Temper Tantrums

Oh boy. Temper tantrums are my least favorite thing to deal with as a mother. I have tried every solution that I or any of my peers can think of to bring relief from the nasty things. I so wish that there was a vaccination for temper tantrums. I have even purchased books on the matter including, Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours (Too bad I already lost mine) and Tempering Your Child's Tantrums (My kids are still WILD animals!). I don't know about you but it seems like I read the books and think, "Now that's a great idea, I will have to try that," and then 2 weeks later I find myself searching for the book because the steps just aren't working like they used to. I think to myself, "Surely I must have missed something."

Tantrums are no respecter of children. They hit girls and boys, 5 year olds and 3 year olds alike. I am told that tantrums even rear their ugly heads in teenagers! Good grief. That is exactly what I say when one of my kids begins with one. It is usually when I am in the middle of a grocery store with a cart load of groceries, melting ice cream and lukewarm meat. Of course I have to be on the fullest aisle in the whole store when one of my kids breaks down. I am in a hurry to pay for my groceries and my son is on the floor screaming his head of while I am crouched over him trying to reason with him. Dr. Dobson would surely have some things to say to me! There have been many times where I am tempted to just leave the whole dumb cart on that aisle and take my kids to the car. The drive home would be filled with my tears of frustration and a pit stop to the drive thru Starbucks. Goodness sakes.

My son's most recent tantrum, yes they happen quite often, was prefaced by a frustrating situation that just fueled the fire for both of us. My son is in the last stages, (oh please let it be), of potty training. This has been an extremely trying time for me as my daughter didn't seem to beat around the bush with potty training. My son feels as though he has to pee every 5 minutes. So of course I rush him to the potty because I am sick and tired of scrubbing it out of my carpet. Let's hope the next owners of this house don't have one of those black lights that detect cat pee because there would be a kid pee mosaic to be found. Anyway, I was tired, had a sore throat and my son was sitting on the potty laughing and yes I am sorry to say it, just playing in every aspect of the word. This was the third time in ten minutes he was on the potty demanding that he had to go. I finally got him down and washed his hands. He wanted an M&M for trying. (Maybe that is the answer to the frequency of his urinary urges...M&Ms). I told him to open his mouth because he has already stained my microfiber couch with blue dye from a prior M&M...whoever thought of the slogan 'melts in your mouth not in your hands' needs severe punishment. I put the candy in his mouth and thus began the tantrum. He wanted to put it in his mouth himself. So, he spit out the red M&M and it tumbled down my blouse, all over his shorts and onto the floor. He began crying and I briskly put him down. He continued his scream of, "I wanted to do it." Thank you son, I know that now. The tantrum continued.

I am going to be completely transparent with you. I would like to tell you that I quietly walked away after informing my son that his behavior was inappropriate. Nope. Much to my children's dismay I threw my own tantrum. I stamped in place, screamed, cried and I am embarrassed to say, I even threw the M&M across the kitchen. Talk about a tantrum. I threw the granddaddy of them all. I was a horrible example, a hypocrite and an ungodly mother all in a matter of seconds. I don't know why I thought that it would make me feel better because all it did was give me a headache, more cleanup, a lot of explaining and load of repenting. I cleaned up right away but I hesitated in my confession out of shame. What kind of mother was I?

I am thankful for Romans 3:23 that says, "For everyone has sinned; (mothers included) we all fall short of God's glorious standard." You can say that again. I not only fell short, I missed the target completely. I am thankful that the Lord helped me to get up and go to my kids to talk. I apologized and asked for their forgiveness. Maybe after seeing their mother act like such an ape they will think twice before their next tantrum. I am not sure that any psychologist would buy that story, but if it works I'll write my own tantrum book. :)