My strong willed toddler was enthralled with a simple penguin stairs toy. It probably only cost a few bucks, but to him it was magic.
I watched him play as his eyes lit up like a bright star on a clear summer night. The toy reminded me so much of my own childhood. Again and again, he watched the penguins go up the stairs and down the slide.
It was one of those moments as a parent that you don’t want to end because in that moment your child feels a happiness that is pure and true. It is a happiness uncontaminated by the busyness and stress of everyday life. It is a happiness most adults would pay money for.
But I saw the writing on the wall: I was going to have a stop a temper tantrum over this penguin toy.
I was going to steal his happiness.
The toy didn’t belong to him. Our family stopped by a friend’s house for dinner after finishing up a photo session earlier that day, and despite all the magic, he was going to say goodbye to the toy in about 5 minutes. And in about 5 minutes, the magic would fade and the tears would follow.
The tip you need to stop a temper tantrum.
As the night was winding down, it was time to head home. My son was overtired, refused supper, and now I was taking away his magic. It was the perfect superstorm of triggers to bring on the mother of all meltdowns.
Me: It’s time to go. You can play with the penguin toy again when we come back to visit.
Son: (wails).
Me (calm and sweet): You’re mad. You want to play with the penguin toy all night long. I wish you could. But we need to leave and go back to our own home.
Son: (wails louder turning his face crimson).
Me (calm and sweet): I’m going to put your shoes on. We are going home. You don’t want to go home yet. You’re mad and that’s okay.
Son: (kicking, followed by screaming, followed by rolling on the floor.)
Clearly, I wasn’t making much progress.
So much of positive parenting tells you to empathize and reflect the emotions back to your child. To stay calm. To be kind and nice. And you should. But there is a whole other component that comes with empathy and validating emotions that is rarely talked about.
Imagine for a moment you are enraged about something horrible that happened. Hypothetically, let’s say you broke your leg right before a marathon, which you trained for 6 months and counting. Now you’re just plain angry. You’re telling this to a friend and she says in her best nicey-nice June Cleaver voice ever, “Oh my word. How awful. You can do it again someday.”
Blech.
Meh.
Not helping!
That’s the problem.
She’s not matching your intensity. Your voice is emitting stout force. And her voice is emitting gentle force. You don’t believe her. You don’t believe she really understands what you are saying.
What you really want her to do is furrow her eyebrows and hang her jaw wide open and say, “Oh my gosh! That is AWFUL! I’m so disappointed for you. You worked so HARD and now it feels like it’s all washed down the drain like it didn’t MEAN ANYTHING!”
I finally saw the difference.
When I got my son out to the car, he was raging and back arching. His temper tantrum was continuing to spiral deeper into a place of anger and fury. With one arm supporting his back and the other his legs, I scooped him up and set him into his car seat.
Then I added the component that was missing the whole time. The secret way to tame a tantrum.
I matched the intensity.
Me: (huffing and puffing, brows furrowed, lots of arm movements and head shaking) You’re MAD! You wanted to play with that penguin toy for LONGER and we took it AWAY! It’s AWFUL! You wish you could take that toy home. And now you’re just plain ANGRY!
Son: (silence)
His looked directly at me and our eyes gridlocked. In that moment he *knew* I understood exactly what he was trying to tell me for the past 10 minutes.
My son took a deep breath, faintly smiled and relaxed his back into the car seat.
Don’t let me confuse you.
Matching the intensity of your child’s emotions is great way to help them feel heard. To help them believe what you are saying. To help them know that you really “get it.”
But don’t let me confuse you because matching the intensity is about matching emotions and putting some oomph and feeling into your words. It is not about yelling or matching aggression.
The worst was over.
I flipped my hair out of my face, took a deep breath, fixed my dress, and got into the front seat of the car. There was silence and then my husband spoke:
Husband: Well that worked.
Me: Yup.
When your child is struggling with big emotions and everything seems to be going horribly wrong, match the intensity.
When your child is drowning in the overwhelm of their own emotions and you don’t know how to snap him out of it, match the intensity.
When your child continues to communicate and accelerate because he doesn’t feel heard, match the intensity.
And when your child discovers a penguin toy that brings the gift of true happiness and magic, enjoy it, relish in it, and prepare yourself for the wild, magical ride of emotions to come.
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Want more on parenting?
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Rachel
This is amazing and I am going to put this into IMMEDIATE effect.
Lauren Tamm
I’d love to hear how it goes for you!
Katie
Oh. My. Ever. Loving. Goodness!!!! Woman… you are a GENIOUS! I am both so beyond grateful right now and devastatingly embarrassed. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I followed the link in the “A Mother Far From Home” “Routines” eBook to this article. I actually feel like the part BEFORE the giant breakthrough was written by me and I was SO relieved to be reading it as a “Yup! That’s exactly it” moment. However, I am absolutely dumbfounded by the fact that your point here has never occurred to me. I mean, seriously!? The bit about the broken leg and someone feigning empathy is, undoubtedly, an experience similar to one any one of us is likely to have been through and I just cannot believe I never considered that when dealing with my, quite spirited, three-year-old boy. I CANNOT wait to try this!! (…and when I said, “I cannot wait,” I meant that I could wait my whole life if that meant never seeing another tantrum but that the inevitable finally has some hope attached to it.) Thank you, SO much for this!!
Tasha
Your comment embraces my exact sentiments over this article.
Two year old tantrum stopped short in only a few moments of matching her intensity and then off to sleep! Thank you Lauren! !
Julie @ Fab Working Mom Life
This is a really excellent point. Sometimes being sweet and calm is not getting your point across. The other person, adult or toddler, just wants to feel heard and understood. And you can’t really show that you understand unless you get angry with them or get sad with them, whatever works for the situation. Great tip!
Lauren Tamm
Exactly!
Marilyne
Cannot wait till the next tantrum! Thx for the advice!! Love the idea!
Lauren Tamm
Haha. That’s right Marilyne…bring it, right? I’d love to hear how it turns out for you.
Rick Pedraza
That’s tough to do with children at toddler age. We carry a variety of high tech items to visually distract our 2 year old, making him forget what it was he wanted in the 1st place.
Kate
That’s a interesting concept, in my blog I sorta teach the same thing for parenting, in this instance to make them feel understood. If not then the child will lash out. Check my blog out here if your interested about other ways to stop tantrums 🙂
http://calmtoddlertempertantrums.com
Morgan
My sister got my following you for a while but I often don’t read parenting blogs sinc ethey are so different from how I parent. But this post was great!! I’m excited to read more of your stuff!
Jennifer
I am finding a wealth of information on your site! I have a strong willed toddler and im about to loose my mind. I have used positive parenting today and my day was Soo much easier. I can’t wait to see if matching the intensity will work for his next never ending tantrum.
Thanks for all the great info!
Myriam
Hi Lauren,
I was wondering wheter there is scientific literature which could support your observations about the intensity of reaction to a temper tantrum? Do you have any idea or do you know an author who has written about it?
Thanks a lot,
Myriam
Erin Matje
Very intriguing! Having some trouble with how to match the emotional intensity rather than the anger. Do we shout and flail about in a nurturing manner?