I rarely write about my children since I don’t want to be that guy who blabs all kinds of embarrassing things off about his kids. But this is begging to be told.
Megan is now 3 1/2 years old. She just started preschool a few weeks ago and she is generally easy to get along with. Recently however, this has been another story. Since she was an infant we knew that she was going to be strong willed and it has shown itself in bunches. We’d almost forgotten that she had this streak in her since we are pretty good about placating her desires… But recently we’ve hit a wall.
It started about 2 weeks ago we she had a tantrum over Paul. Who knows what was going on… But Megan freaked out for a while. She has since had tantrums at the church, in the car, and especially at home. One worth noting happened a few nights ago when Kristen went out shopping without her. Both Kristen and I asked her lots of times if she wanted to go and she didn’t. She wanted to stay home and play on the floor with me. So Kristen left without incident. For about 10-15 minutes we wrestled and played on the floor. Laughs and giggles galour. Then, as if she had suddenly been struck by a case of diarrhea, she says “I’m so sad. I’m lonely. I miss mommy! I wanted to go!” It was actually funny and I laughed about it since she so clearly changed her mind and mommy couldn’t possibly come back to get her. Her tears quickly turned into anger as she demanded that Kristen come home and get her.
I told her mom wasn’t coming back for a while and that “Megan” didn’t want to go. This was the turning point where she started kicking and pounding her fists. Her face was pure anger. After about a minute of this I decided I was going to take control since I was the adult. I put her on the couch and told her that she couldn’t get off the couch until she was done crying. About 10 seconds later she flopped on the floor kicking and screaming. So I put her back on… Long story short, after more than a few warnings she earned a spanking. Still wouldn’t listen and then got another spanking. From that point on, she listened but continued to rage.
After a few more minutes, and my anger level had risen… Oh to have a home blood pressure testing matching! I decided to go to the basement and remove her tantrum audience. I figured that as soon as I left, she would stop crying… Boy was I wrong. For about another hour she sat on the couch and screamed and kicked. I did my best to ignore her knowing that she was safe and didn’t need anything. An hour later I went back to the living room where I found Megan, still on the couch and crying. I said, “are you done?” She looked at me, said yes. Then we just played and had a good time.
I’m not claiming to be some sort of parenting expert. But I do think that I handled this pretty well. I regret having to spank her. No parent should like doing that. The biggest thing that Kristen and I have learned about Megan’s tantrums is that we have to remain in control. (It rarely ends in a spanking, this is just one case where it did… Almost all the time counting to 5 gets the job done!)
But this isn’t about spanking. It’s about tantrums. I can summarize it all by saying that we hope this stage is short-lived. Tantrums are something we are just coping with now.
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