Calming Down a Teen's Temper Tantrums

As a typical mother of five children... Oh wait, that might not be typical in itself, the five children, but otherwise I was a very typical mother. I transported children endlessly for years, let's see, over 25 years. And the stories we have shared, the tears that have flown, the laughter and singing. When we first started homeschooling, my husband met us at the door, as we returned home from an activity and he smiled, shaking his head in perplexity, "I don't know why they call this homeschooling. You're never home!" I don't think homeschoolers are alone in that label. American mothers, cars and children, lots of family living on wheels. The conversations are what I remember the most. They ranged from hilarious to heartbreakingly sad, deep sharing on an extremely personal level and deep talking on a philosophical or political level. I mean you are trapped literally in a moving vehicle, flying down the road and there is no escape. Something about that is almost therapeutic, the psychiatrist couch on wheels.

I have had children share about their first kiss, a broken friendship, confessions of sin, arguments over parental rules or school rules, and endless laughter over any variety of subjects, usually revolving around body parts or body actions, especially with the boys who find such things highly amusing! Some of my favorite car trips are when our youngest daughter would have one or more friends with her and in the back seat, far reaching discussions about ridiculous and serious things would be conducted without any of them even considering that the driver in the front seat, me, might have ears and actually be hearing what they were saying. It was as though, they assumed their was invisible glass behind me preventing me from listening to them. I learned a lot on those days, about what it was to be them, to be in their world. Parents would do well, to just listen and not comment on what they hear. It's amazing what you learn from them.

And of course, there are those moments when parent and child clashes in the car. Most of the time, a simple we'll handle this when we get home kept me, as the driver, sane and able to focus on the driving at hand. But occasionally, rarely, our middle daughter had a tendency to rage over something that had upset her and she would begin a relentless argument..insisting that we talk about it immediately. On one particular day, it was extremely bad, I was extremely tired and I just had had enough. She was 11 and we were returning from a sporting event for her, that had taken all day. We were tired, hungry and ready to be home and we still had about an hour to drive. She started arguing about something she wanted to do that night and I had told her no. She kept wanting to know why, pushing the issue, getting madder and madder. I tried simple reasoning, I tried to calm her now, nothing worked. It was a childish temper tantrum and she was old enough to know better, wasn't she? I thought so and I had had enough of her arguments. It was becoming a unhealty pattern.

I stopped the car, pulled up beside a large brick building, opened the door and went around to her side of the car. I opened her door, and said "Get out." She looked at me with a stunned but still defiant face. She stepped out, I closed her door and walked over to the wall. "See this wall, " I said. She looked at the wall, she looked at me like I was crazy and nodded her head slowly. "Okay, talk to the wall, cause I'm done listening. I'll be back later. " and with that I walked to the car and drove off quickly, down the road, heart beating and thinking to myself. "You've really lost it woman!"

I pulled around the corner, looking back in my rearview window. She was at the curb, looking at me driving away and even from as far away as I was, I could see her frightened face. It broke my heart! Immediately. I turned the corner, drove up the street and around the block as fast as I could go and still obey the speed limit. Now I was the frightened one. What if someone drove up and grabbed her. What if she started walking away in anger? What had I done?! Around the next corner, stop at the stop light, it was red! Now green, I almost careened around the corner and there she was sitting on the curb, head in her hands. She looked up as I drove up and tears were streaming down her face. I pulled up to the curb, and she stood up. Looking through the window at my little girl, she looked back at me and we both felt the bond between us. I'm sure she saw the fear and sadness on my face, I saw my baby girl and relief and gladness flooded over me as she opened the door and slowly got in. There was no anger on her part. She threw herself into my arms and we sobbed together. She said between tears, "Don't ever do that again Mom." I patted her head and stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks and said simply. "Okay, I won't."

Fastening our seat belts, we drove home to that place where mothers and daughters always love each other and arguments don't end in distance, but in resolving them peacefully. It's a perfect world that doesn't really exist, and for that one moment, we both knew that. That it was up to us to keep the peace between us, to hold on to the love that we shared, to not let anger cause us to go away from each other. It was a painful lesson for both of us. I don't really recommend this method of dealing with a pre teen temper tantrum, but yet, for us both, it was a powerful lesson.