Today at playgroup we had fun making Valentine's Day Cards until Lucas had a major meltdown out of NO WHERE. He wasn't very nice to one of his friends and I told him to apologize and Lucas LOST IT! I put him in time out and told him he could get up when he was ready to apologize. He sat there and screamed and screamed and refused to say sorry. I gave him several chances but he would not calm down. I ended up telling him that he could either calm down or we would leave. He didn't calm down so I grabbed our stuff picked up my screaming toddler and marched him to the car. He started screaming "No! Go back inside!" and hit me for putting him in his car seat. I explained to him we were leaving because he was NOT being very nice and he just SCREAMED and SCREAMED that he wanted to go back and play.
Once we were on the road Lucas started asking for a drink. I told him that if he apologized for hitting me he could have his juice. He refused to apologize and just kept screaming and kept demanding his juice and to go back and play. Finally after 10 minutes he told me he was sorry for hitting me so I handed him his juice. Then he said "Go back and play now!" and when I told him we were not going to turn around and go back because of his behavior he squeezed his juice box at me and then threw it... all while I was driving! He then pointed at me "You time out NOW mommy!"
I told him "Sorry Lucas, but I'm the mommy and you are the little boy and you don't tell Mommy to go to time out"
When Lucas told me "I no want to be the little boy" I had to try so hard not to laugh. When Lucas saw that we were pulling up to our house he calmed down. I guess he finally realized that Mommy was NOT going to give in to his tantrum, and it only took 45 minutes!
When we got in the door we sat down and had a calm talk about what was appropriate behavior and that if he acted like that again that we would leave again. Then he ate lunch and took a nap. He never acted up again and he even gave his Daddy the Valentine he made before the meltdown. I am really proud of myself for sticking to my guns today. It would have been so easy just to give in to the crazy screaming toddler especially in the car but I know that would have just been a temporary solution.
2 comments:
You're such a great mom. :)
There is nothing I hate more than public temper tantrums. We started to leave the grocery store the other day when Ean did that, but he quickly calmed down when I took him out of the cart.
I am proud of you for staying strong. It is the hardest when they start bargining and trying to boss you.
Too bad you had to leave early but I guess it turned out ok.
Post a Comment