Our daughter Gloria has been really fussy lately. It starts with a whine, but escalates quickly to a full body tantrum, her arms flailing and back arching, and her voice rising to a scream. It happens so fast that I almost drop her, as her torso morphs from cuddly curl to hard column and her heels accelerate towards my crotch.
There's no evidence "giving in" to tantrums will make them "worse" anymore than "giving in" and feeding her when she was hungry as a baby would. It's just her needs and wants are more complicated now and she hasn't yet learned to communicate what they are or learned negotiation. It will come.
I don't think it's necessarily that "giving in" would be rewarding her feeling angry--but it might rob her of the opportunity to learn how to cope with feeling her feelings. I'm really into trying to foster emotional resiliency and intrinsically-motivated focus for my kids, because I feel like I didn't get that for myself and it seems harder to do as an adult rather than as a child.
"by staying calm and present instead, I can sort of link our nervous systems together, my still reservoir damping and absorbing her small violent waves." -- I think this is spot on! You're doing great.
I have the same conflict about being reactive. In addition to your point about kids learning from what you do, I believe that a plan for how you're going to raise your kids, at least one on a day-by-day basis, can't be successful, because we don't know ahead of time what our kids will need from us. We can plan ahead that we want to teach them integrity, kindness, patience. But they will come to us one day with anger because they're being teased, and a different day with a conflict over whether to admit a mistake, and another day with difficulty focusing on their homework. I think being proactive is knowing your values, but the work is often finding the right way to apply them to the challenges our kids are facing at any given moment.
There's no evidence "giving in" to tantrums will make them "worse" anymore than "giving in" and feeding her when she was hungry as a baby would. It's just her needs and wants are more complicated now and she hasn't yet learned to communicate what they are or learned negotiation. It will come.
I don't think it's necessarily that "giving in" would be rewarding her feeling angry--but it might rob her of the opportunity to learn how to cope with feeling her feelings. I'm really into trying to foster emotional resiliency and intrinsically-motivated focus for my kids, because I feel like I didn't get that for myself and it seems harder to do as an adult rather than as a child.
"by staying calm and present instead, I can sort of link our nervous systems together, my still reservoir damping and absorbing her small violent waves." -- I think this is spot on! You're doing great.
I have the same conflict about being reactive. In addition to your point about kids learning from what you do, I believe that a plan for how you're going to raise your kids, at least one on a day-by-day basis, can't be successful, because we don't know ahead of time what our kids will need from us. We can plan ahead that we want to teach them integrity, kindness, patience. But they will come to us one day with anger because they're being teased, and a different day with a conflict over whether to admit a mistake, and another day with difficulty focusing on their homework. I think being proactive is knowing your values, but the work is often finding the right way to apply them to the challenges our kids are facing at any given moment.