The Fit

When you become a parent you read all these books about how to deal with stuff. You read about breastfeeding, sleeping through the night, giving allowance and getting kids to do their chores. And you read about what to do when your child goes through the terrible 2s and starts throwing fits. What you don't read about is what to do when your 9 yr old throws a fit. Unfortunately, 9 yr olds sometimes get tired too. 9 yr olds have a hard time being patient too. 9 yr olds find it difficult to share at times too. Tonight it began being about what movie we were renting and ended up being about talking back, obeying your parents and using self-control. So, Jack gets upset enough to talk back to the extent that his dad has to send him to his room. As parents we are thinking, "He will relax, take a few breaths, calm down, and then we will have a little talk with him and let him join the rest of the family." But this is not how it goes. In reality, said child begins to lose it, begins to bang things around his room, begins to yell horrible things about how he must be the "the worst kid ever!" This is when we begin to question ourselves. Did we make him feel that way? Did we tell him he isn't a good boy? Were we unfair to him? No, we said none of those things, but whatever we did, we have caused our son to lose it. So what do we do? Well, the last time this happened I called my mother and asked her if my kid would be ok freaking out in his room, or if he would hurt himself. She wisely advised me to just let him go and not to worry about him hurting himself. (Apparently she'd been through this a few times with me as a child a few years back) So, this time we wait, we let him know that if he breaks something he will pay for it, and we close his door. Within about 20 minutes we have a heartfelt apology from him. And within about 22 minutes he has become a new calm kid. WHAT THE HELL??? I will never understand the mind of a child, but if I try really hard to remember what it was like to be a kid and feel that life was unfair, I can almost grasp at least a glimpse of remembering what he at least was feeling. Everything is so important when you are a kid. Kids don't have what we would call "big things" to worry about like mortgages, schools, etc. So, what is important in their life? The day to day. Each day has its own worries and stresses. Each worry and stress doesn't go much beyond the day in which it began. So, each issue each day to them is worthy of a fit. Trying to remember my own need to have my own way as a child helps me a little in dealing with a 9 yr old fit. I know that I wanted a reaction from my mom. So, I have decided that's what my son wants. And so now, I have to decide if the right thing to do is to give a reaction or not to. Mistakenly, first we often give a reaction. We have learned through experience that this is not really the best way to deal with this, but hey, we are human too. No one likes to be yelled at. I mean it is like when your baby bites your nipple when you are nursing him and your instinct is to hit his mouth. My instinct when being yelled at, sadly is not to calmly ignore my son. No, my instinct is to yell back! So, what the books should have taught us about parenthood is this: "When your 2 yr old throws a fit, just laugh, because someday that 2 yr old will be nine and throwing a fit, and you need to save up your self control for those later moments with your kids, because they are the tricky ones."