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How Temper Tantrums Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know Frunhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
0:11
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chas Chuck Bryant,
0:15
Speaker 1: and again we have our guest producer, Noel. He's thrashing
0:19
Speaker 1: about on the ground, vomiting, screaming, capillary's bursting in his cheek.
0:24
Speaker 1: Ye all because we wouldn't give him a third pork chop.
0:29
Speaker 1: Not true? Yeah, boy, temper tantrums are. I always feel
0:34
Speaker 1: so bad for the parents in public, you know, Oh really,
0:37
Speaker 1: I always think like, you screwed up your kid already.
0:40
Speaker 1: See you're so wrong. And we're about to dispel that. Yeah,
0:44
Speaker 1: it's true, although I did see a Um we're about
0:48
Speaker 1: to talk a lot about why it's not the parents fault.
0:50
Speaker 1: But I did some extra research and there are experts
0:54
Speaker 1: that say you can also be a bad parent and
0:59
Speaker 1: that could leave the temper tantrums. Like, we don't want
1:02
Speaker 1: to blame parents, but you can definitely play a part.
1:05
Speaker 1: And we as a society of said, uh, from this
1:09
Speaker 1: age to this age, temper tantrums are normal. And then
1:12
Speaker 1: after that then apparently it's like the bad parenting really
1:16
Speaker 1: shines through and then they think like, yeah, there's some
1:19
Speaker 1: real problems this kid has and it's largely because of
1:22
Speaker 1: bad parenting or a bad home environment, or troubles during pregnancy,
1:27
Speaker 1: like abuse, things like that. Um, that can all lead
1:30
Speaker 1: to temper tantrums that turn into something else. Yeah, after
1:36
Speaker 1: a certain age. Yeah, this whole thing it makes me
1:38
Speaker 1: kind of uncomfortable. But just parenting advice period is so
1:43
Speaker 1: like subjective and individual. Yeah, it's it's always feel like
1:48
Speaker 1: people shouldn't tell other people how to parent, but I
1:50
Speaker 1: also feel like they're probably some pretty good guidelines to
1:54
Speaker 1: parenting too. So yeah, and if you go back and
1:57
Speaker 1: look at, um, the history of parents, Yeah, like it
2:01
Speaker 1: wasn't too long ago that it was. It kind of
2:03
Speaker 1: seems to go on a cycle. Like in the eighteenth century.
2:07
Speaker 1: Um Rousseau, the Great Enlightenment thinker, basically was one of
2:11
Speaker 1: the first to say, you know what, maybe kids aren't
2:15
Speaker 1: just miniature adults and like maybe child something special. It's
2:21
Speaker 1: a time of development we should, you know, become less
2:25
Speaker 1: parent centric and more child centric as far as parenthood goes.
2:29
Speaker 1: And um, that really kind of sparked this different idea
2:33
Speaker 1: of you know, treating kids as kids rather than adults.
2:39
Speaker 1: And then that was replaced later on by the whole
2:41
Speaker 1: like discipline and all that of the late nineteenth early
2:44
Speaker 1: twentieth century, and then that was replaced by the idea
2:48
Speaker 1: that kids, their childhood should be indulged, you know. And
2:52
Speaker 1: then Russo said, boy, fetch me in my feather, I
2:54
Speaker 1: need to throw up. Is that from Fletch, No, fletch,
3:01
Speaker 1: that's what came to mind. No, I just thought it'd
3:04
Speaker 1: be funny, you know, I need to throw up, you know,
3:07
Speaker 1: the benjing and purging back in the day, eat till
3:10
Speaker 1: you can't eat anymore than you need, stick a feather
3:12
Speaker 1: it on your throat and vomited it up. Supposedly, the
3:14
Speaker 1: vomitorium thing is a myth. Have you heard that in Rome?
3:18
Speaker 1: Ancient Rome, vomitoriums they supposedly had like places for that.
3:22
Speaker 1: I haven't heard. They were my supposedly their myth mythological
3:26
Speaker 1: and not like the minator, like the real myth, not
3:29
Speaker 1: like they want you to think. It's a myth. Got Okay,
3:34
Speaker 1: So we're talking temper tantrums, and we've already kind of said,
3:38
Speaker 1: um that during a certain period of your life, they're normal.
3:43
Speaker 1: It's actually you would be a weird kid. If you
3:45
Speaker 1: didn't have a temper tantrum pretty frequently, not weird, but
3:51
Speaker 1: you would be in the minority for sure. Okay, but
3:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're weird. Comparatively speaking, it means you're weird.
3:59
Speaker 1: So like, from age one to age three ish, they
4:03
Speaker 1: basically say, have have your temper tantrums? It's normal. Yeah,
4:07
Speaker 1: between fifty if you want a statistic of two to
4:11
Speaker 1: three year old boys and girls have at least one
4:13
Speaker 1: tantrum per week, and UM have a tantrum every day. Yeah,
4:19
Speaker 1: those kids are fun between those those years. Uh. And
4:23
Speaker 1: then there was another study from the University of Minnesota.
4:26
Speaker 1: I found even higher rates. UM. Ninety one percent of
4:30
Speaker 1: children in this study, between the ages of thirty thirty
4:35
Speaker 1: months and three years UM had a tantrum on a
4:38
Speaker 1: weekly basis. So it happens. If you had a kid,
4:42
Speaker 1: you've probably had it happen. If you don't have kids yet,
4:44
Speaker 1: it will happen to you. And if you have a
4:46
Speaker 1: kid that doesn't have tantrums, if they're weird, No, you're
4:49
Speaker 1: just lucky. Yeah, you are pretty lucky. I wasn't a
4:52
Speaker 1: tantrum thrower, I know, I'm sure I was, but I
4:56
Speaker 1: think I was a pretty good kid. Yeah, I'm not
4:58
Speaker 1: saying it never happened with me, but I was e chill. Yes,
5:01
Speaker 1: the gate. Yeah, my brother in law and sister in
5:04
Speaker 1: law lucked out a good kid who's like more hard
5:08
Speaker 1: on herself than like they are on her. That's the
5:10
Speaker 1: best self regulating kids. Yeah, she's good, and she's like
5:13
Speaker 1: right in the age two and she's very good. So
5:17
Speaker 1: she's weird. Yeah yeah, yeah, weird and all the all
5:20
Speaker 1: the best way, the right way. Yeah. The good news is, um,
5:24
Speaker 1: by the time they reached four or five, you should
5:27
Speaker 1: be seeing a large drop off or complete cessation of
5:30
Speaker 1: these tantrums. Yeah. And the reason why we say the
5:35
Speaker 1: age um, that there is an age for this to end,
5:41
Speaker 1: is because we finally figured out that the mechanisms involved
5:45
Speaker 1: in temperate tantrums. Yeah, it's a thing. It's not just
5:48
Speaker 1: my kids pain in the butter, he's in a bad mood,
5:50
Speaker 1: or he's spoiled. It's there's there's brain activity that is
5:54
Speaker 1: causing this to happen. Yes, specifically in the prefrontal cortex,
5:58
Speaker 1: or we should say there's a lack of activity in
6:00
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the
6:03
Speaker 1: brain to evolve. Yeah, like it up until your eighteenth birthday,
6:09
Speaker 1: your preformal cortex is still evolving, right, yes, and developing,
6:13
Speaker 1: is I think what we mean? Yes, yes we do.
6:16
Speaker 1: We both said evolved. But it's true. I mean, you know,
6:19
Speaker 1: the Victorians used to think that if you looked inside
6:22
Speaker 1: an egg, you would see the animal that species go
6:26
Speaker 1: through its full evolution, that that was its process of development.
6:29
Speaker 1: And it kind of makes sense to an extent, especially
6:32
Speaker 1: if you think of the brain, like I'm sure the
6:34
Speaker 1: brain stem is the first part of the brain to
6:36
Speaker 1: be constructed in utero and then it goes all the
6:40
Speaker 1: way like after birth, your brain is still developing, and
6:42
Speaker 1: it's probably the most sophisticated regions of the brain that
6:47
Speaker 1: take the longest to develop. That makes sense. So the
6:50
Speaker 1: Victorians were right all along about throwing up All right,
6:54
Speaker 1: well should we talk about what the tantrum? That there
6:57
Speaker 1: was a doctor who clearly has uh some massochistic tendencies
7:02
Speaker 1: because he did a study in which he rigged toddlers
7:06
Speaker 1: with microphones. He's the temper tantrum specialist. He's like the
7:10
Speaker 1: guy he's definitely a massochist. No, I'm saying, God bless
7:13
Speaker 1: this guy, because it is not fun work to record
7:17
Speaker 1: and analyze audio tapes of temper tantrums over and over
7:20
Speaker 1: and over, but that's what he did, and he did
7:22
Speaker 1: find some patterns. First of all, they only last a
7:26
Speaker 1: few minutes. Parents, it might seem like an eternity there
7:29
Speaker 1: in target while your kid is like buried in the
7:32
Speaker 1: clothes racks screaming, but it's only going to be a
7:35
Speaker 1: few minutes, and then ten minutes later your kid has
7:38
Speaker 1: just probably forgotten about it, even though you have not.
7:42
Speaker 1: The He also found that UM, based on the types
7:45
Speaker 1: of sounds that the kids made, they can basically be
7:47
Speaker 1: classified as sad sounds and angry sounds, and he found
7:52
Speaker 1: that his name is Michael Potagal. And Portagal found that UM,
7:57
Speaker 1: rather than one giving into the other leading into the other,
8:00
Speaker 1: they're pretty much simultaneous. And then once the anger, it's
8:04
Speaker 1: basically you have sadness all along, and then it's overlaid
8:08
Speaker 1: with anger. And then once the anger subsides, all this
8:12
Speaker 1: left the sadness and now the healing can begin because
8:16
Speaker 1: when kids are sad, they want to be comforted, so
8:19
Speaker 1: they go to you, the parent hopefully yeah, UM and
8:23
Speaker 1: and then the temper tantrum can subside. Yeah, and he
8:28
Speaker 1: broke it down into three phase three stages. Uh, you
8:31
Speaker 1: get your yelling and screaming. You've got your physical actions,
8:34
Speaker 1: which is what we talked about, like throwing yourself on
8:36
Speaker 1: the floor, and that's what you typically think of, like
8:39
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming, and then um, we're biting. And then
8:44
Speaker 1: you've got your whimpering and whining, which is the third
8:46
Speaker 1: and saddest stage right to witness, because the kid has
8:51
Speaker 1: just played out at this point and it's just really sad. Yeah.
8:53
Speaker 1: And protocol also found that if the kid goes straight
8:58
Speaker 1: into the physical stage, yes, they tantrum is even shorter lived.
9:02
Speaker 1: I think because they text themselves more quickly. Yeah, that
9:05
Speaker 1: makes sense. Uh. And these we talked earlier about Noel's
9:10
Speaker 1: tantrum before we came in and how his face is flushed.
9:13
Speaker 1: That is something that can happen if they are screaming
9:15
Speaker 1: loud enough, they can pop blood vessels in the face
9:18
Speaker 1: and capillaries and they can induce vomiting. It can get
9:22
Speaker 1: like really serious and violent and disturbing. Is that funny
9:28
Speaker 1: to you? Just wouldn't you just be like you stupid kid?
9:31
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? You just screamed until you
9:33
Speaker 1: threw up. Yeah. I think that's a good approach. Well,
9:37
Speaker 1: I mean you don't say alright, So back to back
9:45
Speaker 1: to the prefernal cortex. Uh. We said it develops very Uh.
9:50
Speaker 1: I don't know about slowly, but it develops over the
9:52
Speaker 1: course of your life until you're about eighteen. Um, but
9:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't even start to till you're four. And they
9:57
Speaker 1: think the reason why or not in a clearly the
10:00
Speaker 1: reason why they think because of this this malleability and
10:03
Speaker 1: plasticity in the prefrontal cortext, we are able to acquire
10:08
Speaker 1: language skills as humans. So it's kind of a trade
10:11
Speaker 1: off because while we can acquire language skills while our
10:16
Speaker 1: PFC is developing, we don't have the emotional stability that
10:21
Speaker 1: we have later on in life with the fully developed PFC,
10:23
Speaker 1: because the prefrontal cortext is in charge of regulating our
10:28
Speaker 1: emotional stability and basically saying like whoa, it's the part
10:32
Speaker 1: of the it's the joey part of the brain. So
10:34
Speaker 1: your kid, your kid doesn't have the joey part of
10:37
Speaker 1: the brain yet, and there is since you brought up language,
10:41
Speaker 1: there is a um there's a conflict between what the
10:45
Speaker 1: kid can understand and then relay back to you at
10:48
Speaker 1: that age, Like they may be able to understand what
10:50
Speaker 1: you're saying, but they can't speak the words yet. So
10:52
Speaker 1: you've got a really frustrated kid because it can't get
10:56
Speaker 1: out what it wants to say. And then you've got
10:59
Speaker 1: the pre romal cortex not doing anything yet, right, it's
11:02
Speaker 1: not putting the brakes on. Yeah, so that is a tantrum.
11:06
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a recipe for a tantrum. And why
11:08
Speaker 1: don't you stew on that for a minute while we
11:10
Speaker 1: take a message break because that was some heavy stuff. Okay,
11:23
Speaker 1: so we're back. We just talked about the prefrontal cortex,
11:25
Speaker 1: and you, Chuck just explained what a temper tantrum is. Yeah,
11:30
Speaker 1: because we all have like moments of frustration. We all
11:34
Speaker 1: have um times when like we act out a little bit,
11:38
Speaker 1: like you know, this light bulb is supposed to work,
11:43
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing, road rage. That's an
11:45
Speaker 1: adult temper tantrum exactly, you know, but we have prefrontel
11:49
Speaker 1: cortex is we've been socialized to feel embarrassed for acting out. Um,
11:55
Speaker 1: if you took that away and shrunk us down by
11:58
Speaker 1: several feet you would have. It's a normal temper tantrum
12:01
Speaker 1: and kids. Yeah, and we also should point out that
12:04
Speaker 1: the fight or flight kicks into a big shot of
12:08
Speaker 1: cortisol happens, and so everything is just messed up. Like
12:12
Speaker 1: it's a wonder your kid doesn't have more of these
12:15
Speaker 1: when you think about that. So that frustration UM does
12:18
Speaker 1: trigger cortisol, It triggers Nora fehrin Uh, your fight or
12:22
Speaker 1: flight syndrome or responses kicked into high gear. And again
12:27
Speaker 1: you have nothing to put the brakes on all of this.
12:29
Speaker 1: What's interesting is, Um, some of the physical signs that
12:34
Speaker 1: the fight or flight responses kicked in are also signs
12:37
Speaker 1: that your kids about to have like a major meltdown.
12:41
Speaker 1: Things like, Um, you're breathing, flush skin, sweating, sweating, pupils dilated,
12:49
Speaker 1: drooling and spitting. Yeah, all these things where it's like
12:52
Speaker 1: you see your kids starting to do that, you just
12:55
Speaker 1: gonna blow yes. And the reason um, they stop or
13:01
Speaker 1: at least taper off by the ages of four and
13:03
Speaker 1: five is because you're the joey part of your brain
13:07
Speaker 1: starts to work and the kid can now talk to you,
13:10
Speaker 1: and all of these things kind of undo and the
13:13
Speaker 1: kids like that was the problem because they can now
13:16
Speaker 1: tell you that, right. I couldn't talk. Yeah, it smelled
13:20
Speaker 1: like chili dogs all the time, and I try. I
13:23
Speaker 1: just couldn't tell you that, and my PFC wasn't working.
13:25
Speaker 1: So what am I to do? Just go perserk exactly? Um.
13:30
Speaker 1: The thing is is like, yes, your kid is going
13:33
Speaker 1: to likely age out of this. If your kid doesn't
13:35
Speaker 1: age out of it, then perhaps it's time to consult
13:38
Speaker 1: the specialist, say around five, six years of age, usually six,
13:42
Speaker 1: I think. Um. But along the way, you can help
13:48
Speaker 1: your kid have fewer temper tantrums, have less severe temper tantrums,
13:53
Speaker 1: and basically just be a better human being in general
13:57
Speaker 1: by how you as the parents are us the temper
14:00
Speaker 1: tantrums by telling them they're dumb for just throwing up
14:03
Speaker 1: You just you think that in your head. You don't
14:06
Speaker 1: say it out loud or else you're a terrible parent.
14:07
Speaker 1: If you think it, you're fine? Okay, Um, you know
14:11
Speaker 1: what you The number one thing you want to do, um,
14:14
Speaker 1: prior to temper tantrums is giving the kid a schedule,
14:21
Speaker 1: because apparently a lot of the temper tantrums come from
14:25
Speaker 1: a fear that somethings that they're not going to get food,
14:29
Speaker 1: whether they're not gonna get held or attension or whatever.
14:33
Speaker 1: If they're on a schedule, they'll know that it's coming.
14:36
Speaker 1: And if they start to freak out, you can say,
14:37
Speaker 1: of course, your goldfish are coming. It's almost two pm.
14:41
Speaker 1: Settled out, you little goldfish junkie. Yeah. And I know
14:45
Speaker 1: they stress scheduling a lot with kids with like Asperger's
14:48
Speaker 1: uh and autism, but it's a big deal. Period. You
14:52
Speaker 1: should get your kids on the schedule. Kids like knowing
14:54
Speaker 1: what to expect. They don't like shirballs. If you have
14:57
Speaker 1: to make your own bowl of cereal at age like two, Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: the parent needs to take some time and figure out
15:03
Speaker 1: what's going wrong here with water? Yeah remember that what
15:06
Speaker 1: was that Friday's Yeah, when they did that milk. Yeah,
15:10
Speaker 1: that's funny that you said that, because I just remembered yesterday.
15:12
Speaker 1: What a good movie Friday? Oh yeah, it was really funny.
15:15
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Uh. Okay, So get your kids on a schedule.
15:18
Speaker 1: That's a big one. This is this is preventing yes um,
15:22
Speaker 1: temper tantrum. And that's regular sleep, regular feeding, uh, regular
15:27
Speaker 1: interaction any kind of thing they can rely on is
15:31
Speaker 1: going to help, Like chill your kid out and get
15:33
Speaker 1: them stable. And remember, um, one of the things one
15:36
Speaker 1: of the bases of temper tantrums is frustration. Yeah, and
15:40
Speaker 1: one way around that is to give your kid make
15:43
Speaker 1: them feel empowered. Yeah. I like this bit of advice.
15:45
Speaker 1: I thought that was spot on. So like in this article,
15:48
Speaker 1: I think Conger says, um, if your kid hates putting
15:52
Speaker 1: shoes on, basically distract them by saying, hey, big boy,
15:56
Speaker 1: do you want to wear your duck boots or your
15:58
Speaker 1: cowboy boots? You you choose to you, Yeah, sort of
16:03
Speaker 1: like heading them off with the peopleton. You still have
16:06
Speaker 1: to wear shoes, but you get to choose which one. Yeah,
16:09
Speaker 1: I've heard that's a pretty common thing, if because a
16:11
Speaker 1: lot of kids don't want to get dressed when they
16:13
Speaker 1: should or put on their shoes when they should. And um,
16:16
Speaker 1: a lot of parents now are like letting their kids
16:19
Speaker 1: dress themselves. Yeah you can tell. Yeah, but look around,
16:22
Speaker 1: I know, and it's I think it's great and fun
16:24
Speaker 1: to see little kids walking around these crazy outfits that
16:27
Speaker 1: they clearly picked out. It's like a love it. It's
16:30
Speaker 1: like many mental asylums all let out. It's like the
16:33
Speaker 1: Reagan era all over again. But for kids, I think
16:36
Speaker 1: it's awesome. Um okay, so empowering choices, great advice. So okay,
16:42
Speaker 1: you've taken these steps to avoid it, it's still not
16:45
Speaker 1: gonna do. Your kids still gonna have a temperature tantrum.
16:48
Speaker 1: It's just you can expect it. It's inevitable. Um. So,
16:53
Speaker 1: when a temper tantrum happens, here's the hard part. You
16:58
Speaker 1: have to stay calm. And apparently the the advice jure
17:05
Speaker 1: from parenting experts psychologists is ignore it. Yeah, this is
17:10
Speaker 1: not us talking, No, we researched this, and they say
17:13
Speaker 1: to try and ignore it. They say that that is
17:16
Speaker 1: the quickest way two to put an end to that
17:20
Speaker 1: particular tantrum. If they're not getting the attention, then they
17:24
Speaker 1: will quit sooner. Yeah, and that's what they say. So
17:28
Speaker 1: long as they're not hurting themselves or other people or
17:30
Speaker 1: destroying property. If they're just screaming and being a brat
17:34
Speaker 1: basically is what it amounts to, then ignoring it is
17:37
Speaker 1: the best course of action. The reason why is, um,
17:41
Speaker 1: if you say you are like, oh, I know, you
17:44
Speaker 1: feel so bad, and you pick them up and you
17:46
Speaker 1: hug them and everything. You're giving your kid positive reinforcement.
17:51
Speaker 1: You're saying, hey, scream your head off and I will
17:54
Speaker 1: pick you up and rub your back and comfort you.
17:57
Speaker 1: You don't want to do that. You want to remain
17:59
Speaker 1: neutral and basic, not associate this thing with anything during it.
18:03
Speaker 1: That's what I would do, especially in public, and just
18:05
Speaker 1: be like, man, who's a kid? Is that right? I'm
18:08
Speaker 1: gonna go over here and eat a box of neutral
18:10
Speaker 1: green bars by myself while this little kid finishes up,
18:14
Speaker 1: and I'll just pay for it at the register with
18:16
Speaker 1: an empty box and it's all good. Um. And the
18:19
Speaker 1: sense of shame. The other reason, and we're joking around here,
18:23
Speaker 1: this is if someone like I have friends who have
18:26
Speaker 1: had big trouble with this and it's not a laughing matter.
18:29
Speaker 1: It's really a lot of stress on a family. Oh,
18:31
Speaker 1: I can't imagine we joke because it's just what we
18:34
Speaker 1: always do. Another time, the guy in the grocery store
18:37
Speaker 1: gets to go see you later, good luck. Um. Another
18:40
Speaker 1: reason not to, like they say, to muffle that, is
18:44
Speaker 1: because there could be other underlying causes, like hearing problem
18:48
Speaker 1: or vision vision impairment that you won't notice um, if
18:52
Speaker 1: you're if you're not, just like you know, if you've
18:55
Speaker 1: got the kid buried in your chest. Yeah, it's weird.
18:57
Speaker 1: It's like you want to ignore it, let it and
19:00
Speaker 1: it's natural course watch it out of like the side
19:02
Speaker 1: of your eye, you know. Um, because you don't want them, like,
19:07
Speaker 1: you really don't want them to think you're paying any
19:08
Speaker 1: attention to them at all. And apparently when that's when
19:12
Speaker 1: that's done, it just runs its course and it's it's
19:15
Speaker 1: over with, and like we said earlier, the kid forgets
19:18
Speaker 1: even what was bothering him or her, you know, a
19:21
Speaker 1: few minutes afterward. Yeah, what you really don't want to
19:24
Speaker 1: do is punish the kid or reprimand the kid in
19:29
Speaker 1: the middle of a tantrum or right after a tantrum,
19:31
Speaker 1: because it's a natural thing it's going to happen. That
19:34
Speaker 1: is not a healthy approach to getting your child to
19:38
Speaker 1: not do something because they're two and three years old,
19:41
Speaker 1: and to be punished for something that they don't understand,
19:43
Speaker 1: it's just that's not gonna help anything. So what you
19:46
Speaker 1: do want to do is, after a meltdown has taken
19:50
Speaker 1: place and things are calm again, you want to take
19:53
Speaker 1: some time to explain to the kid basically what went
19:58
Speaker 1: wrong or it they didn't do. Let's say it's over
20:02
Speaker 1: the shoes again. You you they've just told you we
20:07
Speaker 1: need to talk about shoes again. Now that things are calm,
20:10
Speaker 1: we have to talk about shoes because I just had
20:12
Speaker 1: a meltdown about it. So now that they're calm, you
20:15
Speaker 1: have to say, you need to wear shoes because they
20:18
Speaker 1: protect your feet from all the terrible stuff that you
20:21
Speaker 1: can step on. That's why you have to wear shoes
20:24
Speaker 1: and put them on when I tell you too. And
20:26
Speaker 1: it's time to leave understanding the value of shoes right
20:31
Speaker 1: in a very understandable two year old way. Apparently you
20:36
Speaker 1: don't want to moralize it and say you better not
20:40
Speaker 1: you better not pitch a fit when I tell you
20:42
Speaker 1: to put your shoes on. Yeah, this happens every morning, right.
20:45
Speaker 1: That doesn't help. It doesn't help. And if your kid
20:47
Speaker 1: the next day says, well, I want to pick out
20:50
Speaker 1: my shoes today, mom, because they protect my feet, then
20:53
Speaker 1: you are you get a toy? Yeah, you get a
20:56
Speaker 1: big playmobile box set. Well, depend how much money you have,
21:02
Speaker 1: you could at least give them positive reinforcement in a cookie. Yeah,
21:05
Speaker 1: pour a pat on the head. You could also get
21:08
Speaker 1: a knockoff blood Mobile not in box set. That's fine.
21:11
Speaker 1: The kid doesn't know he's too. We got so many
21:13
Speaker 1: knockoff toys growing up. Have you seen that gallery of
21:17
Speaker 1: knockoffs toys that I made? It's great. If you have
21:20
Speaker 1: not seen a good check it out. And I think
21:22
Speaker 1: I had a few of those, did you really? Yeah?
21:24
Speaker 1: I mean my parents were teachers. We weren't like poor,
21:27
Speaker 1: but we didn't. You know, there were three kids. We
21:29
Speaker 1: didn't all get everything we wanted. I wanted the BMX Mangos,
21:34
Speaker 1: and I got the Sears Goose, you know. I wanted
21:38
Speaker 1: Pong again Sears like yeah, basically nights of their own
21:43
Speaker 1: table pretty much. Don't you remember that? Yeah? But I did.
21:47
Speaker 1: Look at me. Yeah, I never had brand name clothes, uh,
21:51
Speaker 1: unless they had, you know, like a button missing or
21:53
Speaker 1: the collar was miss shaping or something. Again, I don't
21:56
Speaker 1: think I can stress enough how awesome that gallery of
22:00
Speaker 1: beloved knockoff knockoffs of beloved toys that we've made that's
22:04
Speaker 1: on our site is it's great. Yeah, we'll repost it,
22:07
Speaker 1: but you can. You should definitely look under galleries. There's
22:11
Speaker 1: some real misses and I have to say, I remember
22:15
Speaker 1: going to plenty of stores as a kid and being
22:17
Speaker 1: told I could pick out a toy, but it was
22:19
Speaker 1: like something liquidators. Yeah, yeah, like what is this thing?
22:23
Speaker 1: Did you have any rich kid friends? Um? Yeah, they
22:26
Speaker 1: weren't like rich kids, but yeah there were something The
22:28
Speaker 1: parents were like lawyers and stuff like that. It's like
22:31
Speaker 1: at one particular that I was always just so like,
22:35
Speaker 1: his house was so cool. It was like a modern house,
22:37
Speaker 1: and back then I'd never seen a modern house. And
22:40
Speaker 1: he had, you know, the green machine and in television,
22:43
Speaker 1: and horses and a trampoline and a go kart and
22:47
Speaker 1: a motorcycle. Dude, get everything. Yeah, and look at him now,
22:52
Speaker 1: he's super successful and wealthy him. His parents raised him, right,
22:57
Speaker 1: they did. Okay, so we're gonna hit what you touched
23:01
Speaker 1: on earlier of when you might have a problem that's
23:04
Speaker 1: a little deeper than your average temper tantrum and they
23:07
Speaker 1: say three or more tantrums per day that lasts more
23:10
Speaker 1: than fifteen minutes could qualify as what is now called
23:15
Speaker 1: in the new d s M five disruptive mood disregulation
23:19
Speaker 1: disorder that depends that is um that depends on the
23:25
Speaker 1: age two. So there's a big hubbub yeah over this right, Yeah,
23:31
Speaker 1: because it was just added to the new d s
23:33
Speaker 1: M in two thousand, a new disorder. Yes, and basically
23:38
Speaker 1: it turns temper tantrums into a mental illness, like yeah,
23:43
Speaker 1: pure and simple. If you were over age six, between
23:46
Speaker 1: six and ten, Yeah, and you have that number what
23:49
Speaker 1: was it, three three per day that last fifteen minutes
23:53
Speaker 1: or more or it says here three or more for
23:57
Speaker 1: one year, So I think there's a couple of criteria. Anyway,
24:01
Speaker 1: then you are eligible for antipsychotic medications and all other
24:08
Speaker 1: manner of prescription drugs even though you're six. Yeah. And
24:13
Speaker 1: critics are saying there's not enough data on this to
24:17
Speaker 1: create a new diagnosis, Like some critics are saying you
24:20
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done this at all. Proponents are saying, no,
24:22
Speaker 1: this will actually help because kids are being diagnosis bipolar
24:26
Speaker 1: at six and this will prevent that. So it's a
24:31
Speaker 1: little awkward right now. But it's funny that they bring
24:34
Speaker 1: up bipolar because when they when they expanded and basically
24:37
Speaker 1: created children's bipolar disorder, pediatric bipolar disorder is what it's called. Um.
24:44
Speaker 1: When they expanded that there was a fortyfold spike in diagnoses,
24:50
Speaker 1: and as a result, the anti psychotic prescriptions for kids
24:55
Speaker 1: aged two to five doubled between two thousand and two
24:59
Speaker 1: thousand seven. And so there's a definite trend of any
25:02
Speaker 1: time a new disorder is identified or described, everything I've
25:06
Speaker 1: got that my kids there, he won't shut up. Can
25:09
Speaker 1: you give them some antipsychotics please? Yeah? And uh, the
25:12
Speaker 1: psychiatrist is sure right because he has this, because he
25:16
Speaker 1: fits this criteria. Yeah. It's definitely been a controversial addition
25:19
Speaker 1: to the d S m as are many additions to
25:22
Speaker 1: the d S m uh. But that's not to say
25:27
Speaker 1: that there isn't a larger issue at work, because some
25:30
Speaker 1: of the times there is. So they want to teach
25:33
Speaker 1: you his parents to monitor maybe don't like go put
25:36
Speaker 1: them on psycho psychotropic drugs, but maybe monitor them after
25:40
Speaker 1: the age of four and see how violent they are
25:43
Speaker 1: and how long they last and are they trying to
25:45
Speaker 1: injure themselves or others? Are they holding their breath and
25:47
Speaker 1: feigning like how severe is it? Um? Which is the
25:53
Speaker 1: apparently the understanding of that now though, is that kids
25:57
Speaker 1: don't necessarily hold them their breaths on purpose, like it
26:01
Speaker 1: just kind of happens to breathe. They get so worked
26:04
Speaker 1: up that they freathe and faint. And apparently when your
26:08
Speaker 1: kid does that for reek's parents out and then kids
26:11
Speaker 1: learn that if they hold their breath or even threatened
26:14
Speaker 1: to hold their breath, they'll get what they want. But apparently,
26:17
Speaker 1: if your kid holds his or her breath or it's
26:20
Speaker 1: held for them when they faint, their normal breathing will
26:24
Speaker 1: take over again. And as a parent, you can kick
26:27
Speaker 1: start the whole process by blowing air into their mouth.
26:30
Speaker 1: It almost like tickles their breathing mechanism to take back
26:34
Speaker 1: over normally again even though they fainted. And the advice
26:39
Speaker 1: is that I read that if your kid is feigning
26:44
Speaker 1: from holding his or her breath during a tantrum, you
26:47
Speaker 1: can't let that alter your your parenting skills, like how
26:51
Speaker 1: you react to it. You can't be held hostage by it. Man,
26:55
Speaker 1: that's so challenging. I can't imagine because your kid faints. Yeah,
27:00
Speaker 1: I mean, hats offen, that's like going back to the
27:03
Speaker 1: shark again. Good luck remembering the punch the shark in
27:05
Speaker 1: the nose while you're paying attack. But that is a
27:08
Speaker 1: that is a criteria if your kid is doing this
27:10
Speaker 1: now and it's new, and they're like after age four,
27:13
Speaker 1: and their tantrums are increasing rather than decreasing. These are
27:16
Speaker 1: all red flags for okay, this, this may be abnormal,
27:20
Speaker 1: and let's see what's going on. The first step isn't
27:23
Speaker 1: necessarily taking your kid to psychiatrists for drugs. It can.
27:28
Speaker 1: You can also do a self survey of your house,
27:30
Speaker 1: like is there a new step parent, Um, do we
27:33
Speaker 1: move recently? Am I an alcoholic? And do we always fight? Yeah?
27:38
Speaker 1: You know it happens where parents ain't all like kids.
27:41
Speaker 1: You know, they don't even they don't understand what's going on.
27:43
Speaker 1: We keep the fighting away from them, but they understand
27:45
Speaker 1: and they pick up on body language and emotional cues
27:49
Speaker 1: that you don't think are there, and they're little sponges
27:52
Speaker 1: and that could be a reason. Uh, did you mention
27:54
Speaker 1: maybe if you've moved. Yeah, that's a big one. I
27:57
Speaker 1: think I have moved. Yeah, did his best friend get
28:01
Speaker 1: a better bike than him or something? Right, you need
28:04
Speaker 1: to go get that bike then too. But the point
28:06
Speaker 1: is to not be freaked out by isolated incidences past
28:09
Speaker 1: the age of four, because they they happen, and um,
28:14
Speaker 1: it's not a typical you just need and if your
28:18
Speaker 1: kid has a problem with this, as parents, you probably
28:19
Speaker 1: have a plan in place, like you're not just reacting
28:23
Speaker 1: to each incident, Like you get together and you huddle
28:26
Speaker 1: and be like, all right, we have an issue because
28:28
Speaker 1: little Timmy is a nightmare, and so how are we
28:31
Speaker 1: going to deal with this? And then let's stick to it.
28:34
Speaker 1: If little Timmy also is breaking your humble figurines all
28:38
Speaker 1: the time now, then good because those are awful, then
28:41
Speaker 1: um well that's actually it can be a sign, but
28:45
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a sign. For example, there is a
28:48
Speaker 1: study that had a pretty decent population size from two
28:52
Speaker 1: seven research temper tantrums among two hundred and seventy nine
28:55
Speaker 1: preschoolers almost two pre schoolers um and they found that
29:01
Speaker 1: kids who are considered healthy um had were less likely
29:05
Speaker 1: to become violent, self injurious, destructive, or verbally combative like
29:10
Speaker 1: during their temper tantrums. But it's also been found that
29:15
Speaker 1: around of quote mentally stable preschoolers will still become you know,
29:22
Speaker 1: one of these unhealthy things during a temper tantrum from
29:25
Speaker 1: time to time. It's not like there goes a homo
29:28
Speaker 1: figuring you have to go to the psychiatrist. Now, or
29:31
Speaker 1: if your kid like rips the head off their barbie
29:35
Speaker 1: in a violent way, that might be disturbing to you,
29:38
Speaker 1: but that is about as normal American behavior as has
29:42
Speaker 1: ever been generated by a child. Yeah, if your kid
29:45
Speaker 1: is being mean to animals, that's a different story, because
29:49
Speaker 1: that that is uh you know, it's not a good sign.
29:53
Speaker 1: And it's certainly you want to stop any kind of
29:56
Speaker 1: uh like, violent aggression towards humans or animals. Like that's
29:59
Speaker 1: not like, let's just see he'll put this plays out.
30:02
Speaker 1: You want to get in there, take care of business. Yeah,
30:05
Speaker 1: in the right way. So you raise your kid, you
30:08
Speaker 1: get them out of the terrible two's. Age four comes along,
30:12
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, they're like talking to you
30:14
Speaker 1: and making sense and expressing themselves. They're able to settle
30:18
Speaker 1: themselves down. Um. They they they're just human beings. You
30:25
Speaker 1: made it out of the woods until the teenage years
30:28
Speaker 1: come and then it starts all over again. Yes, and
30:31
Speaker 1: there it starts all over again. For the same reason.
30:34
Speaker 1: The preferntal cortex undergoes a new round of development during
30:40
Speaker 1: puberty from age about eleven to eighteen, and as a result,
30:45
Speaker 1: the emotional breaks that are provided by that region of
30:48
Speaker 1: the brain are lost again for several years. Yeah, and
30:52
Speaker 1: it's also similar in that teenagers might not feel like
30:55
Speaker 1: they can express themselves even though like as a tyler
30:58
Speaker 1: you literally can't talk. But as a team, you know,
31:01
Speaker 1: parents just don't understand. That's the old adage. And you've
31:04
Speaker 1: got the hormones, and you've got new things happening to
31:08
Speaker 1: your body, and you've got new things happening in your
31:11
Speaker 1: heart for you know, the little girls and little boys.
31:15
Speaker 1: You start feeling those feelings and it's confusing, and it's
31:17
Speaker 1: just it's it's all happening all over again, all these
31:20
Speaker 1: things you don't understand and can't express, and then you've
31:23
Speaker 1: got your prefemal cortex not helping you out. And that's
31:26
Speaker 1: why you're going to see the same, similar behaviors. At least,
31:29
Speaker 1: it's basically temper tantrums the sequel. Yeah, and it may
31:33
Speaker 1: not manifest itself the same way. They may not be
31:35
Speaker 1: on the floor like kicking and screaming and vomiting, but
31:39
Speaker 1: they may rampage through your house and slam the doors
31:42
Speaker 1: and scream and yell and uh, don't grow out of
31:45
Speaker 1: that though, And again if they don't, then psychiatry is
31:48
Speaker 1: there to back you up with some diagnoses and pills.
31:53
Speaker 1: There's oppositional defiance disorder, yeah, which is basically it sounds
31:57
Speaker 1: like temper tantrums. It it sounds like temper tantrums, basically
32:03
Speaker 1: the same thing. Yeah. This study from University of San
32:06
Speaker 1: Diego was pretty interesting. I thought they studied kids between
32:10
Speaker 1: the ages of ten and twenty two. It's not a kid,
32:13
Speaker 1: by the way, and um between eleven and eighteen years old.
32:17
Speaker 1: During that window, the speed that they identified emotions indicated
32:23
Speaker 1: by facial expressions dropped. So between ten and eighteen, if
32:28
Speaker 1: you're like, your kid can't even look at your face
32:31
Speaker 1: and read your emotional cues, Like that's how out of
32:35
Speaker 1: it they are, you know, like I couldn't even tell
32:40
Speaker 1: Dad was mad at me. Yes, because the wires aren't
32:43
Speaker 1: connecting upstairs. And apparently the preferales prefernal cortex is also
32:50
Speaker 1: involved in um regulating behavior, yeah, which explains why teenagers
32:57
Speaker 1: are prone to like risk taking. Well, yeah, because if
33:01
Speaker 1: the pre phone cortex isn't doing the job, then I
33:03
Speaker 1: think the amygdala takes over and the amygdala is is
33:07
Speaker 1: not a good thing to be running your emotions running
33:09
Speaker 1: the show. No, not emotionally. So you got anything else
33:14
Speaker 1: you want to talk about that girl from Militcheville, Yeah,
33:17
Speaker 1: go ahead, I'll actually read that part. There was a
33:20
Speaker 1: girl UH who in two thousand and twelve, UH, at
33:25
Speaker 1: the age of six, was arrested and taken to the
33:29
Speaker 1: police station from her kindergarten class because the temper tantrum
33:33
Speaker 1: she threw was so bad she was wrecking her kindergarten class.
33:37
Speaker 1: She was taken to jail for a temper tantrum like
33:41
Speaker 1: knocking over bookcases onto the principle. Yeah, and injuring the principle. Um.
33:46
Speaker 1: And she h apparently was just on a rampage and
33:50
Speaker 1: the cops took her to jail, didn't book her process
33:54
Speaker 1: or anything, but I'm sure scared the daylights out of
33:56
Speaker 1: this little girl. And the school said she can't come
34:01
Speaker 1: back the rest of this year. Yeah, she's just invited. Yeah.
34:04
Speaker 1: Luckily it was in April, so I imagine there was
34:07
Speaker 1: only a couple of months left to school. Still. Yeah,
34:10
Speaker 1: so we hope she's doing better. Sure, we won't say
34:13
Speaker 1: her name. We didn't say her name to Nope, the
34:15
Speaker 1: article does, which I thought was slightly irresponsible. Oh she
34:18
Speaker 1: was a news item. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, Hey,
34:21
Speaker 1: you don't want to be in the news, little girl. Right,
34:27
Speaker 1: that's it, all right. If you want to learn more
34:30
Speaker 1: about temper tantrums, you can procreate and have a kid
34:33
Speaker 1: and then see it firsthand. That's right. You can also
34:37
Speaker 1: before you do that, if you want to find out
34:38
Speaker 1: if you're interested in that kind of thing, type in
34:40
Speaker 1: temperate tantrums. In the search part how stuff works, dot
34:43
Speaker 1: common will bring up this article. And I said, search
34:45
Speaker 1: bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
34:49
Speaker 1: this uh positive amnesia. Hey, guys, Nearly five years ago
34:54
Speaker 1: and and uh Portland, Oregon, I was in a near
34:57
Speaker 1: fatal motorcycle wreck that not only knocked my brain around
35:01
Speaker 1: in my full face helmet, but also shattered my pelvis,
35:04
Speaker 1: broke two ribs to vertebrae, left wrist, right thumb, left collarbone.
35:08
Speaker 1: Has this show at all? I know? Evil Kinevil. I
35:12
Speaker 1: was in the hospital for two weeks, but only remember
35:14
Speaker 1: bits and pieces of the last few days of my stay,
35:17
Speaker 1: though I was mostly awake the whole time. The doctors
35:19
Speaker 1: told me that nearly UH I had a nearly two
35:21
Speaker 1: week gap in my memory, and it was a combination
35:24
Speaker 1: of shock and medically induced amnesia. I learned a lot
35:27
Speaker 1: about the different kinds of amnesia from your show, in
35:29
Speaker 1: ways that my team of doctor never took the time
35:32
Speaker 1: to explain me. But I didn't. You're like, yeah, that
35:36
Speaker 1: always happens. But I didn't hear you mentioned any positive
35:39
Speaker 1: effects of memory loss. Uh. Through my memory loss, it
35:42
Speaker 1: did not. Though my memory loss did not prevent severe
35:46
Speaker 1: ps PTSD after the incident, I think it has ultimately
35:50
Speaker 1: helped me be less afraid of red light running land rovers.
35:54
Speaker 1: I think we did mention that it was that was
35:57
Speaker 1: one positive effect of it. I thought, I think maybe not. Well,
36:01
Speaker 1: if we're not, then we're glad that. Adrian wrote in
36:03
Speaker 1: he said, Um, also, I don't have the additional trauma
36:06
Speaker 1: of remembering the numerous surgeries and operations. Uh. Your podcast
36:11
Speaker 1: made emny just sound confusing and scary, which it is.
36:14
Speaker 1: But I'm living proof that sometimes it's best if you
36:16
Speaker 1: don't remember. Well. Thanks a lot, Adrian, We're glad you
36:20
Speaker 1: are doing okay. Yeah, be careful, man, watch out for
36:24
Speaker 1: those land rovers. Yeah, red light running land rovers. Hope
36:27
Speaker 1: they hope the dude got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, I
36:32
Speaker 1: got nothing else. If you if you want to let
36:34
Speaker 1: us know about well, if you want to fill in
36:36
Speaker 1: the gaps on our memories, something we left out of
36:39
Speaker 1: an episode, we always want to hear that kind of thing.
36:42
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K
36:44
Speaker 1: Podcast and join us on Facebook dot com at Facebook
36:47
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
36:50
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
36:53
Speaker 1: and as always, check out our home on the web,
36:55
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
37:03
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works dot com