Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Just a rough day with parenting this kid

DD5 is such a tantrum thrower these days. Not sure if it's a gifted issue at all, but I think it may be related to some budding perfectionism.

Her latest drama involved a supposedly fun "family" homework project. (And what is the deal with "family" projects anyway? We've had several sent home so far and I have no desire to help my kid glue noodles to a paper plate to make her face for an assigned school project... and she has no desire to let me help her.)

This time they brought home a photocopy of a drawing of a turkey and the family is supposed to work together to give the turkey a disguise to wear. (Why? No idea. Maybe they read a book in class to go along with this? No clue, no explanation given.) So DD decided she'd dress up her turkey as a sheep, and started gluing crunched-up tissues all over him. She finished, found the end result wanting, and a full-blown kicking, screaming, falling-on-the-floor tantrum ensued. And continued. And lasted probably almost an hour before she was totally done.

I try not to give her much reaction at all when she acts like this. I told her I'd give her help if she wanted it, but that she'd have to calm down because I don't like to listen to screaming. Then I left the room but she continued her tantrum for so much longer than usual.

Usually she'll only have a fit for 5 minutes, tops, but it's been getting worse. She'll also now do this in front of anyone, including her friends and their parents (who are visibly taken aback, but she doesn't care). She tantrums at music class if she can't play her piano piece perfectly the first time she looks at it. She tantrums at home if she's trying to write something and the spelling looks wrong. She's never been one to want to try something she might not be good at. I remember when she was a toddler, certainly not 2 yet, she would insist that we draw things for her but would refuse to even scribble herself. She had an obsession with owls and asked us to draw owls for her many times a day, but would get despondent if we suggested she draw one herself. ("I CAN'T! It won't LOOK like an owl!")

But she wouldn't throw tantrums at that age, and now it's a several-times-a-day occurrence. I'm getting to the end of my patience here, the high-pitched angry squealing at every little challenge just sets my teeth on edge and a full day of listening to that leaves me wiped out.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I have been there and I know it is tough. This is what I did that helped.

I started slow and picked a tantrum prone event. Sounds like for you this could be music class.

I talked about how things have been going, how it isn't going well for anyone and we came up with alternate solutions. For music maybe something like her letting the teacher know she is frustrated, asking to get a drink of water and then coming back to work on the piece part by part.

Then we role played it out with stuffed animals. I got to be the screaming flopping kid and he got to be the grown up. We did it the old way with the tantrum and the new way with the alternative. This was very light hearted and he thought it was pretty funny.

Before we went into the situation, we reviewed the game plan and I promised a little reward if he was successful.

Once he was successful in one area, we moved to other ones.

Good luck!

Five was REALLY REALLY REALLY rough with my DD(now 9). She was I.N.T.E.N.S.E. It was so rough that I questioned my abilities as a parent constantly. What am I doing wrong? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with her? Why is the rest of the world immune to this? etc etc.

MUCH better now. I love 9

Today, DS3.5 threw a 2hr tantrum after a pee accident. All the way home on the subway. Shreiking so loud my ears were ringing on and off. Many people asked what had happened and I was afraid someone would call poliece or security or something. The trip normally takes about 35 min. How do you explain "he's upset because he peed his pants"

Obviously, I have no advice. Just... Blech.

Have a budding perfectionists here in my ds6 - between my own only-partially-recovered perfectionism and his, we can be quite a pair with "projects". He has a really hard time trying new things (if he thinks he won't succeed).

I, too, remember having to color/draw/write for my ds when he was 2-3. My dh and I were always trying to trap the other one into it: Mommy's busy but DADDY said he wanted to write 30 letter H's for you.

My ds doesn't "fit" but he shuts down and pouts, which drives me insane. We are working on the "stop, breathe, and maybe take a break" when he's keyed up.

My niece was seriously intense st 3-6...she's a driven, happy freshman this year. - there is hope for us!

DD could throw some epic tantrums when she was little. She always seemed to save them for home, though-- so that made things easier for us.

Our solution was to point out to her that her nonlinear, hairy CAT FIT... was basically punishing everyone for something that was, really, just HER problem.

Ergo, emotional upsets require a 'reset' period. ALONE. Because other people don't deserve to be punished by this kind of behavior. It's rude. I don't know if this would work for most kids, but that explanation certainly worked wonders for our DD. She's so socially attuned to appropriate behavior, though, that this was a good lever to change the behavior.

She got put into her bed when she did this. To rest, to relax, to think it over... and as often as not, to cry it out and cry herself to sleep. It wasn't "punishment" so much as a cooling off period. I never actually labeled it "so Mommy doesn't go postal at you" time... but... er...



Yeah. That, too.

From a purely behavioral pov, what you're doing by ignoring her is called extinction. When you ignore the behavior it will escalate, because she's upping the ante to get you to react. If you continue to ignore, eventually (the length of "eventually" being dependent upon the personality of the kid), after a nice huge extinction burst, it will go away. If you waffle, and give in even rarely, it actually further reinforces the behavior-- which is why I personally hate extinction as a b mod thing, because it's wicked hard to pull off. I like KJP's response, honestly.

Yeah. That was how we mostly handled it. I had some champion hissyfit throwers in my girls. ::shuddertwitch::

Yep...per Eldertree....when one intermittently reinforces a behavior (parent tries their best to ignore, succeeds sometimes, and even just caves rarely) it is extremely hard to achieve full extinction. The child just keeps waiting for the "when".

Why slot machines work so brilliantly.

Thanks very much for the responses.

I really don't ever give in as far as giving her something she's screaming for, but I do sometimes lose it and give her a negative reaction like yelling. So that's probably working out as a payoff for her of some kind.

She truly hates being alone so putting her in bed should work well during a tantrum. And I really like the role-playing idea- she'll love that. Also very good to know that many of you have experienced this and come out in one piece on the other side. Thanks!