Martin73

Hi, this is my first time posting and I am in need of some advice. I am a divorced dad and my two children-son 5, daughter 7 live with their mother. I see them once during the week and every weekend. I am having a problem with my son throwing bad tantrums when I come to pick him up. They are getting more frequent and worse.

His mother has a hard time with him. She has told me she needs to be more consistent when it comes to punishment. She has bribed him with candy, or doing what he wants when he has thrown fits in public. She is better at home, but I think this has created a bad habit and he seems to know that a fit equals reward.

Here is what happened last time. When I pull up, he is fine for a minute, then starts crying to his mother about not wanting to go. He say he wants to stay and play with his step sisters. His crying gets worse and he won't let go of his mother. She tries to put him in my car and thats when the kicking and screaming start. He unbuckles his seatbelt and becomes very angry. I sat in the parking lot for over an hour last time because I explained to him we can not drive without everyone being buckled. I felt like it was a battle to see who would give in first. After an hour and me playing eye spy with my daughter, he started to come around. I told my daughter that I would take them bike riding on a trail the next day and he asked if he could come. I said of course, but we can't go anywhere until he buckled his seatbelt. He did eventually, but I felt like I gave in to him and in the big picture let him down.


This is where I am lost. My son when not in the tantrum frame of mind is loving, sweet, caring, very well behaved, you name it. When he is with me other than picking him up, he is tantrum free 98% of the time. When he does attempt one, I give him a short time out an he recovers nicely. Once he goes into this tantrum-when I pick him up, I can no longer talk to him. He won't listen and stays upset for over an hour.

My question is what can I do? It breaks my heart that this happens when I pick him up. If anyone has any advice on how to handle this I am open to try anything. Thank you.

hannah's mommy

I have a 5 year old as well, and she was prone to tantrums with my husband (her step-father). They get along fantastically, and are crazy about each other, but if it was his day to take her to school there was always a tantrum. We think it had something to do with an interruption in her routine, not him, simply because they usually have no problems with each other.

We will usually say something along the lines of "Oh, Hannah, I am so sad for you that you are acting this way. I am so sad, because now we will need to think of a consequence for you. I don't really know what it will be yet, but don't worry, I will think of something. It just makes me so sad, because I know that you know how to act like a big girl." I use my very sympathetic and understanding voice. The first few times it won't stop the tantrum. And, when Hannah wants to do such-and-such later that day, I will just say, "Oh, Hannah, I am so sorry to tell you, but we just can't do that today, because I'm afraid that I really just can't do this with someone who throws temper tantrums like you did this morning. Maybe we can do this another time." And then, yes, there will be another temper tantrum. After this cycles through a few times they will stop - as long as you provide consequences!

P.S. I think that what you did with the seatbelt was great!

Kaytee

I also think you handles the seat belt thing well. Iwish I had more advise but being I am not a parent of an older child or a divorced family makes it hard. Iwould said what Hannah'smom said is greta and i know there are more posts about this exact situation all around here

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superdad99

I think you handled the car situation really well. It must have been tough.

Given that he is not prone to tantrums at other times then I think it is mainly an issue about the divorce and his feelings of security rather than his behavior.

You might want to try changing up the pickup routine or maybe just talking to him about it afterwards once he has calmed down.

Anna78

You know it sounds to me like your ex wife needs to get tough disciplining him. It sounds like he thinks he can get away with it with Mummy so he tries it with you too but then realizes you won't let him. My cousin was the same, he would be the most horrible child with his Mum, swearing, hitting, crying until he got what he wanted, but when he came to stay at ours, if my Mum said no then he knew he wouldn't get his way and would just leave it.

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