Yesterday after a long time, we had a play date with one of preschool friends of my son. My daughter loves to go to their house. They also have a daughter, a year older than mine, and my daughter gets to play with lots of girly toys.
Today we spent most of the time in the back yard and then a little bit of time in the house. When we get to the house, my daughter found a tiara and princess wand and some jewellery. She quickly put them on and was a little princess. It was great; they had so much fun, until it was time to go. Although I gave them several notices that we are about to leave my daughter wasn’t happy about it. My son had no problem saying goodbye!! (I thought he would be the problem as it was his play date) but my daughter was a little more upset than usual. She threw a big tantrum!!!!!!!!!!!
A kind that I hadn’t seen from her before. To be able to leave I had to open her fingers and take the toys she was holding. While she was screaming, kicking and trying to grab the toys back. Leaving the house was the easy part, making her sit in the car seat and buckling her, was another story!!
After several civilized attempts, and trying to sweet talk her to sit, I had to practically get in the car in front of her, use my knee to block the car seat so she couldn’t get out, and with two hands and my full strength try to buckle her. Guess what while she was screaming, kicking, scratching, pulling my hair.
I could see that she really wanted to go back in there, finish her play; but we had to leave it was time, and they had other plans for the rest of the day. I felt very bad to do this to her but hey, I can’t make everything right all the time.
She cried the whole drive and begged me to go back and not to go home. I offered to take them to the park but no luck. Then she cried another 20 minutes at home at the step of the staircase. When I say cry, I mean screaming, yelling, and crying all at once. I tried to give her comfort, told her that I knew she wanted to play, even tried to bribe her with anything (something I normally don’t do). I had to do something to stop this for the sake of everyone’s (even our neighbour’s) sanity. Nothing worked, until after almost half an hour she calmed herself down and decided to take the toy I offered her to play with. This was about ten minutes after I started doing my own thing and just ignoring the fact that she is in a tantrum, I guess she figured out that was the limit and if she didn’t win by now probably she won’t!?
The thing is the whole time I had to prevent myself from laughing. I can’t help it when they lose it like this, I can’t stop laughing. I know this makes them more frustrated but laughter is my way of dealing with stress. It is good in a way that I don’t get charged like them but won’t help them. How do you deal with tantrum? I would love to know your strategies.
Until later,
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