How to Solve Toddler Tantrums: Let Daddy Be King Lion

Health and Science for Sunday 032909

Hey folks,

While I was looking for something to talk about in this week's Health and Science Segment, I came across the duh factor of Toddlers do not think like Adults, therefore this is why they do not always do what you want them to. But then I caught this. This is by our friend Meredith F. Small. You know her, you love her. She is wrong 90 percent of the time, but she seems to be a good person. {Smile}

Ms Small actually wrote this last year, but being a Neanderthal, I know from first hand experience that this is actually close to being true. Not exactly, but along the same lines. I know, it does kind of fit in the Duh Category, but some really do not get the concept. This is also something that our good Friend Dr. Laura preaches about all the time. Here is what I'm talking about.

Live Science - How to Solve Toddler Tantrums: Think Like a Neanderthal

By Meredith F. Small

You're in a store, little kid in hand, and then suddenly she tries to pull away. You bend down and whisper quietly in her ear, "Stay with Mommy, honey," knowing full well that this reasonable request is a foolish attempt to dampen the temper tantrum that is rising like a tsunami inside your kid. With a pounding heart, you scoop her up and run from the store before someone shouts, "Bad parent. Dreadful child. Get out!"

You know, just as a side note, notice how Ms Small always talks about Females? I'm not saying anything. Just saying.

No one knows why 2-year-olds have temper tantrums, but most of them do. It starts with mild anger over something simple but then quickly escalates into full blown fury dramatized by screaming, fist pounding, foot-stomping, and screaming. The child also descends psychologically into a place where they can't be reached by words or physical comfort, and parents stand by helpless and confused.

Clearly, the child is distressed, but to the parent, the distress seems way out of proportion to the situation. And it is physically stressful for the child, which suggests that there must be some evolutionary reason why temper tantrums are so universal for little kids.

Uh, no. But we will leave the disturbelution stuff alone for now.

Pediatrician Harvey Karp, author of "The Happiest Toddler on the Block," and an expert in getting babies and toddlers to quiet down, claims that tantrums are an expected product of human development. He sees our little darlings as less-evolved savages driven by instinct and emotion, not thoughtful reasoning, and he suggests it's our job as parents to civilize them into Homo sapiens.

What it actually is folks, is that they have no experience to have learned from. We learn from experience. Do this, that happens. They have not done this yet, therefore they have no idea what that is. Nothing to do with "evolution." It is just the natural life experience or inexperience that causes this.

It goes on about "Evolution" and Dr. Spock type stuff. Leaving the Psychobabble, and disturbelution BS aside. Kids respond better to the Father than they do the Mother. Sorry. That is just simple fact. Here is where I agree with them, in a matter of speaking. The Father is like the King Lion. The Leader of the Pack of Wolves. The Father is the dominate Bear. It is the Father that should be the one to teach discipline, and the way the Child should go. Male and Female.

A Father need not reason, or relate with the Child. I know that when me and Josh are together, he is a prefect child. He plays, laughs, pouts if he does not get his way sometimes, but then refocuses on something else and goes back to learning and playing. When Mommy is with him, he does not get his way, he says "No," throws fits from time to time, and really get's Mommy's anger up. Why?

Because he sees Mommy as the nurturer and a comfortable place. Safety, and security. He sees Mommy as someone to take care of all his needs and a constant source of comfort. When that changes, she says no, he gets angry and doesn't want to listen.

Dad? Daddy is the King. The final authority. He sees Dad as the one that will protect him, and one that knows better than he. He actually fears, in a way, The King. He does not want to make the King mad. Therefore, when Dad says no, he may pout, but in the end, he will KNOW that no is no. Therefore move on.

My job as Dad, is to teach Josh the way to be a Man. How to treat Women, and others when he gets older. My job is not to kiss the boo boo, or say, that's OK, Oh my little snooky, whatever. My job is to teach him that stuff happens and you deal with it.

A Father is the one that teaches his Daughter how men should treat her. Not by saying this or that, but by how he treats her, Mom, and other Women in her life. Why do you think that she will seek out and find "Daddy" to marry? If Dad is a Drug Addicted Abuser, more times than not, that is what she will seek out and find.

Kids learn A LOT from Dad. Social things, work ethics, self discipline, and pretty much life in general. This is why it is so vitally important that a single Mother should have a positive Male role model as a friend, or family member for the kids to learn from. It is this way in nearly all species. The Male is the leader. It is just the natural way of things. So in this one aspect, I agree. Josh just knows instinctively, even if I say nothing, just a look, that he is in need of correcting his behaviour. Then he does.

Do not get me wrong here folks, Mom is just as important. This is why it is the best case scenario to have children in a loving home with BOTH Mom and Dad. They need to learn from both to be a well rounded person.
Peter

Sources:
Live Science - How to Solve Toddler Tantrums: Think Like a Neanderthal