Hellobee

“Do you need a minute?” This simple question has saved us from a massive meltdown on more than one occasion and has also wrapped a tantrum up quicker than other tactics we’ve tried. I won’t claim that it’s a magic bullet that neutralizes any tantrum (or impending meltdown), but it has worked well enough for us that it is a steadfast part of our toolkit.

If you subscribe to the theory that kids are easy-going, shy or spirited, when Lion was younger, I would have hands-down pegged him as a shy child. He gets nervous in big crowds, hides behind my legs in new places, is very sensitive, needs lots of time to transition and is slow to warm up to strangers. But, over time, I also came to realize that in addition to being a shy child, he is also spirited. Initially, I wouldn’t have said that because there’s no way that Lion would run off if I dropped his hand in the middle of a crowded mall; he tends to be a rule follower and I would not classify him as impulsive. However, I also realized that he might be spirited in some ways and when he decides he wants something in a particular way, there’s no changing his mind. He is intensely sensitive and highly rigid, which seem to be characteristics of a shy child but pushed to an extreme.

One of the books that I found very helpful for Lion’s mixed shy/spirited temperament is Raising Your Spirited Child (full review to come). Reading it really made me understand how difficult it is for him to transition from one thing to another and how he really needs time to process and work through transitions, disappointment and life’s curveballs. We’ve been working with him to try to work through these moments in various ways, but one of the most simple and effective tactics has simply been to ask him, “Do you need a minute?”

For example, when we were on vacation a couple of months ago, Lion was devastated that we didn’t bring a particular shirt that he wanted to wear that day. He started wailing and I could tell that we were headed for meltdown city. I calmly told him that I understood that he was disappointed (to which he responded by screaming “I’m not disappointed!!!” and I had to amend my statement to say, “Okay, you’re sad because you don’t have your Superman shirt”) and asked if he needed a minute to be sad. He emphatically said, “yes,” through his tears and I walked away to get Panda changed for the day. He continued to cry for the next minute or two, then calmed down and ran over to me and said, “Mama! I dried my tears! I’m not sad anymore!” I asked if he was ready to pick out a shirt to wear and he did so happily. It was amazing what giving him that minute or two to process his disappointment did for both of us. He got to work through his feelings and I didn’t feel like I was spending a lot of energy dealing with the tantrum. We got him dressed and happily left to enjoy the rest of the day. I’ve tried this in a variety of situations and it works most of the time.

After letting him process his disappointment, he dried his tears and happily got dressed in a different shirt so we could enjoy the day at the tidepools. What would normally be a full-on thirty minute tantrum was reduced to a minute or two of disappointed tears then a full day of smiles.

I note that, for me, this is different than just ignoring the tantrum or putting him in time-out. When I ignore the tantrum, he often carries on for quite a bit. At 12 months, he continued his tantrum for over an hour when we tried ignoring it and let’s just say that his stamina hasn’t gone down since then. While putting him in time-out works some of the time, other times his mood just continues to spiral and the tantrum escalates. While I’ve found that time-ins work as a great alternative to a time-out when he’s acting out in certain ways like saying something mean or throwing a toy, they don’t work once we enter tantrum/meltdown world.

This method of giving Lion a minute or two to process his disappointment acknowledges his feelings rather than dismissing or ignoring them, which I think may be part of the issue when we ignore the tantrum or put him in time-out. I first acknowledge that he feels sad, disappointed or angry (and he often helps pinpoint one of these, correcting my first statement) so that he knows that I am acknowledging his feelings. I tell him that I understand and that it’s okay to feel sad/disappointed/angry. Sometimes, I acknowledge that I would also feel sad in that moment. I then say that we still need to do XYZ or that we can be disappointed but that’s the way things are, then follow it up by asking if he needs a minute.

While it doesn’t work 100% of the time, it helps often enough that it’s something I try regularly. More often than not, he continues to cry for a minute or two (but not usually a tantrum level), then picks himself up and is ready to move on. I think the acknowledgement that he’s being heard, that his feelings are rational and understandable, and the time to process his disappointment helps him manage his feelings.

Do you have any similar tips on getting your toddler to process disappointment and ward off full-blown meltdowns?