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Selects: How Temper Tantrums Work · Stuff You Should Know

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