We had a strange afternoon with Joshua the other day. He had a great morning — good listening, good mood, all that stuff. He had a great day at school — got a sticker for both his morning and afternoon good behavior (another post on that). But when we got him home, it was like someone replaced our decaf child with a new blend to see if we could tell the difference.
At the slightest provocation or even hint of disappointment, he would collapse on the floor, kicking and crying and telling us he didn’t want us to talk to him or that he wanted to be left alone or whatever. Everything became an ordeal. We were a little baffled. Then it became dinnertime. Joshua sat and ate and we got to watch a magnificent transformation. About halfway through the meal, he became a sparkling model citizen. Smiles, jokes, giggling and just pounding down his dinner. The rest of the night went off without a hitch (well, he got ornery when it was time to turn off the light for bed, but that’s a new thing and a topic for yet another post).
It wasn’t until he had finally gotten to sleep that we had time to think about what had happened and realized the very simple solution staring us right in the face: he was hungry. He was hungry and it made him super grumpy. That was it. Plain and simple. We are so wired these days to either expect this kind of combative behavior from toddlers as a fact of life or to look for some deeper meaning (perhaps it’s a case of ennui resulting from a disappoint with the state of his Legos or a 1/50-life crisis) that it can be easy to miss the classics.
Little kid back from a busy day at school running around and being excited for about 10 straight hours? Maybe he just wants some food. The thought didn’t even occur to us. If you had put me in an interrogation chair and asked me why my son was grumpy I would not have come up with “Maybe he wanted food”.
So if you have a grumpy kid, don’t forget the basics: tired, hungry, sick, needs to poop. Once you’ve eliminated those then you can start to wonder if your toddler is really satisfied with the state of their wooden puzzle portfolio.
*tongue in cheek* Ideally it should be a reflex, like the caricature of an overly fussy grandmother whose response to anything is to offer more food.
Joke or not, that’s kind of true.
YES! Imagine being a little kid in a situation where you have to ‘behave’ all the time (and have few skills to help you) and you’re hungry! Those long days we put our kids through to make a living – hard on everyone – especially the kids!
Food is healing and restorative – but then, I’m Italian! Hand the kid some string cheese when you pick him up – nothing like a little protein pick me up! And water too.