To my emotional toddler,
You have the most beautiful heart and gentle nature. You console your sisters when they are upset and your willingness to share is beyond what one would expect from someone your age.
That said, it is dreadful for both of us when you switch from your laid back self to a toddler who tantrums. I can sense when it is brewing. Things have not gone your way, you are tired and you are beginning to assert yourself. As your requests persist and I continue to oppose you the meltdown begins.
There was a time I would consider this behaviour bratty. Your older sister liked to be a bit dramatic so tanturms came as no surprise when you hit your twos. Except, I still hadn’t developed a strategy for handling them well.
I used to either ignore tantrums or isolate the hysterical child until they had calmed down. Now I feel really sad when I think of the many lost opportunities to model empathy to you or your sister in your time of need. It was hard not to assume I was doing something wrong as a parent for you to be tantruming in the first place.
Once I realised I was only exasperating you in my handling of your outbursts I knew I had to go to the experts. After much reading, I felt reassured these meltdowns are an inevitability. You are not trying to be difficult; you are merely resorting to a natural in-built reaction.
In his blog about responding to toddler tantrums, one of my favourite parenting gurus, Dr Justin Coulson, suggests staying with you and making an attempt to show I understand without trying to “fix” things.
This same respectful approach is reiterated by most reputable sources: stay with you, acknowledge your feelings, remain calm, let you get it out of your system. Those times when I have lost my cool and joined you in your chaos, things have merely gone from bad to worse. What you really need in those moments is the full force of my love for you.
Of course, the best thing would be to avoid getting to the tantrum point at all. But reality is, you are going to get tired, hungry and overstimulated at some point. Chocolate Easter egg meltdowns, anyone?
The crux of it is that you want to be heard and you want to be understood. When that doesn’t happen you get cross. My tendency was usually to downplay what you were feeling in order to diffuse the situation. Of course, this only made you more upset and we would get nowhere.
These days we actually tend to have less meltdowns as I attempt to give you more opportunities to exercise your independence. When they do arise, they seem to come and go fairly quickly and we can move on, rather than these episodes dominating our mood for the rest of the day.
Thank you for being patient with me while I work out this whole motherhood thing. I gave my natural instinct too much credit at the start of my parenting gig. When I get things wrong, we both get up, dust ourselves off and try again.
My commitment to you is that I will always find a better way of doing things if they aren’t working for us. We’re both learning.
Love,
Mum
