did toddlers have tantrums 50 years ago?

[ClaraBowWasSoLovely]

Apologies - I bunged this in 'somewhere' yesterday due to computer illiteracy.
My children are in their forties and I don't remember any tantrums, no screaming, flailing, writhing on the floor (my marbles are intact).
I was 18 with my first, so was making it up as I went along.
Perhaps the world was quieter, calmer. We left our children outside shops!
No long distance travel.
Apparently (thanks, Google) other cultures don't experience toddler meltdowns. A writer asserted that the 'terrible twos' doesn't exist.
I'm ancient now, so no little ones of my own.
What do you older parents/grandparents think?

Not according to my old Nan, most children " In the old days" were well behaved, not like the children of today! total rubbish!

Children 1000 years ago had tantrums, and children will continue to 1000 years from now!

FaFoutis - I think you have it the wrong way round. 50 yrs ago mum definalety on average spent more time with children as they didn't ( generally) work. Things were much quieter and more structured for the children which many children like and find calming. (This is a technique child psychologists suggest for calming children and babies give them a structure or at least to know when to expect things to happen)
Life today is much faster and many of us are juggling jobs, houses, a huge array of clubs and social lives for children all of which often means things happen off the cuff. This isn't a criticism just an observation.
I also think the generalised children were too scared to have a tantrum is rubbish - I think you'll find not every child was smacked.
Every generation has its own way of doing things some are good done are not. Our children will no doubt criticise us for the way we have done things. As with all things in life you need to learn from things previously done.

My Dh is in his 50s. His mother tells of horrific tantrums from him. He often put the front door glass through in his paddy. He used to bite, kick and have strops quite often.
If she had stopped with 2 dc she would have the same experience as you, dhs elder siblings were apparently angelic. My three are exactly the same- first two were really well behaved, third one has had some amazing tantrums in her time!

Mogonfoxnight - something v similar happened with an elderly woman and DD a few years ago.
DD was a horror - she could scream solidly for up to three hours and we almost lost our minds with her.
She was around three years old and was having a screaming fit along a quiet road. Refused to move...you know the drill.
I stood a few metres away watching and wondering what to do when this old bird doddered over to DD and started talking to her. “Oh aren’t you lucky being such a little girl? I wish I was a little girl again. Are you two? Or three?” and on and on for a minute or two.
I just stood there with tears running down my face as DD never slept and screamed for hours Every. Shitting. Day. She made bugger all impact on DD, but as she passed me she said “It does stop,”
Five-and-bit years on I still think about that woman. I reckon she’d had One of Those, hat, 60-70 years previously.

DS had very controlled, artfully arranged tantrums. Some of them silent.

I threw one, once. My mother hit me so hard that I bounced off the wall, so I decided never to do it again.

My Mum is in her 70's Her Mum used to tell us how my Mum would throw some good wobblers, she was the first child of all the siblings and everyone would ignore her and step over her while she was on the floor having a tantrum.

I am in my mid 40s, brother 6 years younger.

There were tantrums, screaming fits, frothing at the mouth. It was so bad my dad would not have lunch at home. There was corporal punishment (my mother suffered more from it than my brother who grew simply more defiant)

It certainly influences how I parent! I never had ant illusions, but am firmly in the no corporal punishment camp. Just makes matters worse (my DB) or produces doormats (me :) )

My DH however was perfect- hmmn, not sure if I will ever belief it. Best kid in school, best behaved child in neighbourhood, never dirty (that is the one thing I believe). result of very very strict parenting. My MiL claims she had never seen a tantrum before seeing my DC...

If I had a tantrum I got smacked. Or threatened with it.

Ecureuil. At no point did I suggest that a smacked child is a well behaved child. What I said was, that I WAS smacked as a child, but that I was always talked to at a convenient juncture to make sure I understood why had been punished and that if I did it again, the same thing would happen. I also said I don’t know what the answer is ? I DO know what the answer isn’t - and that’s to give in to the child just to quieten him or her down. I’ve seen it time and time again - parents at the end of their tether giving the child what they want just to stop the tantrum. It puts the child in charge and it snowballs.

MrsArchchancellorRidcully I think your post illustrates the difference between normal physical punishment and child abuse. A quick slap to try to quickly shut down bad behaviour, is different to having a stiletto ground into your foot - that’s abuse and worthy of prosecution.

Yes I think children have always had tantrums. Maybe what has changed is how adults deal with it.
As for leaving children out side shops, you couldn't take babies into shops as you couldn't get prams and pushchairs in through the doors. I remember leaving my 6 month old DD outside one shop and coming back to find her choking on a barley sugar sweet complete with wrapper, which a kindly old gentleman had given her!

My mum and auntie now in their 50s were dressed in their brand new best for witson. My grandmother let them play out while she prepared dinner. They came in covered head to toe in tarmac.

She went outside to find out they’d been rolling around in the newly laid path.

So yes I would say they were misbehaving

No tantrums like I see nowadays. They did get "huffy" sitting down refusing to do something but never the shouting screaming and lashing out that happens now. They were never psyco analysed with all this trying to find out what is upsetting them causing them to react as usually knew - they just didn't want to do something or like something. It was a case of just too bad you are doing It! Sometimes they didn't even know why they were being like they were. That phrase, you are the child I am the adult and parent was very useful.

Little kids have always had tantrums. Old kids, I'm not sure. I went with my kids & a friend & her kid to a kid-friendly theatrical event. My kids were very appreciative of the cost involved and thanked me numerous times. Friend's ds (same age as my ds) threw a fit I've being told no Coke, only juice at intermission. He was 11, no special needs. Screaming and crying and banging the counter. My kids did not know where to look.

In the less child-centric world I grew up in I think that would not have happened (friend was not very good at lovingly but firmly telling her ds that she wouldn't have him calling her names etc, just worried about his feelings, rather than the feelings of everyone who had to put up with him).

I don't know pollymere, but we weren't allowed snacks in between meals, and I was often hungry. We weren't poor, it just wasn't allowed.

My sister was 56 last week and she used to have the tantrums from hell when she was two!!! So, yes tantrums we're certainly around all those years ago

I vividly remember my 52 year old brother having an enormous tantrum because there was a hole in his bread and butter. He’d bitten the hole himself.

My uncle is over 60 and tantrums in my family were known as 'doing a Co-Op' as he always saved his best ones for there :-)

I think some kids are more predisposed to losing their rag than others. And I think in current times of kids being exposed to a lot more stimulation - more toys /tvs/screens there are more situations where it can occur if a child is more predisposed. I also think certain parenting techniques can help to circumvent kids losing their shit. So many variables - but it's something kids have always and will always do!

But I also think that tantrums are not a bad thing. Letting g a child express their feelings and getting their frustrations out. Grown ups often feel better after a cry or a row!

My mother (now in her eighties) was considered 'highly strung' by the family. She remembers that at the start of one extended family get-together her mother was told: "you might as well smack her now and get it over with as you're going to have to do it anyway". That might have been the occasion when she had kicked her granddad's sore leg ....

Of course they did. A tantrum is what happens when a child is not able to express their feelings. Children haven't changed in the last 50 years, but the way people react to them has.

Im sure I did, although I'm sure the severity of them depends on personality. DS1 had awful tantrums but only at home so I could easily ignore him. My other two are far more laid back and rarely tantrumed. It's a toddler's way of dealing with the world when things don't go their way

We were brought up in the countryside in 50s/60s. DF had use of a works van. DM didn't drive. I don't think we really went out on buses, probably not feasible as pushchairs were pretty big, prams enormous.
So what was there to tantrum about?
We pottered outside on our own if the weather was good. Older brothers disappeared on bikes and not seen til meal times. Had odd afternoon walks to river for picnic.
Life just was quieter. No being forced into/ out of car/ woken from sleep in car seat/ being expected to sit in cafe/ to trail round supermarkets or shopping malls. I really don't think we did tantrum.

Well they certainly did 30 years ago!