Tantrums and tiaras...
Picture this: You're walking down the street passing your
local sporting goods shop, let's call it Intersport, and out of the
corner of your eye you see a woman wind up with a huge round-house
slap to the back of the head of a boy who would have been no older
than 8 or 9. The action is so big that the woman delivering it
knocks herself off balance and stumbles for a couple of paces
before righting herself. And everyone around continues on their way
as if this was a normal occurrence, something that you would see
everyday.
Most of you are perhaps thinking right now something along the
lines of "but she can't do that! Smacking is illegal! Why didn't
anyone do anything? Report her to the Police…" or various other
indignant phrases. I saw this very scene recently when I was in New
Caledonia, and perhaps on the streets of Noumea this is completely
normal, but certainly not anymore back in New Zealand where our
government tells us that we can no longer smack our children.
Whether you agree with the anti-smacking legislation itself or
not, most people that you speak to will agree at least that the
intent behind it is honourable. Which brings me to what I want to
discuss this month: now that it's law, what tools do ordinary
law-abiding citizens like myself and my wife have at our disposal
to deal with an 18 month old daughter who will throw a tantrum if
you even look at her funny?
Since very early on we've been using variations on time out as a
way to cope with the Divine Miss M's temper tantrums. It started
when she was a baby and we used controlled crying for her to go to
sleep. And when Maddie got a little older we started to put her in
her cot to chill out for a bit when it was obvious that there was
actually nothing wrong and that it was in fact a tantrum that she
was throwing. This worked well for us as it wasn't only a way to
get Maddie to chill out, but it gave us some breathing space as
parents. For those of you who haven't experienced an infant
screaming at you at full bore for absolutely no apparent reason, I
can assure you that it's not the most pleasant experience in the
world.
The problem however with using a child's cot as a time-out space
is that if you're not careful they'll soon come to associate it
with a bad thing and it will affect their sleep. Now I'm no child
psychologist but to me it makes sense - "I'm put in here when I'm
naughty so therefore it must be a bad place. SO WHY THE HELL ARE
THEY PUTTING ME HERE WHEN IT'S DARK?!!!!
WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
This of course results in an alternative technique being sought.
For us we settled on the Super Nanny's naughty spot technique and
have been using it consistently since Maddie was about one. The
medium for the technique is not what's important (initially we
tried it with a naughty mat but soon found that our cats thought
that it made a great bed for them which resulted in it consistently
being covered in cat hair - we have since changed to a $4.99
plastic chair from the Warehouse), but instead it's the way in
which the technique is carried out that makes it work. Therefore
it's important to no matter how much you feel in that moment like
letting rip and screaming right back at your child, that instead
you remain calm and go down to their level, lower your voice and
tell them why they are being put there and for how long (you know
the drill from the TV programme - 1 minute for every year of their
age). You then go into the next room, calmly set the timer and
quietly fume at your child for throwing a tantrum for no good
reason. See time-out does actually work both ways!!! At the end of
the time you go and collect them, again telling them why they were
put on the naughty spot and get a hug to say sorry and it's all
good again.
Just when you think you've got everything down-pat and working
is when you have to be most vigilant. That is when your child
will switch it up on you. Most of Maddie's tantrums these
days are about her growing into toddlerdom, wanting to be more
independent - "no Dad I don't want to be carried, I WANT TO
WALK!!"; and about us not understanding her attempts to communicate
with us - "Look Dad, I've been fricking pointing at your glass of
water for the past five minutes and you still haven't figured out
that that's what I'm wanting. I so hate my parents!!" And she
doesn't just confine her tantrums to home now either. For that
reason I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the
management of our local Westfield Mall in Glenfield for installing
public naughty spots outside Whitcoulls, outside Staxs, in the
menswear section of Farmers, in T&T, outside JK and all the
many other places we haven't come across yet. Great work guys!!
Raising a toddler isn't easy especially when they are going
through a declaration of independence phase, but I get through by
trying to remember two things. Firstly we're not the only parents
to have ever raised a child and by many comparisons ours is one of
the better behaved ones out there. And secondly I remind myself of
what John Cowan from Parents Inc said at a fathers seminar I
attended last year which went something like - "if there's no blood
and no fire, then what ever the problem is, it's not that
serious".
And if none of that works, then there's always this:
youtube - tantrum