May 03, 2006
pair of 45's made me open my eyes
5/3/06
The subject of "tantrums" came up a few days ago, which I imagine is the spectre beheld by every new parent whose cute little McCuddle Bumpkins begins the inexorable march towards brief bouts of existentialism. I should know, apparently mine were the stuff of legend. Every family member my senior loves to spin tales of my Poison Squirrel Dances© and the various onlookers who thought I'd surely ingested three gallons of paint thinner.
We've had no tantrums with Lucy, who by most accounts is passionate, but not to pointless abandon, and usually resorts to her rest state of giggling before long. But we do have to think about what kind of parents we'll be, now that we live in the age when "I'll give you something to cry about" is no longer approved by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It's the fine line, right? The space between "draconian rulemaker" and "anything goes" must be wide enough for all of us to walk; the former creates kids that lash out against authority in fits of self-destruction, and the latter creates kids who wander through life in vague fits of despair because they have no boundaries against which they can bounce off greatness. Or variations on those themes; you get my point.
Our own upbringing was better and worse than both of those: I felt like we were praised a lot and punished a lot, and occasionally for the same act. The mercuriality of our hosts rendered my brothers and me a little unfit for society, but that's for another blog.
This I do know: I hate any rules being imposed on me whatsoever, but I have historically craved an obedience to a higher structure. This was thrown into sharp relief at my fraternity in college: the Chi Psi Lodge, a ragtag group of intellectuals who wanted to take over UNC, take over the world, and find some girl who would have sex with us, in that order.
As much as I despised the goose-stepping Southern faux military thinking of my prep school, I was more than happy to fling myself at the mercy of my elders at the Lodge; in fact, I think my passion for deference verged on the homoerotic. When I was elected Assistant Social Chairman my sophomore year - which meant cleaning up for a year before actually assuming any duties - I ADORED throwing away beer bottles until 4am because I truly believed I was contributing to the magic of the place.
One night, my junior year, an elder Chi Psi named Marty Clark and I found ourselves talking to the same very lovely girl. Getting drinks, I told him I was thinking of asking her to our formal, when he looked down and said he was thinking of the same. With glee, I told him that I respected him as an Elder Bro and that he should do it. He went on the date and stayed with her a few months, while I pined a little, but somehow the pain felt good. It was for a purpose. In that moment, I understood the medieval self-flagellators who lashed themselves with chains to promote inner ecstasy.
I know when I mention fraternities on here, 3/4ths of you roll your eyes, but if I hadn't had that experience with those 150 guys, I may never have understood men at all. As it was, it took me years to become fluent, as the Gribster will surely attest. Especially in my later years, when I got complacent with success and began to act like Kurtz from "Heart of Darkness".
Yesterday, I started going to a pick-up hoops game in Rustic Canyon, and though I was being über-deferential, I nearly got into a fight with a guy who was jawin' his face off at me. His implacable rudeness, after two attempts at ignoring him, made me want to take a tire iron to his kneecaps. These people sniff me out. So I have both these authoritative problems going on: deference and belligerence in equal parts.
What happened when I was a kid to make this so? Well, scratch that - who cares? The better question is: what kind of parent can we be to Lucy so that she sidesteps these problems altogether? How can we deal with her tantrums and our limits while making her feel part of something bigger, not so shut-off, not so stuck on her precious solipsism like her father?
Today "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" came on the stereo, and she bounced up and down like a mosher circa 1992. I thought how wonderful it would be if she learned to play bass, but then I thought, fuck that. There's always chick bassists - why can't she play lead?
.jpg)
Lucy as member of Sleater Kinney is an outstanding option-
Don't worry.
Tantrums... basketball... Ian....
Sorry, dude, I'm not seeing any connecting themes in your post today. Better luck next time.
Oh, yeah, that last comment was from me, by the way. I originally quoted some unspeakable vulgarities I once heard on the basketball court that were too soul-curdling for even me to sign. I thought better of it, but forgot to change my nom de maudire.
spare the rod, spoil the child
enjoy the nice smooth taste of Chesterfields
exsqueeze me?
"there's always chick bassists, why can't she play lead?"
as if lead is somehow better than bass? emphasis on "as-if"!
maybe she'll play bass instead fo lead because she has an innate groove that must be released from the depth of her funky soul, and she doesn't want to wank solos all over it?
maybe because she worships meshell and rhonda smith and suzie quatro?
maybe because bad-ass groovin bass lines are the closest thing to sex without actually being sex?
maybe because the bass line is what she notices most in every song she hears, ever since she was a kid? mom: "stop singing that same three notes over and over" girl: "but that's what the song does"
maybe because she wants to rock notes so low and rumbly they make the girls in the audience ovulate?
- says the girl bass player... but no worries, if i still have my badtz maru bass in 7 years, i hereby bequeath it to her, let the wild rumpus begin!
but seriously, my own parenting philosophy on discipline is to just be yourself. don't turn into some conjured up parent-type distored version of yourself. just let them be real, and be real right back at them. they learn a million times more from watching how you act than from anything else.
As the mother of a two-year-old tantrums have been on my mind a lot lately. Apparently most tantrums (at the toddler level anyway) are a manifestation of not being in control. And when control fails to be exercised, the small person usually falls to the floor in tears, etc., or the large person wants to break his opponent's kneecaps with a tire iron.
I don't have any tips on how to deal with adult tantrums, but what almost eliminates the toddler tantrums is offering choice.
Ian,
I have no comment on today's entry - I just went at Hilary's behest to view the picture of your lovely little girl - but I remembered something I'd wanted to mention to you. It's apropos of your recent discussion of travel habits (car vs. airplane, what's most fuel efficient) , and you may well know about it already: plug-in hybrid vehicle kits. These basically replace or supplement your hybrid's existing battery with (usually) a lithium-ion battery and add a revised computer-control system, so that you can plug the car into any 120V socket overnight, and recharge the battery for about $1 worth of juice. On this battery, you can run all-electric up to about 35 mph for up to 50 miles; once the battery power is exhausted, the car runs just like normal. But for the first 50 miles at least, you can average better than 100 mpg. It's not going to make a huge cut in your gas consumption on cross-country trips (unless you stop for the night frequently), but it can cut your daily driving-around town gas use almost entirely, likewise your carbon emissions (since you run mostly or all electric). Right now you can get such a kit for the Prius from EDrive, a Cali-based company (EDrive.com) for around $12,000; a company called Hymotion (hymotion.com), out of Toronto, will have a consumer -available kit ready around October, for about $9500. CalCars.org, an advocacy group for this technology, is working with some engineers, et al, to develop a sort of advanced DIY version for under $5000. Not cheap, in any case, but I'm sure you could figure out your yearly gas consumption and do the arithmetic to figure how long it'll take to recoup the investment. BUT installing such a kit will most likely void your Toyota warranty - unfairly, I believe, but there it is. Begging pardon for the verbiage if you already knew all this - Jy
What I try to do with a tantrum thrown by my 3 YO girl is to calm her down without giving in to what she wants, knowing that if she gets rewarded for her tantrum, they will happen more and more often. If I can't calm her down by reasoning with her, to her room she goes for however long it takes for her to stop crying. This works much better at home than say the middle of church.
Responding with a tantrum of my own - almost never works and I do not recommend.
I think with some kids, especially those as young as Lucy, just ignoring it or distracting her to something else works pretty well most times. It's when they get older and more manipulative that it seems to get trickier. When my oldest was 2 she decided to hit the height of tantrums during a vacation. We were standing in the middle of the Baltimore inner Harbor with her writhing on the ground like Linda Blair while people stared. I have no idea what she wanted but we ended up getting right back in the car again and giving up the whole aquarium trip. We all needed a vacation after that vacation.
oh we have had some of those for damn sure.
but it's kind of a case by case basis, though, isn't it? i just don't favor any parenting book type trick, it's hard to sum up what to do about all tantrums or describe them all the same.
i mean, i know that i myself can throw a classic grown up version of a tantrum when i am supremely pissed off or disappointed or exhausted. i think it's the same with kids.
i think if you don't want people to stare at you and give you nasty bad-parent looks, you can always talk directly to the onlookers or people who offer "helpful" suggestions and launch into funny dances and cooing to try to get your kid to stop. or you can also just ignore these people. i don't think you want to risk squelching your kid's emotional outburst to get some mature-seeming behavior out of a toddler, you have to adjust your expectations. takes a few more years before you can really help your kid fine tune their public setting type skills.
then there's the tantrums that are totally getting in the way of something you need to do, like get to the airport. in those cases i will go to bribes and threats or forced seatbelt buckling, no question, because not everything runs on kid-time, and that's just how life is.
but sometimes, particularly if my kids are hanging around with another kid who uses tantrums as extortion, they will actually try to get me to do stuff or change my mind by throwing a tantrum, and for those i just tell them straight up that it's not working and shut it down.
and as my kids have gotten older i've seen some super high drama tantrums where the kid feels particularly devastated about something and launches into it like the world will truly end, so i just try to do some consoling and try to help them put it in perspective, same as with an adult.
but if i'm just in an extremely bad mood i just tell them i'm in a really bad mood, try to wing it, and turn on the TV while i fix myself a drink or play some music or something.
tantrums? when jozzie gets her tantrum on, we put her on the grain and drain train. that's right. bread & water only for two weeks. yessir, some scurvy & a little anemia will clear those tantrums right up.
our tantrums [daughter age 2] are often successfully pre-empted by FOOD, yes, food... i have a feeling this might be poorly received by the group... anyway, we discovered this trick when she was beginning to start having DOOZIES of tantrums at 18 months or so... we determined it was hunger and exhaustion/or a combination thereof, that triggered her wild and thrashing behavior. since this revelation, i try to always have a banana or raisins, etc. with me... if she begins to do the grumpy thing, i offer her a piece of fruit, pretzel... and in a typical situation, she becomes "just fine..." i try to feed her small snacks FREQUENTLY... we are guessing that she might have issues with low blood sugar... just like her mommy...
our tantrums [daughter age 2] are often successfully pre-empted by FOOD, yes, food... i have a feeling this might be poorly received by the group... anyway, we discovered this trick when she was beginning to start having DOOZIES of tantrums at 18 months or so... we determined it was hunger and exhaustion/or a combination thereof, that triggered her wild and thrashing behavior. since this revelation, i try to always have a banana or raisins, etc. with me... if she begins to do the grumpy thing, i offer her a piece of fruit, pretzel... and in a typical situation, she becomes "just fine..." i try to feed her small snacks FREQUENTLY... we are guessing that she might have issues with low blood sugar... just like her mommy...
mcf - just like with julia, food helps out with my tantrums, too, especially when accompanied with a nice glass of wine.
What an absolutely beautiful child. Those clear blue eyes... man.
Two things we've tried to remember with our kids: 1) We are parents, not friends. (this will come in handy during Lucy's teen years) and 2) Kids may bridle at structure, but the right amount -- usually more than *they* think they want -- makes them feel confident and secure. Also, it keeps the parents from frequently wigging out and screaming in ways that make neither kid nor parent comfortable in the long run. :-)
I can't get over how much Lucy looks like Tessa in that photo! Gorgeous!
When I was in grad school, I went to a conference in Scotland with my advisor. His wife and 2 year old daughter, Heather, came along. The four of us rented a car and spent a few days driving around Scotland before the meeting started. On several long rides, we endured many, many tantrums typical of a 2 year old. We quickly learned the distraction technique, as Neva suggested above. As soon as Heather would start wailing about something, one of us would chime in with "Look Heather... sheep!" Which would immediately arrest her tears and she would stare wide-eyed out the window and ask "Where?????" Worked amazingly every time.
As scientists, we of course concluded that sheep must have incredibly potent, tantrum-inhibiting properties.Cris
are you sure lucy didn't come with contact lenses?