Having a toddler can be a real challenge, and I think maybe the one that strikes me as being the biggest challenge for the largest number of parents, is what you might call a \u201ctoddler meltdown\u201d, or a temper tantrum, or, but meltdown is a better, I think a better term. And so often when, when a child has a meltdown, the kinds of advice that parents get from their pediatrician, from the child\u2019s preschool teacher or day care provider, from lots of different places, lots of professionals, the advice that parents get is, \u201cWell, you need to manage that. You need to get him to stop that. And the way to do it is time him out.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A time-out is based on the idea of making the child go off by himself and sit there until he can calm himself down and then he can come back and rejoin the family, or rejoin the activity. Now if the child is doing this thing absolutely on purpose, then that\u2019s certainly appropriate. But we estimate that toddlers are doing this on purpose maybe only one time out of, one or two times out of 10. Maybe only 10 or 15 or 20% of the time. The vast majority of the time, the toddler is not doing this meltdown on purpose but rather there\u2019s something else that happens. What we realize is that meltdowns, most of the time, happen because a child, a toddler wants to do something, or he wants something, and he\u2019s being frustrated, maybe it\u2019s because he can\u2019t climb up that slide. Or maybe it\u2019s that he wants to play with his sister\u2019s toy, or play with something dangerous and the parents says, \u201cNo, no, you need to share\u201d, or \u201cNo, no, you\u2019re going to get hurt with that, you can\u2019t play with it.\u201d And so the child has a meltdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what we know now, is that what\u2019s really going on there is again, this child is not very wise yet–he\u2019s only a little toddler\u2014when he\u2019s frustrated, he has the same kind of feeling that all of us have. This feeling that kind of wells up in us and it\u2019s like \u201cAwww\u201d kind of feeling. Well as adults, we\u2019ve learned how to manage that feeling. We\u2019ve learned how to cope with that situation. The problem is, for the toddler, he\u2019s still a little, little kid and he hasn\u2019t developed a strategy yet for doing that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we have another graphic that we use that we call the \u201cCircle of Repair\u201d. And on that circle of repair is the same circle with the hands represented by the parents, and in addition to that, over on the right hand side, there\u2019s this little kid with his arms up. And he\u2019s saying, \u201cMom, when I get difficult, when I get frustrated, demanding, upset, out of control, what\u2019s really going on, what\u2019s really going on is not that I\u2019m trying to hurt you, or that I\u2019m trying to be bad, or anything like that. What\u2019s really going on is, I\u2019m having this feeling that is really uncomfortable for me, that I hate, that, that I don\u2019t know what to do with and that\u2019s the most important part. I\u2019m having this feeling and I don\u2019t know what to do with it. And I need you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there are a number of steps that sort of become the parent\u2019s job in this situation and these steps need to be taken in this order. First of all, to understand, that your toddler\u2019s behaviour, this out of control, meltdown behaviour, actually means that he needs you to do a number of things and he needs you to do them in this order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, he needs you to take charge. He\u2019s out of control and when little kids are out of control, they need their parents to take charge. \u201cBe bigger than me. Be stronger and wiser than me. Mom or dad, you need to take control first of all and get things under control.\u201d Second thing is, don\u2019t take it personally. \u201cPlease don\u2019t take it personally mom. I\u2019m not, this signal that I\u2019m sending, is not a signal that says to you, \u2018I don\u2019t like you, I don\u2019t need you, I don\u2019t want you, I hate you\u2019. Even if I say \u2018I hate you\u2019, I don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third thing is try and help, \u201cyou need to try and figure out, mom, what\u2019s wrong here. What do I need as the toddler? What do I need and what do you need to do? What\u2019s going on with me? I\u2019m too young to be able to figure it out.\u201d So that\u2019s your job. Is to figure out \u201cWhat\u2019s going on with my child?\u201d And the rule here is, we often tend to, to make an inference. We often tend to think, \u201cOh, this is what my kid is doing\u201d. And it\u2019s usually what we call a negative inference. \u201cMy kid is doing this to bug me. My kid is doing this because he\u2019s angry with me. He hates me. Some negative thing about me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the rule here is, be kind in the inference you make, be kind in the inference you make. Don\u2019t make a negative inference. For these 80% of the time, sometimes negative inference is going to be appropriate but probably only 20% of the time. \u201cEighty percent of the time you need to make a kind inference about what\u2019s going on about me.\u201d Once you\u2019ve made that inference and figured out, then the job is, \u201cSoothe me. Try to calm me down. In a kind way. Understanding I don\u2019t know what to do, I\u2019m out of control and I need you to take me in and contain me and help me feel better and soothe me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, the next thing is, \u201cStay with me until we both understand what\u2019s too much for me to understand all alone here. Stay with me with this.\u201d Now, if I\u2019m three, four, five-years-old, then I\u2019m already at the point where you can talk to me about it and we can have a conversation about this. Most of the time with toddlers though, language hasn\u2019t developed enough and so it\u2019s really a matter of, \u201cStaying with me and holding me and giving me the message, \u2018It\u2019s okay, it\u2019s going to be okay, I\u2019m working on figuring out what\u2019s going on inside you honey\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then finally when you\u2019ve got that figured out, mom, then help me to do what I was trying to do, but do it differently. And help me learn how to contain myself, and help me learn how to manage those awful feelings that I\u2019ve been having. And just by being with me and holding me, or holding my hand, or sitting next to me or something like that is going to help me learn how to contain them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now this comes back again, all the way back, to this notion of time-out. What this approach is is more like a \u201ctime-in\u201d. It\u2019s not really a time-out. It\u2019s more like a time-in. \u201cMy child is out of control, he\u2019s hurting. He\u2019s having a feeling that\u2019s really uncomfortable and he doesn\u2019t know how to deal with it. So my reaction should be, \u201cCome here honey, let me help you\u201d. That\u2019s the first thing. And soothe him down. Calm him down, and then help him. So if you\u2019re going to tell your child what he should have done instead, wait until he\u2019s calm because he\u2019s not going to be able to learn if he\u2019s all upset and still on the meltdown. He\u2019s not going to hear what you\u2019re saying. So calm him down, help soothe him, then help him figure out what to do next time that will be more successful. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having a toddler can be a real challenge, and I think maybe the one that strikes me as being the biggest challenge for the largest number of parents, is what you might call a \u201ctoddler meltdown\u201d, or a temper tantrum, or, but meltdown is a better, I think a better term. And so often when, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-text-only.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1794","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1794\/revisions\/1795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}