Just Leave Enough Time for the Tantrum

A wonderful lesson in time management, via several wildly stressful several days with my teenager.

To help my oldest kiddo navigate some of the things that come with being a fourteen-year-old at this particular moment in time, we have been encouraged to apply the sweat-it-out approach. This means, essentially, 20-30 minutes of strenuous activity a day to help move energy and make him sweat.

The sweating somehow affects one's arousal state and makes it easier to cultivate greater balance and calm. (Note: I am neither a psychologist nor a neuroscientist, so my explanation may not exactly be accurate...but I'm pretty sure this is the gist of it!)

Cut to implementation of said plan:

Adolescent fury spews all over the place, directed mostly at me, about the whole concept of daily exercise, the choice of activities, the timing of classes.... Pretty much every element of the proposal elicits rage. It wipes me out. It triggers me. It is not a calm week.

Photo credit Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

I'm told I'm not the first mother of a teenager to experience this.

But I've been working really hard not to give up or give in. And I'm fortunate to be supported by all sorts of people who agree that what my kid needs is boundaries and expectations, even if his job is to fight them.

After hearing me describe a particularly draining battle over going to a martial arts class, one person gave me some excellent advice. She said that everything that's happening is normal, that my job is to stay calm as he gets agitated--and that next time I should just make sure I leave enough time for a tantrum before class so he can still get to class in time.

Huh.

I'd essentially been told that I didn't have to "fix" myself, "fix" my child, or retire in shame for mothering incorrectly.

What a GIFT.

I suddenly understood that this is just how it was right now--for our family, at this particular time, for this particular child, this is what it was going to look like--and that my job was to understand that, to adjust my expectations, and to find the responses that work now.

Kind of like running a business.

Businesses grow in phases. So do projects. So do we, the humans inside the businesses.

We can decide what we want our businesses, projects and lives to look like; we can map them out and set 90-day goals and get everything onto a calendar--and there is still ZERO guarantee that anything will go according to plan.

Not because we did anything wrong, but because that's how life works.

Just ask anybody who's lived through the past two years.

That doesn't mean we have no agency or no control over anything (as much as that may sometimes feel true). And it certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't envision or plan or set goals.

It just means that in addition to planning for things to work the way we want them to, we ALSO get to practice being observant, thoughtful and responsive. In other words, we learn to leave time for the tantrums.

Tantrums, of course, do not always look like tantrums; I'm talking about any response you have to any situation that ends up taking you farther from where you want to be rather than closer.

For example, if you know that every time you get excited about a new idea you like to go traipsing off after it instead of staying focused on the project you were already working on, you may decide now that the next time something bright and shiny flits across your peripheral vision you will pause rather than dropping everything to give chase.

Perhaps you will create space for an alternate response by writing down down two or three questions on an index card and committing to check in with yourself before you veer off course--questions like, "What could happen if I finished the idea I'm already working on first?" and "Is this new idea for now or later?" and "Is this idea mine or for someone else to bring to life?"

By acknowledging (without judgment) the patterns that aren't working for you right now, you can plan ways to meet them differently next time.

What's great about this is that you don't have to be WRONG for having the patterns.

You don't have to waste time and energy feeling bad or angry at yourself or thinking you don't know how to run a business.

You can simply recognize what is, and adjust accordingly.

The day after I had that helpful conversation I told my son that his class started in forty minutes and that if he planned to have a tantrum he should do it soon so he could leave by a quarter to five.

He looked surprised, and then took it in stride. He did push back, but I was much calmer and prepared for a tantrum, and he ended up not having much of one. He made it to class on time.

Take a look at the autorepsonses that are running your life and business. Choose one that isn't working so well. Accept that it simply is what it is, and then consider what small change you can make now so that the next time it shows up you're ready with an alternative.