Wednesday 31 March 2010

A Tantrum


The hurricane that is my daughter wants to play with the telephone. I take the telephone from her and she wails. The question is what do I do next, and what if any effect will this have on the rest of her life? If I give her the phone to play with will it teach her from this early age that she can get whatever she wants as long as she complains loudly enough, and is that a good or a bad lesson? Will it make her ‘spoilt’?

The telephone is not a suitable thing for her to play with – I don’t want to find she has hit 999 and the idea of giving in seems some how wrong – although I cant articulate a sensible reason why it would be a problem.. I suspect there is something in learning that you cant always get what you want, but then I am not sure that’s a good lesson. The people who never accept no for an answer are often the most successful people. They find ways around situations where others give up and go home.

I have seen some parents tell of children for there tantrums, but when I am upset or annoyed, reasonably or unreasonably I don’t think someone telling me I am being silly, or to calm down will help. It is instead the fastest way to make me blow my top all together. So instead I give her cuddle, I try to distract her, I offer her a story, and pretty soon she is sat by my side listening happily to “Clovis the Tiger’ – who in case you don’t know is the roarist tiger in the whole jungle.

Sometimes I allow myself to believe that the way I handle these things will make a huge difference to the person that my daughter becomes, but as i talk to my friends I realize that  everyones parents got it wrong – the world is made up of people who had bad parents and yet we all survived. Im not saying my parents where terrible here – just that they where human and made mistakes. I survived those mistakes, and I am sure my daughter will survive through my mistakes. 

For now the crisis has come and gone, the tantrum was very brief, and with my daughter cuddled up with me giggling as I roar all seems okay in the world

1 comment:

  1. LOL at Clovis the Tiger making it all OK - as he did for Morgan at that age too! Ah Papa, perhaps the word Tantrum is the thing calling the shots in this scenario, rather than you (or your little whirlwind)?

    We prefer "Big Feelings" - less threatening to Mamma Bear therefore helping her not to feel she has to assert her authority (which is not, after all, threatened by feelings) and also carrying the message that we can want them to be happy all of the time, but we can't actually make them happy all of the time. The feelings don't determine the outcome, we don't have to "fix" the feelings.

    But the phone is neither a need, or a tool by which you need dominate. If she has big feelings about a spoon, you will not worry so much about whether to make her happy and whether that will "spoil" her.

    (hugs) and meanderings.

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