STLWorkingMom

A friend of mine was frustrated today. Her four-almost-five-year old son is giving her fits. She turned to me to vent and knowing that my kids are much older, wondered if I had any advice. She told me that her son is a “control freak” who is totally throwing tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. She called him a “demon” and pondered whether five was too young for boarding school.

I sympathized. In fact, I told her, from infancy until about a year ago, my daughter was a bit of a nightmare. Now, not all the time, of course, but when she set off on what came to be called her “meltdowns” it was a toxic event all around. Her fits were stuff of legend; nearly everyone in our family has witnessed them, and some lucky friends and neighbors as well. They were shocking at a level I don’t even want to fully share today, such that I don’t want to relive them for even a moment  in my memory. In fact, at one point it was so bad that my mother, in all seriousness, suggested that perhaps we should call an exorcist. That’s funny if you don’t know my mother. Or if she’s not your mother.

After years of learning and the girl growing older and more easily able to articulate her pain and frustration, we settled on a few important items that restored peace in our lives.

1. It is critical that she have protein with her breakfast every morning. As a kid who has shot up to 5′11″ before her 13th birthday, she’s grown so fast swe can hardly keep her fed. We must feed the beast, before she turns snarly.

2. Let her control her schedule. Of course, this is only to a point, but there are things in a child’s schedule that they can control — giving a child like my daughter that ability and responsibility at a young age gave her a sense of control that she desperately needed. An example: by the age of four she had her own alarm clock and has been responsible for setting it for the right time to wake up each day. Gone were the battles of waking up and getting out of bed in the morning. I gave her the task of setting a schedule for completing homework each night and she chose to do her work when she gets home from school each day; a habit that has helped her earn her excellent grades. If I give her a list of chores, I let her decide when and how she’lll get them done, provided they’re completed by a deadline I set. Giving up our tendencies to control and plan her life by allowing her to make these decisions has taught her responsibility and created an environment where she feels respected and trusted by us.

3. After years of threats, punishments and the removing of privileges we were at our wits’ end. So we turned it around, and have tried to reward for performance or desired behaviors — you know, the old carrot instead of the stick treatment. This works, when we keep to it, but sometimes we slip and she tries our patience.

We’re not perfect; we don’t have parenting all figured out, but these are a few things we’ve learned along the way, and the girl agrees that just these few things have made a huge difference in her life. She’s happier and a lot more pleasant to live with. If you’ve got a demon lurking at your house, I hope our experience helps.