Reader Q: My Baby Thinks Throwing Toys on the Floor is Hilarious

How do I stop the vicious cycle of my baby throwing things on the ground and me picking them up times infinity because my baby thinks its hilarious? She cries when I don’t give it back.

 The answer to this one is pretty simple: Stop returning the items she throws on the ground. I understand that she cries when you don’t give it back, but so what? Have you ever done something that resulted in things not coming up in your favor and then felt sad or frustrated? What am I thinking? Of course you have—you are a parent. My point is that your baby crying isn’t a problem. It’s actually a completely normal and healthy reaction to frustration. Sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way. Eventually, your baby will learn that throwing things on the floor means they are on the floor, but I suspect you already know this and your real concern is the baby’s crying. As such, I’m going to spend my time talking about the baby’s crying. Perhaps you are concerned that by not giving the toy back you are being insensitive to your baby’s signals. As long as you are not mean about not giving the toy back and do so as kindly and empathically as possible, you are not being insensitive.

This brings me to a critically important component of this situation. Being sensitive does not mean giving in to your child. In fact, being a pushover can be just as bad as being a bully or being cold and unsympathetic. Being sensitive means kindly explaining to your child: (a) the toy is on the floor,  (b) you aren’t going to pick it up, and (c) you understand that she is upset. You could also explain kindly how to fix the situation. Insensitive responses would be coldly ignoring the baby’s crying, teasing the baby, and telling the baby to stop crying (e.g., “Get over it,” “Hush!” or “Stop it.”).  This recommendation is simply based on the general advice that you need to teach your child that feelings are okay to have, they are normal, and they are manageable. The insensitive approach teaches your baby that emotions are not okay and they are scary.

You didn’t mention how old your baby is, but given my knowledge of babies, I’m guessing you have a toddler. Toddlers are COMPLETELY capable of learning associations between events. They can learn that throwing things on the ground either: (a) results in a hilarious game or (b) results in not having access to that object. I know for a fact that your baby is capable of learning because she has invented a hilarious throwing game. Given that you seem frustrated by this game, the only way out is to stop returning the object with kindness.

Another possibility is that you want your kid to learn that throwing is not okay. If that’s your goal, you may have to add a very brief (roughly a minute) time-out for your toddler when she throws objects. Kindly inform your toddler that throwing is not allowed and will result in time-outs. Do not give time outs for emotions, but rather, give time outs for misbehaving. Again, your toddler is completely capable of learning this boundary.  I recently had a similar situation in which my knowledge of kids collided head on with having an actual toddler. Frankie kept playing in the dog bowl and he thought that the resultant “No, no, no!” and subsequent chase away from the dog bowl was hilarious. After four time-outs within 18 hours, he quit playing in the dog bowl. In fact, four months later, he sometimes slowly walks by the dog bowl and shakes his head no. We did the same thing with outlets with the same outcome. #Winning

I want to take a moment to talk about the possibility that baby’s cries make you anxious or uncomfortable. If your parents responded to your cries with harsh demands that your crying cease or they coldly ignored most of your cries, then there is a strong possibility that babies crying makes your heart rate increase and panic start to set in.  If this is true, your parents taught you that crying is not okay, that it is scary, and it is unmanageable, which makes you anxious when baby cries. To override your anxious response, when the baby starts to cry, recognize your feelings of anxiety and discomfort, take a deep breath from your tummy (It’s really important that you breathe correctly, so read this to be sure.). Keep taking deep belly breaths until you can kindly respond to the baby. If you give the baby the thrown object upon the baby's cries, you are reinforcing yourself for playing the throwing game because you giving the toy back makes the baby stop crying which makes your anxiety attenuate. This game that you have learned also needs to stop, and unfortunately, it’s the harder game to win because it took years for you to get like that. It’s critically important that you deal with these issues, and I recommend consulting a good therapist who has a solid understanding of attachment theory to help you work through how your childhood is shaping your responses to your baby.

Another Open Letter to Alma College

Dear Alma College:

 

Recently, I expressed my opinion on Carson’s visit to Alma College. I’ve received several responses on the issue. Most have been supportive and encouraging. A few have been the voice of opposition. With one exception, my detractors have been men my father’s age who have expressed in one way or another that I should be a good little girl and keep my mouth shut—that’s never going to happen. I will not sit silently as I receive hate mail meant to terrorize me. I’m not going to be silenced like Alma College silenced its LGBTQIA and feminist Scots when they allowed Dr. Benjamin Carson to speak.

I treasure free speech and open dialogue. The College’s handling of Carson’s visit did not, in any way, encourage free speech and open dialogue. In fact, the situation actively discouraged it. Specifically, we were all forbidden to talk about Carson’s politics, including Carson himself. By having Carson speak, yet forbidding open dialogue to comply with FEC rules, the College became a wet blanket on the First Amendment. In other words, by having Carson speak under such restrictions, the College censored it’s own students, faculty, and staff. Censorship is not something I stand for as a professor. Censorship only prevents our students and future leaders from becoming thoughtful, analytical, and critical thinkers capable of making their own decisions and articulating their positions.

It’s worth taking a quick detour here to note that neither Carson nor the College held up their ends of the bargain. Carson did not hold up his end of this deal when he rallied the crowd with the clearly political statement that marriage is between a man and a woman. In addition, Alma College also faulted by allowing political questions at the end of the talk. The situation gave neither side justice.  

The College further became an impediment to our First Amendment rights when students were required to go to Carson’s talk. Not only did this situation serve as a roadblock to students exercising their right to free speech by boycotting the talk, it also created a situation in which many Scots were made to feel less than human. By making Carson’s talk a course requirement, LGBTQIA and feminist students were, in effect, forced to sit in a room and listen to a man say that marriage is between a man and a woman, yet they were forbidden from speaking out or questioning such a position.  To add insult to injury, these students also had to witness an auditorium full of people give Carson a standing ovation in response to his dehumanizing statement. As a developmental psychologist, I will tell you in no uncertain terms that these types of situations directly contribute to feelings of alienation and thoughts of suicide. As such, it is this choice that the College made that saddens me most and it is this situation in particular that led me to write my first open letter to Alma College demanding an apology and reparation. My position has not changed. The College should apologize for the hurt that it caused its LGBTQIA and feminist Scots, and a genuine effort to repair the relationships that it damaged is in order.

In closing, I’ll speak directly to my new “fan club.” You can threaten me, degrade me, attack my qualifications, and tattle on me all you want, but you will not bully me into submission. You might even be successful in your attempts to get me fired, but you will not rob me of my right to speak up when LGBTQIA and feminist Scots have been dehumanized and censored.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brandi Stupica

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Alma College

An Open Letter to Alma College

Dear Alma College:

Dr. Benjamin Carson’s visit to the College is over, and I’ve survived, but not without some bumps and bruises. His visit at the invitation of the College has left me feeling violated and abused.  My colleagues and I asked you politely several times (here and here, for example) not to provide a platform for a man who makes daily headlines for his hateful comments about the LGBTQIA community and feminists. You ignored us. You proudly and publicly invited him to campus. Somehow, you managed to escalate the hurt even further by cordially inviting me to lunch with Dr. Carson, hosted by Alma College’s Diversity and Inclusion Office.

My invitation to Dr. Carson’s lunch is a funny story: At first I accepted the invitation because I thought the Diversity and Inclusion Office was hosting a lunch about Dr. Carson’s visit. I thought, surely, that there was no way that the office in charge of promoting equality on campus would host a lunch with Dr. Carson. I sincerely thought the lunch (if it were about Dr. Carson’s visit) was the College’s way of trying to make amends for the wave of hurt and insult that followed on the tide of Dr. Carson’s visit. The day of the lunch, however, and much to my horror, I realized that the lunch was with Dr. Carson. I quickly rescinded my acceptance of the invitation after I realized my mistake because I choose not socialize with or give my precious time and resources away to people who publicly and brazenly spew hate for the people and the causes I love.

Before I start talking about my mistakes, however, let me first discuss the College’s mistakes. The College hosted Dr. Carson under the guise that we value tolerating opinions that are diverse from our own. In doing so, you stood on the throat of inclusion. You’ve left many of us feeling dismissed and disenfranchised. Your cowardly “fix” to the situation (i.e., demoting Dr. Carson from Honor’s Day speaker to a mere guest speaker and facilitating a Diversity Dialogue) was simply a dressed up way of “negotiating with terrorists” who adore a man threatening, with his run for political office, the livelihood and well-being of the LBGTQIA community and people who strive for the end of sexism and gender inequality. The College should have been brave and refused to dedicate time socializing with a person who hates homosexuality and feminism. You should have rescinded your invitation and taught our students a valuable lesson: The First Amendment does, indeed, guarantee everyone freedom of speech, but this freedom does not guarantee free speech without consequences. Sometimes the consequences of being a public bully are that people don’t want to hang out with you and they don’t invite you to come over and play (or in this case pay you to speak to their students). Instead, you punted and it landed on the noses of your LGBTQIA and feminist Scots.

Somehow, you made the situation infinitely worse, yet again, when some students were required to attend his talk as part of a course requirement. I understand that “Due to FEC rules Dr. Carson will be unable to discuss any political matters during his time here on Alma's campus, but will be happy to chat about his rich legacy as an accomplished neurosurgeon, author, and philanthropist” (Direct quote from my invitation to lunch with Carson). Your “compromise” didn’t make the situation any better. In fact, it merely added to the cowardice of the College’s reaction. Perhaps you need to read what you did in black and white: You invited someone with an apparent agenda to marginalize gay and feminist Scots and decided it would be okay as long as everyone promised not to bring up the pink elephant in the room. Shame on you.

Now, let me talk about my role in this disaster. I should have been more persistent and vocal. I should have organized a day without women. I should have rallied people to boycott the talk. Instead, I was passive. I was complicit. I’ve let my students down, especially those who may see me as a role model. Students, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I realize that many of you were hurt by Carson’s visit and I feel responsible because I should have done more. I should have protected you. I’ve learned my lesson about being complicit and quiet. I’ll never again stand on the sidelines while the College invites a bully to campus.

The damage is done, and I’m in my office licking my wounds. So, what’s to be done now? First, a public apology is in order. You’ve hurt many Scots with your actions. You should say you are sorry. Next, you should make it right. I suggest one way to make amends is to state publicly and in no uncertain terms that Alma College is an ally to the LGBTQIA community, that we support marriage equality, and that we’re feminist (Yes, you have to use the f-word.). Don’t use euphemisms in your statement like you’ve done in the past. Although I believe that you never intended to hurt anyone, good intentions and doing the right thing are different. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brandi Stupica

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Alma College