When Tyler was younger, I often used distraction as a way to squelch a tantrum or to stop the tears when he was tired and cranky. As he got older, I did not use this method as much if at all. I figured he could “use his words” instead of crying.
The past few weeks I have used two of my old tricks to stop unwanted behavior and both have worked surprisingly well. The first is distraction, which I already mentioned. I have also found that talking in a soft, quiet voice is equally effective.
When Tyler was younger, I didn’t care if I looked like a fool as I sang a silly song while shopping at Winn Dixie. If it kept my baby content I was all for it. However, as he got older it seems like I became more self-conscious of what other people thought about me. Not anymore. Not when I have rediscovered how well distracting Tyler works. And I don’t have to do a song and dance, I can distract him by simply saying something unexpected. For instance I will make up a word or simply say something funny or unexpected. I can say something like, “kerflunk” and he’ll stop out of curiosity. Sometimes I will call his name and then pretend it wasn’t me who called him. This is sure to always bring a smile. Even something as simple as telling him if he stops he can play the games on my cell phone works. And once when we were out I let him (gasp!) carry my digital camera. In every instance, a tantrum was avoided or squelched.
The same goes with speaking softly. So often we yell commands at our kids. When we speak softly, they are curious and in most cases stop what they are doing to listen. The first time I tried this old trick, Tyler stopped, looked at me and said, “What did you say? I can’t hear you.” I repeated myself in the same soft tone but this time of course he had to come closer so that he could hear. In that brief time he had forgotten what he was moaning about in the first place.
Sometimes we have dig into our bag of parenting tricks to find methods that worked for us in the past when our kids were younger. When you do, you will find that most of these tricks still work, even if our kids aren’t babies or toddlers anymore.
See also:
Teaching Impulse Control To Toddlers