The Best Tantrum Ever

Wawa has been playing with this cute wooden train set. She is drawn to it, as she is to wheeled objects of all kinds. Nevertheless, it frustrates her every time she plays with it. The simple magnetic couplings annoys her 50% of the time when she happens to put like poles together. She seems to understand that when this happens she needs to turn the carriage around, but usually her frustration boils over before she makes it that far. There are also frequent misalignments of track and catastrophic derailments to push her from contented choo-choos to wailing laments or unbridled screeches.

I like the toy. It's a good one; not one of those toys that is all colour and flash, but never works the way it should. It's just a toy that needs to be put away for a few months and brought out again when magnetic couplings and tracks that need to be arranged with care to prevent catastrophic derailments will hold greater charms for her. Right now, however, she feels compelled to play with the train set and she misses it when it's not sitting in its basket in her little corner. As a rule, I'm inclined to follow her lead in most things and so the set stays for now.

When she is frustrated or upset (or enraged, for that matter), she often throws objects. This is not entirely impulsive, as she will often systematically throw pieces of track, engines and carriages one by one in different directions and once her anger is spent, she will ask for help to collect and reconstruct the track. If I happen to be close to hand when her tantrum begins, I know that firm, soothing skin to skin touch and quick redirection can help, but her anger will be simmering.

Like most two year olds, she expresses her emotions vocally, if not verbally, and when she is very, very upset; so upset, she cannot contain her feelings, she will sometimes shove alarmingly large (or small) objects into her mouth or hold them against her chest with her chin.

Ironically, it's when she is tired and least able to absorb life's challenges that she is most drawn to the train set. As one tantrum runs into another, I attempt to divert her with another toy. She invariably responds with, "More trains! More trains!" before returning to the sobbing and yelling and throwing.

It is then, when she is trapped between her compulsion to play with those trains and her inability to cope with their limitations, that I impose myself upon her more forcefully. I pick her up; quickly and quietly pack the trains into their basket and carry her off to the bedroom where milk and sleep can soothe her.

This morning, a now familiar scene was playing itself out on the rug. Wawa was becoming increasingly frustrated. Those trains simply wouldn't behave for her. Finally, she'd had enough. She wailed angrily, picked up a segment of track and held it above her head for a moment then unexpectedly brought it down into the basket. She then proceeded to grab up every train, carriage and track segment one by one and angrily push them into the basket. When she'd done, all that frustration had flowed away into the basket with the trains. She paused for a second then looked at me impassively and asked, "More trains?". So we set them up again, although I did suggest that she might like to throw another tantrum with some of the mess on the other side of the room first.

There is some hope, it seems, that she'll one day develop impulse control. In the meantime, we'll just continue to duck.