Had a Bad Day Again

Pervasive Parenting 

By Kodey Toney

Had A Bad Day Again

I talked a couple weeks ago about how Konner was doing well with meltdowns, and I think I jinxed it. We have had a couple lately, and though they haven't necessarily been full-blown versions, they have been concerning. 

Yesterday (Saturday), he was so overstimulated that I could tell he was about to boil over. I arrived home from being gone to training in Oklahoma City for two days, and everything seemed pretty calm, but quickly the tide changed. 

Konner came into the room with tears in his eyes and beg and screaming about a Troublesome Truck. For those of you unfamiliar with the world of Sodor, this is a toy from Thomas the Train. He had been playing with it earlier in the day and lost it. 

He started screaming one of his famous lines, "I can't find the Troublesome Truck! It's not anywhere, and wherever I find it I'm going to break it!"

He says this anytime he can't find something, but oddly enough he never wants to actually break it when he finds whatever he is looking for. 

The desperation of his current emergency caused me to get up and begin searching his room. You see, he and his brother are what some people call man-lookers. Now I don't like this term because I am a man and tend to search thoroughly because if I don't we have a meltdown. 

I searched all through the room and was having a hard time finding it. To make things more difficult Konner was in my ear screaming the entire time. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that it caused me to begin to lose my temper because I could concentrate with the screaming, but then this happens often. As I've said in the past, I'm not the perfect dad, but I try to be. 

After about ten minutes I said, "Konner forget about it. It's not that big of a deal, and we will find it."

He just kept repeating that it wasn't anywhere and he would break it. 

I finally found the train car wrapped in the five huge blankets he has on his bed, and thought the problem was solved...wrong!

He started crying and screaming, "I wanted to forget about it! I wanted to forget about it!" 

This caused me to get more frustrated, and then we both had a meltdown, well he had a meltdown and I threw a fit. 

We calmed him from that, but I could tell he was still a bit of a powder keg about to go off at any second. 

He was playing quietly about an hour later when he came into the room again crying uncontrollably and started talking about when he was in the first grade and Mrs. Diamond answered a question that he wanted to answer and it upset him again. Keep in mind this happened four years ago, and something about this episode still comes bubbling up today. In fact this story upsets him often. 

He then went into a rage about throwing his lunch box earlier this year and he was upset even more. 

He was crying uncontrollably, spitting, and really having a pretty good little meltdown. We finally calmed him by applying pressure, but it made for a long frustrating afternoon. 

There is no way of stopping or detecting some meltdowns, and they happen so quickly you just have to try to stay calm, which I did not, and not make the situation worse. Then talk out what caused them afterwards so you may head them off in the future.