My tryst with ‘Tantrum’

Guest Blogger Nibedita Bose

‘Tantrum’…This is pretty familiar term for any parent whose kids has moved on from the infant stage. I hereby officially announce that even my kid joined the bandwagon much before she reached the very famous phase of ‘terrible twos’. She is just 18 months old!

The meltdown & aggression from her is quite frustrating at times. I am embarrassed to admit that she has now resorted to scratching & pulling hair of other to express her anger. Most of the times a happy-go-lucky kid like her transforms into mauling creature the moment she is restricted to some particular activity.

Scene 1: She is looking/playing with her books. I sense that she has pooped in her diapers. She needs to be taken to bathroom however she wants to continue her tryst with books. I pick her up in spite of her resistance explaining patiently that she has to go to washroom. She bends her body, starts howling and scratches my face to get released from my hold.


Scene 2: She climbs the centre-table and performing her ‘cat-walk’ skills. She is not listening to our repeated ‘No’. Try to bring her back from there and the scene mentioned in first example is followed.

Scene 3: She asks for her sipper. After having couple of sips she starts spitting water fountain from her mouth and ends up in wetting her winter wears. Grabbing back the sipper would result in feet stomping, pulling our clothes, and rolling on floor. All this is duly supplemented with loud shrieks & howls.
There are many more examples and I am sure many parents would relate with the scenarios mentioned above.  My parenting concepts portray me rather a ‘cruel Mom’. Most of the times when she is rolling on floor or howling her lungs out, I chose to ignore. I simply continue my chores and would not even look at her (I would sneak a glance through corner of my eye though!!). Till date I had not hit her and strongly feel that hitting doesn’t help at all. I know many of my friends who have kids of 2-10 years of age hit their kid occasionally at times when they can’t take the tantrums any more. But I have different opinion about hitting a child. I feel it makes them more stubborn. Also, they might learn to hit back which is obviously not desirable.

Most of the times I make her understand of her wrong-doings by staring with a stern look. Sometimes, I continue to roll my eyes even if is scratching my face and most of the times she gets the message. She would then try to patch-up by making puppy faces and rubbing my hands to her cheeks.
Although I chose to ignore her tantrums but If I feel that whatever she is doing is hazardous to her safety then I just say loudly ‘Wait, I am coming’ and slowly approach her. She considers it as some playful game and would run-away so that I can chase her.

I admit that lot many times my patience level surrenders and I do shout on her. Sometimes she refrains from her mischief, sometimes don’t. Another thing which works till now is distracting or deviating her attention to something else. But this method is losing its charm as she is growing up and is not ready to forget easily now days. My most perplexing part is that even if she is scolded she does not understand the gravity and giggles more to dilute your anger.
I agree that it becomes quite embarrassing when kids exhibit this kind of behavior in public. But I can surely say that my patience has increased and I had understood my lesson well that losing my calm would aggravate the situation.

Also, one soothing I would like to use here for all the parents here: All this is a phase which will pass someday!


Based in Gurgaon, Nibedita Bose (popularly called N.B in the blogging circuit) is an Ex Team Manager turned Stay At Home Mom of her 1.5 year old daughter.Trying to sail through the changes of life, N.B loves reading and blogging.  Do hop on to her blog, happy reading.