May 27, 2014 • 37 mins
When your kid boils over in the grocery store, it can be tough to stay calm and ignore it, but that's precisely what experts prescribe parents do to deal with temper tantrums. Learn about the anatomy of a tantrum and the best way to deal in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know Frunhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chas Chuck Bryant,
and again we have our guest producer, Noel. He's thrashing
about on the ground, vomiting, screaming, capillary's bursting in his cheek.
(00:24):
Ye all because we wouldn't give him a third pork chop.
Not true? Yeah, boy, temper tantrums are. I always feel
so bad for the parents in public, you know, Oh really,
I always think like, you screwed up your kid already.
See you're so wrong. And we're about to dispel that. Yeah,
(00:44):
it's true, although I did see a Um we're about
to talk a lot about why it's not the parents fault.
But I did some extra research and there are experts
that say you can also be a bad parent and
that could leave the temper tantrums. Like, we don't want
to blame parents, but you can definitely play a part.
(01:05):
And we as a society of said, uh, from this
age to this age, temper tantrums are normal. And then
after that then apparently it's like the bad parenting really
shines through and then they think like, yeah, there's some
real problems this kid has and it's largely because of
bad parenting or a bad home environment, or troubles during pregnancy,
(01:27):
like abuse, things like that. Um, that can all lead
to temper tantrums that turn into something else. Yeah, after
a certain age. Yeah, this whole thing it makes me
kind of uncomfortable. But just parenting advice period is so
like subjective and individual. Yeah, it's it's always feel like
(01:48):
people shouldn't tell other people how to parent, but I
also feel like they're probably some pretty good guidelines to
parenting too. So yeah, and if you go back and
look at, um, the history of parents, Yeah, like it
wasn't too long ago that it was. It kind of
seems to go on a cycle. Like in the eighteenth century.
Um Rousseau, the Great Enlightenment thinker, basically was one of
(02:11):
the first to say, you know what, maybe kids aren't
just miniature adults and like maybe child something special. It's
a time of development we should, you know, become less
parent centric and more child centric as far as parenthood goes.
And um, that really kind of sparked this different idea
(02:33):
of you know, treating kids as kids rather than adults.
And then that was replaced later on by the whole
like discipline and all that of the late nineteenth early
twentieth century, and then that was replaced by the idea
that kids, their childhood should be indulged, you know. And
then Russo said, boy, fetch me in my feather, I
(02:54):
need to throw up. Is that from Fletch, No, fletch,
that's what came to mind. No, I just thought it'd
be funny, you know, I need to throw up, you know,
the benjing and purging back in the day, eat till
you can't eat anymore than you need, stick a feather
it on your throat and vomited it up. Supposedly, the
(03:14):
vomitorium thing is a myth. Have you heard that in Rome?
Ancient Rome, vomitoriums they supposedly had like places for that.
I haven't heard. They were my supposedly their myth mythological
and not like the minator, like the real myth, not
like they want you to think. It's a myth. Got Okay,
So we're talking temper tantrums, and we've already kind of said,
(03:38):
um that during a certain period of your life, they're normal.
It's actually you would be a weird kid. If you
didn't have a temper tantrum pretty frequently, not weird, but
you would be in the minority for sure. Okay, but
it doesn't mean you're weird. Comparatively speaking, it means you're weird.
(03:59):
So like, from age one to age three ish, they
basically say, have have your temper tantrums? It's normal. Yeah,
between fifty if you want a statistic of two to
three year old boys and girls have at least one
tantrum per week, and UM have a tantrum every day. Yeah,
(04:19):
those kids are fun between those those years. Uh. And
then there was another study from the University of Minnesota.
I found even higher rates. UM. Ninety one percent of
children in this study, between the ages of thirty thirty
months and three years UM had a tantrum on a
weekly basis. So it happens. If you had a kid,
(04:42):
you've probably had it happen. If you don't have kids yet,
it will happen to you. And if you have a
kid that doesn't have tantrums, if they're weird, No, you're
just lucky. Yeah, you are pretty lucky. I wasn't a
tantrum thrower, I know, I'm sure I was, but I
think I was a pretty good kid. Yeah, I'm not
saying it never happened with me, but I was e chill. Yes,
the gate. Yeah, my brother in law and sister in
(05:04):
law lucked out a good kid who's like more hard
on herself than like they are on her. That's the
best self regulating kids. Yeah, she's good, and she's like
right in the age two and she's very good. So
she's weird. Yeah yeah, yeah, weird and all the all
the best way, the right way. Yeah. The good news is, um,
(05:24):
by the time they reached four or five, you should
be seeing a large drop off or complete cessation of
these tantrums. Yeah. And the reason why we say the
age um, that there is an age for this to end,
is because we finally figured out that the mechanisms involved
(05:45):
in temperate tantrums. Yeah, it's a thing. It's not just
my kids pain in the butter, he's in a bad mood,
or he's spoiled. It's there's there's brain activity that is
causing this to happen. Yes, specifically in the prefrontal cortex,
or we should say there's a lack of activity in
the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the
brain to evolve. Yeah, like it up until your eighteenth birthday,
(06:09):
your preformal cortex is still evolving, right, yes, and developing,
is I think what we mean? Yes, yes we do.
We both said evolved. But it's true. I mean, you know,
the Victorians used to think that if you looked inside
an egg, you would see the animal that species go
through its full evolution, that that was its process of development.
(06:29):
And it kind of makes sense to an extent, especially
if you think of the brain, like I'm sure the
brain stem is the first part of the brain to
be constructed in utero and then it goes all the
way like after birth, your brain is still developing, and
it's probably the most sophisticated regions of the brain that
take the longest to develop. That makes sense. So the
(06:50):
Victorians were right all along about throwing up All right,
well should we talk about what the tantrum? That there
was a doctor who clearly has uh some massochistic tendencies
because he did a study in which he rigged toddlers
with microphones. He's the temper tantrum specialist. He's like the
guy he's definitely a massochist. No, I'm saying, God bless
(07:13):
this guy, because it is not fun work to record
and analyze audio tapes of temper tantrums over and over
and over, but that's what he did, and he did
find some patterns. First of all, they only last a
few minutes. Parents, it might seem like an eternity there
in target while your kid is like buried in the
clothes racks screaming, but it's only going to be a
(07:35):
few minutes, and then ten minutes later your kid has
just probably forgotten about it, even though you have not.
The He also found that UM, based on the types
of sounds that the kids made, they can basically be
classified as sad sounds and angry sounds, and he found
that his name is Michael Potagal. And Portagal found that UM,
(07:57):
rather than one giving into the other leading into the other,
they're pretty much simultaneous. And then once the anger, it's
basically you have sadness all along, and then it's overlaid
with anger. And then once the anger subsides, all this
left the sadness and now the healing can begin because
when kids are sad, they want to be comforted, so
(08:19):
they go to you, the parent hopefully yeah, UM and
and then the temper tantrum can subside. Yeah, and he
broke it down into three phase three stages. Uh, you
get your yelling and screaming. You've got your physical actions,
which is what we talked about, like throwing yourself on
the floor, and that's what you typically think of, like
kicking and screaming, and then um, we're biting. And then
(08:44):
you've got your whimpering and whining, which is the third
and saddest stage right to witness, because the kid has
just played out at this point and it's just really sad. Yeah.
And protocol also found that if the kid goes straight
into the physical stage, yes, they tantrum is even shorter lived.
I think because they text themselves more quickly. Yeah, that
(09:05):
makes sense. Uh. And these we talked earlier about Noel's
tantrum before we came in and how his face is flushed.
That is something that can happen if they are screaming
loud enough, they can pop blood vessels in the face
and capillaries and they can induce vomiting. It can get
like really serious and violent and disturbing. Is that funny
(09:28):
to you? Just wouldn't you just be like you stupid kid?
What is wrong with you? You just screamed until you
threw up. Yeah. I think that's a good approach. Well,
I mean you don't say alright, So back to back
to the prefernal cortex. Uh. We said it develops very Uh.
(09:50):
I don't know about slowly, but it develops over the
course of your life until you're about eighteen. Um, but
it doesn't even start to till you're four. And they
think the reason why or not in a clearly the
reason why they think because of this this malleability and
plasticity in the prefrontal cortext, we are able to acquire
language skills as humans. So it's kind of a trade
(10:11):
off because while we can acquire language skills while our
PFC is developing, we don't have the emotional stability that
we have later on in life with the fully developed PFC,
because the prefrontal cortext is in charge of regulating our
emotional stability and basically saying like whoa, it's the part
(10:32):
of the it's the joey part of the brain. So
your kid, your kid doesn't have the joey part of
the brain yet, and there is since you brought up language,
there is a um there's a conflict between what the
kid can understand and then relay back to you at
that age, Like they may be able to understand what
you're saying, but they can't speak the words yet. So
(10:52):
you've got a really frustrated kid because it can't get
out what it wants to say. And then you've got
the pre romal cortex not doing anything yet, right, it's
not putting the brakes on. Yeah, so that is a tantrum.
I mean, that's a recipe for a tantrum. And why
don't you stew on that for a minute while we
take a message break because that was some heavy stuff. Okay,
(11:23):
so we're back. We just talked about the prefrontal cortex,
and you, Chuck just explained what a temper tantrum is. Yeah,
because we all have like moments of frustration. We all
have um times when like we act out a little bit,
like you know, this light bulb is supposed to work,
(11:43):
you know, that kind of thing, road rage. That's an
adult temper tantrum exactly, you know, but we have prefrontel
cortex is we've been socialized to feel embarrassed for acting out. Um,
if you took that away and shrunk us down by
several feet you would have. It's a normal temper tantrum
and kids. Yeah, and we also should point out that
(12:04):
the fight or flight kicks into a big shot of
cortisol happens, and so everything is just messed up. Like
it's a wonder your kid doesn't have more of these
when you think about that. So that frustration UM does
trigger cortisol, It triggers Nora fehrin Uh, your fight or
flight syndrome or responses kicked into high gear. And again
(12:27):
you have nothing to put the brakes on all of this.
What's interesting is, Um, some of the physical signs that
the fight or flight responses kicked in are also signs
that your kids about to have like a major meltdown.
Things like, Um, you're breathing, flush skin, sweating, sweating, pupils dilated,
(12:49):
drooling and spitting. Yeah, all these things where it's like
you see your kids starting to do that, you just
gonna blow yes. And the reason um, they stop or
at least taper off by the ages of four and
five is because you're the joey part of your brain
starts to work and the kid can now talk to you,
(13:10):
and all of these things kind of undo and the
kids like that was the problem because they can now
tell you that, right. I couldn't talk. Yeah, it smelled
like chili dogs all the time, and I try. I
just couldn't tell you that, and my PFC wasn't working.
So what am I to do? Just go perserk exactly? Um.
The thing is is like, yes, your kid is going
(13:33):
to likely age out of this. If your kid doesn't
age out of it, then perhaps it's time to consult
the specialist, say around five, six years of age, usually six,
I think. Um. But along the way, you can help
your kid have fewer temper tantrums, have less severe temper tantrums,
(13:53):
and basically just be a better human being in general
by how you as the parents are us the temper
tantrums by telling them they're dumb for just throwing up
You just you think that in your head. You don't
say it out loud or else you're a terrible parent.
If you think it, you're fine? Okay, Um, you know
what you The number one thing you want to do, um,
(14:14):
prior to temper tantrums is giving the kid a schedule,
because apparently a lot of the temper tantrums come from
a fear that somethings that they're not going to get food,
whether they're not gonna get held or attension or whatever.
If they're on a schedule, they'll know that it's coming.
(14:36):
And if they start to freak out, you can say,
of course, your goldfish are coming. It's almost two pm.
Settled out, you little goldfish junkie. Yeah. And I know
they stress scheduling a lot with kids with like Asperger's
uh and autism, but it's a big deal. Period. You
should get your kids on the schedule. Kids like knowing
what to expect. They don't like shirballs. If you have
(14:57):
to make your own bowl of cereal at age like two, Yeah,
the parent needs to take some time and figure out
what's going wrong here with water? Yeah remember that what
was that Friday's Yeah, when they did that milk. Yeah,
that's funny that you said that, because I just remembered yesterday.
What a good movie Friday? Oh yeah, it was really funny.
It's wonderful. Uh. Okay, So get your kids on a schedule.
(15:18):
That's a big one. This is this is preventing yes um,
temper tantrum. And that's regular sleep, regular feeding, uh, regular
interaction any kind of thing they can rely on is
going to help, Like chill your kid out and get
them stable. And remember, um, one of the things one
of the bases of temper tantrums is frustration. Yeah, and
(15:40):
one way around that is to give your kid make
them feel empowered. Yeah. I like this bit of advice.
I thought that was spot on. So like in this article,
I think Conger says, um, if your kid hates putting
shoes on, basically distract them by saying, hey, big boy,
do you want to wear your duck boots or your
cowboy boots? You you choose to you, Yeah, sort of
(16:03):
like heading them off with the peopleton. You still have
to wear shoes, but you get to choose which one. Yeah,
I've heard that's a pretty common thing, if because a
lot of kids don't want to get dressed when they
should or put on their shoes when they should. And um,
a lot of parents now are like letting their kids
dress themselves. Yeah you can tell. Yeah, but look around,
I know, and it's I think it's great and fun
(16:24):
to see little kids walking around these crazy outfits that
they clearly picked out. It's like a love it. It's
like many mental asylums all let out. It's like the
Reagan era all over again. But for kids, I think
it's awesome. Um okay, so empowering choices, great advice. So okay,
you've taken these steps to avoid it, it's still not
(16:45):
gonna do. Your kids still gonna have a temperature tantrum.
It's just you can expect it. It's inevitable. Um. So,
when a temper tantrum happens, here's the hard part. You
have to stay calm. And apparently the the advice jure
(17:05):
from parenting experts psychologists is ignore it. Yeah, this is
not us talking, No, we researched this, and they say
to try and ignore it. They say that that is
the quickest way two to put an end to that
particular tantrum. If they're not getting the attention, then they
will quit sooner. Yeah, and that's what they say. So
(17:28):
long as they're not hurting themselves or other people or
destroying property. If they're just screaming and being a brat
basically is what it amounts to, then ignoring it is
the best course of action. The reason why is, um,
if you say you are like, oh, I know, you
feel so bad, and you pick them up and you
hug them and everything. You're giving your kid positive reinforcement.
(17:51):
You're saying, hey, scream your head off and I will
pick you up and rub your back and comfort you.
You don't want to do that. You want to remain
neutral and basic, not associate this thing with anything during it.
That's what I would do, especially in public, and just
be like, man, who's a kid? Is that right? I'm
gonna go over here and eat a box of neutral
green bars by myself while this little kid finishes up,
(18:14):
and I'll just pay for it at the register with
an empty box and it's all good. Um. And the
sense of shame. The other reason, and we're joking around here,
this is if someone like I have friends who have
had big trouble with this and it's not a laughing matter.
It's really a lot of stress on a family. Oh,
I can't imagine we joke because it's just what we
always do. Another time, the guy in the grocery store
(18:37):
gets to go see you later, good luck. Um. Another
reason not to, like they say, to muffle that, is
because there could be other underlying causes, like hearing problem
or vision vision impairment that you won't notice um, if
you're if you're not, just like you know, if you've
got the kid buried in your chest. Yeah, it's weird.
(18:57):
It's like you want to ignore it, let it and
it's natural course watch it out of like the side
of your eye, you know. Um, because you don't want them, like,
you really don't want them to think you're paying any
attention to them at all. And apparently when that's when
that's done, it just runs its course and it's it's
over with, and like we said earlier, the kid forgets
(19:18):
even what was bothering him or her, you know, a
few minutes afterward. Yeah, what you really don't want to
do is punish the kid or reprimand the kid in
the middle of a tantrum or right after a tantrum,
because it's a natural thing it's going to happen. That
is not a healthy approach to getting your child to
not do something because they're two and three years old,
(19:41):
and to be punished for something that they don't understand,
it's just that's not gonna help anything. So what you
do want to do is, after a meltdown has taken
place and things are calm again, you want to take
some time to explain to the kid basically what went
wrong or it they didn't do. Let's say it's over
(20:02):
the shoes again. You you they've just told you we
need to talk about shoes again. Now that things are calm,
we have to talk about shoes because I just had
a meltdown about it. So now that they're calm, you
have to say, you need to wear shoes because they
protect your feet from all the terrible stuff that you
can step on. That's why you have to wear shoes
(20:24):
and put them on when I tell you too. And
it's time to leave understanding the value of shoes right
in a very understandable two year old way. Apparently you
don't want to moralize it and say you better not
you better not pitch a fit when I tell you
to put your shoes on. Yeah, this happens every morning, right.
(20:45):
That doesn't help. It doesn't help. And if your kid
the next day says, well, I want to pick out
my shoes today, mom, because they protect my feet, then
you are you get a toy? Yeah, you get a
big playmobile box set. Well, depend how much money you have,
you could at least give them positive reinforcement in a cookie. Yeah,
(21:05):
pour a pat on the head. You could also get
a knockoff blood Mobile not in box set. That's fine.
The kid doesn't know he's too. We got so many
knockoff toys growing up. Have you seen that gallery of
knockoffs toys that I made? It's great. If you have
not seen a good check it out. And I think
I had a few of those, did you really? Yeah?
I mean my parents were teachers. We weren't like poor,
(21:27):
but we didn't. You know, there were three kids. We
didn't all get everything we wanted. I wanted the BMX Mangos,
and I got the Sears Goose, you know. I wanted
Pong again Sears like yeah, basically nights of their own
table pretty much. Don't you remember that? Yeah? But I did.
(21:47):
Look at me. Yeah, I never had brand name clothes, uh,
unless they had, you know, like a button missing or
the collar was miss shaping or something. Again, I don't
think I can stress enough how awesome that gallery of
beloved knockoff knockoffs of beloved toys that we've made that's
on our site is it's great. Yeah, we'll repost it,
(22:07):
but you can. You should definitely look under galleries. There's
some real misses and I have to say, I remember
going to plenty of stores as a kid and being
told I could pick out a toy, but it was
like something liquidators. Yeah, yeah, like what is this thing?
Did you have any rich kid friends? Um? Yeah, they
weren't like rich kids, but yeah there were something The
(22:28):
parents were like lawyers and stuff like that. It's like
at one particular that I was always just so like,
his house was so cool. It was like a modern house,
and back then I'd never seen a modern house. And
he had, you know, the green machine and in television,
and horses and a trampoline and a go kart and
a motorcycle. Dude, get everything. Yeah, and look at him now,
(22:52):
he's super successful and wealthy him. His parents raised him, right,
they did. Okay, so we're gonna hit what you touched
on earlier of when you might have a problem that's
a little deeper than your average temper tantrum and they
say three or more tantrums per day that lasts more
than fifteen minutes could qualify as what is now called
(23:15):
in the new d s M five disruptive mood disregulation
disorder that depends that is um that depends on the
age two. So there's a big hubbub yeah over this right, Yeah,
because it was just added to the new d s
M in two thousand, a new disorder. Yes, and basically
(23:38):
it turns temper tantrums into a mental illness, like yeah,
pure and simple. If you were over age six, between
six and ten, Yeah, and you have that number what
was it, three three per day that last fifteen minutes
or more or it says here three or more for
one year, So I think there's a couple of criteria. Anyway,
(24:01):
then you are eligible for antipsychotic medications and all other
manner of prescription drugs even though you're six. Yeah. And
critics are saying there's not enough data on this to
create a new diagnosis, Like some critics are saying you
shouldn't have done this at all. Proponents are saying, no,
(24:22):
this will actually help because kids are being diagnosis bipolar
at six and this will prevent that. So it's a
little awkward right now. But it's funny that they bring
up bipolar because when they when they expanded and basically
created children's bipolar disorder, pediatric bipolar disorder is what it's called. Um.
(24:44):
When they expanded that there was a fortyfold spike in diagnoses,
and as a result, the anti psychotic prescriptions for kids
aged two to five doubled between two thousand and two
thousand seven. And so there's a definite trend of any
time a new disorder is identified or described, everything I've
(25:06):
got that my kids there, he won't shut up. Can
you give them some antipsychotics please? Yeah? And uh, the
psychiatrist is sure right because he has this, because he
fits this criteria. Yeah. It's definitely been a controversial addition
to the d S m as are many additions to
the d S m uh. But that's not to say
(25:27):
that there isn't a larger issue at work, because some
of the times there is. So they want to teach
you his parents to monitor maybe don't like go put
them on psycho psychotropic drugs, but maybe monitor them after
the age of four and see how violent they are
and how long they last and are they trying to
injure themselves or others? Are they holding their breath and
(25:47):
feigning like how severe is it? Um? Which is the
apparently the understanding of that now though, is that kids
don't necessarily hold them their breaths on purpose, like it
just kind of happens to breathe. They get so worked
up that they freathe and faint. And apparently when your
(26:08):
kid does that for reek's parents out and then kids
learn that if they hold their breath or even threatened
to hold their breath, they'll get what they want. But apparently,
if your kid holds his or her breath or it's
held for them when they faint, their normal breathing will
take over again. And as a parent, you can kick
start the whole process by blowing air into their mouth.
(26:30):
It almost like tickles their breathing mechanism to take back
over normally again even though they fainted. And the advice
is that I read that if your kid is feigning
from holding his or her breath during a tantrum, you
can't let that alter your your parenting skills, like how
(26:51):
you react to it. You can't be held hostage by it. Man,
that's so challenging. I can't imagine because your kid faints. Yeah,
I mean, hats offen, that's like going back to the
shark again. Good luck remembering the punch the shark in
the nose while you're paying attack. But that is a
that is a criteria if your kid is doing this
now and it's new, and they're like after age four,
(27:13):
and their tantrums are increasing rather than decreasing. These are
all red flags for okay, this, this may be abnormal,
and let's see what's going on. The first step isn't
necessarily taking your kid to psychiatrists for drugs. It can.
You can also do a self survey of your house,
like is there a new step parent, Um, do we
(27:33):
move recently? Am I an alcoholic? And do we always fight? Yeah?
You know it happens where parents ain't all like kids.
You know, they don't even they don't understand what's going on.
We keep the fighting away from them, but they understand
and they pick up on body language and emotional cues
that you don't think are there, and they're little sponges
and that could be a reason. Uh, did you mention
(27:54):
maybe if you've moved. Yeah, that's a big one. I
think I have moved. Yeah, did his best friend get
a better bike than him or something? Right, you need
to go get that bike then too. But the point
is to not be freaked out by isolated incidences past
the age of four, because they they happen, and um,
it's not a typical you just need and if your
(28:18):
kid has a problem with this, as parents, you probably
have a plan in place, like you're not just reacting
to each incident, Like you get together and you huddle
and be like, all right, we have an issue because
little Timmy is a nightmare, and so how are we
going to deal with this? And then let's stick to it.
If little Timmy also is breaking your humble figurines all
(28:38):
the time now, then good because those are awful, then
um well that's actually it can be a sign, but
it's not necessarily a sign. For example, there is a
study that had a pretty decent population size from two
seven research temper tantrums among two hundred and seventy nine
preschoolers almost two pre schoolers um and they found that
(29:01):
kids who are considered healthy um had were less likely
to become violent, self injurious, destructive, or verbally combative like
during their temper tantrums. But it's also been found that
around of quote mentally stable preschoolers will still become you know,
(29:22):
one of these unhealthy things during a temper tantrum from
time to time. It's not like there goes a homo
figuring you have to go to the psychiatrist. Now, or
if your kid like rips the head off their barbie
in a violent way, that might be disturbing to you,
but that is about as normal American behavior as has
(29:42):
ever been generated by a child. Yeah, if your kid
is being mean to animals, that's a different story, because
that that is uh you know, it's not a good sign.
And it's certainly you want to stop any kind of
uh like, violent aggression towards humans or animals. Like that's
not like, let's just see he'll put this plays out.
You want to get in there, take care of business. Yeah,
(30:05):
in the right way. So you raise your kid, you
get them out of the terrible two's. Age four comes along,
and all of a sudden, they're like talking to you
and making sense and expressing themselves. They're able to settle
themselves down. Um. They they they're just human beings. You
made it out of the woods until the teenage years
(30:28):
come and then it starts all over again. Yes, and
there it starts all over again. For the same reason.
The preferntal cortex undergoes a new round of development during
puberty from age about eleven to eighteen, and as a result,
the emotional breaks that are provided by that region of
(30:48):
the brain are lost again for several years. Yeah, and
it's also similar in that teenagers might not feel like
they can express themselves even though like as a tyler
you literally can't talk. But as a team, you know,
parents just don't understand. That's the old adage. And you've
got the hormones, and you've got new things happening to
your body, and you've got new things happening in your
(31:11):
heart for you know, the little girls and little boys.
You start feeling those feelings and it's confusing, and it's
just it's it's all happening all over again, all these
things you don't understand and can't express, and then you've
got your prefemal cortex not helping you out. And that's
why you're going to see the same, similar behaviors. At least,
it's basically temper tantrums the sequel. Yeah, and it may
(31:33):
not manifest itself the same way. They may not be
on the floor like kicking and screaming and vomiting, but
they may rampage through your house and slam the doors
and scream and yell and uh, don't grow out of
that though, And again if they don't, then psychiatry is
there to back you up with some diagnoses and pills.
There's oppositional defiance disorder, yeah, which is basically it sounds
(31:57):
like temper tantrums. It it sounds like temper tantrums, basically
the same thing. Yeah. This study from University of San
Diego was pretty interesting. I thought they studied kids between
the ages of ten and twenty two. It's not a kid,
by the way, and um between eleven and eighteen years old.
(32:17):
During that window, the speed that they identified emotions indicated
by facial expressions dropped. So between ten and eighteen, if
you're like, your kid can't even look at your face
and read your emotional cues, Like that's how out of
it they are, you know, like I couldn't even tell
(32:40):
Dad was mad at me. Yes, because the wires aren't
connecting upstairs. And apparently the preferales prefernal cortex is also
involved in um regulating behavior, yeah, which explains why teenagers
are prone to like risk taking. Well, yeah, because if
(33:01):
the pre phone cortex isn't doing the job, then I
think the amygdala takes over and the amygdala is is
not a good thing to be running your emotions running
the show. No, not emotionally. So you got anything else
you want to talk about that girl from Militcheville, Yeah,
go ahead, I'll actually read that part. There was a
girl UH who in two thousand and twelve, UH, at
(33:25):
the age of six, was arrested and taken to the
police station from her kindergarten class because the temper tantrum
she threw was so bad she was wrecking her kindergarten class.
She was taken to jail for a temper tantrum like
knocking over bookcases onto the principle. Yeah, and injuring the principle. Um.
(33:46):
And she h apparently was just on a rampage and
the cops took her to jail, didn't book her process
or anything, but I'm sure scared the daylights out of
this little girl. And the school said she can't come
back the rest of this year. Yeah, she's just invited. Yeah.
Luckily it was in April, so I imagine there was
(34:07):
only a couple of months left to school. Still. Yeah,
so we hope she's doing better. Sure, we won't say
her name. We didn't say her name to Nope, the
article does, which I thought was slightly irresponsible. Oh she
was a news item. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, Hey,
you don't want to be in the news, little girl. Right,
(34:27):
that's it, all right. If you want to learn more
about temper tantrums, you can procreate and have a kid
and then see it firsthand. That's right. You can also
before you do that, if you want to find out
if you're interested in that kind of thing, type in
temperate tantrums. In the search part how stuff works, dot
common will bring up this article. And I said, search
bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
(34:49):
this uh positive amnesia. Hey, guys, Nearly five years ago
and and uh Portland, Oregon, I was in a near
fatal motorcycle wreck that not only knocked my brain around
in my full face helmet, but also shattered my pelvis,
broke two ribs to vertebrae, left wrist, right thumb, left collarbone.
Has this show at all? I know? Evil Kinevil. I
(35:12):
was in the hospital for two weeks, but only remember
bits and pieces of the last few days of my stay,
though I was mostly awake the whole time. The doctors
told me that nearly UH I had a nearly two
week gap in my memory, and it was a combination
of shock and medically induced amnesia. I learned a lot
about the different kinds of amnesia from your show, in
ways that my team of doctor never took the time
to explain me. But I didn't. You're like, yeah, that
(35:36):
always happens. But I didn't hear you mentioned any positive
effects of memory loss. Uh. Through my memory loss, it
did not. Though my memory loss did not prevent severe
ps PTSD after the incident, I think it has ultimately
helped me be less afraid of red light running land rovers.
I think we did mention that it was that was
(35:57):
one positive effect of it. I thought, I think maybe not. Well,
if we're not, then we're glad that. Adrian wrote in
he said, Um, also, I don't have the additional trauma
of remembering the numerous surgeries and operations. Uh. Your podcast
made emny just sound confusing and scary, which it is.
But I'm living proof that sometimes it's best if you
don't remember. Well. Thanks a lot, Adrian, We're glad you
(36:20):
are doing okay. Yeah, be careful, man, watch out for
those land rovers. Yeah, red light running land rovers. Hope
they hope the dude got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, I
got nothing else. If you if you want to let
us know about well, if you want to fill in
the gaps on our memories, something we left out of
an episode, we always want to hear that kind of thing.
(36:42):
You can tweet to us at s Y s K
Podcast and join us on Facebook dot com at Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
and as always, check out our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
(37:03):
and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you should Know Frunhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chas Chuck Bryant,
and again we have our guest producer, Noel. He's thrashing
about on the ground, vomiting, screaming, capillary's bursting in his cheek.
(00:24):
Ye all because we wouldn't give him a third pork chop.
Not true? Yeah, boy, temper tantrums are. I always feel
so bad for the parents in public, you know, Oh really,
I always think like, you screwed up your kid already.
See you're so wrong. And we're about to dispel that. Yeah,
(00:44):
it's true, although I did see a Um we're about
to talk a lot about why it's not the parents fault.
But I did some extra research and there are experts
that say you can also be a bad parent and
that could leave the temper tantrums. Like, we don't want
to blame parents, but you can definitely play a part.
(01:05):
And we as a society of said, uh, from this
age to this age, temper tantrums are normal. And then
after that then apparently it's like the bad parenting really
shines through and then they think like, yeah, there's some
real problems this kid has and it's largely because of
bad parenting or a bad home environment, or troubles during pregnancy,
(01:27):
like abuse, things like that. Um, that can all lead
to temper tantrums that turn into something else. Yeah, after
a certain age. Yeah, this whole thing it makes me
kind of uncomfortable. But just parenting advice period is so
like subjective and individual. Yeah, it's it's always feel like
(01:48):
people shouldn't tell other people how to parent, but I
also feel like they're probably some pretty good guidelines to
parenting too. So yeah, and if you go back and
look at, um, the history of parents, Yeah, like it
wasn't too long ago that it was. It kind of
seems to go on a cycle. Like in the eighteenth century.
Um Rousseau, the Great Enlightenment thinker, basically was one of
(02:11):
the first to say, you know what, maybe kids aren't
just miniature adults and like maybe child something special. It's
a time of development we should, you know, become less
parent centric and more child centric as far as parenthood goes.
And um, that really kind of sparked this different idea
(02:33):
of you know, treating kids as kids rather than adults.
And then that was replaced later on by the whole
like discipline and all that of the late nineteenth early
twentieth century, and then that was replaced by the idea
that kids, their childhood should be indulged, you know. And
then Russo said, boy, fetch me in my feather, I
(02:54):
need to throw up. Is that from Fletch, No, fletch,
that's what came to mind. No, I just thought it'd
be funny, you know, I need to throw up, you know,
the benjing and purging back in the day, eat till
you can't eat anymore than you need, stick a feather
it on your throat and vomited it up. Supposedly, the
(03:14):
vomitorium thing is a myth. Have you heard that in Rome?
Ancient Rome, vomitoriums they supposedly had like places for that.
I haven't heard. They were my supposedly their myth mythological
and not like the minator, like the real myth, not
like they want you to think. It's a myth. Got Okay,
So we're talking temper tantrums, and we've already kind of said,
(03:38):
um that during a certain period of your life, they're normal.
It's actually you would be a weird kid. If you
didn't have a temper tantrum pretty frequently, not weird, but
you would be in the minority for sure. Okay, but
it doesn't mean you're weird. Comparatively speaking, it means you're weird.
(03:59):
So like, from age one to age three ish, they
basically say, have have your temper tantrums? It's normal. Yeah,
between fifty if you want a statistic of two to
three year old boys and girls have at least one
tantrum per week, and UM have a tantrum every day. Yeah,
(04:19):
those kids are fun between those those years. Uh. And
then there was another study from the University of Minnesota.
I found even higher rates. UM. Ninety one percent of
children in this study, between the ages of thirty thirty
months and three years UM had a tantrum on a
weekly basis. So it happens. If you had a kid,
(04:42):
you've probably had it happen. If you don't have kids yet,
it will happen to you. And if you have a
kid that doesn't have tantrums, if they're weird, No, you're
just lucky. Yeah, you are pretty lucky. I wasn't a
tantrum thrower, I know, I'm sure I was, but I
think I was a pretty good kid. Yeah, I'm not
saying it never happened with me, but I was e chill. Yes,
the gate. Yeah, my brother in law and sister in
(05:04):
law lucked out a good kid who's like more hard
on herself than like they are on her. That's the
best self regulating kids. Yeah, she's good, and she's like
right in the age two and she's very good. So
she's weird. Yeah yeah, yeah, weird and all the all
the best way, the right way. Yeah. The good news is, um,
(05:24):
by the time they reached four or five, you should
be seeing a large drop off or complete cessation of
these tantrums. Yeah. And the reason why we say the
age um, that there is an age for this to end,
is because we finally figured out that the mechanisms involved
(05:45):
in temperate tantrums. Yeah, it's a thing. It's not just
my kids pain in the butter, he's in a bad mood,
or he's spoiled. It's there's there's brain activity that is
causing this to happen. Yes, specifically in the prefrontal cortex,
or we should say there's a lack of activity in
the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the
brain to evolve. Yeah, like it up until your eighteenth birthday,
(06:09):
your preformal cortex is still evolving, right, yes, and developing,
is I think what we mean? Yes, yes we do.
We both said evolved. But it's true. I mean, you know,
the Victorians used to think that if you looked inside
an egg, you would see the animal that species go
through its full evolution, that that was its process of development.
(06:29):
And it kind of makes sense to an extent, especially
if you think of the brain, like I'm sure the
brain stem is the first part of the brain to
be constructed in utero and then it goes all the
way like after birth, your brain is still developing, and
it's probably the most sophisticated regions of the brain that
take the longest to develop. That makes sense. So the
(06:50):
Victorians were right all along about throwing up All right,
well should we talk about what the tantrum? That there
was a doctor who clearly has uh some massochistic tendencies
because he did a study in which he rigged toddlers
with microphones. He's the temper tantrum specialist. He's like the
guy he's definitely a massochist. No, I'm saying, God bless
(07:13):
this guy, because it is not fun work to record
and analyze audio tapes of temper tantrums over and over
and over, but that's what he did, and he did
find some patterns. First of all, they only last a
few minutes. Parents, it might seem like an eternity there
in target while your kid is like buried in the
clothes racks screaming, but it's only going to be a
(07:35):
few minutes, and then ten minutes later your kid has
just probably forgotten about it, even though you have not.
The He also found that UM, based on the types
of sounds that the kids made, they can basically be
classified as sad sounds and angry sounds, and he found
that his name is Michael Potagal. And Portagal found that UM,
(07:57):
rather than one giving into the other leading into the other,
they're pretty much simultaneous. And then once the anger, it's
basically you have sadness all along, and then it's overlaid
with anger. And then once the anger subsides, all this
left the sadness and now the healing can begin because
when kids are sad, they want to be comforted, so
(08:19):
they go to you, the parent hopefully yeah, UM and
and then the temper tantrum can subside. Yeah, and he
broke it down into three phase three stages. Uh, you
get your yelling and screaming. You've got your physical actions,
which is what we talked about, like throwing yourself on
the floor, and that's what you typically think of, like
kicking and screaming, and then um, we're biting. And then
(08:44):
you've got your whimpering and whining, which is the third
and saddest stage right to witness, because the kid has
just played out at this point and it's just really sad. Yeah.
And protocol also found that if the kid goes straight
into the physical stage, yes, they tantrum is even shorter lived.
I think because they text themselves more quickly. Yeah, that
(09:05):
makes sense. Uh. And these we talked earlier about Noel's
tantrum before we came in and how his face is flushed.
That is something that can happen if they are screaming
loud enough, they can pop blood vessels in the face
and capillaries and they can induce vomiting. It can get
like really serious and violent and disturbing. Is that funny
(09:28):
to you? Just wouldn't you just be like you stupid kid?
What is wrong with you? You just screamed until you
threw up. Yeah. I think that's a good approach. Well,
I mean you don't say alright, So back to back
to the prefernal cortex. Uh. We said it develops very Uh.
(09:50):
I don't know about slowly, but it develops over the
course of your life until you're about eighteen. Um, but
it doesn't even start to till you're four. And they
think the reason why or not in a clearly the
reason why they think because of this this malleability and
plasticity in the prefrontal cortext, we are able to acquire
language skills as humans. So it's kind of a trade
(10:11):
off because while we can acquire language skills while our
PFC is developing, we don't have the emotional stability that
we have later on in life with the fully developed PFC,
because the prefrontal cortext is in charge of regulating our
emotional stability and basically saying like whoa, it's the part
(10:32):
of the it's the joey part of the brain. So
your kid, your kid doesn't have the joey part of
the brain yet, and there is since you brought up language,
there is a um there's a conflict between what the
kid can understand and then relay back to you at
that age, Like they may be able to understand what
you're saying, but they can't speak the words yet. So
(10:52):
you've got a really frustrated kid because it can't get
out what it wants to say. And then you've got
the pre romal cortex not doing anything yet, right, it's
not putting the brakes on. Yeah, so that is a tantrum.
I mean, that's a recipe for a tantrum. And why
don't you stew on that for a minute while we
take a message break because that was some heavy stuff. Okay,
(11:23):
so we're back. We just talked about the prefrontal cortex,
and you, Chuck just explained what a temper tantrum is. Yeah,
because we all have like moments of frustration. We all
have um times when like we act out a little bit,
like you know, this light bulb is supposed to work,
(11:43):
you know, that kind of thing, road rage. That's an
adult temper tantrum exactly, you know, but we have prefrontel
cortex is we've been socialized to feel embarrassed for acting out. Um,
if you took that away and shrunk us down by
several feet you would have. It's a normal temper tantrum
and kids. Yeah, and we also should point out that
(12:04):
the fight or flight kicks into a big shot of
cortisol happens, and so everything is just messed up. Like
it's a wonder your kid doesn't have more of these
when you think about that. So that frustration UM does
trigger cortisol, It triggers Nora fehrin Uh, your fight or
flight syndrome or responses kicked into high gear. And again
(12:27):
you have nothing to put the brakes on all of this.
What's interesting is, Um, some of the physical signs that
the fight or flight responses kicked in are also signs
that your kids about to have like a major meltdown.
Things like, Um, you're breathing, flush skin, sweating, sweating, pupils dilated,
(12:49):
drooling and spitting. Yeah, all these things where it's like
you see your kids starting to do that, you just
gonna blow yes. And the reason um, they stop or
at least taper off by the ages of four and
five is because you're the joey part of your brain
starts to work and the kid can now talk to you,
(13:10):
and all of these things kind of undo and the
kids like that was the problem because they can now
tell you that, right. I couldn't talk. Yeah, it smelled
like chili dogs all the time, and I try. I
just couldn't tell you that, and my PFC wasn't working.
So what am I to do? Just go perserk exactly? Um.
The thing is is like, yes, your kid is going
(13:33):
to likely age out of this. If your kid doesn't
age out of it, then perhaps it's time to consult
the specialist, say around five, six years of age, usually six,
I think. Um. But along the way, you can help
your kid have fewer temper tantrums, have less severe temper tantrums,
(13:53):
and basically just be a better human being in general
by how you as the parents are us the temper
tantrums by telling them they're dumb for just throwing up
You just you think that in your head. You don't
say it out loud or else you're a terrible parent.
If you think it, you're fine? Okay, Um, you know
what you The number one thing you want to do, um,
(14:14):
prior to temper tantrums is giving the kid a schedule,
because apparently a lot of the temper tantrums come from
a fear that somethings that they're not going to get food,
whether they're not gonna get held or attension or whatever.
If they're on a schedule, they'll know that it's coming.
(14:36):
And if they start to freak out, you can say,
of course, your goldfish are coming. It's almost two pm.
Settled out, you little goldfish junkie. Yeah. And I know
they stress scheduling a lot with kids with like Asperger's
uh and autism, but it's a big deal. Period. You
should get your kids on the schedule. Kids like knowing
what to expect. They don't like shirballs. If you have
(14:57):
to make your own bowl of cereal at age like two, Yeah,
the parent needs to take some time and figure out
what's going wrong here with water? Yeah remember that what
was that Friday's Yeah, when they did that milk. Yeah,
that's funny that you said that, because I just remembered yesterday.
What a good movie Friday? Oh yeah, it was really funny.
It's wonderful. Uh. Okay, So get your kids on a schedule.
(15:18):
That's a big one. This is this is preventing yes um,
temper tantrum. And that's regular sleep, regular feeding, uh, regular
interaction any kind of thing they can rely on is
going to help, Like chill your kid out and get
them stable. And remember, um, one of the things one
of the bases of temper tantrums is frustration. Yeah, and
(15:40):
one way around that is to give your kid make
them feel empowered. Yeah. I like this bit of advice.
I thought that was spot on. So like in this article,
I think Conger says, um, if your kid hates putting
shoes on, basically distract them by saying, hey, big boy,
do you want to wear your duck boots or your
cowboy boots? You you choose to you, Yeah, sort of
(16:03):
like heading them off with the peopleton. You still have
to wear shoes, but you get to choose which one. Yeah,
I've heard that's a pretty common thing, if because a
lot of kids don't want to get dressed when they
should or put on their shoes when they should. And um,
a lot of parents now are like letting their kids
dress themselves. Yeah you can tell. Yeah, but look around,
I know, and it's I think it's great and fun
(16:24):
to see little kids walking around these crazy outfits that
they clearly picked out. It's like a love it. It's
like many mental asylums all let out. It's like the
Reagan era all over again. But for kids, I think
it's awesome. Um okay, so empowering choices, great advice. So okay,
you've taken these steps to avoid it, it's still not
(16:45):
gonna do. Your kids still gonna have a temperature tantrum.
It's just you can expect it. It's inevitable. Um. So,
when a temper tantrum happens, here's the hard part. You
have to stay calm. And apparently the the advice jure
(17:05):
from parenting experts psychologists is ignore it. Yeah, this is
not us talking, No, we researched this, and they say
to try and ignore it. They say that that is
the quickest way two to put an end to that
particular tantrum. If they're not getting the attention, then they
will quit sooner. Yeah, and that's what they say. So
(17:28):
long as they're not hurting themselves or other people or
destroying property. If they're just screaming and being a brat
basically is what it amounts to, then ignoring it is
the best course of action. The reason why is, um,
if you say you are like, oh, I know, you
feel so bad, and you pick them up and you
hug them and everything. You're giving your kid positive reinforcement.
(17:51):
You're saying, hey, scream your head off and I will
pick you up and rub your back and comfort you.
You don't want to do that. You want to remain
neutral and basic, not associate this thing with anything during it.
That's what I would do, especially in public, and just
be like, man, who's a kid? Is that right? I'm
gonna go over here and eat a box of neutral
green bars by myself while this little kid finishes up,
(18:14):
and I'll just pay for it at the register with
an empty box and it's all good. Um. And the
sense of shame. The other reason, and we're joking around here,
this is if someone like I have friends who have
had big trouble with this and it's not a laughing matter.
It's really a lot of stress on a family. Oh,
I can't imagine we joke because it's just what we
always do. Another time, the guy in the grocery store
(18:37):
gets to go see you later, good luck. Um. Another
reason not to, like they say, to muffle that, is
because there could be other underlying causes, like hearing problem
or vision vision impairment that you won't notice um, if
you're if you're not, just like you know, if you've
got the kid buried in your chest. Yeah, it's weird.
(18:57):
It's like you want to ignore it, let it and
it's natural course watch it out of like the side
of your eye, you know. Um, because you don't want them, like,
you really don't want them to think you're paying any
attention to them at all. And apparently when that's when
that's done, it just runs its course and it's it's
over with, and like we said earlier, the kid forgets
(19:18):
even what was bothering him or her, you know, a
few minutes afterward. Yeah, what you really don't want to
do is punish the kid or reprimand the kid in
the middle of a tantrum or right after a tantrum,
because it's a natural thing it's going to happen. That
is not a healthy approach to getting your child to
not do something because they're two and three years old,
(19:41):
and to be punished for something that they don't understand,
it's just that's not gonna help anything. So what you
do want to do is, after a meltdown has taken
place and things are calm again, you want to take
some time to explain to the kid basically what went
wrong or it they didn't do. Let's say it's over
(20:02):
the shoes again. You you they've just told you we
need to talk about shoes again. Now that things are calm,
we have to talk about shoes because I just had
a meltdown about it. So now that they're calm, you
have to say, you need to wear shoes because they
protect your feet from all the terrible stuff that you
can step on. That's why you have to wear shoes
(20:24):
and put them on when I tell you too. And
it's time to leave understanding the value of shoes right
in a very understandable two year old way. Apparently you
don't want to moralize it and say you better not
you better not pitch a fit when I tell you
to put your shoes on. Yeah, this happens every morning, right.
(20:45):
That doesn't help. It doesn't help. And if your kid
the next day says, well, I want to pick out
my shoes today, mom, because they protect my feet, then
you are you get a toy? Yeah, you get a
big playmobile box set. Well, depend how much money you have,
you could at least give them positive reinforcement in a cookie. Yeah,
(21:05):
pour a pat on the head. You could also get
a knockoff blood Mobile not in box set. That's fine.
The kid doesn't know he's too. We got so many
knockoff toys growing up. Have you seen that gallery of
knockoffs toys that I made? It's great. If you have
not seen a good check it out. And I think
I had a few of those, did you really? Yeah?
I mean my parents were teachers. We weren't like poor,
(21:27):
but we didn't. You know, there were three kids. We
didn't all get everything we wanted. I wanted the BMX Mangos,
and I got the Sears Goose, you know. I wanted
Pong again Sears like yeah, basically nights of their own
table pretty much. Don't you remember that? Yeah? But I did.
(21:47):
Look at me. Yeah, I never had brand name clothes, uh,
unless they had, you know, like a button missing or
the collar was miss shaping or something. Again, I don't
think I can stress enough how awesome that gallery of
beloved knockoff knockoffs of beloved toys that we've made that's
on our site is it's great. Yeah, we'll repost it,
(22:07):
but you can. You should definitely look under galleries. There's
some real misses and I have to say, I remember
going to plenty of stores as a kid and being
told I could pick out a toy, but it was
like something liquidators. Yeah, yeah, like what is this thing?
Did you have any rich kid friends? Um? Yeah, they
weren't like rich kids, but yeah there were something The
(22:28):
parents were like lawyers and stuff like that. It's like
at one particular that I was always just so like,
his house was so cool. It was like a modern house,
and back then I'd never seen a modern house. And
he had, you know, the green machine and in television,
and horses and a trampoline and a go kart and
a motorcycle. Dude, get everything. Yeah, and look at him now,
(22:52):
he's super successful and wealthy him. His parents raised him, right,
they did. Okay, so we're gonna hit what you touched
on earlier of when you might have a problem that's
a little deeper than your average temper tantrum and they
say three or more tantrums per day that lasts more
than fifteen minutes could qualify as what is now called
(23:15):
in the new d s M five disruptive mood disregulation
disorder that depends that is um that depends on the
age two. So there's a big hubbub yeah over this right, Yeah,
because it was just added to the new d s
M in two thousand, a new disorder. Yes, and basically
(23:38):
it turns temper tantrums into a mental illness, like yeah,
pure and simple. If you were over age six, between
six and ten, Yeah, and you have that number what
was it, three three per day that last fifteen minutes
or more or it says here three or more for
one year, So I think there's a couple of criteria. Anyway,
(24:01):
then you are eligible for antipsychotic medications and all other
manner of prescription drugs even though you're six. Yeah. And
critics are saying there's not enough data on this to
create a new diagnosis, Like some critics are saying you
shouldn't have done this at all. Proponents are saying, no,
(24:22):
this will actually help because kids are being diagnosis bipolar
at six and this will prevent that. So it's a
little awkward right now. But it's funny that they bring
up bipolar because when they when they expanded and basically
created children's bipolar disorder, pediatric bipolar disorder is what it's called. Um.
(24:44):
When they expanded that there was a fortyfold spike in diagnoses,
and as a result, the anti psychotic prescriptions for kids
aged two to five doubled between two thousand and two
thousand seven. And so there's a definite trend of any
time a new disorder is identified or described, everything I've
(25:06):
got that my kids there, he won't shut up. Can
you give them some antipsychotics please? Yeah? And uh, the
psychiatrist is sure right because he has this, because he
fits this criteria. Yeah. It's definitely been a controversial addition
to the d S m as are many additions to
the d S m uh. But that's not to say
(25:27):
that there isn't a larger issue at work, because some
of the times there is. So they want to teach
you his parents to monitor maybe don't like go put
them on psycho psychotropic drugs, but maybe monitor them after
the age of four and see how violent they are
and how long they last and are they trying to
injure themselves or others? Are they holding their breath and
(25:47):
feigning like how severe is it? Um? Which is the
apparently the understanding of that now though, is that kids
don't necessarily hold them their breaths on purpose, like it
just kind of happens to breathe. They get so worked
up that they freathe and faint. And apparently when your
(26:08):
kid does that for reek's parents out and then kids
learn that if they hold their breath or even threatened
to hold their breath, they'll get what they want. But apparently,
if your kid holds his or her breath or it's
held for them when they faint, their normal breathing will
take over again. And as a parent, you can kick
start the whole process by blowing air into their mouth.
(26:30):
It almost like tickles their breathing mechanism to take back
over normally again even though they fainted. And the advice
is that I read that if your kid is feigning
from holding his or her breath during a tantrum, you
can't let that alter your your parenting skills, like how
(26:51):
you react to it. You can't be held hostage by it. Man,
that's so challenging. I can't imagine because your kid faints. Yeah,
I mean, hats offen, that's like going back to the
shark again. Good luck remembering the punch the shark in
the nose while you're paying attack. But that is a
that is a criteria if your kid is doing this
now and it's new, and they're like after age four,
(27:13):
and their tantrums are increasing rather than decreasing. These are
all red flags for okay, this, this may be abnormal,
and let's see what's going on. The first step isn't
necessarily taking your kid to psychiatrists for drugs. It can.
You can also do a self survey of your house,
like is there a new step parent, Um, do we
(27:33):
move recently? Am I an alcoholic? And do we always fight? Yeah?
You know it happens where parents ain't all like kids.
You know, they don't even they don't understand what's going on.
We keep the fighting away from them, but they understand
and they pick up on body language and emotional cues
that you don't think are there, and they're little sponges
and that could be a reason. Uh, did you mention
(27:54):
maybe if you've moved. Yeah, that's a big one. I
think I have moved. Yeah, did his best friend get
a better bike than him or something? Right, you need
to go get that bike then too. But the point
is to not be freaked out by isolated incidences past
the age of four, because they they happen, and um,
it's not a typical you just need and if your
(28:18):
kid has a problem with this, as parents, you probably
have a plan in place, like you're not just reacting
to each incident, Like you get together and you huddle
and be like, all right, we have an issue because
little Timmy is a nightmare, and so how are we
going to deal with this? And then let's stick to it.
If little Timmy also is breaking your humble figurines all
(28:38):
the time now, then good because those are awful, then
um well that's actually it can be a sign, but
it's not necessarily a sign. For example, there is a
study that had a pretty decent population size from two
seven research temper tantrums among two hundred and seventy nine
preschoolers almost two pre schoolers um and they found that
(29:01):
kids who are considered healthy um had were less likely
to become violent, self injurious, destructive, or verbally combative like
during their temper tantrums. But it's also been found that
around of quote mentally stable preschoolers will still become you know,
(29:22):
one of these unhealthy things during a temper tantrum from
time to time. It's not like there goes a homo
figuring you have to go to the psychiatrist. Now, or
if your kid like rips the head off their barbie
in a violent way, that might be disturbing to you,
but that is about as normal American behavior as has
(29:42):
ever been generated by a child. Yeah, if your kid
is being mean to animals, that's a different story, because
that that is uh you know, it's not a good sign.
And it's certainly you want to stop any kind of
uh like, violent aggression towards humans or animals. Like that's
not like, let's just see he'll put this plays out.
You want to get in there, take care of business. Yeah,
(30:05):
in the right way. So you raise your kid, you
get them out of the terrible two's. Age four comes along,
and all of a sudden, they're like talking to you
and making sense and expressing themselves. They're able to settle
themselves down. Um. They they they're just human beings. You
made it out of the woods until the teenage years
(30:28):
come and then it starts all over again. Yes, and
there it starts all over again. For the same reason.
The preferntal cortex undergoes a new round of development during
puberty from age about eleven to eighteen, and as a result,
the emotional breaks that are provided by that region of
(30:48):
the brain are lost again for several years. Yeah, and
it's also similar in that teenagers might not feel like
they can express themselves even though like as a tyler
you literally can't talk. But as a team, you know,
parents just don't understand. That's the old adage. And you've
got the hormones, and you've got new things happening to
your body, and you've got new things happening in your
(31:11):
heart for you know, the little girls and little boys.
You start feeling those feelings and it's confusing, and it's
just it's it's all happening all over again, all these
things you don't understand and can't express, and then you've
got your prefemal cortex not helping you out. And that's
why you're going to see the same, similar behaviors. At least,
it's basically temper tantrums the sequel. Yeah, and it may
(31:33):
not manifest itself the same way. They may not be
on the floor like kicking and screaming and vomiting, but
they may rampage through your house and slam the doors
and scream and yell and uh, don't grow out of
that though, And again if they don't, then psychiatry is
there to back you up with some diagnoses and pills.
There's oppositional defiance disorder, yeah, which is basically it sounds
(31:57):
like temper tantrums. It it sounds like temper tantrums, basically
the same thing. Yeah. This study from University of San
Diego was pretty interesting. I thought they studied kids between
the ages of ten and twenty two. It's not a kid,
by the way, and um between eleven and eighteen years old.
(32:17):
During that window, the speed that they identified emotions indicated
by facial expressions dropped. So between ten and eighteen, if
you're like, your kid can't even look at your face
and read your emotional cues, Like that's how out of
it they are, you know, like I couldn't even tell
(32:40):
Dad was mad at me. Yes, because the wires aren't
connecting upstairs. And apparently the preferales prefernal cortex is also
involved in um regulating behavior, yeah, which explains why teenagers
are prone to like risk taking. Well, yeah, because if
(33:01):
the pre phone cortex isn't doing the job, then I
think the amygdala takes over and the amygdala is is
not a good thing to be running your emotions running
the show. No, not emotionally. So you got anything else
you want to talk about that girl from Militcheville, Yeah,
go ahead, I'll actually read that part. There was a
girl UH who in two thousand and twelve, UH, at
(33:25):
the age of six, was arrested and taken to the
police station from her kindergarten class because the temper tantrum
she threw was so bad she was wrecking her kindergarten class.
She was taken to jail for a temper tantrum like
knocking over bookcases onto the principle. Yeah, and injuring the principle. Um.
(33:46):
And she h apparently was just on a rampage and
the cops took her to jail, didn't book her process
or anything, but I'm sure scared the daylights out of
this little girl. And the school said she can't come
back the rest of this year. Yeah, she's just invited. Yeah.
Luckily it was in April, so I imagine there was
(34:07):
only a couple of months left to school. Still. Yeah,
so we hope she's doing better. Sure, we won't say
her name. We didn't say her name to Nope, the
article does, which I thought was slightly irresponsible. Oh she
was a news item. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, Hey,
you don't want to be in the news, little girl. Right,
(34:27):
that's it, all right. If you want to learn more
about temper tantrums, you can procreate and have a kid
and then see it firsthand. That's right. You can also
before you do that, if you want to find out
if you're interested in that kind of thing, type in
temperate tantrums. In the search part how stuff works, dot
common will bring up this article. And I said, search
bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
(34:49):
this uh positive amnesia. Hey, guys, Nearly five years ago
and and uh Portland, Oregon, I was in a near
fatal motorcycle wreck that not only knocked my brain around
in my full face helmet, but also shattered my pelvis,
broke two ribs to vertebrae, left wrist, right thumb, left collarbone.
Has this show at all? I know? Evil Kinevil. I
(35:12):
was in the hospital for two weeks, but only remember
bits and pieces of the last few days of my stay,
though I was mostly awake the whole time. The doctors
told me that nearly UH I had a nearly two
week gap in my memory, and it was a combination
of shock and medically induced amnesia. I learned a lot
about the different kinds of amnesia from your show, in
ways that my team of doctor never took the time
to explain me. But I didn't. You're like, yeah, that
(35:36):
always happens. But I didn't hear you mentioned any positive
effects of memory loss. Uh. Through my memory loss, it
did not. Though my memory loss did not prevent severe
ps PTSD after the incident, I think it has ultimately
helped me be less afraid of red light running land rovers.
I think we did mention that it was that was
(35:57):
one positive effect of it. I thought, I think maybe not. Well,
if we're not, then we're glad that. Adrian wrote in
he said, Um, also, I don't have the additional trauma
of remembering the numerous surgeries and operations. Uh. Your podcast
made emny just sound confusing and scary, which it is.
But I'm living proof that sometimes it's best if you
don't remember. Well. Thanks a lot, Adrian, We're glad you
(36:20):
are doing okay. Yeah, be careful, man, watch out for
those land rovers. Yeah, red light running land rovers. Hope
they hope the dude got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, I
got nothing else. If you if you want to let
us know about well, if you want to fill in
the gaps on our memories, something we left out of
an episode, we always want to hear that kind of thing.
(36:42):
You can tweet to us at s Y s K
Podcast and join us on Facebook dot com at Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
and as always, check out our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
(37:03):
and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works dot com
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