Children aren't the only ones that throw temper tantrums. In fact,
adults throw temper tantrums all the time. At this period in history,
I've never seen so many people throwing temper tantrums.
People throwing temper tantrums for people to wear masks. For people not to
wear masks and for everything else under the
sun. On both sides, it seems like every political argument,
social argument, there seems to be people throwing
temper tantrums. I'm Nicholeen Peck and I am a relationship and communication
expert. I am owner of teachingselfgovernment.com
and we're going to talk today about how to deal with adults throwing
temper tantrums?
So, what do adult temper tantrums look like? Sometimes they look a little
different than what we see from children. There isn't as much stomping but
oftentimes there is screaming. In fact, usually,
there is screaming but sometimes there is just a lot of complaining.
Complaining, complaining. That's the adult temper tantrum. Never being happy.
Sometimes being depressed looking at things from a pessimistic point of view.
Not being able to cope with change is usually
something that is a key that an adult is having a temper tantrum.
Life doesn't ever stay the same. The people who get into office,
vary, all the time. So and so is the mayor this year,
2 years later, they're not the mayor and now it's somebody else.
We have to be able to handle it. We've got to be able to know
how to not have a temper tantrum. Now, I could give an entire
video about how to stop ourselves as adults from having temper tantrums. But
today, I want to focus on what we can do when
other people around us are having temper tantrums. I think
that's an important thing for us to be facing in this world right
now. I don't think the temper temperature... That is a tongue twister. I don't think
that the temper tantrums are going to stop anytime soon. In fact,
the more i look at situations around us, I feel like we're just going to see them
escalate more and more before they start to decrease.
And that's a sad reality. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Let's just hope for that. So, what do you do
when somebody starts getting in your face and yelling
or they pout and whine and complain all the time or they won't talk to you?
How should you handle the situation? Should you be passive
and say nothing. Should you say something back to them and engage in a fight with
them? I'll tell you what the answer to that
second one is definitely no. Or should you say something? And if you
do say something, what should you say? So, I was with a
group of adults the other night. And we happen to be talking about a
issue that's going on right now in the news. And
people had different opinions about this issue in the news. Well, one person, a
gentleman started talking about the issue. And I asked a
question about the issue. And before I knew it, this gentleman was
hollering and trying to talk over me and getting
very, very emotional. Definitely not having civil discourse
and he went to that immediately. And I knew why he went to that because
he felt like that if he could explain himself louder,
it would make a difference. So, he felt a little bit
misunderstood. I took a note of that. Because when I asked the question, I
guess he thought that I wasn't getting his point in what he was saying. But the
other thing was he felt like he had to have the final say or
he had to be the one that controlled the flow of the conversation. I thought
that was interesting. Some people because they were raised
like that with other people or because they've developed a habit
go to that type of communication before they even
know that they're doing it. So, what did I do?
Well, I thought about this situation and I thought, "You know,
this guy really wants me to understand why he thinks this way."
The funny thing is, because i asked a question, he
thinks I'm against him on this particular perspective. Well,
that wasn't true. I actually thought the same way as him.
I was just trying to get him to clarify something. But he jumped to a conclusion
that led to a tantrum that went on for a little bit. But when he saw that nobody
else would engage in the tantrum, things changed. People kept talking in
the group but nobody else got upset. And there's a beautiful
thing that happens to a person when they are the upset one and nobody
else is being upset. All of a sudden it's like a mirror is
reflecting back on them and they can finally see I am behaving
differently than everybody else. And nobody is giving me anything to
really feed on. So, it feels funny. Now, if i were to
engage with him and start power struggling
and talking about how loud he was becoming or something like that,
then he would feed on that and he would be able to say that i was as much at
fault for that communication problem as he was.
But since nobody got angry in the group, he was left staring at himself in the
mirror pretty much. Well we didn't make it out to be
anything too big. It's better not to take things personally at all.
But what we did instead was we made sure that we described what was
happening. So we said actually in this group: "This is how
you're saying it, what you don't understand is that
I'm on the same page as you. I actually think the same. You've made a valid point
I was asking this question which probably leads you to think this
but I want you to know i don't actually think that."
Now, what if i actually didn't agree with him?
The conversation would be similar. I would just say,
"This is what you're telling me you think. I hope i understand that correctly.
This is the way you're behaving and you're
telling me this. This is the question I have.
I'd like to have a calm conversation about this
so that I can understand you better." See, the thing is we need to point people
always toward calmness. If we point them toward
calmness, then we can finally understand. And
that's what they want. They want someone to understand. So, it's
good for us to just describe. This is what's you're saying, this is
what's happening. Let's have a different conversation in a
different way. And don't do it in a condescending voice
tone especially because that adult
is probably not going to respond well if you put yourself
up above them when 2 adults know one is not
above the other necessarily. So, you just say,
"This is what's happening this is the way it's happening.
This is what i'd like to have happen and I really want to understand you."
So, you give them a reason to make the shift
toward calmness. Or maybe you even say, "I want to understand this.
I feel like right now might be a bad time because
I can't really get to a place of understanding if we're talking in a way
that seems like we're having an argument. So, let's just take a breather for a
minute and then let's talk about it again."
It shows them you're not putting them off. You're not trying to control them.
You're just saying with all truthfulness, "We're not going to get anywhere
unless we get ourselves communicating in the proper way."
And that's the big thing when you're talking to somebody.
So, I guess that leads us to ask the question when we see people
have tantrums because maybe their check bounced, okay?
Or their candidate didn't get into office or something like that which
happens. And we see it happen around us where
people are being uncivil to each other. Can these same principles
be applied? They could. But if people don't know them,
then it probably wouldn't happen. Any person could look at another and say,
"You're telling me something important. I want to know
what that is that you're telling me. Let's just kind of take a breather for a
second so i can get ready to understand you."
And then we'll understand each other. That's always doable.
It shows respect for the other person. It points them in the right direction.
And it gives them the opportunity to do a little bit of self-evaluation
that maybe they're not communicating in a way that will really earn them much
respect or understanding as the conversation goes on.
Even though mature adults can not see eye to eye and have temper
tantrums, we have a significant problem also
with our children not maturing emotionally properly as well. So, if
you've liked this video, you're probably really going to enjoy my
next video which is How To Help Your Child Mature
Emotionally.