I have to say, Gregory does not have many tantrum moments. When he does, however, they are so funny. He thinks he’s being so “bad” and we think he’s so silly.
First example, was last Friday. At the baby shower, he really wanted to walk around the room with Jenga blocks sticking out of his mouth. Being his mother, I decided long ago that death-by-Jenga-block-in-back-of-throat just wasn’t for us, so I took them away, one by one. Oh, he was MAD. MAD MAD MAD. He let out a little scream, his eyes darting around. I remained calm the entire time and began checking the refrigerator water filter and other parts to see if they were all working properly. He saw my waterbottle and knew what to do– he grabbed it and threw it on the ground, looking at me vindictively the whole time! Both the priest’s wife and Heather saw what had transpired…they knew exactly what that was– a little temper tantrum. You take something of mine? FINE. I’ll THROW something of yours!
While my first reaction was to laugh, my second was speechlessness. How does one punish an almost 13 month old? I decided that since what he wanted out of me was a reaction, I would just ignore him. He seemed sadly disappointed 🙂
The second example was on Saturday. G was walking around with some fake holly berries in his mouth and hands (who knows?). Once again, long ago, Jesse and I decided that death-by-holly-berries was not our cup of tea, so Jesse attempted to take them away. What ensued was a 10 minute “flail-a-thon”, where G screamed, cried, wailed franticly, and tried to throw himself off of as many things as possible. Literally– he climbed onto the couches, just to throw himself off (it looked more like half-hearted rolling). I didn’t know he was able to actually climb up on the couch yet, but apparently being that mad gives one superhuman powers or something.
After ignoring the sobs for about 10 minutes, all I said was, “G! come here! mommy has something to show you!”. He walked over, half-heartedly wailing the whole time. I turned on a Youtube video of a doggie singing a song, and PRESTO. He was mesmerized and silent within seconds. After about a minute, he was laughing and pointing at the computer screen, saying, “DOGGIE!!” over and over.
So…maybe it’s a good sign that we aren’t angered by his temper tantrums? We just have to figure out when the right time is to start disciplining. For right now, not reacting seems to be the best medicine, since all he wants is for us to feel as mad as he is 🙂
On the flip side of his personality, he now gives hugs and kisses on command! We say, “give cuddles to Daddy!” and he’ll walk over, lean on him with arms wide open, and say, “awwwwwww!!!” He’ll do this voluntarily to me, several times a morning 🙂 Melts my heart!
Related postsTantrum City |
Nightmare |
S-Ick |
Walking! |
Becks says
You know, at that age I remember saying (sternly) “James, temper tantrums are not allowed.” And he stopped!
A few weeks later he realized that just because we said “no” didn’t mean he couldn’t actually throw a temper tantrum (whaaat? I can disobey? Yes!!) So then we started giving him time outs in the crib to cool off (1 minute for every year they are old). It works pretty well for us!
Christina says
This reminds me…St. Barnabas just had it’s fall lecture, and one of the topics was parenting. I didn’t get to hear the whole thing, but I think they taped it for Ancient Faith Radio. I’m going to listen to it once it’s there. It’s by Dr. Philip Mamalakis and called Living in Communion.