Mom's Bag Of Tricks - Toddler Meltdown Diversionary Tactics

As you may already have gathered my son Elway has a bit of a flair for the dramatic. His need for the limelight know no bounds and  therefore, it would seem, it doesn't matter to him whether the source of his attention is positive or negative.

Whoa is me, for neither myself nor my spouse have ever had any issues with authority, and I'll be damned if I have any clue where he would have got it from?

Ahem.

It really doesn't matter how far this nut fell or from which tree. Regardless, we have a united goal, my husband and I.. and that is for him to thrive off of the good attention. We hope he'll chose the spotlights on a stage or field over a bright light shone in his eyes on some episode of Cops.

Since I found out I was pregnant I have had my head in a parenting book or magazine. I could be trying to set a record for Googling parenting tips. And for all my research I have come up with five fabulous fail-safe remedies and prevention methods for wayward toddler behavior.

1. The Actual Bag Of Tricks
My purse unintentionally takes on the characteristics of a decent bag of tricks, but am I ever glad when it comes in handy. If caught without supplies a mommy can have feelings of panic, anxiety, and uselessness. The purse will at least have a few small toys in it.. virtually no mother is a stranger to pulling out Kinder Surprise toys when looking for her keys. My purse also always has some wet-ones and a few crayons. But a real bag of tricks, for if you are going to have a bit of a long day away from home, visiting, driving, grocery shopping or whatever, is a real life saver to just keep packed. My bag of tricks has, those purse contents I mentioned, except instead of just wet-ones it's a scaled down diaper bag, with an extra shirt, pants, socks and undies for my trainer (socks often get wet during an accident).On top of these items,  I pack a few nutritious snacks and drinks, a familiar stuffed animal to assist in a nap if needed, a couple of books, a small etch-a-sketch (great for travel), and a coloring book for those crayons. With all this stuff in tow, I'm prepared for my next trick.

2. Distraction
My son might grow up thinking that for some reason my hearing can switch from supersonic when he's up to no good on his tip-toes behind a wall, to near deafness. I intentionally do not hear all kinds of things. The kinds of things I am referring to for this point are typically questions, that I'd rather not answer.
For example;
Say I am suddenly in a very big hurry, but before the change in my itinerary, I had said we could go to the park. Now, I can no longer afford the time. I already apologized at home and it caused a major meltdown. Now I can't leave the maze of a subdivision with out passing a large primary color beacon of fun, and my son sees it and says. "PUH-LEEEASE  can we go to the park??" If I've had my coffee my line is not going to be "No we already discussed this". That is just the beginning of an argument. Why disagree? I say, "Parks are so fun, right? What about Transformers? Super fun too, right? I think I brought your Bumblebee!!"

3. Lies of Prevention
My husband really sucks at playing along with these... but it's okay because they work on him too. This is when I know that we have 10 minutes before we have to leave a play-date, so I say we only have 5. Or if I say we have no agenda for the afternoon, when I know that he will be way too excited to nap if I tell him our plans. A woman I used to chat with at the pool told me that she didn't agree with lying to your child for any reason. To her I say, good for you. I personally think that white lies are fine, and that what they don't know in such case doesn't hurt them. I also think that her mild mannered little girl is hardly the handful my Elway is, but that is beside the point. If I need an ounce of prevention to be worth a pound of a cure, it's usually a pretty wretched disease I'm battling.

4. Choosing Your Battles
There goes an old saying "You may have won the battle, but can you win the war?
Earlier I mentioned using some selective hearing. This is the second application of that action. There are some choice words and phrases that my son says which are not exactly what I consider good behavior. He knows this full well. It is, I think, very important to not underestimate the will and skill of a child to manipulate a situation. Elway will pull a lyrical mishap right before bed time, for example. He is hoping to have a little drama, just to prolong the inevitable. I just act like I am so absorbed in finding his jammies, that I didn't hear him call me a "boron" (a new one of Elway's custom cuss words).  Honestly, ignoring bad behavior is sometimes the only way to make it stop. When I can hold the urge to ream him out for things that he's is doing just to get under my skin, not only does he stop for the time being, but that particular method of annoying or upsetting me goes into the garbage as far as he's concerned.

5. Praise The Child
Reinforcing positive behavior is very important, especially for a child who craves the attention. If he only receives bold attention for bad behavior, then it becomes purposeful. We use a reward system, that I chart in colored markers on a white board on our fridge. I made symbols for categories of reward points. Red hearts for being patient, polite and gentle, orange cones for obeying safety precautions, blue stars for learning a new skill, etc. I even got some foam, and cut out the shapes and I hand them out when we are not home for him to save up and then we chart them upon returning. These reward charts really helped with our son. Mostly because it changes the entire focus from negative to positive.
Above and beyond reward charts, sometimes I will praise my son for having a meltdown. Sound crazy? I know, but hear me out. Elway has a lot of physical aggression and when he gets angry he can be violent.
When he is 4 I will be putting him in martial arts to help him gain control, but in the mean time I encourage him to use his words. I tell him to let it all out, and not bottle up how he feels. Apparently, he sometimes feels very angry. After the fact, I always tell him that, if he name-called, it hurt my feelings, and not to do so. During the tantrum however, I praise his verbalization of his emotions. I think that one day, some girl will really thank me.

There you have em. Five tricks of my trade. You might think, "why would I want to follow your advice, Lady? Your kid sure isn't an angel? Well, to that I say, on the contrary. My son IS my angel, and here is one more free tip for you! Another cliche but it's true, so who cares; "don't judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes."
I remember my husband and I seeing poorly behaved kids in malls and such,  and giving each other a judgey wudgey wink. We thought, 'our kids will never behave like that'. Guess what? We were wrong. You might be too. And so, don't judge that poor woman dragging her child kicking and screaming out of the bank, she might very well being trying harder than the vast majority of parents and just have an extremely difficult child. Oh, and don't judge the kid either, his shoes are much too small for you. :)