Dad's the Word Column: Testing tantrum times

celebratemk

Jul 31

Freelance writer, blogger and married dad-of-two Gareth Ellis talks about dealing with the challenges brought by tantrums...

With children, people will often talk about dodgy ages, and a couple of them have names.

Up to a year old you have a baby, then you have a toddler, and both are extremely testing for different reasons. Once your little angel turns two, you're often in the realms of the terrible twos, that's then followed by a 'threenager' – fortunately, we currently have one of each!

Now, just for the record, I love my children, they make me laugh on a constant basis and I would do absolutely anything to protect them, help them and would give my life for theirs. But sometimes they really know how to piss me off.

For example, our daughter, Emilia, literally one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen (minus her Mummy and Rupert of course) is extremely up and down at the moment.

She can have days where she's blissfully happy for most of it, spotted with moments of madness where she's either shouting or crying at me for absolutely no reason. Here's a few of the reasons why she's done either/or:

I gave her the 'wrong' snack
I took the 'wrong' snack away
I didn't pick her up
I picked her up
I wasn't Mummy
I gave her the 'wrong' snack (again)
I faced her the way she asked me to when I put her in her car seat.

Rupert on the other hand is full on in threenager mode. He'll giggle with you one minute, growl at you the next, shout in his sister's face, then cry when we take him for a time out. He's also one of the funniest kids I've ever known. He can say something to you, sing a song, dance or just look at you in a way that has you smiling (at the very least.) And all of these highs and lows are interspersed throughout a day, so it takes YOU on an emotional rollercoaster too.

So, the last few weeks have been a test for Jess and I and we've been lucky to have the support of our families (who the children are besotted with) because honestly, some days you don't know whether to laugh or cry – or do both within the space of ten minutes.

It's so hard to think it in the moment, but that's kids, right? One minute they can be angels, the next they're the epitome of evil. Hell, that's a lot of adults I know too, including myself, so I can only imagine how tough it must be for a child to understand their feelings.

Now, I don't claim to know what every teenager is like; however, I understand from personal experience (me) it's a lot of emotions that you can't really handle or articulate, and you have someone telling you off for doing your best to attempt to describe what you're feeling. Now put that all into the head of a child, who can't even say most of the words they want, let alone express them rationally, and you see that kids actually do have some things tough.

So, the next time your little one, or someone else's little one, decides to throw a tantrum or goes from 0 to 100 in a millisecond, remember, it's nothing personal, they're just like the majority of us adults – they don't have a clue what is going on in their heads.

Gareth writes a regular blog at www.garethellisblog.wordpress.com and you can follow him on Instagram @dads_the_word_blog. He is also a freelance writer open to new opportunities, and you can view his website at https://www.garethelliswriter.com/

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