Things have become increasingly calmer around our house lately. Thank God. The stress of this past month has been enough to nearly knock us out.
Let me back up. We’ve been dealing with some pretty shocking 4 year old tantrum behavior from our son. It started back in August, just a month after his fourth birthday. I immediately began researching (thank God for Google!!) tantrum behaviors, anxiety, and just about anything I could find related to the subject. The results were minimal. Not much seems to be written about this stage in life.
BC’s behavior and the root cause of why he was acting out consumed us. It’s all we talked about. Not knowing why was about as hard as not knowing how to stop the actual behaviors. I started reaching out to friends. Asking if they dealt with similar problems when one of their children was four.
The resounding answer?
Yes.
Most every mom I spoke to had or has a child going through this phase. With this realization, about 10 pounds lifted off my shoulders.
My son is not broken. He’s testing.
I can deal with testing. Broken? No. Testing, abso-freaking-lutely!
Once we realized the root of BC’s tantrum behavior was a struggle for power I was able to jump into action.
Tantrums at our house happened generally during three different times.
1. School Drop-Off
During the drop off at school BC’s behavior went from sweet, loving, and outgoing to horrible, thrashing tantrum behavior. We called ahead to the school, let them know of the new developments and created a plan with the teachers. We’d bring BC to school (kicking and screaming) and the teachers would peal him out of our arms. We’d quickly say goodbye and leave.
And then I’d cry.
Each day we applied this technique, it took a total of 10–15 minutes before he was calm and playing with the other kids happily.
This lasted for 4 class sessions. At that point, BC decided to attend school happily. Phew!!
2. Time Outs
One day BC decided that he would not sit on a time out any longer. This is when all negotiations in our house came to an end. He must obey. We attempted the Supernanny technique of putting the child back to time out without any eye contact, emotion, or communication.
This was hard. I got mad. I was tired. So was my son.
But I did it. The first time it took 57 minutes of continuously putting him back on time-out. There a LOT of screaming, crying, kicking etc. before he’d stay. But he stayed.
This was by far the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I did it and it made each additional time-out we dealt with so much easier.
The next time-out took 17 minutes of ‘put backs’ before he stayed.
That was the last time he tested so severely during his time-outs.
3. Bedtime/Nighttime
This was the hardest tantrum for us to break. First we were very concerned because we knew that our son was effected by my grandmother’s death this summer. Her funeral was the first time he saw me cry. He knew my grandma and missed her terribly. The nighttime routine became torturous for us. It began to take about an hour to put BC down, and there were still no guarantees that our tactics would work. Half the nights ended in a full blown hour-long tantrum as we attempted to leave the room. By the end of the fit, we were sitting with/ laying with/ holding our son.
Totally ineffective.
This was our final frontier. We had to move past the nighttime tantrum in order to be freed from this horrible weight that was effecting our entire family.
We finally decided that enough was enough. I let BC know that then next time he didn’t stay in bed at nighttime he’d be put back to bed over and over again until he stayed. In addition, I would not talk to him.
At 12:30 a.m. a following day the tantrum began. In Supernanny fashion, I said, “It’s bedtime darling.” and placed him in bed.
The second time he got up, I firmly said, “It’s bedtime.”
The third through the 75th time he got out of bed, kicking, screaming, etc. I simply picked him up, put him on his mattress without a word or eye contact.
He was pissed.
But after 35 minutes, he stayed.
That episode was well over a week ago and the last time we had a tantrum in our house.
Helpful Tip:
If I could suggest anything to you as you go through this phase it would be to completely disconnect, emotionally during these episodes.
If you don’t, you may hurt your child, inadvertently, or make the tantrum worse and last longer by reacting.
Disconnect and prepare for a long, drawn out fit. Because when you decide to change your behavior, your child will push harder to get what he wants.
Disconnect. Then reconnect when the episode is over.
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Thus concludes my first episode of Learning Through Experience! Stay tuned for the next episode when I say, “This is NOT a democracy!”
“Mom, do you know that Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday was Monday? Ya, and it’s important because he has the same face as Barack Obama!”