Put on the wrong shoes.
Shirt was too big/small/shirty.
Wanted the chicken back on the bone (immediately after asking to have it cut off).
Too cold (after intentionally kicking off blankets).
Didn’t want that for dinner.
Didn’t want to buckle seatbelt.
Coat wasn’t zipped up (after refusing to zip up coat).
Wanted a new stuffed animal from the store.
????????????????????
These are all reasons for fits/tantrums/meltdowns in our house. You’ve probably experienced a fair number of these as well. Some are over as quickly as they started, some last much longer. But one thing they all have in common is that the “reason” for the fit is never the real cause.
Before we moved in together, our kids were pretty typical. Of course, they had good days and bad days, but no more than any other kid. In fact, I would even go as far as to say all four of them were better behaved than most.
Then we all moved in together.
Things got pretty rough. Daily it seemed, at least one child would have some kind of meltdown. Nights were long. Weeks lasted years. Kacey (my amazing fiance) and I spent hours and hours talking about what was going on. We’d never seen the kids act this way before, at least not to this extent. While we don’t claim to have the answers (if we did, I’d be selling a book instead of writing a blog), but we came to several realizations together.
Starting a new blended family is a big change. Kids aren’t used to sharing their single parent with anyone else. The number of siblings literally doubled overnight. They were all living in a new house. Their amount of space was cut in half, despite moving to a bigger house. They started a new school/daycare. Not only that, two of them were still processing a recent divorce. Most adults don’t deal with change very well, so it is understandable that all of these sudden changes would be difficult for children who aren’t yet capable of wading through and understanding their own emotions. All of the meltdowns we were dealing with had nothing to do with chicken or shoes or seat belts. They were just explosions of emotions triggered by otherwise innocuous events.
Our frustration softened into annoyed understanding. We stayed consistent with our response - condemning the behavior while supporting the child - but we took extra time to talk about emotions with each child. Some days this is easier to do than others. We aren’t perfect parents. We lose our temper and snap at the kids, like any non-robot/saint parent. But we are sure to apologize and model how to make it better. We talk about our feelings with them. We try to help them understand it is normal and good to have feelings. It is even ok to feel angry or frustrated. We point out that everyone feels those things from time to time, and some more than others. We explain that we can’t control how we feel, we can only control our own actions. No matter how difficult, and no matter how many times we have the same conversation with the same child, we stay consistent.
Today is February 1st. We have been living together as a blended family for five months. Our kids still have tantrums, but not as many and not as severe. We still have conversations about our feelings and our actions. We still lose our tempers at times and snap at the kids, and then we apologize and have more conversations about our feelings. Things are getting better, and I believe it’s because we’ve stayed consistent with our effort to help the kids navigate and understand their emotions. We’ve all grown to trust each other. I believe the kids know we are taking care of them physically and emotionally. We support each other every day.
Parenting is hard. Parenting in a blended family is really hard. But being a kid in a blended family is hard too, and we shouldn’t forget that.
