Monday, November 06, 2006

To Tantrum or Not, That is the Question

Schools must be out today because our waiting room is choc full of kids. They seem to be enjoying our play area except for one young tyke who is in full tantrum mode. I can hear him clearly through my office door which is closed. He exclaims over and over again “I just DON’T WANT TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Alrighty then.

This brings me to my attempt at getting my way via tantrum. It wasn’t pretty and it was completely ineffective. I was probably six years old. I was accompanying my mom on one of our thousands of shopping excursions. I don’t remember exactly what was up my ass that particular day but I clearly remember lying on the floor in the middle of the cosmetic aisle in JC Penney. My arms were flailing, my legs kicking and my voice annoyingly high pitched and whining. It took my mom all of two seconds to straddle me. She bent down towards me, gave me the glare of doom and in a haunting whisper told me that if I didn’t get up and right now I would die very quickly.

You do not fool around with the trifecta glare, whisper and threat of death. I never, ever tried that approach again. Not being a parent, I am interested in knowing what other tactics are out there. Feel free to elaborate.

In the meantime, I went out to the reception area to see what Mr. Tantrum was wigged out about, it seems the tantrum has passed. He is happily sitting near the castle in the waiting room with many toys strategically positioned around him. Ah, nirvana.

4 comments:

wallofdenial said...

The secret behind the glare,,,

was my mothers left.

But thing's were different then

Wicked H said...

Dave: I hear ya. There are plenty of slaps that I earned from my mom. There are also as many that she missed out on.

Sparkling said...

Like fire requires air, tantrums requires attention. If you shut of the air the fire dies.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes the trifecta.....I remember it well. I also remember her purple stilleto heeled bedroom slipper that she threw at me and missed :) which broke the window. That beating was EVEN worth it! Ah, poor mom (and dad) they now have selective memory loss and don't remember those incidents. I remember them like yesterday.