Posts for category ‘Tantrums’

I have heard this question a lot: How can I stop my child hitting during his tantrums?

This an interesting question.  More and more parents seem to be asking it.  And I’ve heard many answers ranging from “ignore it they’ll grow out of it” to “spank them until they learn not to hit anymore”.

There are draw backs to each of these answers:

1. If you ignore the problem and assume they will grow out of it you might want to think again.  Most often the older the child gets the more violent they will become because they learn that there are no consequences to their actions.  The end results can be drastic.  They can be taken away from the home and placed in a hospital.  One child I know was sent to one at 13 years old.  He is now 18 and is constantly begging his parents to let him come home.  Each time he gets out, the hitting starts again.  Another one ended up in prison.  A third is in his 20s now and people are betting that he will be killed for his behavior.

2. The other extreme is to spank them.  I say this is an extreme because what is spanking really teaching a child?  That hitting is okay.  And if a parent beats them, in today’s world it is known as child abuse.

I have heard people say that after following one of these options their kids grew up to be responsible adults but is this guaranteed?  Not really.

My own response is this:

1. If another child is being hit, stop it immediately by removing the child being hit.  If it is you being hit remove yourself from the situation.

2. Do not raise your voice in anger; stay calm.  If you don’t, it will aggravate the situation.  Quietly say to your child “I need you to calm down now”.  When she is calm, praise her for settling down.

3. Teach your child to use his words rather than violence.  The goal is for them to be able to say “I am angry” calmly and explain why.  Remember to praise them each time they react this way.  If you, as a parent, act this way as well when you are angry, it will help them learn more quickly.

It will take time for your child to learn this.  My son still needs several prompts to leave the room when he is angry but he will do it.

My son was a hitter.  My wife and I had tried a lot of things to stop it.  We would spank him but this escalated him even more.  We tried to ignore it but his response would be to hit harder or more often.  We would scream.  We would take away privileges.  Nothing helped.

That is, nothing until we discovered the book “Misbehavior To Great Behavior” which has ways to stop inappropriate behaviors.  Today we’ve come a long way.  My son very rarely “forgets” and hits.  Generally the worst he does is to raise his fist and threaten us but within moments it is down and he is ready for his consequence.

It has been a mixed bag of a day today. It has had its ups and downs and we have a long way to go before it is over. It started out like any other Thursday. We got Max off to school and then I went over to my mother’s house. Every Thursday I do the work that she needs to have done. I washed the shingles on the roof; there has been a lot of mold this year. I also trimmed back her bushes. Then after that it was time for a road trip.

Several weeks ago I put up a guest post from my friend Rich Mountain regarding an organization called suitcases4kids. Its goal is to replace the garbage bags that kids in foster care use to move their belongings with suitcases. Ever since I told her about it Mom has been searching out and giving me 3 or 4 suitcases a week to give to the charity. Today when I arrived she handed me 2 but then she wanted to stop at a couple of places where she has had good luck finding them.

We found 1 suitcase at our first stop but then saw a beautiful one at the second. As we entered the place a gold Mercedes Benz pulled in behind our car. A fiftyish man got out dressed in expensive clothes. He was wearing a tight v-neck jersey with black chest hair pouring out and gold chains around his neck. He followed us inside.

This is an interesting place. Residents of this town drop of items that are in good condition that they don’t need anymore. If they or someone else sees something they like they can just take it. There is no rhyme or reason to the place. People drop their things anywhere they find a space so as a result rather than having a clear path to move through quite often we have to step over things to get to another spot.

Mom has had good luck finding suitcases here. She has a system; move through the place once to see if she finds anything she wants. Once she completes her first circuit anything she has picked up she hands off to a companion, me in this case. She then makes a second run because she finds that she always misses things the first time. Depending on her mood she may make several more trips after this.

It was during the second pass that I saw the beautiful suitcase; some child would love this. As I moved towards it suddenly out of nowhere appeared that gentleman who had also discovered it. He scooped it up before I got there and examined it to see if it was in good condition. I was amused that he was even interested in it; even more so when I found out that he was going to sell it in a yard sale. When I approached him and suggested he donate it to the kids he shrugged me off; apparently the money was more important. No matter, Mom had found 3 so far this week for me.

When we were done I dropped my mother off at her house and headed home. My wife was waiting for me at the door; she was unhappy. She had been sick for some time and had finally been able to see her doctor. After he tested her he gave her some not so good news. He said that she had parasites, a yeast infection, and a tape worm; he prescribed some medicines for her. He also suggested she stop eating wheat because of all the gluten and chocolate because of the sugar. He said that she was feeding the parasites, the yeast, and the worm.

She won’t have much of an issue cutting out wheat; she has been slowly working on doing that for some time now. It is the chocolate she will have a problem with. As she puts it, she’s been eating it since she was a baby. She calls it her addiction. I believe it; I have seen her kneeling on the floor in store candy aisles pulling bags of candy off the bottom shelf just so she can find the ones that she loves. We will be working on this one for awhile.

And guess what? Max got home from school on time but then had a meltdown. Why? He didn’t know; he just knew that he was upset. I convinced him to sit quietly on the couch until he could get it together. When he recovered we told him he could have his best friend over. This was a big deal; they haven’t been together for 3 weeks. Separating them started out as loss of privilege, or punishment, or whatever you want to call it. Max had taken issue with something his friend had said and started hitting him. We took Bobby home and told my son that he couldn’t play with him for a few days.

But when we gave Max back the privilege of seeing his friend, Bobby had disappeared. Turns out he and his mom went on vacation and when they got back she was very sick so we weren’t able to communicate with them. 3 weeks later the boys are back together and as I write they are having a ball. They are dividing their time between playing indoors and outside. It’s about to rain so I expect they’ll be camping out soon in front of my office door.

Even though the day is far from over it has certainly been a mixed day of successes and upsets. I’m hoping for a quiet relaxing evening tonight. Oh wait, probably not. The “So You Think You Can Dance” result show is on tonight and I know my wife will be terribly upset at whoever is cut. It has been whittled down to 4 girls and 4 boys and unfortunately my wife loves all of them.

Did I say I was hoping for a relaxing evening?

I read a wonderful post on respect over the weekend. How do we treat our children? Yes, I know we are the parents; we “know” what’s best for them and they must listen to us. Okay, maybe we do but how do we get it across to them?

Do we treat them with respect both at home and in public as we try to discipline them? Or do we yell and scream at them, humiliate them, maybe even swat their butts…especially when people are around watching us. Too many parents feel those eyes as their child is misbehaving and consciously or subconsciously feel the need to get the upper hand quickly; perhaps to show that they are “good” parents.

As a result our children can end up feeling like a nobody. They can not only lose respect for themselves but also for their parents. Have you noticed how they can stop listening to us? Sometimes it is almost like we aren’t in the room even though we are standing over them.

“How crude can we be at times in our conduct with our children. We’ll scold them in the middle of everyone in the party. We’ll drag them in the mall. Worse, we’ll nonchalantly criticize them in a group using words like ‘fussy’, ‘irritable’, and ‘stubborn’ in their presence.”

I don’t know how you were raised but can you remember back what it was like as a young child looking up at your parents towering over you? And being angry with you? Perhaps yelling at you? And what about those other parents watching everything that is happening? How did it make you feel?

Respect has been in my mind a lot lately. I’ve been wondering if we are treating our son well. Max is 8 years old; he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, adhd, odd, pdd/nos, and ocd. Both in public and private he can become very explosive if things aren’t going his way. Our rule is that if this happens publically we cannot go back to that location for awhile. But we tend to do more than that, especially if we are exhausted by all of the daily drama.

Just before I read the post above Max and I had gone to the movies. We saw the “Night At The Museum” sequel. He had already seen it once and couldn’t wait to go again. After I bought the tickets he suddenly realized he had wanted to see the new movie “Up in Disney Digital 3D“. He had a meltdown. My response was to tell him if he didn’t want to see the museum movie he could go sit in the corner and wait until I was done watching it. And I said this in front of a lot of other people.

He did go to the movie and he did enjoy it but it set the tone for the rest of the day. Everything he did was wrong…mostly by his standards not ours. If he spilled something he would get upset with himself. If we tried to comfort him he would turn his anger on us.

Most people treat others respectfully. Even if you are angry with a friend or coworker would you scream at them? Or would you find a better way to get your message across so there won’t be a lot of upset? But as mentioned in the article we don’t treat our children the same way as we do other people. Not only that we expect them to be “adult” about it, that is, “take it like a man”. We also expect them to learn from us. And they do; they learn to treat their children the same way. In some cases their spirits may even get broken.

My eyes were really opened after reading this article. I love my son and I don’t want him feeling any worse about himself. He already feels badly considering the way his disabilities make him feel.

I hope other people can recognize a little of themselves too and perhaps make some changes in how they react to their kids.

The young boy rode into the bicycle park with his heart pounding.  He was excited and very nervous.  He looked at the ramps and he looked at the ledges.  Today he knew he was going to be able to ride his bike up to a ledge.  Previous attempts had led to him jump off it at the last minute and throw it up as best he could.

Before starting his run he went over to his parents who were sitting on a bench along the sidelines.  He pulled his unopened bottle of juice out of his pocket and handed it to them.  He turned his bike around and got ready.  Today was going to be a good day.  Then off he shot, circling around the park, over the low ramps, getting himself ready to ride up to the first ledge.  Then he went, heading straight for it.

Half way up he was off the bike and throwing it up the hill.  It didn’t make it.  With a lot of perseverance he was able to get to the top and drag his bike up.  Once there he turned it and climbed aboard.  He stared down the slope and gauged his path to take him over the low ramps in front of him.  He shot forward and down, across the park, and flew over the ramps.  At the end he stopped and looked back.  Yes, that was a good run; the initial ride up the slope was all but forgotten.

Next, he started riding through the structures.  He went around the backs of some of them and skirted the edges of the park.  On one pass as he rode he felt himself start to tip forward.  He slowed and looked down.  His front tire was flat.  He realized he must have hit some of the broken glass that was behind the high ramps.  This was disappointing; it meant that his ride was over for the day.

He slowly wheeled his bike over to his parents and showed them what happened.  He then grabbed his juice, opened it, and took a swig.  Closing the bottle he brought the bike to the center of the park and laid it down.  Was there a way to fix it without having to leave?  He couldn’t find the puncture.  As he looked he felt rage welling up inside him.  It was something he rarely felt this strongly.  He couldn’t control it.  He got up, picked up the bike and threw it as far as he could.  He ran over to it and started to jump up and down on the damaged tire.

From the sidelines his parents realized what was happening.  He had gone from calm but unhappy about his bike to a raging animal.  His mom grabbed the juice and read the label.  It read “Red Dye #40″ in it.  From their experience they knew that after getting the dye into his system he was now out of control.  She threw the bottle into the trash can which enraged the boy even more.  He ran to the barrel screaming for his juice.  He dumped the barrel and found it amidst all of the trash piled on the pavement.  He was told to pick up the trash, and he did, throwing it at his dad as he did so.

Meanwhile mom grabbed the bike and headed to the car.  This meant leaving the bike park, walking through some tennis courts, then around a playground just to get into the parking lot.  The boy followed his mom around the corner and out of sight as dad picked up the trash and headed to join them.  Halfway through the courts he heard his wife scream “Don’t hit me!”  He started to run and as he went around the corner he saw his boy punching mom over and over.  When dad ran up to them the boy turned his rage against him.

Both parents later told me about the ordeal the three were going through.  As the boy punched him, his dad turned him around and held him close. But the boy kept getting worse, to the point where dad was holding him on the ground telling him not to move until he had calmed down.  While this was going on dad kept thinking about all of the parents in the playground.  When he looked up, he saw them putting their kids in their cars because they were worried what this boy might do to them.

When he was relatively calm dad put him in the car.  His wife told me later that as they left the parking lot all she could think about were cell phones with cameras possibly taking pictures and even calling the police.  As they headed down the road, about two miles from the parking lot blue lights started flashing.  Dad told me this was the first time he had ever been pulled over.

The policeman got off of his motorcycle and walked over to the car.  “Good afternoon Sir, license and registration please”.  Dad handed them over, “What’s the problem officer?”  “You were speeding.”  “Sorry, I wasn’t watching.”  Mom piped up, “we were trying to rush home because we had a boy that was exploding.”

The policeman looked in back of the car, “how old are you?”  “I’m 8,” said the boy.  The policeman nodded, “we have had 8 year olds in our jail.”  He looked at dad, “should I arrest him?”  Dad looked at his wife and then at his son, “should I let him?”  In a small voice the boy said “no”.

“Ok”, said the policeman, “but remember, we are here to help.  If you have any other problems we’ll take care of him.”  He let them go with a warning to drive slowly and went back to his motorcycle.

As they drove off the boy asked, “how was he going to take me to jail on his motorcycle?”  Dad said, “As we were leaving I watched a cruiser in the mirror pull in behind him.  He had called for back up.”  On the way home every time the family passed a cruiser parked on the side of the road the boy wanted to know it they were waiting for him.  Mom answered that she didn’t know but it is possible that they radioed ahead to keep an eye on him just in case.”

He was very subdued the rest of the day and into the evening and there were no other incidents.

His mom says he understands what happens if he has anything with red dye.  He is usually very good about checking labels before eating or drinking anything that contains it.  It seems like once in awhile though he has a craving for a product with it and then these are the results.

My son Max, who is 8 years old, goes to school like most kids. His school, however, has a half day every Wednesday. He is home by 1 pm and, until recently, we had to fill up every minute with things for him to do so the explosions would be averted. Parents, whose kids are bipolar, or adhd, or pdd/nos, or another disorder will understand what I mean.

His current Wednesday schedule is to come home and drop off his backpack. He then goes off with his Wednesday mentor for an hour. After that his play therapist spends another hour with him and then at 3 pm he is off to a 3 hour program in the next town. He and I usually top off the night by riding bikes before bedtime.

Max loves structure. When something happens to disrupt it we can be subjected to a major tirade. When he was younger we were very new at this. Okay, so is this upset due to his bipolar disorder or is it just a typical tantrum that all kids have. It took us a long time to figure out the difference. At that time we believed that we should be ignoring the disorder related explosion and coming down on him for the typical stuff.

As a result he got away with a lot of things. Now we understand that we should not be overlooking any of the tantrums. Yes, some of them might be related to his disorders but just like any kid he has to learn that inappropriate behavior is still inappropriate no matter what the cause. Because he got away with so much when he was younger there are a lot of things he has to unlearn and relearn.

When Max was last in the hospital the doctors told us that added to his other diagnoses he also has Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). This is a fancy way of saying he has temper tantrums, is easily annoyed, and refuses to comply with our rules and requests. They had two recommendations that surprised us…and woke us up. They told us to watch “The Dog Whisperer” and “SuperNanny”*.

“SuperNanny”* was to show us how to discipline Max. Having disorders does not give him a free pass to act badly; we still have to teach him that he cannot do these things.

Cesar Millan is successful in “The Dog Whisperer” because when training his animals he is “calm assertive”, he doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t get angry, quietly and assertively he teaches these dogs to behave.

Too many parents either yell and scream or, like me, get a stern hard edge to their voices. Whichever way we choose we are not being “calm assertive”. As a result things can get worse rather than better.

I can’t say that I have this “calm assertive” stuff always working yet though I’ve noticed that when I do act like this Max complies with fewer melt downs and is much happier,

Yesterday afternoon he and I went hiking with his friends and another dad. It started out okay, Max was enjoying himself. Then something changed and nothing seemed to go right for him. The toy gun he brought appeared to break which upset him. We were hiking in a different direction than he wanted to go. The older boys kept running ahead and he couldn’t keep up. Well, the tantrums kept coming fast and furious. Dad was having trouble keeping his cool. It was so tough we both wanted to go home! It wasn’t until the end of the hike that we were both calm and walking hand in hand back out of the forest. The rest of the gang had long since forged ahead and we didn’t catch up to them until we reached the car.

Thinking about it later I can see that there were better ways to handle this rather than being part of the problem.

Today was a different story. I mentioned earlier about the structure we have set up after his half day is over. His mentor generally comes first. However, this morning he called while Max was in school. He informed me that he had to go to an emergency meeting at his office so he wouldn’t be able to keep his appointment today.

I knew Max would be devastated and would probably explode and have a very tough time before his therapist arrived. I decided to take him to lunch. We went to the 99 restaurant where he wanted prime rib. Whoops, another tantrum possibility…what if they don’t have it for lunch. Before we went he agreed that if this happened he would have a cheeseburger.

It turns out prime rib is only served Thursday through Sunday after 4 pm. The meltdown almost started until I reminded him about our earlier discussion. He settled for pizza and Caesar salad. And didn’t the boy who rarely eats lunch devour the whole thing! We then got home in time to meet his therapist.

Meltdowns were averted and as I write this he is off to his 3 hour program where, I believe, for the next few sessions they are having drama classes. Perfect for the boy who loves costumes!

So now I have a question for parents with kids who, like Max, have bipolar disorder, adhd, pdd/nos, or another disorder. How do you handle the meltdown situations? Have you found a way that works best? Have you had any success in retraining your kids so that they have better control?

*”SuperNanny” was originally posted as “The Nanny”