Young children often demonstrate their frustrations with complaints and tantrums. Often parents do not know how to deal with these moments when our children get complaining or do some tantrum, but they don't do it to annoy us, they just are still small and are still learning to manage their emotions.
A father shared on Reddit a very curious method that occurred to a father based on a culinary trick to change the mood of your three year old son: the potato trick.
What is the potato trick?
It is a very simple trick. The father has explained it more or less like this:
"When a soup or a stew is very salty, if you add a potato, it will absorb the excess salt. So when my three-year-old son was grumbling and complaining about everything, from lunch to having to clean the floor for the show that his brother wanted to see, I told him that I had to stop being so “salty.” Then he clicked my sarcastic father's brain.
I found the biggest potato there was and I told him to hold her until her attitude changed. It is very "salty" and when it calms down and is ready to say nice things, you can release it and join us again.
And it worked. He thought the trick was so dumb that his mood changed right away. At first I was confused and wanted to quit, but I told him that in no case would I lower the potato until he was in a better mood to compose himself. "
On the one hand, the father uses the distraction formula. Instead of saying, "don't complain," yelling or scolding him, he has totally changed the focus of the situation towards a simple potato. We can explain that the potato absorbs excess salt and that it will help eliminate the anger or bad mood you may feel at any given time.
On the other hand, it is a self control method, a way to make him reflect on an attitude that is not being correct and agree with him an agreement: "When you change your attitude, you can release the potato".
Although it can be effective for the child to change his mood quickly, It is a method that will not always work. When it happens away from home and you don't have a potato on hand, the trick would be meaningless. In that case we would have to find another way to help the child out of his state of anger or complaint.
Likewise, provided that the child is intended to modify his mood in some way, once he has calmed down It is very important that you talk about the conflict or about the reason for his anger and find a solution together.
If you simply have him hold a potato, it won't help. Communication, empathizing with him, understanding his emotions and helping him identify them is the most effective way to help your child.
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