Toddler parents know that dealing with a category five toddler tantrum is one of the hardest parts of parenting: especially if you are out in public.
While one mom and comedian on TikTok discovered a tantrum ‘hack’ by accident, an expert revealed why it actually worked.
In a stitch with content creator Emily Vondy, parenting expert and neuroscientist Dr. Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta explained why a particular comical gesture that Emily made when trying to deal with her three-year old’s meltdown, helped.
Mom Emily begins by explaining that her toddler was screaming after she zipped up her pyjamas instead of letting her do it.
She says she was “losing her S.H.I.T” so Emily made a face. An exaggerated, comical expression that seemed to de-escalate the meltdown almost immediately.
“It doesn’t layer language”
In her stitch with the original TikTok by Emily, Dr. Hauge-Zavaleta explains why the face worked.
“You know what that does to a kid in a meltdown? It doesn’t layer language on top of their experience and you can kind of feel like, ‘Ah, she gets it’ right. Like [he toddler thinks], ‘oh my God, I’m getting my emotions mirrored by my parent’, and sometimes that’s all we need in order to move on.”
This mirroring of emotions without any words is a very successful way to defuse a meltdown before it goes nuclear.
Dr. Hauge-Zavaleta adds in response to Emily’s surprise at how well this funny face worked: “You didn’t yell and you just gave a face that says,’ oh my god, this is so hard’ [meaning] your kid could pass through the meltdown.
“You gave her an opportunity to have herself reflected and then come back into a relationship with you.
“Nice work, Mama, that was great.”
“I really wanted to yell!”
In the original TikTok as used by Dr. Hauge-Zavaleta, Emily says she was working really hard at not shouting and being a reactive mom when her toddler gets upset.
“I really wanted to yell. I really wanted to lose my s**t. [but instead] I gave her one of these [comical looks]. And then the craziest thing happened, she completely stopped.
“She changes the subject as if she wasn’t in the middle of a category five meltdown, like it never happened, like it never existed.
“One second we’re losing our mind because we’re overtired, and I zipped up her pyjamas, and she wanted to zip them…and the next second, she’s telling me how much she loves my fuzzy hair!”
In the comments under Emily’s original post about her surprising toddler meltdown rescue technique, thousands of parents shared their version of the comical face reaction.
One said: “My personal motto ‘If you can’t soothe them, confuse them’. Honestly, it has worked way more times than I ever though it would!”
“It was my turn”
Another added: “The other morning I threw a fit. Told the three year old that it was my turn because she already has three fits before 7am and it wasn’t fair that she got all the turns.”
To which a third contributed:”I’ll ask my kiddo off the wall questions like ‘do you think dinosaurs fart?’ The more off the wall the better.”
One younger user had a hilarious memory of how her own father used to soothe her and her siblings during a meltdown.
“My dad’s trick during meltdowns or sibling fights was ‘watch me do this’ and proceed to do some weird movement like flap his arms or kick his legs and would do it until we just stopped.”
So while Emily said it wasn’t her ‘proudest moment’ of parenting, it certainly seemed relatable and funny to her followers.
Back to Dr. Chesley and more people shared in her comments section about why this sort of reaction to a child’s tantrum also worked for them.
Tiktok / drchelsey_parenting
“I love this. It totally works for my 20 month old and it’s very natural for me too.”
A second agreed saying: “Mirroring is very powerful!”
Finally one mom shares how this technique diffused a shopping mall tantrum: “Because of her video I did this to my four year old and it worked.
“She started giggling and telling her brothers to ‘come help fix mommy’.”
