The comment that kicked off these posts came from Miriel, who said:
Speaking of children, I would love a Jamie's Parenting Advice post about how to keep your (my) cool w/a 3yo. The yelling/screaming/defiance
— MMR (@mirielmargaret) October 17, 2017
This is an excellent query. There are two answers, really: bring down the demands on your own emotional regulation, and increase the supply.
Before:
Think first about prevention, because you'll feel less frustrated less often if you're dealing with fewer tantrums. If you find yourself feeling hangry on not enough sleep, how likely is it that your best self will surface and steer you to calmer waters? Not super likely, am I right? It goes triple quadruple to the quintuple power for little kids. Toddlers need more sleep than they think they do. In practical terms, this meant that I was very very firm about bedtime for a long time. No, scratch that past tense. I am still very very firm about bedtime. I was just digging in my archives this morning, and I found my December self wondering if it was all right for an 8-year-old to stay up until 9 on her birthday. (Answer: yes. Live a little, December self.) I am the person at the grandparents' house insisting that it really is bedtime and so we'll see the cousins in the morning, because if I have learned one thing over the past 20 years it is this: everybody is nicer with a full night's sleep.
Blood sugar regulation is critical for emotional regulation. Many portable toddler-friendly snacks are simple carbs, which are not your friend if you are aiming for steady blood sugar levels. I used to take along a scrambled egg in Tupperware in my diaper bag. These days I lean more toward cheese sticks, or single-serving almond butter packets that I can squeeze onto an apple, or tuna salad pouches if they're on sale. Regular infusions of protein can make a world of difference.
Prevention is important for parents too. You know that thing where you stay up too late because it's FINALLY quiet and you need some quiet so badly and HEY TWITTER I HAD A HARD DAY and whoa how did it get to be past midnight? You don't need me to tell you that it's a self-sabotaging thing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to infer that the next day's tantrums are likely to take even more out of that exhausted parent. Go to bed before you get too depleted to send yourself to bed. Pop some almonds in your purse so that "one more errand before lunch" doesn't cause you to have a meltdown alongside your toddler.
Another piece of prevention is looking at the bigger picture: what factors could be destabilizing the emotional climate of your home? NB: do not blame yourself for tantrums any more than you blame yourself for earthquakes, but think about anything that might be contributing to a surge. If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Can you polish your mirror via self-care? Is there stuff going on between you and your spouse? A sensitive kid may try to draw your fire, because maybe it's less uncomfortable to be the emotional disturbance than to observe the emotional disturbance. Sometimes you can't fix it. Extra yoga classes and coffee dates and rosaries cannot avert the distress Miriel experiences as she prepares for her daughter's surgery. But sometimes knowing that increased tantrums are a normal response to family stress can put the kibosh on the guilt/anger/more guilt spiral.
During:
The best way I know to bring down the demands on your own emotional regulation during a tantrum: make sure you are only doing your job. Your job in this moment is to keep your kid and others safe, and to set the example that healthy grownups don't lose their shit in the face of strong emotions. That's it. Your job is not to manage anybody else's opinions about you and your kid. Haters gonna hate, and Target shoppers gonna make the occasional unhelpful comment about how the world is going downhill right here in aisle 3. Get out of aisle 3 if you can, but if you can't? It's not the only tantrum that's ever happened in aisle 3. Your job is also not to make your kid stop screaming. It is physically impossible to prevent a kid from screaming if that kid is really determined to scream, although you could display some deeply barbaric behavior in the attempt. And your job in this moment is not to reason; tantrums are impervious to reason. Calm now, logic later.
If you start getting too frustrated, say, "I'm feeling really frustrated, so I'm going to go into the kitchen and wash the dishes. I'll check on you in a few minutes." This says to your child, "Grownups get frustrated too, but they do not yell or flail. They give themselves a little space and do something brainless, and it helps them calm down." <---This is what you want your kid to know, right? Not that you never get frustrated, but that you have tools to get un-frustrated: label the feeling, get away from the trigger, and do something else while it dissipates. But oh, you guys, you can also do something really valuable if your inner adult temporarily loses her grip. If you bellow or smack or [fill in your worst tantrum response here], BUT THEN afterward you say, "I lost control of my temper and I am sorry; please forgive me"? You have just offered your kid a powerful example: in our family we all get it wrong sometimes. We don't blame other people for our own failures; we take responsibility. ("It's your fault I lost it" = so many flavors of wrong.) We seek forgiveness. We do it better the next time, or maybe the time after that. Emotions are BIG sometimes, but love is bigger and forgiveness is real.
After:
It took me years to figure out that I also needed to replenish my own reserves after dealing with a tantrum. I would be patient, oh so patient, with a tantruming toddler, and then snap at his older sibling about something minor. Being kind and compassionate and firm in the face of an enormous tantrum is an enormous job. What do you need to get back to normal in preparation for the next round? Twenty minutes with a novel while the kids watch a video? A cup of tea with a non-judgmental friend that evening? A solo bike ride or a kickboxing class? A visit to the confessional with no kids in tow? Think carefully about whether scrolling is restorative for you or just easy and diverting. Don't skip this step. You can't pour from an empty cup.
I remember feeling so much better when I figured out the before and during parts back when Alex was 2. His tantrums, when they struck, were still something to behold, but the feeling that I could do something was an immense relief. Maybe it's like living on the Gulf Coast in 2017 versus 1917. Hurricanes are still big and awful and unpredictable, but it's easier to preserve lives and property in an era with weather satellites, building codes, and FEMA. In 1998 the UK newspapers were a little sniffy about Hurricane Mitch, with writers wondering why the Americans were making such a fuss about a storm. "They don't seem to understand," I remember telling Elwood, "that this storm is bigger than their entire country!" Remember my geography analogy? People who aren't used to hurricane-force gales may not get it. Don't worry about them. It's not your fault that New Orleans gets hurricanes; you're not a bad parent because your child has tantrums. Batten down the hatches, and be confident that the storm will pass.
Oh, dang it, 1300 words and I still have lots to say. On to Part 4!
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