It is OKAY to let your toddler scream and cry and kick and punch the floor in the frozen food aisle at Walmart. It is OKAY when your toddler squeezes under a fitting room door and hides behind a display of hanging clothes. It is OKAY when you're at a restaurant and your toddler refuses to sit in the booth and instead wants to lay on the grossly dirty floor under the table.
Don't let your blood pressure rise. Don't start sweating it. One thing I have learned with Ree is that she is filled with thousands of emotions and that they are impossible for her to understand and that she must express them. I have uncovered some of her "quirks" over the weeks and the most important lesson I want parents to teach their children: It is good to have a cry until you feel better. It is healthy to punch the pillows on your bed until you relax. It is okay to go sit in a corner and be alone until you are ready to talk.
What a valuable life skill to instill in our children! To learn how to express and understand and talk about their emotions. I grew up bottling and hiding and masking my feelings and as an adult today, I still don't know what to do with them.
I let Ree get mad at me. I let her hide behind me instead of greet strangers. I let her throw tantrums at Target because we are not buying a jumbo bag of Snickers bars. I let her scream at the dentist because she is scared. I let her crawl into my bed in the middle of the night because she craves physical touch.
There are moments when I understand Ree's behavior as "attention seeking." Some of her fits and fights are just screaming LOOK AT ME. I EXIST. What amazing confidence she has. I want Ree to be sixteen years old and bold enough to demand the respect she deserves.
Of course everything in life works best at a healthy equilibrium. There are times when I feel it is appropriate to follow a tantrum with discipline. For example, behavior that is outright rude or mean or there is a lesson to teach your little one. And there are different moments when I understand Ree is just begging for someone to love her and squeeze the hurt places away. That she is just yearning to have feelings and be allowed to feel them.
One thing that Ree has started doing lately breaks my heart. I see her sometimes insanely happy and she will stop and immediately refuse to allow herself to do what is making her happy. For example, we might spend the morning destroying the kitchen by baking pancakes for breakfast. In the midst of all the laughter and flour and chocolate, she will run to her bed and burst out in tears.
It is scary for Ree to allow herself to be happy and it is scary for her to be comfortable with happiness. It is terrifying to become dependent on a stranger or to rely on an unstable situation. Everything I give Ree to make her happy reminds her of the day it will be taken away.
That is why I let Ree cry in her bed until she feels better and she will return with a smile on her face to eat her pancakes and talk about it. And when our days are particularly crummy, we blast Katy Perry, break open the Hersey Kisses and put clothes on the dog.
I will teach my daughters every day that crying is not taboo and that their tears are not trivial. I will teach my boys that crying does not make them less of a man, it makes them a brave and passionate and feeling man.
Parents, try to watch out for these moments when it is fair and right to let your children have a good cry. Don't ask them to stop crying because you feel uncomfortable. Allow them to cry until they are finished and soothe their feelings. Learning how to self-soothe and vocalize feelings after you've had a chance to feel them....is a skill most adults do not have.
This does not only apply to tears and anger. There are moments when it is fair to allow your child to feel totally euphoric. To dance and wiggle and walk crooked and tip toe and sing and scream and run in circles in public. Because they just feel SO HAPPY. Remember, this their childhood and they only get one. Those too-happy moments in adulthood are fewer and thinner and farther apart. Appearing to be well-behaved children in public is not as important as that single moment when your daughter feels purely and genuinely blissful. Sometimes Ree's public disturbing happy-moments really brighten others' days. SO SCREAM IN PUBLIC!
Ree, baby, you are teaching me SO much about life. I finally understand that being 4 means expressing yourself LOUDLY and PROUDLY.
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