Do you remember the game Jenga? Jenga was a game where you tried to keep a teetering tower of wooden blocks upright. One wrong move and your Jenga tower collapsed into a disastrous mess.
Toddlers are like Jenga. Their moods are forever teetering on the brink of a complete and total meltdown. Or a tantrum.
My daughter is cherubic and angelic most of the time. But her tiny, chubby angelic exterior is a thin veneer. Bubbling beneath that veneer is a toddler tantrum. At any moment her Jenga tower can come crashing down unleashing the Incredible Hulk within her and convoluting metaphors.
Tantrums can happen at any time. One minute she’s a sweet little toddler. The next she’s in full on Tyra Banks mode. And often for no apparent reason.
Here is a list of “reasons”: coming home from daycare, going to daycare, going into the bath, coming out of the bath, changing a diaper, going outside, coming inside, not being allowed to eat dog food, not being allowed to sit in the garbage, not being allowed to lick deodorant, not being allowed to play video games all night when you have work the next day, not being allowed to wear dirty clothes to bed, not being allowed to wear pajamas to daycare, and more.
My daughter doesn’t understand why she has to or can’t do all of the things on this list. She’s not at the reasoning age, she’s at the throw herself on the floor and cry because you weren’t allowed to drink nail polish remover stage.
A toddler’s tiny little lizard brain has no reasoning. So she tantrums. And we ignore her Naomi Campbell like outbursts. Sometimes we don’t ignore her. We’ll try to distract her or call in the riot police.
Distractions often work. Elmo is a good distraction. The problem with most distractions is the removal of the distraction can cause another tantrum. That’s the dark side of Elmo.
Most advice tells you the easiest way to stop a tantrum is to prevent the tantrum from happening in the first place. Lately when a tantrum happens, I call up Doc Brown, fire up the Delorean and gun it to 88 miles per hour.
As that list can attest to it’s impossible to remove all tantrum triggers. The only way to remove all tantrum triggers is by removing the toddler. And we’re sort of fond of her, even during the tantrums.
For now, we’re fine to let her tantrum and to let her get over it. After the tantrum is over, we’re there to pick up the pieces and rebuild her Jenga tower.
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