Island Parent December 2020 / January 2021
Victoria & Vancouver Island Parenting Magazine Top Toys • How to Celebrate the Small Things • 3 Tips to Reduce Stress
Victoria & Vancouver Island Parenting Magazine
Top Toys • How to Celebrate the Small Things • 3 Tips to Reduce Stress
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Tantrums &<br />
Language Learning<br />
o! da yewo pwate!” screeched<br />
“N two-year-old Katie as she<br />
knocked the plate off the table, sending<br />
apple slices everywhere, crying so hard<br />
that she was gasping for air.<br />
Jules, her mom, was confused and frustrated<br />
by Katie’s behaviour. The apple<br />
had started out on a blue plate, but when<br />
We see these tantrums as unreasonable<br />
responses from children who are tired or<br />
hungry or not feeling well and so can’t<br />
deal with their emotions.<br />
But Katie wasn’t sick or tired or hungry.<br />
And she had gotten exactly what<br />
she asked for. Or at least, that’s what<br />
her mother thought. It turned out that<br />
Katie asked for the yellow one, Jules<br />
switched them, only to have it rejected<br />
when she put it down in front of her<br />
daughter.<br />
This scene is reminiscent of the tantrum<br />
videos popular on social media: the<br />
child who cries because a broken cracker<br />
can’t be fixed, or because they are told<br />
they can’t do something they didn’t actually<br />
want to do.<br />
what Katie meant by ‘yewo pwate’ was<br />
a multi-coloured plate with no yellow<br />
on it at all. She had the wrong meaning<br />
for “yellow” in her mind. But from her<br />
perspective, she had communicated her<br />
wants to her mother, her mother had said<br />
she was going to give her what she wanted,<br />
and then she was given the wrong<br />
plate. To Katie, it seemed like her mother<br />
was one being unreasonable!<br />
18 <strong>Island</strong> <strong>Parent</strong> Magazine <strong>Island</strong><strong>Parent</strong>.ca