Beware of Weeds, Tantrums and Cheap Drama

Are you unintentionally watering the weeds growing rampant in your home? What the heck are weeds? Let me explain.

“Weeds” are those pesky behaviors your child exhibits, including whining, fussing, yelling, crying, fighting, sassing, and tantrums that you absolutely, positively, do not, under any conditions, want to feed. Unfortunately the more you try and get the pesky behavior to stop – the worse it seems to get and before you know it, a perfectly good afternoon goes up in smoke.

Even the sweetest little cherub can derail the day with one howling, screeching, blood curdling tantrum. We’ve all witnessed (or participated in) at least one sweat-breaking hissy-fit, in the supermarket leaving us frazzled and discouraged for days.

And once we’ve been through a classic, supermarket meltdown we spend an exhausting amount of time trying to avoid it ever happening again. Unfortunately, this is what actually “feeds the weed”. Trying to shush, bribe, hush, distract, cave, cry, remind, beg, plead, (in the attempt to avoid the embarrassment of a checkout line filled with hairy eyeballs) is like fertilizer to this particular weed – the temper tantrum.

We feed “weeds” with ineffective parenting strategies which include nagging, lecturing, reminding, threatening, counting, time-outing, saving and bribing. Constant attention to any behavior, good or bad, will only produce MORE of the same (in this case, a textbook tantrum).

By feeding that weed you want to be rid of, you’ll only find yourself in a battle of wits, wondering if you’re in a sitcom and why it isn’t funny anymore. What weeds do you water?

Are you interested in nipping those pesky behaviors in the bud? Learn about our Parenting On Track™ Home Program and to get some new tips for planting behaviors you’ll be happy to water.