Tacking Against the Tantrum

I don’t know anything about sailing, but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of tacking against the wind. Since a sailboat relies on wind to move the boat, It seems like it would be it would be impossible to sail directly into the wind. But apparently you can do it by setting your sail an angle and kind of zig zagging back and forth. It takes a lot longer to get to where you want to go, but eventually you get there.

These days I try to keep this image in mind when I deal with my younger daughter’s tantrums. E is two, going on three, and very much at the age where she wants to have things her way. When non-parents ask if the terrible twos are a real thing, I assure them that  it is except it’s more like the terrible 1.5  to 3.5 years. I know that kids this age are learning to do things and struggling to gain some kind of control over their life. On the one hand it’s a good thing that they want to dress themselves and make their own decisions. That means they’re growing up. On the other hand, sometimes you need them to just cooperate so you can get out the damn door.

I know we went through some of this with our older daughter, Z, but I don’t think it was as bad.  Z, would sometimes throw real howlers, but she wasn’t so resistant to the day to day routine. Z might insist that she was going to put her shoes on herself, get frustrated when it didn’t work, and refuse to let me help. E is more likely to just flat out refuse to put on her shoes. I often try the old trick of do you want to do A or B. Occasionally that works, but more often she just says no to both options. This gets very frustrating when she’s refusing to cooperate at every stage of the morning routine.

In some ways toddlers are harder to manage than babies. Toddlers argue, run away, hit, and kick. When you have an angry toddler who’s large for her age like E, it’s not fun at all. I can still wrestle her down if I really want to, but she fights hard and I worry that I will accidentally hurt her in the struggle. The other danger is that the more I physically struggle with her, the angrier I get myself which is not a good thing.

So these days I try to take a deep breath, accept that this might take a while, and start tacking against the tantrum. I try to let her have some control over things such as letting her choose where we’re going to do the diaper change. I do countdowns and give her time outs if she’s refusing to cooperate. But I try not to argue or escalate things. I just put her in her room, walk away, give her (and me) time to calm down, and then try again.  There’s no magic solution, but with time she’ll usually eventually calm down, want a hug, and then be cooperative again. It’s not easy, but with some patience we eventually get to where we need to be.