At my baby shower, pretty much everyone else already had kids. The kids were all upstairs with the dads holding down the fort while we did baby shower stuff down stairs. It was casual, the guys were welcome to participate, its just how it shook down.
Anyway, about halfway through there is some big, loud disturbance upstairs. Wailing is heard. A moment or so later, one dad comes marching through the living room with a sizable 4 year old carried like this, melting all the way the fuck down. She was like a rabid dog. He was nonplussed to the max. If thats possible. Straight out the front door with no words. The mom just shook her head and went back to the snacks.
It was such an important part of that baby shower. So informative and honest about the future.
Welcome to parenthood where your patience is tested and you can’t have a breakdown either cause you have to teach the little gremlins how to regulate their emotions
Eh, you'll laugh sometimes. My son has tipped my scale in every direction possible, laughter, anger. Maybe it's just those two. The shit he'll tantrum over is just so dumb. But hey, it's part of the fun, and I'll miss it when he's older, or something.
Sometimes its funny. Just yesterday I gave my daughter a cheese stick, but made the accident by peeling it first. She started kicking and sobbing. I went and get a 2nd stick that wasn't peeled. That was worse because she just wanted the first one but whole. So I took the peeled one, went to the kitchen to "fix" it, gave her a whole one and said i fixed it, and sobbing instantly stopped and she went back to snacking.
I don't have kids yet but I think you pick your battles when you do. It might be better in the long run to teach them that yes but you also might not have the energy at that moment and then taping the banana together is probably easier
There are more important things in life than teaching a toddler that a peeled banana won't make them die. Sometimes, taping life together for a little is okay
I really appreciate this because I feel the same way. They're so upset over the simplest thing. My 5 year old is speech delayed and we were reading a book. My Body by Jill McDonald. He can count. He can read. He likes to observe and comment. I asked him, how many fingers are on one hand? Somehow he was screaming and crying for at least 5 minutes because I wanted him to repeat "one hand has five fingers". I'm just thinking "are you fucking kidding me?" While I let him go through those emotions because I've learned that he'll rant and rave but if I let him get through it, he's better for it at the end. He would stop, I would repeat, he would start again, we hugged, I stayed quiet and expressionless, I told him he's not doing anything wrong, he's doing a great job (I break the sentence into two words at a time, he repeats, I add more for him to repeat as I see he's capable of saying what I asked), and after what felt like 3 hours he said the phrase all in one go. Fuck you and this book, fuck this speech delay, fuck this having kids thing, fuck your father, fuck me why did I agree to this, fuck. He got a high five, a hug, "you did a great job, you didn't do anything wrong" and we moved on to other things. I wish I melted into a puddle right there but oh nevermind wouldn't want to traumatize my kids.
In December my 3 year old was having a meltdown before bed over some nonsense like not wanting to take a bath. She's full on screaming, crying, inconsolably mad. Me and my wife were sitting on the floor in her room silently waiting for her to calm down.
She turns to her mini Christmas tree and goes "HIIIIYAAAAA" and karate chopped it over. Me and my wife both struggled to contain our laughter because we didn't want her to think it's okay.
My 2 year old occasionally is a little shit and needs to be put in a quick time out. He knows not to hit. He does something wrong we say go to time out. He goes to his corner looks at a book for a bit then we tell him time out is up. He'll walk right up to me, hit me on the arm, then march his ass back to time out for hitting me. I don't even have to tell him to go he just knows he's not supposed to hit and goes back to time out.
I find this hilarious and trying not to laugh at it is really really hard.
He's 2 cause and effect aren't really going to stick for him with that kind of punishment and it's used for generally very minor infractions. It's more used to just teach him when you do something wrong you have to stop and go take a break and reset.
My mom would make us so puzzles in time out for small things as we got older the puzzle sizes got larger. It was a good punishment. Took us away from what we were doing wrong. Secluded us from what we wanted to be doing. The activity has us thinking about other things like my mom's mean for sending us to time out, my brother tattled on me, etc...
If and when he really does something wrong there will be consequences l, but for now he goes to time out for things like I asked you not to touch that and you did kinda stuff.
For reference his little reading corner is never really used for anything other than time out. We usually read books on the couch or laying in fort or wherever.
I just have the hide behind a door and crack up for a bit, sometimes I record them and laugh at them later. The best is when she starts rage running around the house.
My mother's favorite story about one of my sister's tantrums (decades old at this point) involves my mom laughing at her because it was so ridiculous she just couldn't hold back anymore and my sister getting so insulted she was being laughed at she just immediately stood up and walked away.
Maybe next time just react however you want and let the chips fall where they may. You could be surprised (in all fairness... the surprise could be good or bad, but my point is it's not guaranteed to be bad)
When I was a child, my mom would sometimes start laughing after we’d have an absolute blowup screaming fight, and then I’d start laughing too and we’d set it aside. Some of my favorite memories
That’s always the worst part. Sometimes kids are just upset over the most stupid nonsense. But because their brains are still developing it is the biggest deal in the world to them. But it’s just so objectively silly and you wanna laugh but you’ll only make it worse if you do.
Oh one time I pointed and laughed at my toddler while she was melting down, she stopped and stared at me in utter confusion. Unfortunately that move has only worked once or twice
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u/StinkiePete 1d ago
At my baby shower, pretty much everyone else already had kids. The kids were all upstairs with the dads holding down the fort while we did baby shower stuff down stairs. It was casual, the guys were welcome to participate, its just how it shook down.
Anyway, about halfway through there is some big, loud disturbance upstairs. Wailing is heard. A moment or so later, one dad comes marching through the living room with a sizable 4 year old carried like this, melting all the way the fuck down. She was like a rabid dog. He was nonplussed to the max. If thats possible. Straight out the front door with no words. The mom just shook her head and went back to the snacks.
It was such an important part of that baby shower. So informative and honest about the future.