One idea that I got from my sister-in-law is to designate a spot that my children can go to when they need to cry. For us, it's their bed; and I've never found that it's caused them to hate their bed or rebel when it's time to go to sleep or anything like that. I think it's so obviously different when I tuck them in bed to sleep versus placing them there so they can cry, and they don't get confused about it. I realized that sometimes, everybody just needs a good cry (even me!); and I don't want to stuff that completely. However, it is NOT acceptable to have tantrums all over the house, disrupting everyone else who is there. As the video shows, it's done mostly for the attention! So when the child is placed away from the attention, they are able to get themselves under control, figure out if they need to cry anymore or if they're ready to be happy, and then come and rejoin the rest of the family when their attitude is better. I used this for my boys when they were quite young, and I still use it for them at age 2 and almost 5. Of course, when they were really young and couldn't verbalize what was going on, I made sure that their crying wasn't caused by another source (pain, dirty diaper, etc.). But it didn't take too long to figure out when their crying was simply a tantrum and when it would be beneficial to calmly and lovingly (that's important!) remove them from the scene and let them have a little time and space to sort themselves out. I don't use this technique for all discipline issues, but for this tantrum issue, it's worked the best for us. Hope it helps! And have a very happy Mother's Day!!!
2 comments:
One idea that I got from my sister-in-law is to designate a spot that my children can go to when they need to cry. For us, it's their bed; and I've never found that it's caused them to hate their bed or rebel when it's time to go to sleep or anything like that. I think it's so obviously different when I tuck them in bed to sleep versus placing them there so they can cry, and they don't get confused about it. I realized that sometimes, everybody just needs a good cry (even me!); and I don't want to stuff that completely. However, it is NOT acceptable to have tantrums all over the house, disrupting everyone else who is there. As the video shows, it's done mostly for the attention! So when the child is placed away from the attention, they are able to get themselves under control, figure out if they need to cry anymore or if they're ready to be happy, and then come and rejoin the rest of the family when their attitude is better. I used this for my boys when they were quite young, and I still use it for them at age 2 and almost 5. Of course, when they were really young and couldn't verbalize what was going on, I made sure that their crying wasn't caused by another source (pain, dirty diaper, etc.). But it didn't take too long to figure out when their crying was simply a tantrum and when it would be beneficial to calmly and lovingly (that's important!) remove them from the scene and let them have a little time and space to sort themselves out. I don't use this technique for all discipline issues, but for this tantrum issue, it's worked the best for us. Hope it helps! And have a very happy Mother's Day!!!
Thanks for the advice!
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