Toddlers and Temper Tantrums: Silencing the Storm

As a mother of two boys under the age of four, I’ve seen my share of temper tantrums. I have also come to understand them not as our children’s attempt to deliberately “push our buttons,” but as a natural expression of the frustration we all experience when something or someone is preventing us from having what we want.
Fortunately, as a life coach with nearly two decades experience in studying and teaching the universal laws that govern manifestation, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Here are some tips for using the principles of Allowing and Attraction to silence the storm the next time your child – young or old – is having a meltdown.
Allowing is the state of being in complete acceptance of, rather than in resistance to, whatever is happening in any particular moment. A temper tantrum is just an extreme manifestation of resistance – the realization that “you can’t always get what you want” can send even the happiest toddler into an emotional tailspin. Yelling, scolding or trying to control their behavior only compounds their resistance by adding our own, like spraying lighter fluid on an already raging fire. If instead of trying to extinguish their emotional flare-ups we allow them to run their course, they lose momentum and eventually fizzle out.

The Law of Allowing is based on the principle of least effort, and this is one situation in which doing less really is the way to accomplishing more. After making sure that our children’s outbursts won’t cause physical harm to them or anyone else, the best course of action is often to simply leave the room, take some deep breaths, and instead of trying to convince our toddler to let go of their resistance, to focus on releasing our own.

Withdrawing our attention is the fastest way to diffuse a tantrum that is already in motion. Altering the frequency with which they occur in the future requires us to deliberately direct our attention. The second principle, the Law of Attraction, is based in physics: simply stated, like attracts like and we draw to us what we focus upon. After the emotional storm has passed (theirs as well as ours!), we can apply this law by placing our attention on everything we love about our children, and on all that we appreciate about them.
Gratitude is one of the most powerful forces in the Universe. The moment we start to focus on all the good in our lives right now, the more good we attract, because we always get more of what we focus on. What was once a downward spiral changes course and becomes an upward spiral that just keeps getting better and better!