Tantrums

Well, we're there. It's taken a while, and I honestly dreamed that perhaps we'd escape the terror that is childhood tantrums, but this morning proved otherwise. This morning, our little boy woke up, and I went to get him out of bed so that my wife could have a lie in. The first place he ran was straight into our bedroom, and proceeded to try and wake his mummy up. As sweet as that sentiment is, she really needed some extra sleep, so I quickly came in and picked him up and proceeded to leave the room.

He screamed. SCREAMED. It was like someone was trying to cut his throat or something. And being his Daddy, I could tell this was something new. It was high-pitched and demanding and not fun for my ears at all. And I knew that nothing was wrong - he wasn't in pain. He just wanted his own way, and he wanted it now.

Anyway, I took him out into the kitchen and tried to put him in his highchair to give him some breakfast. This action encouraged him to start afresh with the screaming. So I got him out again, but by this time, my wife was up. Knowing that if I folded he would be learning that scream = get my own way, I took him into another room and gently told him to stop over and over. It took a few minutes, but he settled down and I then told him how good he was for settling down, and took him to see my wife, for which he was most appreciative.

So what's the point of all this? Oh, just that we've reached the tantrum age. He had a few more throughout the course of this morning as well, but the first was the loudest and nastiest. Now I've just got to work out how best to deal with them on an ongoing basis... *sigh*