and what I did about it

Okay, here is what I did. If you think I am a dreadful mother you may be right. Please let me know and also let me know what time you will pick the kids up for a stay at your house. I'll have them all packed. Bring them back in a month and I'll make tea and you can tell me all about how horrible I am.

So, I analyzed Tater's tantrums. They pretty much include these elements:

• say as many mean things as you can think off.
• take whatever yucky feeling you have in your heart and spread it around on as many people as possible.
• completely ignore other people's requests to modify the behavior.
• in fact, use those requests as a trigger to escalate the behavior.
• get completely absorbed in yucky feelings and try to make other people get involved in them.
• be really mean and scream at other people when they come near.
• ruin meals, mornings, outings, whatever, by acting out whenever the feeling strikes.

Well it just so happened that I had a whole boat-load of yucky feelings on hand.  So out-the-blue I just started being really mean.  Really mean.  Hard looks and hard voices and hard words.  I didn't say every mean thing I could think of, but I said mean things.  I made a point of making everyone around me miserable.  I shouted at Garbanzo when he solicitously asked me what was wrong.  I stomped around grumbling about how ill-treated I was and how unfair everything was. (Now I have done this before as role-plays and they knew I was role-playing and giggled. No giggling this time.)  When they crossed paths with me I groused louder and with a more ferocious looks and harsher words.

Basically I scared the socks off them.

And then I asked Tater if my behavior was appropriate.  No.
Was my behavior selfish? Yes.
I was having big yucky feelings and making sure that everyone else in the house felt as yucky as I did, was this okay? No.
I might feel this way 3-5 times a day and I was going to handle it this way each time. Please don't.
Why not? It's not right.

Yes, Tater, I agree. It's not right.  It's not right if I am 46 and it's not right if I am 9.

And then I went and apologized to Garbanzo.

I just asked her to write down what she learned this morning.  She wrote:

I lund that I should not have fits and if I bo then Mom will be lick me.
I learned that I should not have fits and if I do then Mom will be like me.

I thought it interesting how quickly she recognized who I was copying.