At the park, kicking a ball about with DS who loves nothing more. After a while he was clearly getting tired and we were all getting cold. Put the ball under the buggy and strapped DS in, albeit with the usual resistance and tears which we have seen many times before. Normally he calms down pretty quickly or is easily distracted... Not this time. He screamed and made his whole body rigid all the was to the supermarket, about five minutes walk away. We chatted away in comforting voices to him, made his favourite animal noise etc. No sign of calming down. The same all round the supermarket, made worse by the fact that he saw an escalator which he loves. All the while screaming "BALL" and lurching about. By then I felt awful, really distressed and also sweating with the shame of the looks of judgement we were attracting... Still no sign of calming down, now about 15 minutes later. In the end I couldn't take it any more, I really thought he would be sick and so I took him out of his buggy to try and comfort him - nothing worked, singing, distraction, cuddles and I ended up carrying him home sobbing while my DH pushed the buggy.
The rest of the evening dragged by as he was tired and fractious as I'm sure he felt dreadful, and I felt awful too. I know this probably doesn't sound like a big deal but we haven't had a tantrum like this before and I just wondered if anyone has any advice about how we could have handled it differently? Obviously we couldnt just go back to the park and play ball again,and has made me never want to play ball in the park ever again if this is what happens when it's time to go home! I hated seeing him so distressed, and would love to feel a bit more prepared for next time....
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Behaviour/development
First full on toddler tantrum - what should we have done?!
35 replies
wishingforwillpower · 04/01/2014 21:25
OP posts:
IndiansInTheLobby ·
04/01/2014 21:46
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