Recently my son has begun acting out and throwing little temper tantrums. My wife and I are determined to have well behaved children, and even more so not to have “those” children. You know the ones I’m talking about. You don’t answer the phone when their parents call, or if they do end up coming over you find a hobby in the garage to occupy yourself with until Lucifer’s spawn has left your house and taken it’s bratty manifestations with it.

A tough aspect of our sons new phase is that, at this age, it’s honestly kind of amusing at first. It is difficult to go from just having to love on them and take care of them to actually having to discipline and instruct them. However, we are committed to teaching our children to respect us as parents and our boundaries and preventing him from having moments like Jack-Jack in Pixar’s The Incredible’s.

No matter how hard we try to be amazing parents the reality is that tantrums will just happen. At this point their physical development is far beyond their mental development and ability to understand and reason (as I am writing this my son is trying to pull the sleeves down on his short sleeved t-shirt). They can do things that are either dangerous to them or just annoying to you and when you try to prohibit them they honestly don’t understand. My son fell off a kitchen chair twice within 10 minutes the other day and still didn’t understand why we’re mean and insist he sits on his bottom!

When tantrums occur my gut reaction is to be stern and swift, like a parental ninja, not letting my son win a mental battle against his old man and beginning a pattern of disrespect and disregard of me as his parent and thus leading to a life of crime. This is silly, I know.

The authors of “Caring For Your Baby and Young Child” by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest that his outbursts are a result of frustration and an inability to express that in words. So he acts out physically because that is where he is the most advanced.

They recommend “When your child has a temper tantrum, it’s important that you try to remain calm yourself. If you have loud, angry outbursts, your child naturally will imitate your behavior. If you shout at her to calm down, you probably will make the situation worse.”

My experiences have found this to be true. We scream and yell out of frustration over the fact that or child is screaming and yelling out of frustration. What sense does that make?

Don’t get me wrong, there will be a time when my son is old enough to understand a good tongue lashing and I’ll be ready, but, now is not that time. In the meantime I need to try and help the situation whenever I can by remaining calm and not adding to his stress and tension by using my “Dad Voice”. What about you? How do or will you handle the situation?