Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 35 | How to Handle Temper Tantrums

Transcript

Ep. 35 | How to Handle Temper Tantrums · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:06
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Beth Key, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:27
  What's up, guys? 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. Jeremy and Jeff here. And here's a fun one, unless you have toddlers, and then this is very serious. How do you handle temper tantrums? And this is a problem that virtually everybody handles or everybody tries to figure out. And it's a bit of a terrifying, shocking event when you're a 2-year-old or whatever age they just, you know,
• 0:52
  throw the biggest fit that you've ever seen in your life. And you're just like, what is going on with their emotions? And they don't know, you don't know. It's a very intense thing to deal with. So I'm going to throw out five ways of dealing with this because there's so many ways that I keep hearing and I want to get Jeff's reaction. And then I'll say just probably some closing comments. Okay.
• 1:10
  So, way one, your child's having a huge temper tantrum, there's discipline, maybe give them a quick spank, put them in timeout, put them in a crib someplace, close the door, let them have their temper tantrum. They kind of, you respond to that by isolating them, okay, and by giving them some negative reinforcement of some kind.
• 1:28
  Okay, number two, you ignore them. So you're like, they're trying to get attention. I'm going to give you zero attention. We all kind of leave the room. We let them have their temper tantrum. We deal with it by communicating to them. That's not how you handle your emotions. It's not how you get your way. Number three, you just sit there and wait. You just...
• 1:44
  Okay, there you go. Again, the strategy here is just letting them kind of cry it out, beat it out, and just wait for them to be done, but stay kind of present with them. A fourth way is engage. So you actually move towards them when they're in a temper tantrum. You try to hold them, you try to talk to them, you try to talk them out of it. The fifth one, and I've never tried this, but I've heard other people do this, which is they imitate their children having a temper tantrum. So there are kids there flailing, and they're like, oh, you think you're the only one that can do this?
• 2:13
  And then you go down. Now, don't try this if you're in the supermarket. Make sure you're at home. Nobody's watching. The blinds are drawn. But go ahead and imitate that and just forget your kid. Maybe your child will look over and think, maybe that's not such a good idea. Like, I look that crazy. You're like, yeah, you look that crazy. Isn't that terrifying? You don't want daddy to do that, do you?
• 2:33
  Um, so these are five ways that people handle temper tantrums. And, uh, Jeff and I have talked about this subject in the past. So I'd love to hear Jeff, um, you know, uh, one through five or number six, how do you guys, uh, handle, uh, temper tantrums? How do you think about this? Yeah. Oh, I think we've tried all different things. It's all across the map. I think the first thing I would say is buckle up. I think, I think the one thing that I've learned already in a couple of years, cause we're just about to get out of that stage with two kids almost already now is, um, and more of it coming with more kids, but, uh, yeah.
• 3:03
  is the is the first thing I would say is that like the one mistake I made is that like there is no like fix that is going to like I had to check my heart of like I want this to disappear tomorrow right and that was wrong that really put me in a really bad place with how I responded for a little bit of just um either overly harsh with my words or not kind not gentle in my heart etc second one so I learned that and then but at the same time that doesn't mean that I'm just like you know that they get away with things but I think I just had to really say like okay this is a
• 3:29
  This is certainly an emotional growth process. It'll probably be at least it looked like to us about six months to a year. And it was in different stages and days. And so, uh, that's what I was, is like, is like at least being like checking yourself for what you're prepared for. That helped me. Um, first of all. And then second one I would say is you got to know each kid. So like all, like some of the, like some of these worked on some kids and some of them worked on different kids where one of our kids, um, was a lot more uncontrollable and
• 3:55
  And needed space to just really bring it down. And then was so open hearted to conversation after that. So open hearted, so tender, so wanted to have talks and so could get to the heart. And then another kid was a lot more like I could actually engage in the moment with a little bit more like, hey, look me in my eyes. Let's focus. Let's have like you don't need to do this. We can take this to the level that's healthy for you.
• 4:19
  And that worked. But that would totally just made the other kid ratchet up. So you just kind of have to like really, really be able to really know your kid's heart. And another way to put it is know your kid's currency. Like what are they trying to actually get out of the tantrum? Do they just not have the words? Do they not have the language? We really worked on language. Like we really worked on that tension of like, hey, you don't.
• 4:38
  It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be things, but those do not control you. They cannot control you. Those are not ultimate. And I think you have to sit right in that tension. So we would give, you know, early on we did sign language for angry and for sad. And I think that helped a lot. Giving them language and then also with words, giving them words to say how they're actually feeling. And I realized that actually stopped a lot of tantrums because they would say those before it got there.
• 5:01
  Like, you know, I mean, like before I got there and a lot of times kids, even really young, just want to be understood, want to be heard. And of course, there's still moments where it still happens. But I noticed that diffused a lot, giving them language, letting them be and then empathizing. Like, again, nine times a 10 when we would empathize when it's at a four out of a 10, they would never get to 10 out of a 10, you know. But sometimes, you know, you don't empathize and you try to shut down the four out of 10 tantrum.
• 5:23
  And then it turns into a 10 out of 10 tantrums. So that was another, those are like really quick and really fast, but those are a bunch of quick things that really put it together. Now we're now, yeah. Now when it happens, I feel like prepared. I feel like it happens. It is what it is. We address it. And it just is so much more solvable still happens, still doesn't go away overnight. But man, I feel like those things got us to a place of like just being able to deal with it, be prepared for it. It's not, it doesn't catch us off guard type of thing. Do you have anything you'd add to that?
• 5:48
  Yeah, guys, try different things. I love what you said, Jeff. I think you do have to know your kids. And I think this is a tough, tough thing. But I think you hit the nail on the head. And I think if anybody wants to watch Jeff do a live video of imitating one of his children while they're having a temper tantrum, just go ahead and let us know. Because I know I want to see that. Exactly. Let us know in the comments. Yeah.
• 6:07
  Hey guys, one of our favorite places to hang out on is the family team's Instagram. That is where you will find tips, quotes, tricks, and a bunch of other conversational things to help you build your family team on mission. If you're on Instagram and you want to get encouragement as you do this and build your family team, just head over to Instagram and follow us at family teams.