Have you ever been so afraid your child is going to behave like a monster, you lose it and act like one instead.

Being so afraid of your child having a meltdown that you have a meltdown instead….

….also known as “the time I had a tantrum at Halloween.”

Parenting is hard! Finding the balance between preparing for the worst and being the worst is hard. On bad days, it looks like being so afraid of your child acting like a monster you act like a monster instead. This is the story of my parenting tantrum.

Parent confession: the time I turned into a monster, my parenting tantrum.

I stomped off from a family event in a huff. I muttered the f-word. I acted like a monster–in front of my kids. In front of my parents–In a public place. What a monster!

Let me go back to the very beginning. I am a human female person; a daughter,  a sister, a sister-in-law, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a foster parent, and a professional early intervention specialist. I am all of these things. On this day, I also acted like a monster.

Our foster child, Little Monkey, at the time was a challenging child. He had meltdowns that, once started, could not be reversed. The only thing that worked was patiently waiting it out (5-10 minutes of violent screaming). This blog post is not about how to deal with a tantrum or how to avoid a tantrum. No. This is about me. 

We learned quickly that prevention was the best “cure” for his meltdowns. Over time, we became very good at preventing them by reading his cues, anticipating what would trigger him, and moving heaven and earth to avoid that thing.

One of his triggers was being told no. No of any sort. Even if it was said in the most positive way.

As a result of this trigger, I was a little tense–ok, a lot tense– any time in public with him. 

We hoped for the best and prepared for the worst when we were at a family Halloween trick-or-treating event. There are so many variables and triggers: candy, costume, walking or stroller, playing with the other children, other children and adults in costumes, and the biggest one of all, spending the evening with my extended family, which can be unpredictable as well.  

My extended family did not spend much time with him because traveling with him is hard. Because we are busy, and so are they. They didn’t know our reality. They also have never had any dealings with children with special needs at all. Their child is a brilliant delight. My children are “weird” and do not always behave perfectly. I know they judge us. 

We all rode together, enjoying a hay ride. When we found ourselves parking next to the carnival area rather than further away in the parking lot, I requested that we move away or be dropped off somewhere else because seeing all the bounce houses and food for sale would be hard for us to deal with. Instead of helping out, I was told: “well, he’s got to learn.” 

“He’s got to learn” comment made me snap. What. The. Hell. 

I spent the whole day thinking of every possible scenario that would trigger a fit and how to avoid that. I spent weeks thinking of a perfect costume that was sensory-friendly for him and us as parents. I spent the day managing his nap and medication dosing times to make this evening an ideal combination of good moods for all involved. I was a nervous wreck. We worked to get all seven of us in adorable costumes. All the children loved their costumes. We all had candy buckets, flashlights, costume accessories, and makeup. Well fed, on time. Stroller, diaper bag, emergency toys, emergency change of clothes. I thought I had considered everything. I had not anticipated being slapped in the face by that “Well he’s got to learn” attitude. 

Whether it was intended to be this way or not, it felt like he was saying, “This is your fault. If you taught him better, he would not behave this way. You are not doing a good job.”

It felt like a complete lack of understanding. No wiggle room. None.

This was a good parking spot; if my kid had a problem with it, he needed to learn. 

 
I acted like a horse’s rear. I said some things in a huff and stormed off. The things I said may have included a few curse words. Before he could get riled up, I took my kid, who “needed to learn,” back to where we had parked our car and was fully prepared to leave this whole thing. I didn’t want to stay in a place where my own family was trying to sabotage this perfect Halloween.

The kid was fine, by the way. No tantrum. This time.

By the time I walked to my car, I had taken some deep breaths, called my husband, cried my way back to my senses, and decided to call to apologize and rejoin the group. I had to swallow a lot of pride that day. Still am. Instead of saying, “I’m sorry I was inconsiderate to your child’s needs,” I was met with, “You need to learn how to control your anger.” 

As a result of a life of living in fear of one meltdown after another, I have worked myself into a constant state of tension. On that day, I lost it. Now I look like the one with the problem. Yet no one knows why I am acting this way because they didn’t see him throw a fit. He was an angel. I was the one with an anger problem. 

For months afterward I heard things like “I don’t know what you are talking about, he was such a delight at Halloween.” 

Maybe it would have been better for MY needs to let my kid act like a monster, having the world’s loudest and most violent tantrums at Halloween. I may have had people judge me for having a kid who behaved poorly, but in that scenario, I would have been the angel, and he would have been the monster.

No, I chose to work myself up and snap at my family, behaving like a monster but equipping him to behave like an angel.  

A good friend of mine told me recently how she admired my parenting style. She said I was so calm with my children. I scoffed and said. “Well, what about those times I yelled at this and the time you saw me lose my cool about that.”

She replied, “Well, the thing is, you are calm until …you’re not.”

We laughed, but it is true. Most of the time, I am calm, but I do have my limits. 

From the 2016 pychologytoday.com article Anger: When Adults Act Like Children—and Why, by Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D.  “when our buttons get pushed, when another person makes us feel threatened—especially someone we’re intimately connected to and so emotionally depend on, like our partner—we betray a strong tendency to instantly regress into our reactive child self.”

“Consequently, when we feel denied or accused, we’re likely to block off our lurking fears, insecurities, and self-doubts by turning them back on our adversary. Which is the reason so many of us get mad—or even “lose it”—when our partner begins to make us question ourselves.”

There is no advice. There are no tips. There is no right answer. The point here is that parenting is hard, and it is even harder when you have a child with a disability that creates challenging behaviors. When it feels like in order to go trick or treating as a family, your choices are to deal with a child’s huge meltdown or your own huge meltdown… When these are your choices, there is no right choice.

The truth is there may have been another choice that I did not think of. Even now, as I brainstorm, I cannot think of a scenario that would not have ended up without one of us having a fit.

Maybe those perfect parents out on the internet will tell me how I should have handled it. Just kidding. Please don’t.