Struggle Buddy: Today I’m Struggling With…Tantrums

I’m Alex, and today I’m struggling with tantrums. My daughter is in this super intense phase right now where she plays hard, laughs hard, snuggles hard, naps hard…and tantrums. Real hard. She’s the most delightful demogorgon you ever did meet. My sweet baby angel can go from zero to straight-up hell creature in the time it takes me to look at her the wrong way.

Tantrums are at once mind-bogglingly complex and infuriatingly simple. If you’re reading a mommy blog, you probably already know this, at least intellectually. There are so many things that can cause them, including absolutely nothing, and there’s a range of ages at which they’re developmentally appropriate for neurotypical kids. Obviously, neurodiversity adds a million layers, and that’s not what I’m talking about here. Sometimes, they’re just the result of little developing, overstimulated brains pretty much short-circuiting. Other times, they’re very effective manipulation tactics.

We’ve been seeing both of those around these parts for the last couple of weeks. Last Monday, DD (no, not “dear daughter.” I’m not all about that mommy forum newspeak—get outta here with that. I’m referring to the pet name “Delightful Demogorgon”) forgot she was a human in the Target parking lot, and it took me no less than ten full minutes to buckle her into her carseat. I was sweating as though I’d wrestled a fully grown alligator by the time I got into the driver’s seat. On Thursday, she lost her marbles every time we tried to get into or out of the car, transition to a new activity at home, or end an outing. It took us 45 minutes to get from the door to the end of the driveway at one point. It was so fun, you guys.

Did you know tantrums are contagious? They’re like yawns. It doesn’t matter how well I know why she just can’t keep it together; most of the time, when she throws herself on the floor and kicks and screams and bites inedible, inanimate objects, I do the same thing, only in my mind. Sympathy tantrums, I like to call them.

Raise your hand if your sympathy tantrum has ever leaked out of your mind and staged some next level performance art. No? Just me? Hey, you back there, avoiding eye contact. You’ve leaked. I can see it. It isn’t pretty. You probably tried a bunch of other things first; you empathized, offered comfort and got accidentally kicked in the face, offered a bribe—oh, I mean incentive—reversed the psychology, redirected…and then yelled. Maybe you said a cuss word (or all the cuss words) or slammed a door. I bet you even cried and stomped away.

I can tell you for a fact that I did all of those things last week. Not with every tantrum, but there were one or two that put me over the edge.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, I must really admire my kid.

So, what happens after a synchronized meltdown? The human in training recovers as quickly as she shape-shifted, picks up her toy car, and resumes her game of driving it under the dog. I, however, wallow in self-loathing for the next hour. Every doubt I’ve ever had about my ability to be a decent mom bubbles up, no matter how irrational, and it takes every fiber of self-assurance available to me to shake it off. Why is it so hard to follow DD’s lead in one direction, but not in the other?

Well, I think it’s because adults are inflexible by nature. Little kids have this amazing ability to catapult from big feeling to big feeling, and for a phase in their development, most of them go balls to the walls on expressing those feelings. They can afford to, since they bounce back so fast. As we get older, we spend more time stuck in feelings, particularly negative ones. We let them hang around while we ponder or fear their implications, and they impede our ability to embrace the chance to change gears.

Thursday evening, after a full day of insanity, DD and I volunteered at a nonprofit expo. It was noisy and busy, and the atmosphere was festive, and I was so not in the mood after a 25 minute drive with a screaming kid. When we arrived, friends greeted us with smiles and how-are-yous, which I met with exasperated, smiley, eye-roll, head-nods toward the culprit of the day’s drama, and “Oh, we’re…fine!” I just wanted to do my job at the event, pack up, and go home and put her to bed.

Girlfriend had other plans, though. After an exhausting day of ups and downs, she was the life of the party. Literally. She started a dance party with a bunch of strangers at a decidedly non-dance-partyish event. The presence of a veritable demogorgon brought pure joy to about a hundred adults in business attire.

As I watched her get down with her bad self, I had a moment of clarity: I don’t have to carry this moment into the next one. I know this isn’t a new idea. It’s the definition of living in the moment. What’s new is that I realized that I live in a house with someone who practices that expertly, and I’d be a really big idiot not to take advantage of the chance to relearn the skill, which I lost somewhere along the way to becoming an adult.

Tantrums still suck. They’re always going to suck. They’re inconvenient, embarrassing, physically and emotionally draining, and perplexing, but they’re a reality of life with a toddler. Might as well try to save myself some money on a life coach and use the one I already pay in food, clothing, and shelter.

Alex Wegman is a technology consultant and full time mom who used to write about traveling, her husband, service dogs, and encountering crazy strangers as a person in a wheelchair. But since giving birth to her Delightful Demogorgon, she’s gotten most of her inspiration from the everyday “joys” of parenting. Alex is looking forward to a big surge of new writing prompts as DD crashes and tumbles into toddlerhood. You can follow along with @alexwegman on Instagram!