Welcome to Two.
Bernard’s childminder opens the door, and he throws himself into my arms and requests a nana. I’m a bit surprised, because I know they have snacktime shortly before I pick him up. Lily tells me he has been a good boy all day, especially as he was up at 4am this morning. A biplane flies low overhead and we all admire it for a moment, and then I move to put Bernard in his bike seat.
NOOOOOO BIKE!!!! he yells.
Yes bike, I say, and carry on. Bernard begins to kick his legs and make himself rigid so that I can’t lift him on to the seat.
Don’t let him get off, Lily advises. Then he will have won.
Thanks grandma, I think, and continue to focus on calming Bernard and trying to get him to sit down. This goes on for several minutes, with Lily holding the bike so that he doesn’t knock it over with his thrashing. By now he is yelling and sobbing and throwing himself around; he has hurt his neck by forcing himself back against the seat, which catches on the bike helmet. Lily asks what I normally do when he does this. He has never done this before. She asks if I give him Time Out for bad behaviour. I tell her I give him a Time Out to calm down and get himself together, but not as a punishment. She suggests I should give him a Time Out to punish him for refusing to get on the bike.
This is supremely irritating at a moment when I am concentrating very hard on Bernard, trying to find the balance between being firm and being loving and supportive. I think that he is so worked up that he has no idea what it was all about in the first place anymore; now he’s just upset about being upset, and it’s still escalating. At this rate I have no idea how we’re going to get home.
Lily continues to witter on about how he knows that he is behaving badly, and I should give him a punitive Time Out when we get home. This is not the time or place to be explaining to her that I have only just, in the previous few minutes, had to work out my philosophy on discipline in response to a tantrum. As always, I have read everything from Christopher Greene to Dr Sears, and I know which school I belong to. Whilst holding a screaming toddler precariously on a bike seat, I note with pleasure that my instinct fits what I have read. I really want to tell Lily to shut up and go away, but if she leaves go of the bike, it will fall over. Bernard is keeping me too busy for me to start telling her that I don’t agree at all that I should punish him for having a tantrum. And I especially don’t see the point of punishing him ten minutes later, when we get home. What would he learn from that? I can’t get inside his mind and figure out what the actual matter is, but I can very plainly see what a state he’s in, and the boy needs comfort, not inexplicable isolation.
Eventually Lily fucks off and sends out her assistant with a drink of water. He calms down for a moment and has a drink, while she makes him all sorts of promises about the lovely toys he will play with when he gets home. I wonder whether, at this stage, this is more like bribery than distraction, but he calms down enough for me to fasten his straps and get on the road.
He howls and sobs all the way home, leaning at a stupid angle out of the bike. As we cycle up our cul de sac, the neighbours wonder what I’m doing to him to make him wail so. The screaming escalates once again as I try to get him down from the bike. I carry him bodily indoors and he flings himself face down on the floor, still howling. I get him a drink of water and he immediately stops, and has a drink. He asks for his tea (an hour early). I tell him that I love him, and I know he has been very upset, but it’s okay now and he can have a cuddle if he would like one. It takes another drink and two breadsticks before he will come and sit on my knee, but at last he is calm.
For tea, he eats a portion of salmon, some spinach, and new potatoes straight from the allotment, followed by fresh raspberries, followed by a yoghurt, followed by five dried apricots, followed by two more breadsticks, followed by a piece of toast with marmite, and a cup of milk.
I believe that if Bernard is ravenously hungry because he was too tired to eat all his lunch, then it would be unfair to punish him for getting into a state about it. I think that the last thing on his mind was manipulating me for some random whim that he had at the moment I wanted him to sit on the bike; he just felt crap and knew that I was ignoring his request for a banana. I hope that with a little bit of empathy and respect, we can handle tantrums in our own way in the future; preferably not under the critical gaze of the childminder, while trying to fasten him to a bike.
Your childminder is a bit odd. I’ve never met a single childcare worker that would suggest timeout for a 2 year old (3+ maybe when they have better control on themselves) and never 10 minutes after the fact.
My heart goes out to you because the only way I can leave Toby to go to work is by having 100% trust in his childcare and you don’t seem to have been so lucky.
We’ve had a few tantrums with Tom. Usually, tiredness lies behind it. But, ever since he was tiny, we’ve found that offering a drink of water occupies him just long enough that you can get his attention and calm him down. I think that you are right when you say that Bernard got so distracted by being anxious that he forgot what it was that made him anxious in the first place – a drink seems to offer that 30 second window we need.
Of course, if it doesn’t work, then Mummy and Daddy have a drink. Not water.
Poor you. In my experience tantrums are nearly always about being hungry, thirsty, tired or needing a wee. Never about what they seem to be about. I want to applaud you for managing to focus on B and ignore the onlookers: something I really struggle with due to my immense internal What Will People Think.
Thanks for all your kind comments. As you’re all parents of toddlers yourselves, I know you know how helpful it is to be supported when you come up against something new. On the whole Lily is a good childminder, and I don’t think she’s overly harsh with the children – just overly forward with her advice sometimes. The worst thing was dealing with it while being watched by her, but I do feel as though I was doing the right thing, and would do it the same way next time. Isn’t it amazing what a powerful tool a drink of water can be.
I totally agree with the way you handled it. How can you give a Time Out or a punishment for something that has already happened? I’m a bit bored of the excess of Time Outs being bandied around the press and television – surely its not the only way to deal with children?! I certainly don’t underestimate a toddler’s mental powers, in fact I am constantly amazed at what my daughter comprehends etc, but reasoning is still something that a toddler needs to master.
My daughter had her first BIG tantrum about a month ago (she was 16 months old). She screamed till she was choking for about 20 minutes while I wheeled her home from the park. Luckily I live in Italy so no one was faintly worried about the noise or misbehaviour and that actually made me feel a lot less worried about the whole incident. When she finally got herself under control and was at home ready for her supper we had a good hug and the whole thing was forgotten.
How timely! Freya had her first big tantrum yesterday (17 months old) and it took 3 adults to get her into her pram and then into the car (where she promptly fell asleep)….she was naked by the way…far too much trouble to try and dress her as well. She had had such a fantastic day out that she didn’t want to go home….and boy….did she make her feelings clear! Next hot sunny day we shall just stay in and read a book
)
Meanwhile, Lily let on this morning that when I arrived yesterday, her assistant had just suggested that they all have some grapes. And then of course Bernard was whisked away and didn’t get any. Hm.
Ha. How happy I am to be the mother of not-two-year-olds. FirstSpawn has only had two tantrums in his entire childhood to date, he now being 13. SecondSpawn, on the other hand, had his first at 9 months old and had on average five or more HUGE tantrums every. single. fucking. day. until he was probably five, by which time it had gradually reduced to probably two a day. He’s extremely lucky we didn’t kill him. Now at age eight he continues to have “melt-downs” a couple of times a week but they’re generally not even in the same town let alone the same ball park as his previous tantrums. However only this year I timed him in a major melt-down and he screamed, without stopping, for more than three hours. Yes indeed, three. whole. hours. Offer him a drink of water? ah hahahahahahahahahaha. Sob.
As a childcare provider, I find her response odd, too, though not because she suggested a time-out. I do use them for children as young as … oh… 21 months, depending on the awareness/maturity of the child. What was odd was twofold. A time-out at home, ten minutes after the behaviour? Not effective with toddlers. To stand and lecture a parent while they’re trying to deal with a tantrum? That’s bizarre. Did she think she was being supportive? Better to simply to have assisted you in the business of getting the boy in the seat as efficiently as possible.
As to punishing him for a tantrum brought on by hunger… No, he wasn’t trying to manipulate you. He was just miserable, and his blood sugar was in the toilet. So, yes, feed the boy!
However, that’s not quite the point of a punishment in this situation. (Though I prefer ‘consequence’ than ‘punishment’, and I don’t think I’m being too precious…)
The issue is not why he’s having the feelings. The issue is what he does with them. My approach in this situation is the explanation, “It’s okay to be sad/angry (whatever), but it’s not okay to scream.”
Given that he was able to tell you he was hungry, feeding him while giving this explanation is only sensible. If he were too worked up to eat, then a time-out would, I think, be an appropriate response. “If you need to scream, you sit here. When you’re done screaming, you can come and eat.” I don’t view this as punitive, necessarily. It would depend on how it’s presented. Me, I view this as giving them the opportunity to gain control.
Reward the good behaviour, ignore the bad…
Hunger is a reasonable trigger for a tantrum. A tantrum is not a reasonable response to hunger. But it is a common one, and an understandable one. Children just need to learn that such behaviour doesn’t work, i.e. it doesn’t result in major attention from adults and isn’t worth repeating. So my solution would be to give up trying to put him on the bike, leave him to thrash it out on the ground or wherever he is safe, telling him calmly and lovingly that you understand that he is frustrated, but you need to go home and you can’t help him until he calms down. Then ignore him. But give him water / banana / whatever as well, to help him recover his senses!
Still, this is all well and good, but much easier to implement when the tantrum happens in your own home, rather than on the street outside the childminders or at the shops or in one of the many other inconvenient places children choose to have tantrums.
My son had very few tantrums at that age, and I could be all smug about it, but I’ll never really know if it was because we simply ignored the very few ones he did have, and they never got him anywhere at all so he gave up on them v. quickly, or because for some reason it just wasn’t in his nature.
The same goes for shouting, whingeing, etc. I just said, “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you unless you’re calm” and left him alone until he became reasonable again. We never had a formal concept of time out or the naughty step or anything like that, and we never viewed it as punishment, we just ignored bad behaviour and gave him no response to it, so he quickly learnt it was pointless. It’s not that they’re being wilfully naughty, they just haven’t learnt which behaviour works best, and which is acceptable. They’re just experimenting with a small palette and limited emotional range.
Also we never shout(ed) or whinged at him, so he never learnt to copy such behaviour. Well, not from us. I do suspect it helped that he was an only child for so long, though (now six and just about to have a younger sibling). I’m guessing all this stuff is harder when they have siblings to wind them/you up.
I sometimes wonder if we were just really lucky and are about to have our eyes opened by a new child with a very different character…
Pingback: Post of the Week » Blog Archive » Shortlist for week ending 04 July, 2008