Careful. One could almost read that you think people who are unable or choose not to have children somehow don’t have empathy for the little bipeds. That would be a pretty crummy thing to think.
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Yeah, sometimes kids get caught in an angry loop and need something to reset it, or are playing for the crowd. I’m all for tricks in those situations. Favorite one: “Show me your angriest smile.” Either kid tries not to smile, with the same result as “don’t think about a bear.” Or makes an ugly sarcastic smile, but that’s still a smile. Either way, the smile really does dissipate the anger and calm the kid down.
But there was too much mocking in this for me. And the message that we take turns with the feels is weird.
*Unless it is real emotion, in which case asking the kid to smile has no effect. It’s actually a pretty good way to tell.
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Man, that happened to me once when I was two. I WILL NOT FORGIVE. I WILL NOT FORGET.
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As a parent of two kids, I find there’s precious little use in “armchair parenting” without a huge amount of context about the children, the relationships, the development phase, the phase of the moon, the amount of sleep that both children and parents got last night, etc.
The tactic seemed odd to me, and my first instinct is to comfort upset children, but I’ve also dealt with children who (1) could sit in a pit of misery because you were consoling them, which made them unable to focus on anything else but why they were miserable, (2) were deliberately trying on upset to see what they could get and needed a sharp reminder that it wouldn’t work, (3) badly needed a long hug and commiseration, (4) where upset but had forgotten what they were upset about, (5) had gone so far along the upset path that they were actually scared about how upset they were, and (6) needed a quick hug and a change of subject to distract them.
Hint: They were were all the same child over about a week.
So no, unless there’s a huge impropriety, I find it’s rarely worth offering parenting advice or criticism.
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Our kid may just be an outlier, but we can and do get her to breathe and calm down so she can tell us what’s wrong. She’s 2.5. My husband started the breathing deep when upset before she was verbal. We model it whenever we are hurt or upset. By now she knows what we expect of her. We try hard to emphasize that it’s ok to be upset and good to express your emotions, but wailing and temper tantrums never get her what she wants. We stay intensely engaged until she has calmed enough to tell us the problem and breath with her. Her dad is so much better at it than I am. Because I got paranoid that we were teaching her it’s never ok to cry, we paired this strategy with her “safe place.” At home, if she freaks out, she has a choice to do her breathing and calm down or go to her safe place and have a good cry. I go with her and wait quietly until she is ready for hugs and telling me what’s wrong.
It’s working. She was crying in the bath a week ago and said “I need to stop cryjng!” Then proceeded to start her breathing. When she had calmed down, she explained what was wrong.
We also ask her everytime she falls or appears to hurt herself “are you hurt or are you scared?” When she answers scared, she almost immediately calms down (except the time I fell down the stairs when she was beside me- we both cried and then breathed but calm took a bit)
I think the key to this, for us, is remaining calm and quiet, staying engaged and present, and either giving her the space she needs or the cuddles she needs. But we may just have a freak of a kid. I have no idea if our methods would work on a different child.
If the father in the video followed up his trick with big hugs and a discussion about what’s wrong, I think his strategy could be ok. A way to stop the tantrum cascade and fix the issue when calmer. Kids emotions do cascade- if you can derail a tantrum at the beginning the kid will calm down. If not, you just have to ride it out. Like making a kid laugh to stop a tantrum. But with just what was shown- it seems mean and could be damaging.
I also disagree with posting videos of kids’ most vulnerable moments for lols.
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My Mother used the “I’ll give you something to cry about” threat, but it wasn’t a threat, if you know what I mean.
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Agreed, but when you post your parenting tricks online having people debate the merit of the trick is part of the deal.
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True, but trying to determine the merits of a trick is, as I said, almost impossible to do realistically.
Of course, the idea that any trick works more than 20% of the time seems somewhat fantastical in my experience. And if I was actually approaching 20% for any one tactic, it usually meant it was time for another leap in mental development that would utterly invalidate everything that I had spent the last 2 months learning…
I suppose it was child #2 that made me very glad I hadn’t offered any advice previously, as pretty much every approach for child #1 was wrong for child #2 from about 30 seconds of age (literally).
I thought I’d become an expert in raising children by surviving child #1. It turned out I had only become an expert in raising child #1.
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Thank you for this. For a long time I’ve thought that I’m the only person who is uncomfortable with these things.
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Been there, (barely) lived through that. Fist bump for a fellow sufferer. 
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…or you’re the freaking parents of the year.
Every kid is different. Every family is different. Do what works for you. If this is what works for this family then great. These kids are learning that they can control their emotions. Some (a lot) of adults can’t do that. As long as they feel safe and loved, they’ll be fine. As a parent we find that other parents think our kids are tough. But it is mainly when they fall we don’t freak out so the kids stay calm. I see other parents react at the slightest little bump and then the kids freak out.
Anyway sounds like you’re doing great. Well done.
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I agree. So why post the video? Heck, why take a video?
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What makes you think he didn’t discuss it afterwards? The first step to talking is, well, for both parent and children to be able to talk. Whatever the method, the first step is to get the child to calm down, be it with hugs, breathing exercises, yoga or games. Far from being sabotage, it’s one of the greatest gift you can give your kids : the ability to manage their emotions before solving what put them there. A lot of grownups can’t even manage that.
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I don’t think you need to be a parent to make a post urging empathy for children. And one of the most common complaints I hear from new parents is about non-parents criticizing their parenting techniques.
All kids are different, but it’s not just that they’re upset by things that seem trivial do adults, it’s that they have trouble regulating their emotions.
You saw absolutely none of what went on before or after the video so you have no basis to assume he didn’t address their feelings as well, you seem to be assuming that he started recording the moment the one girl got sad and went back to watching TV the moment they shut up.
I suspect he’d already talked to the girls about why they were sad (missed their mom) before hand, and continued to afterwards. I suspect that tactic taught them two valuable skills, empathy (ie, someone else can be sad and cry) and self-control (oh, I can actually stop crying if I try), both things that kids and even adults really struggle with.
As for feelings, kids aren’t happy during a tantrum, stopping that tantrum does a lot of assuage those feelings.
I’m not trying to claim to know anything about raising kids, I’m just trying to stop this group shaming of a father based on a video with very little content.
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He might have discussed it afterwards, but since its not on the video, I don’t have the full context as others have mentioned. So yeah, I totally own up to being guilty of armchair parenting a ninety second clip of actual people in a larger situation. And I am in agreement with what you and others have said about calming and communication. I responded to what I perceived as not genuinely being the emotional management you’re describing. I also took issue with it being labelled as a “life hack” and “excellent parenting trick” for that reason.
Overall, though, I am happy to read the discussion Mark’s post generated. The BBBS remains one of the few spaces online that doesn’t instantly turn toxic.
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Oh man it was hard to teach myself to be calm when she fell! But worth it.
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Boing Boing BS is the best BS.
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The mistaken assumption that your technique will be appreciated and praised by others? The desperate need for external validation? Self-aggrandizement?
I’m not willing to criticize his techniques, even if I dislike it.
But don’t get me started on his decision to publicly post a video featuring his kids about it.
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What listening was going to get done while two sirens are going off about Mommy’s absence?
I bet lots more discussion about feelings and shit can get done without trying to talk over wailing.
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