Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know Frunhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chas Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and again we have our guest producer, Noel. He's thrashing
Speaker 1: about on the ground, vomiting, screaming, capillary's bursting in his cheek.
Speaker 1: Ye all because we wouldn't give him a third pork chop.
Speaker 1: Not true? Yeah, boy, temper tantrums are. I always feel
Speaker 1: so bad for the parents in public, you know, Oh really,
Speaker 1: I always think like, you screwed up your kid already.
Speaker 1: See you're so wrong. And we're about to dispel that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, although I did see a Um we're about
Speaker 1: to talk a lot about why it's not the parents fault.
Speaker 1: But I did some extra research and there are experts
Speaker 1: that say you can also be a bad parent and
Speaker 1: that could leave the temper tantrums. Like, we don't want
Speaker 1: to blame parents, but you can definitely play a part.
Speaker 1: And we as a society of said, uh, from this
Speaker 1: age to this age, temper tantrums are normal. And then
Speaker 1: after that then apparently it's like the bad parenting really
Speaker 1: shines through and then they think like, yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: real problems this kid has and it's largely because of
Speaker 1: bad parenting or a bad home environment, or troubles during pregnancy,
Speaker 1: like abuse, things like that. Um, that can all lead
Speaker 1: to temper tantrums that turn into something else. Yeah, after
Speaker 1: a certain age. Yeah, this whole thing it makes me
Speaker 1: kind of uncomfortable. But just parenting advice period is so
Speaker 1: like subjective and individual. Yeah, it's it's always feel like
Speaker 1: people shouldn't tell other people how to parent, but I
Speaker 1: also feel like they're probably some pretty good guidelines to
Speaker 1: parenting too. So yeah, and if you go back and
Speaker 1: look at, um, the history of parents, Yeah, like it
Speaker 1: wasn't too long ago that it was. It kind of
Speaker 1: seems to go on a cycle. Like in the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: Um Rousseau, the Great Enlightenment thinker, basically was one of
Speaker 1: the first to say, you know what, maybe kids aren't
Speaker 1: just miniature adults and like maybe child something special. It's
Speaker 1: a time of development we should, you know, become less
Speaker 1: parent centric and more child centric as far as parenthood goes.
Speaker 1: And um, that really kind of sparked this different idea
Speaker 1: of you know, treating kids as kids rather than adults.
Speaker 1: And then that was replaced later on by the whole
Speaker 1: like discipline and all that of the late nineteenth early
Speaker 1: twentieth century, and then that was replaced by the idea
Speaker 1: that kids, their childhood should be indulged, you know. And
Speaker 1: then Russo said, boy, fetch me in my feather, I
Speaker 1: need to throw up. Is that from Fletch, No, fletch,
Speaker 1: that's what came to mind. No, I just thought it'd
Speaker 1: be funny, you know, I need to throw up, you know,
Speaker 1: the benjing and purging back in the day, eat till
Speaker 1: you can't eat anymore than you need, stick a feather
Speaker 1: it on your throat and vomited it up. Supposedly, the
Speaker 1: vomitorium thing is a myth. Have you heard that in Rome?
Speaker 1: Ancient Rome, vomitoriums they supposedly had like places for that.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard. They were my supposedly their myth mythological
Speaker 1: and not like the minator, like the real myth, not
Speaker 1: like they want you to think. It's a myth. Got Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're talking temper tantrums, and we've already kind of said,
Speaker 1: um that during a certain period of your life, they're normal.
Speaker 1: It's actually you would be a weird kid. If you
Speaker 1: didn't have a temper tantrum pretty frequently, not weird, but
Speaker 1: you would be in the minority for sure. Okay, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're weird. Comparatively speaking, it means you're weird.
Speaker 1: So like, from age one to age three ish, they
Speaker 1: basically say, have have your temper tantrums? It's normal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: between fifty if you want a statistic of two to
Speaker 1: three year old boys and girls have at least one
Speaker 1: tantrum per week, and UM have a tantrum every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those kids are fun between those those years. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there was another study from the University of Minnesota.
Speaker 1: I found even higher rates. UM. Ninety one percent of
Speaker 1: children in this study, between the ages of thirty thirty
Speaker 1: months and three years UM had a tantrum on a
Speaker 1: weekly basis. So it happens. If you had a kid,
Speaker 1: you've probably had it happen. If you don't have kids yet,
Speaker 1: it will happen to you. And if you have a
Speaker 1: kid that doesn't have tantrums, if they're weird, No, you're
Speaker 1: just lucky. Yeah, you are pretty lucky. I wasn't a
Speaker 1: tantrum thrower, I know, I'm sure I was, but I
Speaker 1: think I was a pretty good kid. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it never happened with me, but I was e chill. Yes,
Speaker 1: the gate. Yeah, my brother in law and sister in
Speaker 1: law lucked out a good kid who's like more hard
Speaker 1: on herself than like they are on her. That's the
Speaker 1: best self regulating kids. Yeah, she's good, and she's like
Speaker 1: right in the age two and she's very good. So
Speaker 1: she's weird. Yeah yeah, yeah, weird and all the all
Speaker 1: the best way, the right way. Yeah. The good news is, um,
Speaker 1: by the time they reached four or five, you should
Speaker 1: be seeing a large drop off or complete cessation of
Speaker 1: these tantrums. Yeah. And the reason why we say the
Speaker 1: age um, that there is an age for this to end,
Speaker 1: is because we finally figured out that the mechanisms involved
Speaker 1: in temperate tantrums. Yeah, it's a thing. It's not just
Speaker 1: my kids pain in the butter, he's in a bad mood,
Speaker 1: or he's spoiled. It's there's there's brain activity that is
Speaker 1: causing this to happen. Yes, specifically in the prefrontal cortex,
Speaker 1: or we should say there's a lack of activity in
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the
Speaker 1: brain to evolve. Yeah, like it up until your eighteenth birthday,
Speaker 1: your preformal cortex is still evolving, right, yes, and developing,
Speaker 1: is I think what we mean? Yes, yes we do.
Speaker 1: We both said evolved. But it's true. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the Victorians used to think that if you looked inside
Speaker 1: an egg, you would see the animal that species go
Speaker 1: through its full evolution, that that was its process of development.
Speaker 1: And it kind of makes sense to an extent, especially
Speaker 1: if you think of the brain, like I'm sure the
Speaker 1: brain stem is the first part of the brain to
Speaker 1: be constructed in utero and then it goes all the
Speaker 1: way like after birth, your brain is still developing, and
Speaker 1: it's probably the most sophisticated regions of the brain that
Speaker 1: take the longest to develop. That makes sense. So the
Speaker 1: Victorians were right all along about throwing up All right,
Speaker 1: well should we talk about what the tantrum? That there
Speaker 1: was a doctor who clearly has uh some massochistic tendencies
Speaker 1: because he did a study in which he rigged toddlers
Speaker 1: with microphones. He's the temper tantrum specialist. He's like the
Speaker 1: guy he's definitely a massochist. No, I'm saying, God bless
Speaker 1: this guy, because it is not fun work to record
Speaker 1: and analyze audio tapes of temper tantrums over and over
Speaker 1: and over, but that's what he did, and he did
Speaker 1: find some patterns. First of all, they only last a
Speaker 1: few minutes. Parents, it might seem like an eternity there
Speaker 1: in target while your kid is like buried in the
Speaker 1: clothes racks screaming, but it's only going to be a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and then ten minutes later your kid has
Speaker 1: just probably forgotten about it, even though you have not.
Speaker 1: The He also found that UM, based on the types
Speaker 1: of sounds that the kids made, they can basically be
Speaker 1: classified as sad sounds and angry sounds, and he found
Speaker 1: that his name is Michael Potagal. And Portagal found that UM,
Speaker 1: rather than one giving into the other leading into the other,
Speaker 1: they're pretty much simultaneous. And then once the anger, it's
Speaker 1: basically you have sadness all along, and then it's overlaid
Speaker 1: with anger. And then once the anger subsides, all this
Speaker 1: left the sadness and now the healing can begin because
Speaker 1: when kids are sad, they want to be comforted, so
Speaker 1: they go to you, the parent hopefully yeah, UM and
Speaker 1: and then the temper tantrum can subside. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: broke it down into three phase three stages. Uh, you
Speaker 1: get your yelling and screaming. You've got your physical actions,
Speaker 1: which is what we talked about, like throwing yourself on
Speaker 1: the floor, and that's what you typically think of, like
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming, and then um, we're biting. And then
Speaker 1: you've got your whimpering and whining, which is the third
Speaker 1: and saddest stage right to witness, because the kid has
Speaker 1: just played out at this point and it's just really sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And protocol also found that if the kid goes straight
Speaker 1: into the physical stage, yes, they tantrum is even shorter lived.
Speaker 1: I think because they text themselves more quickly. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Uh. And these we talked earlier about Noel's
Speaker 1: tantrum before we came in and how his face is flushed.
Speaker 1: That is something that can happen if they are screaming
Speaker 1: loud enough, they can pop blood vessels in the face
Speaker 1: and capillaries and they can induce vomiting. It can get
Speaker 1: like really serious and violent and disturbing. Is that funny
Speaker 1: to you? Just wouldn't you just be like you stupid kid?
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? You just screamed until you
Speaker 1: threw up. Yeah. I think that's a good approach. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you don't say alright, So back to back
Speaker 1: to the prefernal cortex. Uh. We said it develops very Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know about slowly, but it develops over the
Speaker 1: course of your life until you're about eighteen. Um, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't even start to till you're four. And they
Speaker 1: think the reason why or not in a clearly the
Speaker 1: reason why they think because of this this malleability and
Speaker 1: plasticity in the prefrontal cortext, we are able to acquire
Speaker 1: language skills as humans. So it's kind of a trade
Speaker 1: off because while we can acquire language skills while our
Speaker 1: PFC is developing, we don't have the emotional stability that
Speaker 1: we have later on in life with the fully developed PFC,
Speaker 1: because the prefrontal cortext is in charge of regulating our
Speaker 1: emotional stability and basically saying like whoa, it's the part
Speaker 1: of the it's the joey part of the brain. So
Speaker 1: your kid, your kid doesn't have the joey part of
Speaker 1: the brain yet, and there is since you brought up language,
Speaker 1: there is a um there's a conflict between what the
Speaker 1: kid can understand and then relay back to you at
Speaker 1: that age, Like they may be able to understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying, but they can't speak the words yet. So
Speaker 1: you've got a really frustrated kid because it can't get
Speaker 1: out what it wants to say. And then you've got
Speaker 1: the pre romal cortex not doing anything yet, right, it's
Speaker 1: not putting the brakes on. Yeah, so that is a tantrum.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a recipe for a tantrum. And why
Speaker 1: don't you stew on that for a minute while we
Speaker 1: take a message break because that was some heavy stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're back. We just talked about the prefrontal cortex,
Speaker 1: and you, Chuck just explained what a temper tantrum is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we all have like moments of frustration. We all
Speaker 1: have um times when like we act out a little bit,
Speaker 1: like you know, this light bulb is supposed to work,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing, road rage. That's an
Speaker 1: adult temper tantrum exactly, you know, but we have prefrontel
Speaker 1: cortex is we've been socialized to feel embarrassed for acting out. Um,
Speaker 1: if you took that away and shrunk us down by
Speaker 1: several feet you would have. It's a normal temper tantrum
Speaker 1: and kids. Yeah, and we also should point out that
Speaker 1: the fight or flight kicks into a big shot of
Speaker 1: cortisol happens, and so everything is just messed up. Like
Speaker 1: it's a wonder your kid doesn't have more of these
Speaker 1: when you think about that. So that frustration UM does
Speaker 1: trigger cortisol, It triggers Nora fehrin Uh, your fight or
Speaker 1: flight syndrome or responses kicked into high gear. And again
Speaker 1: you have nothing to put the brakes on all of this.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is, Um, some of the physical signs that
Speaker 1: the fight or flight responses kicked in are also signs
Speaker 1: that your kids about to have like a major meltdown.
Speaker 1: Things like, Um, you're breathing, flush skin, sweating, sweating, pupils dilated,
Speaker 1: drooling and spitting. Yeah, all these things where it's like
Speaker 1: you see your kids starting to do that, you just
Speaker 1: gonna blow yes. And the reason um, they stop or
Speaker 1: at least taper off by the ages of four and
Speaker 1: five is because you're the joey part of your brain
Speaker 1: starts to work and the kid can now talk to you,
Speaker 1: and all of these things kind of undo and the
Speaker 1: kids like that was the problem because they can now
Speaker 1: tell you that, right. I couldn't talk. Yeah, it smelled
Speaker 1: like chili dogs all the time, and I try. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't tell you that, and my PFC wasn't working.
Speaker 1: So what am I to do? Just go perserk exactly? Um.
Speaker 1: The thing is is like, yes, your kid is going
Speaker 1: to likely age out of this. If your kid doesn't
Speaker 1: age out of it, then perhaps it's time to consult
Speaker 1: the specialist, say around five, six years of age, usually six,
Speaker 1: I think. Um. But along the way, you can help
Speaker 1: your kid have fewer temper tantrums, have less severe temper tantrums,
Speaker 1: and basically just be a better human being in general
Speaker 1: by how you as the parents are us the temper
Speaker 1: tantrums by telling them they're dumb for just throwing up
Speaker 1: You just you think that in your head. You don't
Speaker 1: say it out loud or else you're a terrible parent.
Speaker 1: If you think it, you're fine? Okay, Um, you know
Speaker 1: what you The number one thing you want to do, um,
Speaker 1: prior to temper tantrums is giving the kid a schedule,
Speaker 1: because apparently a lot of the temper tantrums come from
Speaker 1: a fear that somethings that they're not going to get food,
Speaker 1: whether they're not gonna get held or attension or whatever.
Speaker 1: If they're on a schedule, they'll know that it's coming.
Speaker 1: And if they start to freak out, you can say,
Speaker 1: of course, your goldfish are coming. It's almost two pm.
Speaker 1: Settled out, you little goldfish junkie. Yeah. And I know
Speaker 1: they stress scheduling a lot with kids with like Asperger's
Speaker 1: uh and autism, but it's a big deal. Period. You
Speaker 1: should get your kids on the schedule. Kids like knowing
Speaker 1: what to expect. They don't like shirballs. If you have
Speaker 1: to make your own bowl of cereal at age like two, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the parent needs to take some time and figure out
Speaker 1: what's going wrong here with water? Yeah remember that what
Speaker 1: was that Friday's Yeah, when they did that milk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's funny that you said that, because I just remembered yesterday.
Speaker 1: What a good movie Friday? Oh yeah, it was really funny.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Uh. Okay, So get your kids on a schedule.
Speaker 1: That's a big one. This is this is preventing yes um,
Speaker 1: temper tantrum. And that's regular sleep, regular feeding, uh, regular
Speaker 1: interaction any kind of thing they can rely on is
Speaker 1: going to help, Like chill your kid out and get
Speaker 1: them stable. And remember, um, one of the things one
Speaker 1: of the bases of temper tantrums is frustration. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: one way around that is to give your kid make
Speaker 1: them feel empowered. Yeah. I like this bit of advice.
Speaker 1: I thought that was spot on. So like in this article,
Speaker 1: I think Conger says, um, if your kid hates putting
Speaker 1: shoes on, basically distract them by saying, hey, big boy,
Speaker 1: do you want to wear your duck boots or your
Speaker 1: cowboy boots? You you choose to you, Yeah, sort of
Speaker 1: like heading them off with the peopleton. You still have
Speaker 1: to wear shoes, but you get to choose which one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard that's a pretty common thing, if because a
Speaker 1: lot of kids don't want to get dressed when they
Speaker 1: should or put on their shoes when they should. And um,
Speaker 1: a lot of parents now are like letting their kids
Speaker 1: dress themselves. Yeah you can tell. Yeah, but look around,
Speaker 1: I know, and it's I think it's great and fun
Speaker 1: to see little kids walking around these crazy outfits that
Speaker 1: they clearly picked out. It's like a love it. It's
Speaker 1: like many mental asylums all let out. It's like the
Speaker 1: Reagan era all over again. But for kids, I think
Speaker 1: it's awesome. Um okay, so empowering choices, great advice. So okay,
Speaker 1: you've taken these steps to avoid it, it's still not
Speaker 1: gonna do. Your kids still gonna have a temperature tantrum.
Speaker 1: It's just you can expect it. It's inevitable. Um. So,
Speaker 1: when a temper tantrum happens, here's the hard part. You
Speaker 1: have to stay calm. And apparently the the advice jure
Speaker 1: from parenting experts psychologists is ignore it. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: not us talking, No, we researched this, and they say
Speaker 1: to try and ignore it. They say that that is
Speaker 1: the quickest way two to put an end to that
Speaker 1: particular tantrum. If they're not getting the attention, then they
Speaker 1: will quit sooner. Yeah, and that's what they say. So
Speaker 1: long as they're not hurting themselves or other people or
Speaker 1: destroying property. If they're just screaming and being a brat
Speaker 1: basically is what it amounts to, then ignoring it is
Speaker 1: the best course of action. The reason why is, um,
Speaker 1: if you say you are like, oh, I know, you
Speaker 1: feel so bad, and you pick them up and you
Speaker 1: hug them and everything. You're giving your kid positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1: You're saying, hey, scream your head off and I will
Speaker 1: pick you up and rub your back and comfort you.
Speaker 1: You don't want to do that. You want to remain
Speaker 1: neutral and basic, not associate this thing with anything during it.
Speaker 1: That's what I would do, especially in public, and just
Speaker 1: be like, man, who's a kid? Is that right? I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go over here and eat a box of neutral
Speaker 1: green bars by myself while this little kid finishes up,
Speaker 1: and I'll just pay for it at the register with
Speaker 1: an empty box and it's all good. Um. And the
Speaker 1: sense of shame. The other reason, and we're joking around here,
Speaker 1: this is if someone like I have friends who have
Speaker 1: had big trouble with this and it's not a laughing matter.
Speaker 1: It's really a lot of stress on a family. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine we joke because it's just what we
Speaker 1: always do. Another time, the guy in the grocery store
Speaker 1: gets to go see you later, good luck. Um. Another
Speaker 1: reason not to, like they say, to muffle that, is
Speaker 1: because there could be other underlying causes, like hearing problem
Speaker 1: or vision vision impairment that you won't notice um, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're not, just like you know, if you've
Speaker 1: got the kid buried in your chest. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's like you want to ignore it, let it and
Speaker 1: it's natural course watch it out of like the side
Speaker 1: of your eye, you know. Um, because you don't want them, like,
Speaker 1: you really don't want them to think you're paying any
Speaker 1: attention to them at all. And apparently when that's when
Speaker 1: that's done, it just runs its course and it's it's
Speaker 1: over with, and like we said earlier, the kid forgets
Speaker 1: even what was bothering him or her, you know, a
Speaker 1: few minutes afterward. Yeah, what you really don't want to
Speaker 1: do is punish the kid or reprimand the kid in
Speaker 1: the middle of a tantrum or right after a tantrum,
Speaker 1: because it's a natural thing it's going to happen. That
Speaker 1: is not a healthy approach to getting your child to
Speaker 1: not do something because they're two and three years old,
Speaker 1: and to be punished for something that they don't understand,
Speaker 1: it's just that's not gonna help anything. So what you
Speaker 1: do want to do is, after a meltdown has taken
Speaker 1: place and things are calm again, you want to take
Speaker 1: some time to explain to the kid basically what went
Speaker 1: wrong or it they didn't do. Let's say it's over
Speaker 1: the shoes again. You you they've just told you we
Speaker 1: need to talk about shoes again. Now that things are calm,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about shoes because I just had
Speaker 1: a meltdown about it. So now that they're calm, you
Speaker 1: have to say, you need to wear shoes because they
Speaker 1: protect your feet from all the terrible stuff that you
Speaker 1: can step on. That's why you have to wear shoes
Speaker 1: and put them on when I tell you too. And
Speaker 1: it's time to leave understanding the value of shoes right
Speaker 1: in a very understandable two year old way. Apparently you
Speaker 1: don't want to moralize it and say you better not
Speaker 1: you better not pitch a fit when I tell you
Speaker 1: to put your shoes on. Yeah, this happens every morning, right.
Speaker 1: That doesn't help. It doesn't help. And if your kid
Speaker 1: the next day says, well, I want to pick out
Speaker 1: my shoes today, mom, because they protect my feet, then
Speaker 1: you are you get a toy? Yeah, you get a
Speaker 1: big playmobile box set. Well, depend how much money you have,
Speaker 1: you could at least give them positive reinforcement in a cookie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pour a pat on the head. You could also get
Speaker 1: a knockoff blood Mobile not in box set. That's fine.
Speaker 1: The kid doesn't know he's too. We got so many
Speaker 1: knockoff toys growing up. Have you seen that gallery of
Speaker 1: knockoffs toys that I made? It's great. If you have
Speaker 1: not seen a good check it out. And I think
Speaker 1: I had a few of those, did you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean my parents were teachers. We weren't like poor,
Speaker 1: but we didn't. You know, there were three kids. We
Speaker 1: didn't all get everything we wanted. I wanted the BMX Mangos,
Speaker 1: and I got the Sears Goose, you know. I wanted
Speaker 1: Pong again Sears like yeah, basically nights of their own
Speaker 1: table pretty much. Don't you remember that? Yeah? But I did.
Speaker 1: Look at me. Yeah, I never had brand name clothes, uh,
Speaker 1: unless they had, you know, like a button missing or
Speaker 1: the collar was miss shaping or something. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: think I can stress enough how awesome that gallery of
Speaker 1: beloved knockoff knockoffs of beloved toys that we've made that's
Speaker 1: on our site is it's great. Yeah, we'll repost it,
Speaker 1: but you can. You should definitely look under galleries. There's
Speaker 1: some real misses and I have to say, I remember
Speaker 1: going to plenty of stores as a kid and being
Speaker 1: told I could pick out a toy, but it was
Speaker 1: like something liquidators. Yeah, yeah, like what is this thing?
Speaker 1: Did you have any rich kid friends? Um? Yeah, they
Speaker 1: weren't like rich kids, but yeah there were something The
Speaker 1: parents were like lawyers and stuff like that. It's like
Speaker 1: at one particular that I was always just so like,
Speaker 1: his house was so cool. It was like a modern house,
Speaker 1: and back then I'd never seen a modern house. And
Speaker 1: he had, you know, the green machine and in television,
Speaker 1: and horses and a trampoline and a go kart and
Speaker 1: a motorcycle. Dude, get everything. Yeah, and look at him now,
Speaker 1: he's super successful and wealthy him. His parents raised him, right,
Speaker 1: they did. Okay, so we're gonna hit what you touched
Speaker 1: on earlier of when you might have a problem that's
Speaker 1: a little deeper than your average temper tantrum and they
Speaker 1: say three or more tantrums per day that lasts more
Speaker 1: than fifteen minutes could qualify as what is now called
Speaker 1: in the new d s M five disruptive mood disregulation
Speaker 1: disorder that depends that is um that depends on the
Speaker 1: age two. So there's a big hubbub yeah over this right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was just added to the new d s
Speaker 1: M in two thousand, a new disorder. Yes, and basically
Speaker 1: it turns temper tantrums into a mental illness, like yeah,
Speaker 1: pure and simple. If you were over age six, between
Speaker 1: six and ten, Yeah, and you have that number what
Speaker 1: was it, three three per day that last fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: or more or it says here three or more for
Speaker 1: one year, So I think there's a couple of criteria. Anyway,
Speaker 1: then you are eligible for antipsychotic medications and all other
Speaker 1: manner of prescription drugs even though you're six. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: critics are saying there's not enough data on this to
Speaker 1: create a new diagnosis, Like some critics are saying you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done this at all. Proponents are saying, no,
Speaker 1: this will actually help because kids are being diagnosis bipolar
Speaker 1: at six and this will prevent that. So it's a
Speaker 1: little awkward right now. But it's funny that they bring
Speaker 1: up bipolar because when they when they expanded and basically
Speaker 1: created children's bipolar disorder, pediatric bipolar disorder is what it's called. Um.
Speaker 1: When they expanded that there was a fortyfold spike in diagnoses,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the anti psychotic prescriptions for kids
Speaker 1: aged two to five doubled between two thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. And so there's a definite trend of any
Speaker 1: time a new disorder is identified or described, everything I've
Speaker 1: got that my kids there, he won't shut up. Can
Speaker 1: you give them some antipsychotics please? Yeah? And uh, the
Speaker 1: psychiatrist is sure right because he has this, because he
Speaker 1: fits this criteria. Yeah. It's definitely been a controversial addition
Speaker 1: to the d S m as are many additions to
Speaker 1: the d S m uh. But that's not to say
Speaker 1: that there isn't a larger issue at work, because some
Speaker 1: of the times there is. So they want to teach
Speaker 1: you his parents to monitor maybe don't like go put
Speaker 1: them on psycho psychotropic drugs, but maybe monitor them after
Speaker 1: the age of four and see how violent they are
Speaker 1: and how long they last and are they trying to
Speaker 1: injure themselves or others? Are they holding their breath and
Speaker 1: feigning like how severe is it? Um? Which is the
Speaker 1: apparently the understanding of that now though, is that kids
Speaker 1: don't necessarily hold them their breaths on purpose, like it
Speaker 1: just kind of happens to breathe. They get so worked
Speaker 1: up that they freathe and faint. And apparently when your
Speaker 1: kid does that for reek's parents out and then kids
Speaker 1: learn that if they hold their breath or even threatened
Speaker 1: to hold their breath, they'll get what they want. But apparently,
Speaker 1: if your kid holds his or her breath or it's
Speaker 1: held for them when they faint, their normal breathing will
Speaker 1: take over again. And as a parent, you can kick
Speaker 1: start the whole process by blowing air into their mouth.
Speaker 1: It almost like tickles their breathing mechanism to take back
Speaker 1: over normally again even though they fainted. And the advice
Speaker 1: is that I read that if your kid is feigning
Speaker 1: from holding his or her breath during a tantrum, you
Speaker 1: can't let that alter your your parenting skills, like how
Speaker 1: you react to it. You can't be held hostage by it. Man,
Speaker 1: that's so challenging. I can't imagine because your kid faints. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, hats offen, that's like going back to the
Speaker 1: shark again. Good luck remembering the punch the shark in
Speaker 1: the nose while you're paying attack. But that is a
Speaker 1: that is a criteria if your kid is doing this
Speaker 1: now and it's new, and they're like after age four,
Speaker 1: and their tantrums are increasing rather than decreasing. These are
Speaker 1: all red flags for okay, this, this may be abnormal,
Speaker 1: and let's see what's going on. The first step isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily taking your kid to psychiatrists for drugs. It can.
Speaker 1: You can also do a self survey of your house,
Speaker 1: like is there a new step parent, Um, do we
Speaker 1: move recently? Am I an alcoholic? And do we always fight? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know it happens where parents ain't all like kids.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't even they don't understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: We keep the fighting away from them, but they understand
Speaker 1: and they pick up on body language and emotional cues
Speaker 1: that you don't think are there, and they're little sponges
Speaker 1: and that could be a reason. Uh, did you mention
Speaker 1: maybe if you've moved. Yeah, that's a big one. I
Speaker 1: think I have moved. Yeah, did his best friend get
Speaker 1: a better bike than him or something? Right, you need
Speaker 1: to go get that bike then too. But the point
Speaker 1: is to not be freaked out by isolated incidences past
Speaker 1: the age of four, because they they happen, and um,
Speaker 1: it's not a typical you just need and if your
Speaker 1: kid has a problem with this, as parents, you probably
Speaker 1: have a plan in place, like you're not just reacting
Speaker 1: to each incident, Like you get together and you huddle
Speaker 1: and be like, all right, we have an issue because
Speaker 1: little Timmy is a nightmare, and so how are we
Speaker 1: going to deal with this? And then let's stick to it.
Speaker 1: If little Timmy also is breaking your humble figurines all
Speaker 1: the time now, then good because those are awful, then
Speaker 1: um well that's actually it can be a sign, but
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a sign. For example, there is a
Speaker 1: study that had a pretty decent population size from two
Speaker 1: seven research temper tantrums among two hundred and seventy nine
Speaker 1: preschoolers almost two pre schoolers um and they found that
Speaker 1: kids who are considered healthy um had were less likely
Speaker 1: to become violent, self injurious, destructive, or verbally combative like
Speaker 1: during their temper tantrums. But it's also been found that
Speaker 1: around of quote mentally stable preschoolers will still become you know,
Speaker 1: one of these unhealthy things during a temper tantrum from
Speaker 1: time to time. It's not like there goes a homo
Speaker 1: figuring you have to go to the psychiatrist. Now, or
Speaker 1: if your kid like rips the head off their barbie
Speaker 1: in a violent way, that might be disturbing to you,
Speaker 1: but that is about as normal American behavior as has
Speaker 1: ever been generated by a child. Yeah, if your kid
Speaker 1: is being mean to animals, that's a different story, because
Speaker 1: that that is uh you know, it's not a good sign.
Speaker 1: And it's certainly you want to stop any kind of
Speaker 1: uh like, violent aggression towards humans or animals. Like that's
Speaker 1: not like, let's just see he'll put this plays out.
Speaker 1: You want to get in there, take care of business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the right way. So you raise your kid, you
Speaker 1: get them out of the terrible two's. Age four comes along,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, they're like talking to you
Speaker 1: and making sense and expressing themselves. They're able to settle
Speaker 1: themselves down. Um. They they they're just human beings. You
Speaker 1: made it out of the woods until the teenage years
Speaker 1: come and then it starts all over again. Yes, and
Speaker 1: there it starts all over again. For the same reason.
Speaker 1: The preferntal cortex undergoes a new round of development during
Speaker 1: puberty from age about eleven to eighteen, and as a result,
Speaker 1: the emotional breaks that are provided by that region of
Speaker 1: the brain are lost again for several years. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's also similar in that teenagers might not feel like
Speaker 1: they can express themselves even though like as a tyler
Speaker 1: you literally can't talk. But as a team, you know,
Speaker 1: parents just don't understand. That's the old adage. And you've
Speaker 1: got the hormones, and you've got new things happening to
Speaker 1: your body, and you've got new things happening in your
Speaker 1: heart for you know, the little girls and little boys.
Speaker 1: You start feeling those feelings and it's confusing, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's all happening all over again, all these
Speaker 1: things you don't understand and can't express, and then you've
Speaker 1: got your prefemal cortex not helping you out. And that's
Speaker 1: why you're going to see the same, similar behaviors. At least,
Speaker 1: it's basically temper tantrums the sequel. Yeah, and it may
Speaker 1: not manifest itself the same way. They may not be
Speaker 1: on the floor like kicking and screaming and vomiting, but
Speaker 1: they may rampage through your house and slam the doors
Speaker 1: and scream and yell and uh, don't grow out of
Speaker 1: that though, And again if they don't, then psychiatry is
Speaker 1: there to back you up with some diagnoses and pills.
Speaker 1: There's oppositional defiance disorder, yeah, which is basically it sounds
Speaker 1: like temper tantrums. It it sounds like temper tantrums, basically
Speaker 1: the same thing. Yeah. This study from University of San
Speaker 1: Diego was pretty interesting. I thought they studied kids between
Speaker 1: the ages of ten and twenty two. It's not a kid,
Speaker 1: by the way, and um between eleven and eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: During that window, the speed that they identified emotions indicated
Speaker 1: by facial expressions dropped. So between ten and eighteen, if
Speaker 1: you're like, your kid can't even look at your face
Speaker 1: and read your emotional cues, Like that's how out of
Speaker 1: it they are, you know, like I couldn't even tell
Speaker 1: Dad was mad at me. Yes, because the wires aren't
Speaker 1: connecting upstairs. And apparently the preferales prefernal cortex is also
Speaker 1: involved in um regulating behavior, yeah, which explains why teenagers
Speaker 1: are prone to like risk taking. Well, yeah, because if
Speaker 1: the pre phone cortex isn't doing the job, then I
Speaker 1: think the amygdala takes over and the amygdala is is
Speaker 1: not a good thing to be running your emotions running
Speaker 1: the show. No, not emotionally. So you got anything else
Speaker 1: you want to talk about that girl from Militcheville, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I'll actually read that part. There was a
Speaker 1: girl UH who in two thousand and twelve, UH, at
Speaker 1: the age of six, was arrested and taken to the
Speaker 1: police station from her kindergarten class because the temper tantrum
Speaker 1: she threw was so bad she was wrecking her kindergarten class.
Speaker 1: She was taken to jail for a temper tantrum like
Speaker 1: knocking over bookcases onto the principle. Yeah, and injuring the principle. Um.
Speaker 1: And she h apparently was just on a rampage and
Speaker 1: the cops took her to jail, didn't book her process
Speaker 1: or anything, but I'm sure scared the daylights out of
Speaker 1: this little girl. And the school said she can't come
Speaker 1: back the rest of this year. Yeah, she's just invited. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Luckily it was in April, so I imagine there was
Speaker 1: only a couple of months left to school. Still. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we hope she's doing better. Sure, we won't say
Speaker 1: her name. We didn't say her name to Nope, the
Speaker 1: article does, which I thought was slightly irresponsible. Oh she
Speaker 1: was a news item. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be in the news, little girl. Right,
Speaker 1: that's it, all right. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about temper tantrums, you can procreate and have a kid
Speaker 1: and then see it firsthand. That's right. You can also
Speaker 1: before you do that, if you want to find out
Speaker 1: if you're interested in that kind of thing, type in
Speaker 1: temperate tantrums. In the search part how stuff works, dot
Speaker 1: common will bring up this article. And I said, search
Speaker 1: bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this uh positive amnesia. Hey, guys, Nearly five years ago
Speaker 1: and and uh Portland, Oregon, I was in a near
Speaker 1: fatal motorcycle wreck that not only knocked my brain around
Speaker 1: in my full face helmet, but also shattered my pelvis,
Speaker 1: broke two ribs to vertebrae, left wrist, right thumb, left collarbone.
Speaker 1: Has this show at all? I know? Evil Kinevil. I
Speaker 1: was in the hospital for two weeks, but only remember
Speaker 1: bits and pieces of the last few days of my stay,
Speaker 1: though I was mostly awake the whole time. The doctors
Speaker 1: told me that nearly UH I had a nearly two
Speaker 1: week gap in my memory, and it was a combination
Speaker 1: of shock and medically induced amnesia. I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about the different kinds of amnesia from your show, in
Speaker 1: ways that my team of doctor never took the time
Speaker 1: to explain me. But I didn't. You're like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: always happens. But I didn't hear you mentioned any positive
Speaker 1: effects of memory loss. Uh. Through my memory loss, it
Speaker 1: did not. Though my memory loss did not prevent severe
Speaker 1: ps PTSD after the incident, I think it has ultimately
Speaker 1: helped me be less afraid of red light running land rovers.
Speaker 1: I think we did mention that it was that was
Speaker 1: one positive effect of it. I thought, I think maybe not. Well,
Speaker 1: if we're not, then we're glad that. Adrian wrote in
Speaker 1: he said, Um, also, I don't have the additional trauma
Speaker 1: of remembering the numerous surgeries and operations. Uh. Your podcast
Speaker 1: made emny just sound confusing and scary, which it is.
Speaker 1: But I'm living proof that sometimes it's best if you
Speaker 1: don't remember. Well. Thanks a lot, Adrian, We're glad you
Speaker 1: are doing okay. Yeah, be careful, man, watch out for
Speaker 1: those land rovers. Yeah, red light running land rovers. Hope
Speaker 1: they hope the dude got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got nothing else. If you if you want to let
Speaker 1: us know about well, if you want to fill in
Speaker 1: the gaps on our memories, something we left out of
Speaker 1: an episode, we always want to hear that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K
Speaker 1: Podcast and join us on Facebook dot com at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: and as always, check out our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works dot com