisles later, T finally realized that it just wasn’t working and stopped screaming. There was no reaction from me, like “oh good girl, you’ve stopped screaming”. I just totally gave it no attention whatsover.
The older lady stopped me and said “Good for you. I’m proud of you.”
True story! T really didn’t have a lot of temper tantrums after that. They just didn’t work.
PS … Don’t think I’ve got all the answers … I’m not perfect. I’ve yelled once or twice … and felt horrible about it afterwards.
It’s hard, isn’t it. So hard. It’s impossible to know if what you’re doing’s right or even any good… but I just keep plugging away. I mean well, which I guess must be half the battle!
Yep, ignoring it is the best way, but SOOOOOOOOOO hard, especially in public. Which is PRECISELY why they do it most in public.
Console yourself with the thought that 99.9% of people over the age of 25 that you meet while R is throwing a fit will sympathise. Anyone under 25 won’t even see you because you’re over 25. And the 0.1% of people who don’t sympathise are probably dead and therefore not worth concerning yourself with.
Also, he’s learning how to manipulate others which is a good thing - sort of - he’ll need it if he’s ever going to understand his future girlfriends for a start!