Why Your Kid’s Meltdowns Hit Different When You Remember Being That Kid: Practical Parenting Tips
I was grabbing milk and bread at the grocery store last week when my 7-year-old, Leo, spotted the neon blue gummy sharks at the checkout. He’d already asked for three different treats that trip, so I said no, we had granola bars at home that we hadn’t opened. In 10 seconds flat, he lowered himself to the dirty tile, crossed his arms, and let out a sniffling, red-faced wail that turned every head within 10 feet.
I felt my face warm up, the same automatic embarrassment I’ve felt in other public meltdown moments. But before I could reach down to yank him up, I had that sharp, sudden memory: I was 8 years old, standing in the Kmart back-to-school aisle, begging my mom for a set of glittery Lisa Frank folders. I already had three plain, perfectly good folders from last year, but those folders with unicorns jumping over rainbows were the only thing I’d thought about for two weeks. When my mom said no, I sat down right on the carpet and cried, too. I remembered how it felt, standing in that aisle, not just embarrassed, but like the whole world was unfair. Like every single rule, every single thing I didn’t get to choose that day, all piled up into that one folder. It wasn’t about the folder. It was about being small, and having almost zero say over anything that happened to you.
Instead of scolding him, I leaned against the checkout counter and waited a few seconds for him to catch his breath. I said, “How about this: I’ve got a dollar in change from my morning coffee. You’ve got five dollars in your allowance pocket that you brought along. If you want to spend your money on these, that’s your call. If you don’t, we leave them here. No yelling either way.” He stopped sniffling, thought for a full 30 seconds, then counted out his change and handed it to the cashier. We walked out to the car, he ate three gummies, and that was the end of it. No silent treatment, no lingering bad mood.
Most parenting I see online talks about holding the line, about not rewarding bad behavior by giving in. But for those of us who grew up to be parents, and who still remember being that kid throwing the fit, that automatic push to dig in our heels doesn’t feel right anymore. We know what it’s like to be dismissed, to have your biggest 8-year-old feelings written off as bad behavior or a tantrum to be squashed. What we don’t always remember is that those big reactions almost never have anything to do with the thing we’re fighting about.
A few nights ago, Leo refused to do his 10 minutes of required reading because he hated the animal biography his teacher assigned. I almost opened my mouth to say “It doesn’t matter if you hate it, you have to get it done” — that’s what I would’ve heard growing up. But I remembered being 10, stuck reading a 200-page book about a pioneer girl I hated for a book report, lying that I lost the book just to get out of it, and sitting in detention for a week because of it. I remembered how heavy it felt, that no one cared that I thought the book was boring, that my opinion didn’t count just because I was a kid. This time, I said, “Okay, you read two pages of the assigned book, then read eight pages of your Minecraft comic out loud to me. That still counts as 10 minutes of reading, right?” He agreed immediately, we got it done in 12 minutes flat, no fight.
This isn’t about giving your kid everything they want, or letting them run the house. It’s about small, low-effort shifts that come from leaning into that memory of being a kid. If the thing they’re fighting over is small, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, let them have the agency. Let them spend their own allowance on the garbage candy. Let them mix the assigned homework with a little of their own choice. If you can’t give them what they want, give them the recognition of the feeling first, before you talk about the rule. Instead of “It’s just a folder, stop overreacting,” say “I get it, that one’s so much cooler than the plain one we have. It really sucks when you can’t get the thing you’ve been wanting.” That’s one sentence, it takes five seconds, and it defuses more tension than any lecture I’ve ever given. You don’t have to fix the disappointment, you just have to let them know their feeling isn’t stupid.
It doesn’t work every time. Last month, we fought for 20 minutes about Leo quitting soccer before the end of the season. I still made him finish, because we committed to the team. But I didn’t just say “you signed up, you finish.” I said “I know you hate getting up at 8 a.m. on Saturday, I know it’s no fun when you keep missing the goal. You can quit after the last game next week, I won’t bug you to sign up again. But we start things, we finish them together.” That was enough to get him out the door that weekend, even if he still pouted the whole drive.
I still lose my temper. Some days I’m too tired to lean into that memory, I just say no and drag us both out the door, and we both feel bad for an hour after. I don’t have this all figured out. But I’ve noticed that the more I stop to remember what it felt like to be the kid on the floor, the less these fights feel like a battle between me and my kid, and the more they feel like just a kid having a big feeling. Some days it works, some days it doesn’t. I’m just a former kid, raising a kid, trying to give him the thing I wanted more than anything when I was small: someone who sees the feeling behind the fit, not just the fit itself.
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