Tantrums and Principles

Samantha had two massive tantrums today.  There were also at least two other minor meltdowns.  Something is up, and I think I know what it is.

The first one happened at day care.  I was picking her up and I smelled "production," as we've come to call poop sometimes around here.  (I mean, when they are babies, that's the only thing they really produce, right?)  I took her to a changing station and she was resisting a bit, but I talked her into letting me put her up on the table.  The diaper had leaked (AGAIN) and I was going to have to change her pants, so I took off one of her shoes.  That's what started it.  NO SHOES OFF. NO SHOES OFF.  The next 45 minutes were hell.  The poop was everywhere and she screamed for 20 minutes straight, waking up all the babies in the room next door, and was completely inconsolable.  I could not allow her to get down because the poop went halfway down to her knees, but she insisted on squirming off the table over and over.  I just had to catch her and put her back up every time, both of us getting covered in shit in the process.  She constantly tried to hit me and I had to hold her arms.  I could not understand anything she might have tried to say, except once she said she wanted to have the diaper changed on the floor (not possible with that much mess) and once she said she wanted the teacher to do it (that might have ended it, but I was feeling stubborn).  Finally, something broke and she let me hug her and start consoling her.  She was still too upset to do anything but cry for another 15 minutes or so, and then we finally got the diaper changed and made it home. 

She pooped in the potty last night right before bed (first one in a long time), so tonight I asked her if she wanted to try again.  She eagerly said YESCH.  After a minute or so of trying, she started asking for fruit candy.  We've offered her this little treat as a reward for making something in the potty.  I actually tried to stop the reward thing a while back, but she just won't forget that she is entitled to a fruit candy, so I decided that, for this one thing, a reward is ok.

Anyway, I told her she could only have a fruit candy if she made a pee or poo, and at some point, the tantrum began.  It was so intense that she threw up from all the screaming.  She did a much better job restraining herself from hitting me this time, so I didn't do much except try to stay out of her way and occasionally try to elicit some words.  But the intensity of her emotion was just too much.  I could see she was trying to say words to communicate with me, but they were buried in the screaming.  Since we were home and she wasn't hitting me, I was able to really stay calm and just wait it out, and finally, I heard these words:  TRY POOP POTTY. CAN'T DO IT.

I just about died with remorse.  The poor girl wanted to make a poop so badly that she was having a total meltdown when one wasn't forthcoming.  The damn reward thing was a total mistake.  Once I understood the problem, I could talk to her about it a little bit, but again, it took her a long time to recover.  I explained that sometimes there is poop in your body and it is ready to come out and sometimes there is just no poop, so you can't do it any time you want to.  I told her the best thing to do was to keep trying every day.  I told her that we were no longer going to give her fruit candy for making something on the potty, but we would give her some on occasion just for fun.  I'm not sure how much got through to her.  I'm pretty sure her earlier tantrum had something to do with this issue, since the same dark matter was involved. 

I've tried to keep the potty training issue casual and to make sure that Sam feels like it is a fun and good thing to do, but only when she is ready. But I blew that all away with the fruit candy.  I've now made the same mistake twice.  I've allowed one particular situation to be an "exception" to my usual parenting methods.  With Sam's hitting, I decided that time-outs were necessary instead of more natural consequences.  With the potty, I decided that rewards just might work, when I normally don't use them at all.  Both "exceptions" have been failures.

It's a good lesson in thinking in and acting on principle.  Sure, as a parent, you have to be flexible and open to lots of different methods, depending on your child's temperament, age, and the situation at hand.  But certain fundamentals will hold true no matter what the situation.  Next time I start thinking of something as an "exception," a red flag will pop up in my mind and, hopefully, I'll think it through more carefully.