When You're a Parent, Patience is a Virtue

Getting Through a Tantrum and The Mom with Earplugs

photo credit: Amy Wilbanks via photopin cc

We've all been there at some point or another when it comes to dealing with tantrums and they can start from anything. I like to compare them to a storm. With a storm you could have a nice sunny clear blue sky day, and then out of the blue a dark clouded thunderstorm rolls on in...

Then as just as fast as it came in it's gone and the sun is out and the sky is blue again. It's the same thing with a tantrum. Everything could be fine and dandy one minute, then, bam, here it comes for one reason or another.

Maybe someone wants something they can't have, maybe someone did something to someone else, or whatever the case may be, etc. And then the next thing you know just as fast as the tantrum came in it's gone. All is well in the land and everyone's happy dandy.

Sometimes it truly fascinates and amazes me. Like today...which was my inspiration for this post. One of my daughters was having a tantrum. And it started from nothing. She wanted something she couldn't have "yet." My 17-year-old son, the life-long pack-rat, had brought home two boxes of used toys for his little sisters that the owner of a little local toy store that was going out of business and who he did odd jobs for gave him to take home.

She could see these things in the kitchen beyond the baby gate that she is still not allowed past yet for many reasons. I kept telling her that I would clean them up after breakfast. I was trying to cook them some scrambled eggs. She began to chant the same phrase over-and-over saying "toys" and really worked herself up. She began making these gulping noises as she chanted "toys" and even though she had real tears I felt this was dramatics to get her way.

I know the true "hiccuping cry" and this was not it. This was a deliberate work myself up to get my own way cry and I just kept focusing on what I was doing, so it would end quickly. I kept calmly telling her "after breakfast," then I just stopped speaking and continued cooking. Eventually she got the point, stopped and walked away from the gate and just as quick as the "storm" approached, it was gone.

Then she asked me for tissue to wipe her snotty nose from crying and that was that. She was back to her happy little self. I did not feed into it. I'm not always perfect. I don't think anyone is but I handled that one quite well if I do say so myself, lol.

The Lady with The Ear Plugs

So whenever I find myself dealing with situations like that it always takes me back in time to when I worked as a cashier. I worked at a few different stores as a cashier and they're not kidding when they say you see it all as a cashier. You really do see it all when you're a cashier, in fast food too. I definitely have some stories. But this one time I was working at Walmart and it was a busy Saturday morning. I had a long line of customers and there was a kid in the front of a cart screaming his brains out and having a tantrum. He wanted candy or something.

He was too big for the cart first of all, but seeing the tantrum he was having I guessed that, that was probably why he was in the cart. Maybe it was because of his behavior. But the tantrum is not why this moment stands out in my mind. It was the mother. The tantrum was so bad that everyone was staring. The kid was loud and hysterical. The mother was as calm as could be putting her groceries on the conveyer belt without a care in the world...almost as if she was in her own world completely oblivious to the tantrum her son was having.

Then she got closer to my register and I saw why she was so calm. She really was in her own world - she had earplugs in her ears. Yes, earplugs. Here I was thinking she had the patience of a Saint, and she had earplugs. I wanted to laugh so hard and tell her I felt her pain, lol, but she wouldn't have heard me with the earplugs... I tell everyone that story, because it's just one that will forever stand out in my mind as a classic. Not such a good idea while driving or anything like that where you need your hearing, but if that's what it took for her to remain calm then whatever floats your boat.

It was almost ingenious, really, because she looked like a really nice lady. So my guess is that maybe she told him to stop and he wouldn't listen and she knew she had to get out of there, so she decided that was how she would handle him. Who knows... The good thing is...he didn't get his way, muahaha. I really felt her pain though. Grocery store tantrums are the worst... (See Pet Peeve #41)

Another funny tantrum that I witnessed was last Halloween. I was in Walmart's Halloween section shopping for some Halloween things when there was a well-dressed lady in the same aisle with a small child in the cart. The small child demanded that her mother pick something up off the floor for her and was hysterical. The little girl was old enough to know better and was being disrespectful to her mother.

The look of horror on the mother's face and outrage as she proceeded to immediately leave the store I will never forget. She also said something that I can't remember about talking to her like that and that they'd return when she could talk to her better or something like that. But the look on her face is what stood out the most...