"Preventing" Tantrums?

At a recent parent-toddler class, we discussed “preventing" tantrums.  This is at once a very good idea and a terrible one. Here's what I mean.

If preventing tantrums means noticing what the conditions looked like before the tantrum and trying to avoid re-creating those conditions, this is a great idea. Perhaps you were trying to finish up a project and delayed feeding your toddler, which took him from “a little hungry” to “extremely hungry and very grouchy.” Or you tried to fit too many errands into an afternoon when his nap had been skimpier than usual. What you've learned is that if your young child is experiencing unmet needs (such as hunger or tiredness) any task or request or transition that would normally go over okay can bring on a tantrum. Duly noted!

However, preventing tantrums can easily turn into tiptoeing around your toddler. Perhaps what triggers a tantrum is a perfectly reasonable request, such as “Let's put these toys in the basket,” or your refusal to cater to food fussiness (“What I made for lunch today is tuna sandwiches – maybe we can have mac and cheese tomorrow.”) You have a choice between two very unpleasant alternatives: endure a few tantrums or give up the expectation that your child will learn to help with cleanup; endure a few tantrums or turn yourself into a short-order cook. My advice is to endure a few tantrums and stay the course. And I say “a few tantrums” because once your child learns that her outbursts will be met with empathy for her distress paired with a steadfast refusal to cater to her whims, the tantrums should diminish. The outbursts were a lot of bother and they didn't accomplish anything! There's no incentive for her to continue repeating the behavior. This is how kids gradually learn to maintain composure in the face of disappointment and frustration.

But it is quite tempting to tiptoe around. In fact, it's such a slippery slope that sometimes we're not even consciously aware that we're going out of our way to placate the child. Or perhaps we've gotten into the habit of backing down when the child doesn't like a position we took – turning our “no” into an “oh, all right, if you insist.” It may be that a child's tantrum is very, very upsetting to you – more than just loud, inconvenient, annoying and occasionally embarrassing. Spend a little time thinking about why this is, perhaps even talking about it with your partner or a trusted friend. You may need to ask yourself. “What's the worst thing that can happen?” You may need to train yourself to calmly observe the stages of a tantrum as you would a force of nature: imagine watching a fire ignite, flare and finally burn itself out. You may need to sit with the discomfort of naming and warmly accepting your child's feelings without taking responsibility for fixing anything. (This, by the way, is the gift of a lifetime. It's your toddler's key to self-awareness and self-regulation. And though it's quite simple, I'm not saying it's easy!)

So of course keep your eye out for conditions that stress your child and which make tantrums likelier. That way you can steer clear of those conditions. But try not to be so tantrum-averse that you find yourself compromising standards and routines that you want to live by.

The Picky Eater

Dear Susie,

My best friend's little girl, age 2 ½,  is a very adventurous eater.  Also, she eats a good amount at every sitting.  My daughter, who is a little older, eats like a bird and always says "I don't like that" when any unfamiliar food is put before her.  My friend and I share recipes all the time, and our families have similar tastes in food.  What could be causing this?

Dear Parent,

Right up there with toilet learning and oppositional behavior, this is an often-raised topic among parents of toddlers.  Kids in this age range are notoriously poor eaters.  I'd say the “adventurous eater” is the exception, not the rule.  Often I point out two kids at snacktime.  They are about the same height and weight, both equally robust and active.  Yet one eats like a stevedore and the other is – well, in the words of one of my moms, “he's an air fern,” apparently subsisting on airborne nutrients!  It would be nearly impossible to find two grownups with such disparate eating habits who share the same physiognomy and energy level.  What's up with that?

I have to think that Nature protected our hunter-gatherer ancestors by making sure that just-weaned two- and three-year-olds could thrive in times of plenty (without getting too chubby to keep up with the clan) while also being able to subsist when food was scarce.  The gorging stevedore and the air fern may be simply playing out these feast/famine conditions, respectively.  And both kids are fine!

But, since no one seems to worry about the hearty eater, let's focus on why some kids are picky about food.  In some cases, the answer is found in temperament.  Back in the fifties, Alexander Thomas, Stella Chess and others began studying infant temperament.  Their longitudinal study provided concrete evidence of innate personality traits.  This merely provided scientific underpinnings to long-held folk wisdom.  Shakespeare knew it (remember “the four humours”?) and for that matter, so does any parent with more than one kid! 

One feature of temperament, as identified by Thomas and Chess, is Approach.  Approach is about how a person enters into an unfamiliar situation.  For “cautious approach” folks, new foods, new people and new places pose more of a challenge than an opportunity.  These people tend to be that way for life.  Another feature of temperament identified by the researchers is Sensory Awareness.  Kids who are acutely sensitive to sights, smells and textures may balk if the carrots are cut differently, or if the butter on the asparagus is unsalted today.

That said, some toddlers/preschoolers just go through a picky phase.   Some hints on helping a balky eater:

✔     First, try to adopt a blasé, take-it-or-leave-it attitude.  Avoid coaxing and bribing. If you are over-invested, you child can sense this and may try use it for attention and power.  Not pretty!  A toddler's natural obstinacy can extend to the dining table especially if (s)he knows that this is a good way to get your goat.  If I've learned one thing, it's that trying to control either end of a child's alimentary canal (what goes in and what comes out) is a fight you cannot win.  Rely on good vitamin supplements to fill the gaps in the diet.  And vent your frustration on this subject out of earshot of your child.  “He's picky eater” can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

✔     Introduce new foods one-by-one, gradually but consistently.  A daily dose of unfamiliar foods makes this child feel as disoriented and overstimulated as you might be if I dragged you to a different shopping mall every day.  Experts say that you might have to present a food ten or twenty times before the child will try it.  Most parents give up before the child has become sufficiently familiar with the look and smell of the new food to venture a taste.

✔     “Ooh” and “ahh” about your food, saying how much you like it and describing why.  Do this spontaneously and casually, not in the context of persuading your child to try something.

✔     Try eating family style, as in a Chinese restaurant.  Allow your child to choose for him/herself from the community platter, assisting only with transferring the food, and only if necessary. Your child will feel a sense of control and autonomy, which reduces tension around eating. (Yes, you will have a few more dishes to wash, but it's actually thriftier, since food that spends time on someone's plate and doesn't get eaten usually ends up in the trash.  Food left on the serving plate is perfectly suitable as leftovers or for packing in school lunches – right?)

✔     Kids like “cute food.”  Broccoli trees can grow on mashed potato islands.  Sandwiches can have faces, or come in funny shapes.  Use your imagination!

✔     Reframe “I don't like it.”  If this is a new food, you can respond, “Sounds like you're not sure what this tastes like.”  This addresses the underlying uncertainly (while piquing your child's curiosity) instead of focusing on the negative.

✔     Kids are often more amenable to eating foods they helped make or which they can put together themselves.  Enlist them to tear lettuce for the salad, or cut soft (or parboiled) veggies with a plastic serrated knife.  Serve tacos with all the fillings displayed so the kids and can choose and assemble their own customized dinner.  They often enjoy dipping veggies in ranch dressing, apple sauce + yogurt, peanut butter or hummus.  (A lot of kids prefer raw veggies to cooked ones, and what's the harm in that?)  They enjoy decorating an English muffin or pita with food, then baking and eating it.  Or try deconstructing a pizza:  serve veggies, mushrooms, chunks of cheese, salami and bread sticks that they can dip in pizza sauce.  Play with your food!  (Not literally.  If this devolves into messing, say “Looks like you're not hungry” and take the food away.)

✔     Indulge the need for sameness at breakfast and lunch, but don't let a child's limited repertoire completely derail your family dinner.  Having mac and cheese every night just to cater to one person is pretty dispiriting for the others, and it sets the wrong tone – narrowing options rather than branching out.  Maybe you can compromise by having that child's favorite once a week. (We had Taco Tuesdays for about ten years.  Sometimes I thought I would go utterly mad...but it was a night off from grumbling.)  And whatever you do, don't become a short-order chef, whipping up that special meal for one kid.  My daughter was something of a picky eater, and would often turn up her nose at my dinner offerings.  I was not willing to make separate meals to accommodate her.  The rule was, if she decided not to have what we were having, she could eat corn flakes for dinner (the only allowable alternative – the idea was that Plan B should be a single non-negotiable option as well being something she could prepare herself.)  This went on for about five years, but both of us survived. In fact, as an adult she loves to eat – and enjoys cooking more than her mother does!