A friend of mine saw the movie The Change-Up and quoted a line to me that went something like, "When your kid's acting bad and throwing a tantrum, he's tired. When someone else's kid does it, it's bad parenting."
I felt like this today and still haven't figured out which one is the right answer. Gymnastics was canceled today due to seasonal cleaning of the gym before the fall season starts, so we decided to go to a new place that is a giant building with trampolines. Loads of fun for the first 45 minutes. Then it started going downhill. Tantrum. Flinging himself on the ground. Screaming.
Note that he did tell me that "he had used up all his energy," so I can say that he probably was quite tired. I know I was dripping with sweat! But I haven't yet figured out what to do when he's so tired that he's just plain rude to other people. He stole a ball from his friend and taunted her, "I got your ball!!!!" he yelled. And she burst into tears.
I told him that I didn't pay to be there to listen to him cry and that if he wasn't planning on jumping anymore, we were leaving. But the bad mood was officially turned on and there was nothing I could do. Do I spank and remove him completely? Do I ignore it and keep having fun? If anyone has advice, I would love to hear it. It's definitely happened more than once now, so it's officially become a behavior that he believes will get him SOMETHING, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what he's trying to get with this behavior. It could be the irrational exhaustion that comes with exertion, or it could be that he's hoping to achieve some result from the tantrum.
As with most kids, the tantrum only generally occurs when he's really tired and gets told "no." Any other time, he's a good fun kid who is mostly friendly and helpful. But I feel like the way he reacts to negative news while tired is some sort of omen to his future life when something happens to him... like getting bullied, or getting fired from a job. Am I overthinking this?
