The three most important things to handle a melt-down

It is no secret that Little Miss has really struggled with melt-downs, and we are not out of the woods yet...

Although it is MUCH better!

Her teachers have always said that she is "over-emotional" or most recently that she is a very "sensitive soul". They seem to manage her very well when it gets too much! (So lucky to have such great teachers!) 

We have also learnt to handle it better!

The 3 most important things to handle a melt-down:

1. She is unable to process the situation. She is not naughty! She needs your help and understanding and sympathy! Sit with her when she allows you or calls to you!

2. It is not about you, the adult/parent! She is not trying to defy you! Don't make it about you!

3. Learn her coping mechanisms, but not while the melt-down is in progress. Discuss coping mechanisms such as time-outs/hitting of cushions/screaming. She gets to choose her own coping mechanism for next time!

What coping mechanism can you recommend for that melt-down of tantrum?

Here comes FIVE with a big tantrum!

Five!

Tomorrow is the big day for Little Missy. It has been a long year of waiting for her, but it has finally arrived!

We did not predict that Five would still come with the tantrums, but yes!
It is worse!

It is not pretty to see a big girl starting to wail and kick and hit and scream.

For the first few minutes of the tantrum it is impossible to get anything through to her.
It is during that stage that I would gladly poke out my own eye to make it stop, but not even that would work!

We have tried it all!

And of course we are always question our own parenting skills, and wondering if the gene pool did not drop too many of those aggressive genes into our Little Missy?

I did a bit of Googling psychology, and saw that it is not that strange for a five-year to still get tantrums. Also that they have had years of practise now in tantrum throwing, and they have become experts in the tantrum field of behaviour!

Tantrums play itself out in different stages, and that it is not worth trying to engage in the first stage. They are unable to do anything while their brains are in overload. It is best to ignore the first stage of screaming, kicking and wailing, and to swoop in when they get to the emotional stage. Mostly it is seen when they drop on the floor, sobbing or crying. Or when they asked to be picked up or hold.

We have been doing it right!

The most important for us is to not loose our cool!
To keep calm at all times! (We have not always got it right!)

That will be our New Year's resolution for this year!
To stay calm in the eye of the storm tantrum!


Happy birthday my girl!

I know for a fact that we will laugh our asses off in the future about your big fat huge tantrums!
(But now it is not that funny at all!)

Pink walk for hope #ithembawalkathon

It was the annual iThemba Walkathon again today!

It has become a yearly walk for us to do!

It has struck me today that it is a walk for hope! It is about being able to overcome, of being survivors!
The dreaded C diagnosis does not mean it is final! NO!

"Early detection saves lives!" 

We all had so much fun, while we were also reminded of people walking in remembrance of their loved ones!

The Little Missy started the day on a bad note, with a tantrum or two, but it got much better with the walk!

With Cass who was convinced at the last minute to come along

The final hill that felt like Polly Shortts

We made it!

A great crowd of nearly 20 000 people!

Next year we do it again...

Thanks to iThemba for organising a great event!


Related posts:

- Annual pink walk for breast cancer

- iThemba Walk against breast cancer

- iThemba Walkathon 2011

The phases of a Tantrum - as experienced by a parent

Melt-down about 3 missing chappies

(Which she ate herself)

I have read Melissa's blog post about The F-king fours, and was extremely relieved to know that it is not only us who struggle!

Yesterday morning we had a huge tantrum when she threw herself on the bathroom floor after I had brush her teeth. I did not brush her teeth in "circles", apparently!
Last night coming home she wanted the music turned louder in the car. I could not turn it up because we had a passenger.  She did not stop crying!

I am regularly writing or trying some new ways of handling The Tantrums, but I do not feel that we have solved it!

How long can it last?

I am now beginning to see a pattern in our handling of the tantrum.
It definitely plays itself out in phases.


Phases parents go through when dealing with a tantrum:

1. Trying to rectify the problem immediately by giving in to the demand. (It usually does not work!)

2. Reasoning with the child. (It does not work!)

3. Picking them up / sitting with them / trying to hold them. (Usually not possibly with a wriggling child)

4. Giving up by walking away or ignoring.

5. Waiting for them to calm down by themselves.


I realise no 4 is not a very good parenting technique, and I am open to more suggestions?

- The video (I hope it opens up) was at our recent camp where her dad bought her 7 chappies. She put it in his pocket after she had eaten three of them. When she wanted it back, she was extremely disgusted about the fact that there was only four left. Dad said he would buy three again, then he tried explaining that she had eaten it, then he let her cry, and then he gave up...

A seat booked in a spaceship

We were told last night that she has got her purse with her money, and that they (?) are coming to fetch her. They have a seat arranged for her in the spaceship.
She asked us if we want to come along.
But, apparently, they have no seats for a Karen and a Dries!
Only for a Mieka!
But we can get seats in another spaceship, and we will be able to look at each other...
----
She had a scolding about a terrible melt-down about a jacket yesterday morning, and yesterday afternoon she was afraid her dad would also be cross about the ink marks on her face and hands as well (which he was not!)
(She was busy writing in the car on the way home, and I only noticed the face when we got home.)
So, threatening not to have a place for us in the spaceship, because we should not be scolding her, is her way of dealing with it!
We usually get threatened with not being invited to her pink house!
The pink house in the sky, with the dragons, the smaller sister and the small kitten...

Posted with Blogsy

Wordless Wednesday #175 - The cup of hot chocolate is not big enough

Reasons why the Preschooler gets upset

Little Missy still gets her furious tantrums, and after snort laughing at Reasons my son is crying, I decided to put up our own list.

A work in progress, of course...

Most of the times she gets upset about the most illogical stuff (or so we think), but in Her World it is Big AND Logical!
(Or else, it wouldn't have warrant such an explosion, would it?)

1. Waking up in the afternoons. This can sometimes take more than a hour to calm her down. (See photo above)

2. Pitching up "too early" at Pre-Primary in the afternoons. She still wanted to play!  (When it is the normal four o'clock pick-up time)

3. Not bringing a "surprise" when I go to pick her up.

4. Not turning on the children's programmes on television.

5. Wanting to turn off the children's programmes on television. (After we have said she could only watch for a fixed amount of time!)

6. Not dressed in the "right" clothes for the day!

7. She wants a sweet/ice-cream/lollipop at the shops. Protesting in the car, or in the shops!

8. Her friend hurt her feelings ("my hartjie seergemaak"), but only switching on the waterworks when we arrive at school.

9. Getting upset about a small hot chocolate in the coffee shop. It should have been a big cup like ours!

10. Screaming loudly when you try to distract her. She is not stupid! She knows what you are trying to do!

11. Not being kissed by Mom or Dad just before pulling out of the drive-way!

12. Having to leave too early at the Grandparents.

13. Breakfast in the car should not have been porridge/egg/fruit, but the other thing she had eaten the day before.

14. We are not allowed to sing with her! Period!

15. We are not allowed to interrupt her thought stream when she is talking to us!

16. We are not allowed to talk for too long in the car. She wants her turn as well!


What upsets your toddler or preschooler?

Hooked on Ballet

I like to take the Toddler to a ballet concert at least once a year. She enjoys it soooo much, and I think she gets an idea of what it is all about!

This year we had tickets for a show, and the show got cancelled a week before the time.

Luckily a friend of mine told me about their children's end-of-year concert of the Dance School Hooked on Dance.

Leigh-Anne Gorrie, the Principal Dance Mistress, presented a whole show with her fledgling and more advanced dancers in different genres of dance styles.

The littlest ones were once again the stars of the show. These two twins (on the right) had us laughing smiling about their antics on stage.

We had a Toddler enthralled!
With a regular chirp-in: "Where's Cara?" and "There's Cara!" (one of the friends in the show)


It definitely inspired our Toddler, because she has been commanding us to sit down countlessly to watch our Toddler dance at home...

A tantrum because I did not watch 100%

Next year I will definitely make a more concerted effort to get us tickets for a ballet show.

Related posts:

A night at the ballet - Don Quixote

Taking a break and first ballet for the Toddler

The Sleeping Beauty - Ballet

Letter to my little girl

My dear little big girl,

I haven't done the 46 months post, and it is probably not necessary any more...
45 months was just yester-day!
When asked how old you are, we already say you are nearly four. You have been four all year in your class with the rest of the four-year old's.

You are a daily source of cute sayings and fantasy stories and keeping us on our toes!

You are also surprising us with the intensity of your outrage when things do not go your way.
(I think we can still can it tantrums?)

Outrage about us not looking to the back of the car when we are driving when you want to show us something; outrage about not getting to eat the whole packet of biscuits before dinner; outrage about the wrong choice of shoes by Mom; the list goes on...

On Tuesday morning you were just not impressed to be awake. As we are also not jump-up-and-go-morning-people, I gave you a lot of sympathy.
Apparently your hands were not washed correctly when I tried to help you, and your shoes were wrong for the day!
I left you on the stairs for a few minutes while you were whimpering: "Sussie!" (Sister!)
We could exchange the shoes, and had to wash the hands again.
You were off with a whine about not wanting the eat the chocolate oats. You wanted the normal "mince" porridge, as you like to call it! (It takes too long, and we have to be off before traffic gets bad!)
So you had Dad's toast and egg (which you never want to eat) for breakfast in the car!

You make our lives very interesting!

We went to a craft market this week, and you had so much fun looking at everything. Dad wanted you to be more quite, because everything came with a load exclamation! "Mom/Dad, look here!"
(I had to remind Dad that you just wanted to share your excitement, and that it is okay if you are a little bit loud!)

When you find something that really agrees with you, you tell us: "Ek LOVE roomys!" ("I love ice-cream" - The English mixed with the Afrikaans!)

You have also learned quite a lot about swearwords (we blame the school, of course!), and we are having a number of conversations about what is the allowed or not, and why not!
You even had a conversation with Dad about the use of middle fingers and other fingers...
You know where to use it, but I like the fact that we can discuss it with you and it seems that you take our words to heart!

You love your sister, and miss her during the time she is not at home. We have to answer your questions the whole week about her being at university!

You are still very much a little girl who wants to wear dresses the whole time. You do not like your hair being in hair bands, and you like your toes and nails being painted.
You spent many times doing Mom's hair.

You love singing to us, and usually it is in Miekanese. Words in languages and melodies that are all your own! (I will put it up in a post on Monday - Movie Clip Monday #28).
It's fantastic! I love that about you!

I hope you never lose this creativity, and that we would be able to channel it in the right direction.

Thanks for being in our lives, and giving us so much love!
We feel blessed every day by the wonderful being of you!

You make me happy!

LOVE!!

Your Mom!

Humour saves us from a full-blown toddler tantrum

Toddlers and tantrums are synonymous! (Heck, yes!)

And by now we have seen all the types and forms and manifestations of the worst of the worst of tantrums!

It is not a pleasant sight!
It does not help the harmonious atmosphere in any home!
And it is extremely embarrassing when out of the family home!

I don't know of how many times I have put on my straight face walking with a screaming toddler when it doesn't help to talk to her or try to calm her down. She gets even more upset! It only helps to pick her up and walk out of a situation at that point in time!

We as parents know when it is starting to build up to one:
- It starts with a whine...
- It starts with a "NO!"
- It starts with a mouth hanging upside down on the ground...
- It starts with a heap of toddler on the floor...
- It starts with a toddler, and no reason whatsoever (or one that we can fathom!)

We know all the signs of a threatening tantrum!

I have found one thing that works almost all of the times!
Making a toddler joke!

For example: When the Toddler is in the car and we are driving and she starts asking for something:
"I want a sweet from the shop!"
"Yes, we will buy a sweet the next time we are at the shops!"
"I want a sweet... (Repeat 50 times with increase in volume and whine!)
"Yes, we will buy next time!" (Repeat 50 times!)
When the pitch starts to change to tantrum mode, I usually ask her if I must stop on the pavement and get a sweet from the pavement / or from the man walking / or from the trees / or from the sky...
She answers with a laugh: "No, it is not there! We must get it in the shops!"
The joke averts the imminent tantrum, and she starts to focus on something else!
(Repeat)

It has helped me to not become too serious, and it also lightens the mood!

Now I only have to come up with funny creative retorts!
Any ideas?

She's leaving us!

There were some angry words spoken!
She said she's leaving us!
She got on her scooter and drove away!
Right round the dining room table...

We had used a hair elastic from the Toddler to put in the dog's hair. I asked for permission two days back, and it was fine then. Today she wanted it back, and got real angry with us for not allowing her to take it out again...

First threat from our fickle Toddler! Never a dull moment!

Who are you?

And what have you done with our three year old toddler?

A rhetorical question... I know!

But three-year old toddlers are exasperating.
The schizophrenia of the phase is really mind-blowing!

We see happiness, and screams of fun, interspersed with manic tantrum bursts of epic-fall-on-the-ground-loud-pitched-wails every five minutes! Or less!

It makes me question our parenting skills every single day!

Luckily there are the blogs reporting of same age characteristics...
(How did I do it the first time around? How could I forget this?)

Phew! It is great to know it is not only in this household!

"Are we breaking her spirit?"
"Are we giving her too much space?"

("This too will pass!""This too will pass!")


We still love our little devil angel!


(Photo on Saturday at Tiny Tumbles)

My toddler hurts me

Dear Auntie

My toddler is nearly three and he is hurting me, almost on a daily basis!

He hurts me real bad. I’ve got bruises to show for it, especially on my arms.

He is a big boy and he pinches me, even in my face!

I have tried everything:

-    Talking to him.
-    Crying in front of him.
-    Ignoring the pinching and trying to focus his attention on something else.
-    Ignoring him.
-    Walking away.
-    Giving him a hiding.
-    Threatening him with no presents from Father Christmas.
-    Pinching him back.

I am not proud of all of it, but nothing seems to work!

I don’t know how to handle the situation anymore!

I try to be there for my child as much as possible. (I have been called a “helicopter” parent).

My son cannot complain about me not being there for him. He also does not allow for me to be too far away from him…

I sense that it has got something to do with insecurities…
Maybe because his father and I are divorced?

Am I a bad parent?

What have I done wrong?

Please help!


What do I do with my toddler who bullies his own mother?

33 months on World Peace Day

The Toddler was 33 months on World Peace Day yesterday. #worldpeaceday

 It is a day in recognition of a world favouring peace, and for once not a day AGAINST something! We should definitely have more of these!

Days to call Peace to the fore in the World, for our children!


I saw this cute dress with the peace sign & "Peace" written on it at A-C-Kermans yesterday, and could not resist.

To get her to stand still for a photo is not always possible...

The Teen even tried taking a picture through a window...

Peace!

33 months is all busy and talkative and major Tantrums.
The tantrums are even more forced with louder theatrics.
And to get the off button for sleep stays a major issue!

But, she cannot get cuter than this! We are sure of it! ;-)

What have you done with our toddler?

The Terrible Two’s! What have you done to our formerly easy-going toddler?


You would think that the tantrum dance should be getting less when she is nearing the age of three. I’ve got NEWS!

NOT! It is getting worse!

Help!

The Toddler goes into a mode where she starts repeating and repeating and repeating (whining and whining and whining) … what she wants!

She does not stop.

She does not get distracted!

She does not respond to threats!

Time-out does not work!

Explaining does not work!

Yelling (I’m sorry to say!) does not work! (Bad bad parents!)

A light tap (I’m sorry to say!) on the nappy does not work! (Bad bad parents!)

The other night as an example: The Toddler was bathed and was ready for bed. She wanted juice, but juice in an open bottle so that she could pour it from into another cup! That is a definite mess waiting to happen… If it had happened earlier, it would have been negotiable! But she had been bathed and dressed for bed already!

She went to bed crying for that juice! She woke again at two in the night, again crying for that juice. In the end Dear Hubby had to go and fetch that juice and she drank it with a straw from the open bottle…
He had to do some negotiation before she was happy not being able to pour it from the bottle!

We now have a joke between us. When she goes into repeat-mode, we say “Push the reset button! Restore to factory settings!”
Then Hubby presses her on the back, and it makes her laugh for one second, before she continues with the whine…

She has not been feeling well the past week (Tuesday catch-up), and I hope that could have been the reason? (Please say it is so!)

The Terrible Two’s turns her into a whining monster!

(Photo by Dad)

Related posts:
The evening WHINE
Toddler meltdown in a public place

The evening WHINE

We don’t see that much of the famous toddler tantrum anymore, but something a bit more nerve-wracking has taken its place. The Whine! It is a refinement on the throw-on-the-floor tantrum!

Especially the evening whine! The worst of the worst kind of psychological manipulation.

“Anything, please tell us what you want! We will give it to you! Just stop the whining! Anything!” (Yes, sometimes we do!)

The Toddler is tired! She knows what she wants!

This! No, this! No matter what! Nothing is quite to her wants or specifications! And when something falls on the floor, it is total whine-mode! (I have even seen her drop the stuff on purpose... What's up with that?) Even if we tell her to just pick it up...

She does not let up!

It does not help when we are as tired as she is...

It is not the screeching tantrum that Lisa at Lady RubyRay is talking about, but it is relentless...

Please send a whole bucket of patience! 
What do you do with the whine?



Related post:
How to survive the terrible tantrum

I forgot 27 months!

It’s official! The Toddler is a month older, and I forgot about it on the day. I know what it means: she is a big girl now, and it’s not necessary to count every month as it passes...

When they get born, you count day by day. Then it’s week by week! Until it becomes months! I guess we are nearing the year markers now... Very sad that it goes by too fast!

The photo was taken at her day care on Friday last week. She gave them all smiles for the photo shoot. They just had to convince her each time to take away her hands. She tends to put them up in front of her face, such as the photo on Wednesday morning at day care.

I love this age! It is such a wonderful creative age where they sponge up everything around them.

It is also a most exasperating time, because the Toddler wants to do everything herself, and she knows how to say NO!  She exercises these new skills all-the-time! I am getting used to frowns in supermarkets. It’s a skill I am perfecting at the moment. Smile, and continues to shop and push a screaming/demanding toddler through the aisles. Great fun, I tell you!

A little friend of Mieka’s came to visit tonight, and he exhibits exactly the same characteristics of our Toddler. I thought afterwards that he was very tiring, and that I really feel sorry for his mother.

And then it hit me: She is probably thinking the same of our toddler!

Toddler meltdown in a public place

We had an incident of toddler meltdown at a restaurant over the weekend. The Tantrum reared its ugly head when the Toddler wanted to hold a glass of ice; not happy with one ice cube only!

We tried to divert her attention, and made a few jokes. Luckily it did not last for too long.

When I looked at the photos again, I saw the bothered faces in the background.  Not impressed at all!




Related posts:
Adult tantrums
How to survive the terrible tantrum
Taking the toddler to places and the T-dance

Adult tantrums

Now that I see The Tantrum on a fairly regular basis, I realize that there are most lots of adults who did not get a hold on them when they were young!

Don’t we all get the occasional tantrum when we

• “AAARGGG!”-scream

• Throw a book/cup/etc.

• Bang a door/desk/keyboard.

• Go into a raging monologue?

Is it possible to learn how to handle our emotions and to get a grip on that emotional outburst!
Of course, yes!

That’s why we have such a responsibility in the toddler years to teach our children how to handle that overflowing bursts of emotions.

I think that by trying to put a lid on it, we do not deal with it correctly. Putting a lid on it is when we punish the toddlers and prevent them from going through the whole process. Sometimes it is good to let them rage...
We should also try to teach them how to channel it. There are so many great articles available of strategies. Dionna at Code Name Mama wrote a great guest post at Good Goog about parenting strategies which sums it up for me! It is not about disciplining, but about loving and honouring the development phase in which the child finds himself at!

I am of the opinion that if we approach it in this way we will have less Tantrum Queens and Tantrum Kings around us!

What do you think? Do we go into emotional overdrive because we were not allowed to have those tantrums when we were young?




Related post:
How to survive the terrible tantrum

The Toddler throws things

One would think that by now the Toddler would have stopped throwing things. Not so! It is one of her favourite pastimes!

I had a look on Google, and apparently it is not a strange phenomenon for our toddlers.
They throw stuff and food and everything! Still getting to grips with the gravity of earth, and also challenging their control over their world.

The most frustrating is when I am driving and the Toddler is in her car seat. She begs for a doll or a bottle which is just out of reach. I get it to her and warn her not to throw it again... Which of course she does immediately again! And then puts up a terrible toddler tantrum shriek!
That's when I start singing "Mamma trap die petrol..." (Mom step on the petrol...)