Tantrums

Tantrums
I guess we all fear as parents the terrible two`s. The tantrum era, the days fill with that notion on your head that your kid has transform into someone else, that the sweet boy/girl is no more and now is just a little person that you canot recognize. Well, I thought I was immune to the tantrums after my daughter, yet, I was wrong. Nelson did not really tantrum much at 2, I was so happy and so proud “Hey everyone my son is two and he does not tantrum at all”. By the time he was 2 we did not know about his condition so I was just thankful that he was not in the terrible two`s zone.
Tantrums are a big part of living with a child with the Disorder. They cannot communicate verbally (in Nelson`s case) so they need to use any other means necessary to ventilate all they have in their minds and hearts. The understanding of the world is also different than the one from a mainstream child, so in sum, tantrums present themselves as a way to communicate and more importantly a way to get what he wants.
Some tantrums are short and kind of funny (and by funny I mean inexplicably we just want to laugh), some others are long and very soul breaking for both parts us, and him. I suppose they are not so different from the ones we had with our 1st Daughter, yet, is not about the tantrum itself is about how to get to him while he is on it. Here we cannot apply the long explanations about why he cannot do what he wants to do, or that he needs to be careful with himself, or that he is not suppose to hit mami or papa, in this case we need to be simple and to the point, and even thought it looks and sounds easier that the long explanations to reason with the child while in a tantrum, is not so simple.
The privacy of the house allows us to have a non pressure environment where we can take time to apply all the methods that we have been learning for this past year, yet when we are out in the public eye the pressure rise up and we sometimes feel that we are being observed by the entire world around us.
Is that good or bad? I do not know, is just the way it is, and I suppose we will become experts about it. For now sometimes we just have to look at his eyes and concentrate in what is worth doing and be MEGA consistent with what we do, to make sure we help him on his journey.
At home we use a round little red carpet as time out zone, and sometimes I just take it with me where ever I go so I can use it. It does work and it definitely makes people curious about what I am doing, hehehehe I should not be so conspicuous.
Anyhow, no matter the size of the tantrum or the location that is taking place, consistency on how to handle it is the key. At least for us so far!