I:1:T 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 look more carefully at this paradigm. (I promise-that is the only super-annoying scholarly word I'll use here.) Responding to temper tantrums by mostly ignoring them is the basis of a decades- or even centuries-old parenting model or set of practices, assumptions, values, and concepts that presents a misguided or wrongheaded way of seeing temper 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 just begs a few questions. What way to measure is there for parents so they can figure out if they're ignoring the temper tantrums well enough or thoroughly enough? No, I'm just kidding. I doubt that anybody asks such a question. Yet they should. How could parents even know if ignoring tantrums is a beneficial and valid technique like the parenting experts say it is? There is no success or change whatsoever to measure and no tools for evaluating this technique's effectiveness. This technique doesn't claim to be effective by way of making a change. It's not supposed to solve anything with this technique. If the tantrum behavior happens to stay the same as before or even gets worse, tantrum parents are just supposed to keep on responding by ignoring just because the 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 look more carefully at this paradigm. (I promise-that is the only super-annoying scholarly word I'll use here.) Responding to temper tantrums by mostly ignoring them is the basis of a decades- or even centuries-old parenting model or set of practices, assumptions, values, and concepts that presents a misguided or wrongheaded way of seeing temper 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 just begs a few questions. What way to measure is there for parents so they can figure out if they're ignoring the temper tantrums well enough or thoroughly enough? No, I'm just kidding. I doubt that anybody asks such a question. Yet they should. How could parents even know if ignoring tantrums is a beneficial and valid technique like the parenting experts say it is? There is no success or change whatsoever to measure and no tools for evaluating this technique's effectiveness. This technique doesn't claim to be effective by way of making a change. It's not supposed to solve anything with this technique. If the tantrum behavior happens to stay the same as before or even gets worse, tantrum parents are just supposed to keep on responding by ignoring just because the 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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