My new gadget and survival strategy

I’m very aurally oriented, and am also very emotionally empathetic. In plain English, what that means is when Jack is screaming in frustration or anger, I begin to feel very frustrated and angry along with him and I want to scream too. I find it incredibly difficult to separate myself from his frustration and try and help him deal with it- instead I just make the problem worse.When he gets in a cycle of upset and screaming it makes me feel like I am demon possessed. The sound just sends me over the edge and it’s all I can do not to scream along with him. I totally understand his situation- he’s frustrated and upset and he just doesn’t understand how to handle it, and thus, the screaming. Understanding why he’s doing it, however, does not make it any easier.

Anyway, enough bellyaching- I suppose we’ve all dealt with this problem as mothers. The reason for this post is to tell you about my new solution to my little demon possession problem! I got an Sony Walkman MP3 Player with noise blocking headphones. I can watch Jack scream and be completely removed from the situation, and try and comfort him or give him an opportunity to cool down in the pack-n-play all while listening to some nice choral music, and not join in with the screaming at all!

Of course, something like this could easily be dangerous – I definitely always want to have him in sight. Also, the noise blocking headphones don’t work perfectly- they don’t fit into one of my ears quite right. But, when the tantrum throwing is really bad, I can just push them into my ears, turn it up and sing along!