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Tricks to Tackle Tantrums

Toddler and tantrums are synonyms. Y was a calm baby but as a toddler, his emotions are no less than a roller coaster. Sometimes he is easy to distract and sometimes he is impossible to. At home, we somehow manage to respond to his demands but once out, he becomes 10x difficult of handle. We have a mall nearby where we usually take Y on weekends. Y loves to take the toy-train ride there. This weekend, we went to a different mall where there was no toy-train for Y to ride. He kept searching around for train ride the whole time and when we told him that there was no ride there, he threw a fit. From that moment till we got back home; Y kept crying for the train ride. He was crying and sobbing as if he had lost something very pricey. This was not the first time that something like this happened. These tantrums are now a part and parcel of our lives and I am sure that this scenario is persistent among all toddler-parents. So I thought to share a checklist here which I swear by while handling any one of Y’s tantrums in public/at home:
  1. Focus on the need: Y is not mis behaving. He wants or needs something but since he is a baby, he is unable to express his demands properly. Also, he won’t understand my explanations. He does not care about my logical answers of his seemingly huge concerns.
  2. Show empathy: He is a small human with big emotions. Such imbalance causes chaos sometimes which should be acceptable.
  3. Distract Distract Distract: Is there anything I can distract him with? A toy? A balloon? His favourite food? Stories about animals? Escalators? Anything? If there is, nothing works better than a successful distraction.
  4. Treat the Hangry boy: Is he hungry/thirsty? Offering water, pre packed snacks would help.
  5. Calm down: You can never calm fire by fire. Y is stressed and I can’t calm him down by getting stressed myself. Hence, getting stressed/panicked is not an option. Deep breaths!
  6. Ignore the staring strangers: I don’t care of what people think about me and my fit-throwing kid. I would never be ashamed of my son learning to express his emotions.
  7. Seek help: I am a human too and when things seem to be going out of my hand, I must seek help of Sumit or Y’s grandparents. A tired mind of-course cant help another tired mind. Taking a breather, a sip of water, or 5 minutes away from a screaming kid would help.
  8. One step at a time: Everything else can wait. My shopping list. My parlour appointment. My lunch time. Once Y is calm and happy, we will focus on other things.
  9. Abort mission: When nothing seems to help, it mostly means that Y is sleepy and that’s a solid hint for us to abort the shopping/outing mission and hope for Y to sleep on the way back home in the car. A sleeping baby is like a happy hour and happy hours hit more than shopping sprees.
This perspective is truly helping me in converting to a calm parent. I am actually a short tempered person but when it comes to Y, my perspective towards things has started to differ. Y is literally turning me into a better person. He is teaching me to handle my stress and emotions appropriately. Having said that; I am a work in progress, I still do loose my temper at times. I have yelled at him. Sometimes he does get onto my nerves and then any of these points barely seem to help. Thats what parenting is: its surprising, its rewarding but it sure is very very exhausting too and we can only learn this while we are at it. Hence, all we can do is to try our best because trying to be a good parent is what actually makes you a good parent.

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