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The 21st century is opening up new dimensions in the expression of anger and frustration towards children. In a good way, overall.
The other day, I was babysitting for a friend. I had two charges: both boys, one aged 16 months, the other somewhere around one month old.
At the end of the afternoon, the toddler became quite upset. What happened was this: I was eating a rather belated snack, so I was sitting at the dining table, when the baby started wailing in distress. I jumped up and quickly attended to him - it was a minor problem, quickly resolved - then returned to find the toddler had climbed onto my chair and was leaning at a dangerously extreme angle across to the table, trying to reach my laptop.
Now, the toddler knows he isn't allowed to climb on the chairs. When adults are around, he will often spontaneously push the chairs in if someone's left one out (for which he is praised), and when he does make as if to climb, a verbal reminder that he's not allowed to do so will stop him doing it.
So he knew he was doing something he's not allowed to do. Which means my stern, "No! [Name], do not climb on the chairs!" can't have come as a surprise, nor can my lifting him off the chair and putting him on the floor.
Nonetheless, he screamed.
For the next hour and a half. He only stopped when his mother came home.
All of my efforts to calm him, comfort him, distract him, or entertain him were for nought. When I tried to pick him up, sometimes his screams would be muffled when he pressed his face into my chest, but more often my ears would be left ringing from him screaming right next to them.
This was not, from my perspective, pleasant. But he's a toddler, so it's not like I can blame him on any kind of moral level, and it's not like I can express the frustration and annoyance I was experiencing in a way directed at him without being a horrible person.
So, I kept my voice gentle and loving, and did not vocalise my wish for him to shut up just shut up just stop screaming at me shut up shut up shut up.
However, unlike previous experiences I've had with dealing with toddlers in a Mood, I didn't end up with residual stress and aggravation about the whole thing, because, I recalled afterwards, I had, in fact, acted in bitter vengeful wrath while he was screaming.
It's just not going to put him in therapy, because he won't know about it until he's an adult (if ever).
What I did was pick up my phone, turn on the camera, and record ninety seconds of video of him screaming about nothing, while silently vowing to myself that, approximately twenty years from now, I will make him watch that. I will turn up the volume and loop it for an hour and a half and make him watch.
Okay, realistically, absolutely none of that will happen and I'll probably delete the video when I clean out my phone's camera's memory, but it's awfully satisfying, as you watch a small child having a Mood (At You - he would pause, occasionally, to look at me balefully, and then start screaming again when I tried to talk to him), to tell yourself that you will Have Your Revenge when the child is a grown adult and you are no longer required to be nice to them even when they're being horrible.
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