Short Time Out

My 5 year old daughter is usually really good about not taking naps anymore while keeping her energy high enough to prevent tantrums. Sometimes, it does take some extra snacks also to make sure she isn’t hangry. After an eventful day though, anything goes.

She loves kindergarten and when it is a particularly interesting/active day, she does get a bit tired when she comes home. We had to go to dance class and she ended up wearing her Halloween costume there. In the middle of the car ride, she complained about being hot. It’s definitely not anywhere close to hot since the car was around the mid-60s. I told her I could turn on the air, but she would need to deal with some uncomfortableness. Nothing unreasonable was said by either person (in my opinion).

I guess this was one of those days where any uncomfortableness leads to an explosion. A huge tantrum came out and there was a lot of screaming and crying. I wasn’t going to budge much since we weren’t going to stop and change outfits. After some screaming, there was silence from the backseat. I noticed she was asleep and let her sleep the remaining time to dance, which at that point was about a 5 minute ride.

When we got to dance, she woke up bring very pleasant. I asked her if she remembered throwing a huge tantrum because it was “hot” in the car and she said yes. She also added that she was tired and just needed a short nap. I guess her short self imposed time out helped a lot and that she didn’t feel any lingering resentment about the situation. It was my turn to learn from my kids because they a showed me how quickly they can get over stuff and move on. Learning is a two way street and it doesn’t hurt to take some of the knowledge and spirit my kids have to use in in my day to day. I wouldn’t mind a short nap to reset sometimes either!