18. Are you Afraid of Public Tantrums and Blow-ups?

Have you been avoiding going to public places, saying no to playdates or social gatherings because you’re afraid that your child will throw a fit in public?

This episode is for you, my friend.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN: 

• What's been missing, in your approach to public tantrums,
• How to plan for the worst, and hope for the best,
• How to applies this tool in REAL world examples.

When you finish listening, I'd love to hear your biggest takeaway from today’s episode. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, share it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @Sustainable_Parent_Coach !

While you’re there, make sure you follow me on Instagram so you can see behind the scenes of how I share daily solutions for the most common parenting challenges and how you can become a sustainable Parent.

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Transcript

You're listening to Episode 18 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Are you afraid of public tantrums and blow ups? This episode's for you. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing.

To parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective. And for that reason, finally, feel sustainable. Welcome.

I just got off the phone with a mom yesterday who was telling me how it's so hard to be a mom of her child because she finds herself starting to avoid [00:01:00] going into public places, saying no to playdates or events with friends because she's really honestly afraid of her kids possible blow up and tantrum.

They're happening so often they get so big, so out of control and she doesn't know what to do. Nothing seems to be working and it's like holding her hostage in her own home with her own beloved child. Can you relate? If this is you, friend, you are not alone. I talk to parents every week having struggles like this with kids from 2 through 12.

Kids who they feel are taking over the life of the family because when they are upset, the whole family is in a meltdown or the whole system is disrupted when they're having a good day. It's awesome. But when it's not a good day, nothing seems to turn it around. Well, today I'm going to give you the secrets to what has, [00:02:00] what is missing.

So you no longer need to be afraid of going into public. Here's the difference, friend. I want you to think about this wise truth. If you can predict it, let's make a plan for it. If you can predict it, let's make a plan for it. I was just talking to a family today about this on a coaching call where they said that they were super frustrated with their child.

And how he behaves when dad is in the office at home and the child is coming in repeatedly and wanting to get his attention. He's like, I got to do work, honey. And he's coming in and it's this back and forth on a daily basis almost. And I asked, okay, so if this is happening that regularly, have you made a plan with your son about what the rules are around whether he can come in or not?

No, he said, I hadn't, I guess I hadn't thought about doing that. And this is often the trick we get in with our parenting is we keep [00:03:00] facing something over and over and then somehow just magically thinking the next day will be different without putting in a plan in place for it to be. Different. So with this dad, we talked about, let's make a plan that you clearly have a little piece of paper that has a red, red circle on one side and a green circle on the other side.

And this is for a three year old child coming, knocking on his door. That red light is going to be clear to say I'm in the middle of a meeting or something where I can't just be disturbed. No, you cannot knock and come in. But if the green light is there, you are welcome to knock and come and get a little snuggle or say hello to me.

With mom being a stay at home mom, she's with the child in the home and can help navigate this too. And he found that this really made a giant difference super quickly, like overnight, they put this into place and the child really loved knowing what the expectation was and he thrived within this limit that had been so clearly communicated [00:04:00] ahead of time.

They made a plan for it when it's green, feel free to come in when it's red. Daddy needs space. And the dad said this felt so much better on his side too, because he often felt torn. Like, well, I don't want to say don't ever come in here. I like that he wants to connect with me, but I just hadn't come up with a way to really clearly set parameters there.

So similarly, if you're going into an outing at a restaurant or a park, many parents just plan for the best and only hope for and hope for the best. And guess what? Then when it goes awry, they're like, I thought this was going to be fine. And now what do I do? So instead, this may seem counterintuitive, but I tell parents to plan for the worst.

And then hope for the best plan for the worst and then hope for the best. Here's what I mean. If you're going to a park and you know that often when it's time to leave and you say time to go, your kid is going to bolt and run. Let's make a plan for that honey [00:05:00] today when we are done playing, I'm going to come over to you.

I'm going to hold your hand and we're going to say what's the last thing that we want to do to say goodbye to the part. Do we want to walk over and give the slide a high five or are we going to come over here and give a little fist bump to the swings? Um, what's going to be our way to say goodbye while I'm holding your hand?

Now this is clearly conveying to the child that I have a plan here and then this is letting me know I'm going to be able to have control of the situation without involving the chance that I'm calling to him from 10 yards away. Hey, time to go. And that he's likely to get to start running. Or having a meltdown then if I'm trying to chase him around and tackle him to get to the car.

Don't get me wrong. I've been in those moments where I'm chasing a child and be like, we have to go and wrangling them, but I don't want to end up there. And I don't want to be afraid that I have to end up there. So when those moments have happened, I then have made a plan better for next time. [00:06:00] Okay. So So another idea of how to make a plan is that if you know your child is likely to start melting down, if you have said, no, we're not having lemonade at the restaurant, or they're kicking the table and you've asked them to stop doing that.

And they're going to start, you know, being upset with you. Let's have a plan for that. I encourage parents, even in public, to have a plan of if the child's going to hit, harm, or scream, we are going to move away from the situation and take a break until they can get back to their wise, wonderful self, back to being a good boss of their body, back to making wise choices.

So when we go to the restaurant, let's say in advance again, let's plan for the worst, but then hope for the best, honey, if something happens where you're starting to have a hard time, um, and your voice is getting louder, you're not being a good boss of your body. We just want you to know, we will take a break in the bathroom.

Until we're ready to try again. [00:07:00] You can also do this at your in laws. I mean, gosh, I remember I was so embarrassed in the phase where my kid was having a lot of tantrums, especially between like two and five. And I would go to my in laws without a plan, just hoping for the best. And then often there'd be a meltdown and I'd be embarrassed.

I didn't know what to do. Should I just appease it? Should I walk away? Should I, I just feel their eyeballs just burrowing into my school, watching me. And so. One day I said, I'm going to just be brave enough to put this into words in front of the child and in front of the grandparents. And let's see how this goes.

So when we walked in the front door, when we were going to be there for the weekend, I just said, Hey guys, just so you know, sometimes Caleb's needing a little break, um, if he's having a hard time with being a good boss of his body. So would it be okay if we take a break over here in this bathroom, if he needs that space and, you know, his eyes were big, they were definitely watching and listening to this conversation.

I was letting him overhear it. And the grandparents like actually were [00:08:00] super receptive to it. Like, Oh, totally. Absolutely. And then it made it so much less awkward when a tantrum started happening that everyone in the scenario knew what I was going to do. And I knew what I was going to do. And that made it more likely that I was able to follow through.

And so then I could just scooch him to that place and not be afraid and on pins and needles of what if he starts having a tantrum. Instead, I was able to say to him and sometimes even to others in the environment, here's our plan if he's getting upset. And do you know what? It decreased the number of tantrums by a lot because I think part of it was that my son knowing that I was prepared with a plan and I wasn't just going to shy away from discipline just because we were in a restaurant or at the grandparents, that then the kids love to settle into knowing those clear boundaries.

Most children really, really, really thrive as soon as they know the clear boundary. Now, others are going to [00:09:00] test harder and kind of those aggressive investigators, we call it. And those aggressive investigators may need to push the boundary and start having a meltdown and have you walk them to the bathroom once or twice at a restaurant in order to know that you mean it.

But, if you have that plan, you follow through on that plan, both of those pieces are going to decrease the fear of that tantrum happening in public. Okay, friends, so, I hope this empowers you this week to be able to utilize these tools to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, so that parenting can finally start feeling more sustainable.

Talk soon.