It can be hard to know how to handle a child’s meltdown. You have to regulate your own emotions while trying to help the child do the same. Most people don’t have the answers about how to accomplish this. But increasingly, parents are attempting to take a more gentle approach.
As with any parenting decision moms make public, it’s open for debate and discussion. That’s what happened when one mom was called abusive for the way she responded to her daughter's tantrum.
More from CafeMom: Gentle Parenting Influencer Explains the Right Way To Say 'No' to Kids
The mom explained how she handled her 4-year-old's tantrum.
Sabrina Abrre took the story of her 4-year-old daughter’s tantrum to TikTok.
“My daughter screamed at my face, bloody murder screamed at my face the other day,” she began. Sabriena said she was immediately reminded of being a child, yelling at her own mother.
She shared that her mother didn’t take a gentle approach. “I remember being slapped across the face or being put in time out,” Sabriena recalls.
But she wants to do thing differently with her child. “My knee jerk reaction was to scream at her and be like, ‘I’m your mom. Don’t you disrespect me.”
More from CafeMom: 'Gentle Parenting' Might Actually Change the World — Really
'That really hurt my feelings,' Sabriena told her daughter.
Instead, Sabriena said it was important that she remain calm in the moment.
“I looked my daughter in the eyes and said, ‘That really hurt my feelings. I need some space right now.' And I walked out of the room,’" she explained.
Sabriena admitted that although her daughter screaming didn’t deeply hurt her feelings, she recognized that her daughter was overly tired and could no longer manage her emotions.
“I exaggerated the h— out of those facial expression and made it look like she just ruined my entire day,” she said. The mom left the room, cutting off access to her for some time. Immediately, Sabriena’s daughter was affected and started sobbing, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Sabriena said this was significant because she doesn’t force her children to apologize. Instead, she wants them to feel their own intrinsic motivation to apologize. She left the room for about a minute and a half while her daughter cried and continued apologizing.
Her daughter, without being prompted, apologized profusely.
When Sabriena came back in the room, she told her daughter, “Zamira, sometimes we all let emotions get the best of us. I forgive you but I want you to know that really hurt my feelings.”
After her daughter’s nap, the little girl apologized again.
In the comment section for the video, Sabriena wrote: “DISCLAIMER: I’m no ‘parent coach’ or anyone official. This is the parenting style I’ve adopted to use with my girls. It’s what works for me and them, and what I’ve found extremely successful. Take what you need and leave what you don’t. If it doesn’t resonate with you, that’s OK too.”
Users called Sabriena's approach emotionally manipulative.
But the disclaimer didn’t prevent people in the comment section from disagreeing with Sabriena’s method in this moment.
“Honestly, I know you mean well but it feels a lot like guilt tripping,” one user wrote.
“[M]y mom used to do this to me, it taught me that I was responsible for the emotions of the adults around instead of learning how to regulate,” another person commented.
“Love withdrawal can be more damaging than power assertion,” someone else shared.
Another person went so far as to call the behavior emotional abuse.
Sabriena said parents are not punching bags.
Sabriena addressed all of this in another video. “I don’t take anything my kids do personally,” she explained, but she wanted to show her daughter that if you scream and holler at other people the way she did to her, it would make people not want to be around her.
“She’s 4. She’s learning where her actions and consequences are linked," she added. "It is OK to tell your kid, ‘I am feeling sad. I am feeling hurt and it was because you yelled at me. I’m a parent, sure but I’m not a punching bag and I’m not a f—g robot.”
