44 completely rational reasons my three-year-old tantrumed today

Posted in Behaviour and Discipline.
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Have a threenager at home? Please, pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine and enjoy these completely reasonable reasons why my three-year-old daughter cracked it today. Yes … all of these outbursts happened in a 24 hour period. I wish I was making this up.

My daughter’s favourite pastime these days is to yell at me. Today, rather than simply struggle through the daily tantrums and tears, I decided to track them. Every time my daughter whinged, cried, screamed, kicked or lay on the floor with her feet in the air, I wrote it down.

Child having tantrum

My daughter discovered 44 problems worth crying about. And almost half of them occurred before 9am.

44 reasons my daughter threw a tantrum

  1. She wanted to wear her Elsa shirt (which is in the dirty clothes pile).
  2. She put her underwear on backwards.
  3. I put the wrong episode of Strawberry Shortcake on.
  4. I didn’t get her breakfast quickly enough.
  5. She didn’t want cereal. She wanted oats.
  6. I gave her the wrong bowl for her oats. She wanted the bowl that her uneaten cereal was in.
  7. She spilled oats on her knee.
  8. She wanted the small spoon.
  9. I gave her the yellow blanket instead of the pink blanket.
  10. She wanted to wear her Elsa dress instead of her Elsa shirt.
  11. It’s not her birthday today.
  12. Her seatbelt felt funny.
  13. Her brother looked at her in the car.
  14. The cat wouldn’t let her pick him up by the tail.
  15. She couldn’t open the wrapper on her muesli bar.
  16. I opened the wrapper on her muesli bar too much.
  17. Her muesli bar broke in two.
  18. When colouring in, I used the wrong colour of blue for Cinderella’s dress.
  19. I sat on her imaginary friend.
  20. She put her shoes on the wrong feet.
  21. Peppa Pig ended.
  22. I cut her sandwich into triangles.
  23. I cut her second sandwich into squares.
  24. I wouldn’t let her play in the car.
  25. I suggested we take a nap.
  26. She dropped her hat on the road.
  27. I didn’t let her answer the phone.
  28. I sat on the wrong side of the couch.
  29. It started to rain.
  30. I had to cook dinner.
  31. Her brother talked to her.
  32. She spilled her water.
  33. I used the red towel to clean the water up. I should have used the pink one.
  34. I had a shower without her.
  35. I helped her brother with his homework.
  36. She lost her doll’s pink shoe.
  37. I asked her to take a bath.
  38. I asked her to get out of the bath.
  39. The towel felt itchy.
  40. Her brother got his pyjamas on quicker than she did.
  41. I turned the page of her bedtime story incorrectly.
  42. Teddy fell off the bed.
  43. I didn’t tickle her arm properly.
  44. I yawned.

The next time your toddler screams the house down because you didn’t cut his sandwich right, just remember, there is a whole world of mums and dads out there, cutting the crusts off their triangle sandwiches and silently cursing the skies for this difficult stage in parenting.

Please, share the completely illogical reasons your toddler lost it today so I can revel in the fact I am not alone.

And let’s prepare to do it all over again tomorrow. Because, even the worst of tantrums can be erased with a simple cuddle, kiss and “I love you Mummy”.

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