10 Craziest Reasons for Toddler Meltdowns
Before I became the parent of a toddler, I harbored what I figure is a pretty common belief: That toddler tantrums are generally caused by being told “no.” Particularly things like “No I won’t buy you that shiny/sugary thing on the shelf,” “No you can’t stay up any longer,” or “No it’s not your turn.”
Those things cause their share of fits, to be sure, but the dirty little secret is that it’s rarely so predictable. One of the major problems with toddler tantrums is that it’s often hard to keep from giggling at what causes them, even though your darling child is in the middle of heartfelt distress.
Here’s a sampling of 100% true meltdown triggers I’ve collected. Can you top them?
- “There was the ‘I want to eat your eyeball’ tantrum. I am not kidding. You
probably think I made this up, but I cross my heart and hope to die
Sometimes when we’re in a store, my daughter will suddenly yell, “RIGHT BACK! NOT MOVE! STAY!” and run for it. When I chase after her, she freaks out that I didn’t “stay still until she got back.” We’ve had some really good full-blown tantrums over this one… I’m just surprised that it keeps repeating over and over and over…
My not quited 2-year-old decided in the car that he needed a knife to cut his granola bar into “pieces”. When I refused to give him a knife, he screamed “pieces!!” for the entire 20 minute ride.
My two year old pooped and took off her pamper and got poop everywhere. When I put her in the tub, she screamed at the top of her lungs everytime a “poop particle” floated past her insisting she was “scared of the poop”. I had to console her by giving her a soapy towel and telling her that soap helps the poop go away! LOL!!
My even-tempered, docile, quiet, reserved, honor roll student daughter went to the doctor and kicked and screamed and fought from ages 3 to age 6. This same daughter is now seven, and at her last check-up, her appointment was so uneventful that I almost didn’t realize that she’s outgrown her fear. Amazing.
Another time, I ate just a small bite of my 2 1/2 year old sons food because I thought he was done. He then threw a tantrum, telling me to spit out his food so he could eat it. I didn’t spit it out, because that is just gross. His fit lasted for about 30 minutes.
My son threw a tantrum because a movie at the theater was all over. He started screaming over and over in the theater, “I want to watch the movie again.” He was 2 1/2 years old.
My two-year old is afraid of toe lint.
because the fuzzy worm on the porch look so delicious to my 18 month old. And saying no you can’t eat the fuzzy worm. It will make you sick, made her scream like i just stabbed her with a fork…
because I brought in a 24 case of dr pepper and my 18 month old could not lift it… She screamed for HOURS because of the stupid soda!
Because I refused to make a raccoon and cheese sandwich with the raccoon on top saying “Hello” to a fire fighter.
Because he couldn’t balance something big on top of something small and I said “I’m sorry baby that’s just how gravity works, there’s nothing I can do about that” To which he replied “I HATE GRAVITY!!” over and over again getting louder and more upset.
Because there is a book with a picture of a Front end loader lifting up rocks and the caption reads “How many rocks can this bulldozer lift?
He insisted I was reading it wrong, I had to get someone else to read it too him, the melt down ensued when I informed him that just because something is written in a book doesn’t make it true.(Actually I can understand why this realization could be extremely upsetting to a child who loves books)
Because he didn’t want to go to the mall with his father During a crying fit he screamed “I’m NOT going to the mall Daddy, enough of this silliness!”
Thank you! I laughed until I cried! Those crazy kids!
Yesterday, my son (3 yrs) was getting into the van with grandma and grandpa to come back home. We live at a 4-way stop where their house is on one corner and ours is on the other diagonally from them. They didn’t buckle him in and he yelled at grandpa to buckle his seat belt. Grandpa said “you’re so smart for remembering to buckle”.. and all hell broke loose and he scream that he’s not smart and that he was stupid. LOL.. Grandpa kept correcting him that he was smart and he would not stop screaming at the top of his lungs till grandpa said he was stupid. After grandpa agreed, my son was all smiles. hahaha.. (honest to God, true story)
Just yesterday my three year old said she was thirsty…so I gave her milk…and apparently she wanted juice because for the entire ride to daycare (1/2 an hour) all I heard was whining and the occasional “mommy doesn’t love me, she gave me milk.” “I wanted juice!” It was the longest ride to daycare ever@
Where did I read the story about the mom frantically trying to tape together a banana?
I’m a nanny, not a parent, but…
I said that making the lincoln log house in the picture looked hard. She starts crying and screaming. I ask her why she’s so upset. She yells “I don’t want you to think it’s hard! You don’t think it’s hard!” over and over again.
My 3 year old has taken to racing to all destinations: to the door at school, to the potty, to bed. The other nice we were racing to tell daddy goodnight and she ran to the sofa instead of daddy in his chair. I told her “You went the wrong way. You better hurry or I’m going to win”. She started freaking out and crying, “I want to win” and would not stop. I gave her every chance to ‘win’ but she couldn’t get past the fact that there was a possibility that she would not win…
My 2.5 yo flipped out the other day because he wanted a tissue that I had thrown into the toilet. He wanted me to get it out so he could have it. Not only was the tissue soaked (obviously), but if it’s yellow, we let it mellow so…extra gross, no way. He was having a first-class meltdown and I stupidly thought that flushing the toilet might solve the problem. Tissue out of sight, out of mind was not gonna happen, though. He asked my husband to get the plunger to try to retrieve the flushed tissue! WTF?!
I’ll never forget our food-cutting freak out.
A slice of pizza was too hot and my son complained that he couldn’t eat it because of this. I cut it so that it would cool off and he could eat it faster. The scene that ensued was scary to say the least…
Walking my oldest from school, at a certain spot we need to cross 2 streets to get to our house, an east-west cross, then a north-south cross. My then almost-3 y/o had a hissy fit because we crossed the “wrong” one first.
He sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and refused to move. Pleading ensued. Begging, offers to go back and re-cross the streets. Nothing would stop the tears.
Finally, I was done. I looked at my older one and told him we were going to pretend to continue walking home, but really we were just going to hide behind a tree a little further up. I was thinking the little one would come running as soon as he realized we were “gone.” I asked our neighbor, who was out raking leaves, to grab my son if he looked like he was going to run into the street, but otherwise, I’d be hiding from him. After about 5 minutes of hiding, I hear the neighbor say, “You know, your mom and brother went home, right?” My son stopped crying, looked at the neighbor and said, “Eh. Whatever.” The neighbor laughed so hard, I thought he was going to wet his pants.
When he was about 18 months old, he had a FREAK OUT because we wouldn’t let him drive the car to the grocery store.
I remember reading a magazine essay once in which the author’s toddler daughter freaked out because she couldn’t get her fingers to come off. Mine has had some pretty ridiculous freak-outs but nothing to top that.
My 2yo: Nemo! Nemo!
(We put on Finding Nemo)
2yo: No Nemo! No Nemo!
(We turn off Finding Nemo)
2yo: Nemo! Nemo!
Actually, he did this when he wasn’t feeling well and just was out of sorts. But the second he got what he wanted, he started screaming for the opposite. We ended up turning off the TV and just rubbing his back pretty quickly, but it was entertaining to see how fast he flipped out, in a “If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry” kind of way.