Let's look for a few minutes at the conventional wisdom around children's tantrums. Have you ever been subject to or witnessed a tantrum in progress when a parent (maybe even yourself) was actually observing the traditional ignore-the-tantrum rule? Somewhere in a public store, an infant or child was in a screaming rage. The parent reacted by (1) not paying any attention to the tantrum and the child, (2) keeping calm and cool, (3) staying nonchalant and unruffled, and (4) as fast as possible (while trying to look unhurried) getting out through the checkout and outside of the store. This outcome was much to everyone's relief, other than the child's-whose frustration and anger to that point had escalated to the extreme.
Let's examine this paradigm more closely. (I swear-that word is the only super-annoying scholarly one I will use here.) Responding to tantrums primarily through ignoring them is part of a very old parenting model or set of concepts, assumptions, values, and practices that constitutes a wrongheaded or misguided way of viewing tantrum reality.
All along, the parenting experts have been telling parents they should ignore tantrums just because (according to them) ignoring tantrums is the best way to deal with tantrum behavior in children. Experts, however, mostly admit that ignoring tantrums will not change or eliminate them-because, after all, they say, tantrum behavior in children is natural, normal, and inevitable.
Tantrum Probability: Tantrum behavior + responding by ignoring = tantrum behavior.
This circular theory begs a number of questions. What ability is there for parents to know if they are ignoring the temper tantrums thoroughly enough or well enough? I'm just kidding. I really don't think anyone asks that question. They should, though. How can any parents possibly know if the technique of ignoring tantrums is even valid and beneficial like the experts say it is? There's no change or success whatsoever to measure and nothing with which to evaluate the effectiveness of this technique. In fact, this technique doesn't purport to be effective in creating a change. The use of this technique isn't meant to solve anything. If the temper tantrum behavior stays the same or perhaps even gets worse, the parents are just supposed to keep responding by ignoring-just because the parenting experts say so.
And that's precisely what I did in the beginning, as a brand new parent. I regularly ignored the tantrums with my first four children until they each outgrew their tantrum behavior, usually at about two years old as the parenting advisors had predicted. As well, I responded to my fifth baby's tantrums by ignoring them, until I learned that my response was provoking his tantrum behavior. I learned that ignoring temper tantrum and pre-temper-tantrum anger is part of the cause of temper tantrums. And I learned that for as long as temper tantrums are ignored they will continue to occur.
Let's examine this paradigm more closely. (I swear-that word is the only super-annoying scholarly one I will use here.) Responding to tantrums primarily through ignoring them is part of a very old parenting model or set of concepts, assumptions, values, and practices that constitutes a wrongheaded or misguided way of viewing tantrum reality.
All along, the parenting experts have been telling parents they should ignore tantrums just because (according to them) ignoring tantrums is the best way to deal with tantrum behavior in children. Experts, however, mostly admit that ignoring tantrums will not change or eliminate them-because, after all, they say, tantrum behavior in children is natural, normal, and inevitable.
Tantrum Probability: Tantrum behavior + responding by ignoring = tantrum behavior.
This circular theory begs a number of questions. What ability is there for parents to know if they are ignoring the temper tantrums thoroughly enough or well enough? I'm just kidding. I really don't think anyone asks that question. They should, though. How can any parents possibly know if the technique of ignoring tantrums is even valid and beneficial like the experts say it is? There's no change or success whatsoever to measure and nothing with which to evaluate the effectiveness of this technique. In fact, this technique doesn't purport to be effective in creating a change. The use of this technique isn't meant to solve anything. If the temper tantrum behavior stays the same or perhaps even gets worse, the parents are just supposed to keep responding by ignoring-just because the parenting experts say so.
And that's precisely what I did in the beginning, as a brand new parent. I regularly ignored the tantrums with my first four children until they each outgrew their tantrum behavior, usually at about two years old as the parenting advisors had predicted. As well, I responded to my fifth baby's tantrums by ignoring them, until I learned that my response was provoking his tantrum behavior. I learned that ignoring temper tantrum and pre-temper-tantrum anger is part of the cause of temper tantrums. And I learned that for as long as temper tantrums are ignored they will continue to occur.
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