Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Temper Tantrums Work

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

When your kid boils over in the grocery store, it can be tough to stay calm and ignore it, but that's precisely what experts prescribe parents do to deal with temper tantrums. Learn about the anatomy of a tantrum and the best way to deal in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't want to do a select. My name's Chuck. I don't want to pick out a select and do an intro for this one. I don't want to work. See, that was play acting, everyone. This is called how temper tantrums work. And that was an example of a temper tantrum. This is from May 27th, 2014.

And it was a good one. It was before I had a kid and it really was instructive on how things were going to go once I did have a kid. But I got to tell you, I'm five years into this thing and she's great. She rarely ever has thrown temper tantrums in her whole life. She can be real pain in the butt, but she's never been a tantrum thrower. So I'm going to listen to this one again, actually, right along with you. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And again, we have our guest producer, Noel. He's thrashing about on the ground, vomiting and screaming. Capillaries bursting in his cheeks. Yep. All because we wouldn't give him a third pork chop.

Not true. Yeah, boy, temper tantrums are always feel so bad for the parents out public, you know. Oh, really? I always think like, you screwed up your kid already. See, you're so wrong. And we're about to dispel that. Yeah, it's true. Although I did see a, we're about to talk a lot about why it's not the parent's fault, but I did some extra research and there are experts that say you can also be a bad parent. And that could lead to temper tantrums. Yeah. Like we don't want to blame parents, but you can definitely play a part. We as a society have said, from this age to this age, temper tantrums are normal. And then after that, then apparently it's like the bad parenting really shines through. Yeah. And then they think like, yeah, there's some real problems this kid

has, and it's largely because of bad parenting or a bad home environment or troubles during pregnancy, like abuse, things like that, that can all lead to temper tantrums that turn into something else after a certain age. Yeah, this whole thing, it makes me kind of uncomfortable, but just parenting advice period is so subjective and individual. Yeah. It's always feel like people shouldn't tell other people how to parent, but also feel like there are probably some pretty good guidelines to parenting too. Yeah. And if you go back and look at the history of parenting, like it wasn't too long ago that it was, it kind of seems to go on a cycle. Like in the 18th century, Rousseau, the great Enlightenment thinker basically was

one of the first to say, you know what, maybe kids aren't just miniature adults. Right. And like maybe childhood is like something special. It's a time of development. Right. We should, you know, become less parent-centric and more child-centric as far as parenthood goes. Right. And that really kind of sparked this different idea of, you know, treating kids as kids rather than adults. Yeah. And then that was replaced later on by the whole like discipline and all that of the late 19th, early 20th century. And then that was replaced by the idea that kids, their childhood should be indulged. Yeah. And then Rousseau said, boy, fetch me my feather. I need to throw up. Is that from Fletch? No. Fletch. This is what came to mind. No. I

just thought it'd be funny, you know. I need to throw up. You know, the binging and purging back in the day. Yeah. You eat until you can't eat any more than you stick a feather on your throat and vomit it up. Supposedly the vomitoriums thing is a myth. Have you heard that in Rome, ancient Rome, vomitoriums? They supposedly had like places for that. I haven't heard they were a myth though. Supposedly they're mythological and not like the Minotaur, like a real myth. Right. Not like they want you to think it's a myth. Gotcha. Okay. So we're talking temper tantrums and we've already kind of said that during a certain period of your life, they're normal. It's actually, you would be a weird kid if you didn't have a temper tantrum pretty frequently.

Not weird, but you would be in the minority for sure. Okay. But it doesn't mean you're weird. Comparatively speaking, it means you're weird. So like from age one to age three-ish, they basically say have your temper tantrums. It's normal. Yeah, between 15 and 80 percent, if you want a statistic, of two to three year old boys and girls have at least one tantrum per week and 20 percent have a tantrum every day. Yeah, those kids are fun between those years. Yeah. And then there was another study from the University of Minnesota. They found even higher rates. Go go first. 91 percent of children in this study between the ages of 30 months and three years had a tantrum on a weekly basis. Right. So it happens. If you had a kid, you've probably had it

happen. If you don't have kids yet, it will happen to you. And if you have a kid that doesn't have tantrums, they're weird. No, you're just lucky. Yeah, you are pretty lucky. I wasn't a tantrum thrower. I know. I'm sure I was, but I think I was a pretty good kid. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it never happened with me, but I was pretty chill. Yes. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law lucked out. They're a good kid who's like more hard on herself than like they are on her. That's the best self-regulating kid. Yeah. She's good. And she's like right in the age too. And she's very good. So she's weird. Yeah. Yeah. Weird in all the best ways. In all the right ways. Yeah. The good news is by the time they reach four or five, you should be seeing a large drop off or complete

cessation of these tantrums. Yeah. And the reason why we say the age, that there is an age for this to end is because we finally figured out that the mechanisms involved in temper tantrums. Yeah. It's a thing. It's not just my kid's pain in the butt or he's in a bad mood or he's spoiled. There's brain activity that is causing this to happen. Yeah. Specifically in the prefrontal cortex or we should say there's a lack of activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the brain to evolve. Yeah. Like up until your 18th birthday, your prefrontal cortex is still evolving. Right. Yes. And developing is I think what we mean. Yes. Yes, we do. We both said evolve, but it's true. I mean, you know, the Victorians used to think that if you looked inside an egg,

you would see the animal, that species go through its full evolution, that that was its process of development. Oh, really? And it kind of makes sense to an extent, especially if you think of the brain, like I'm sure the brainstem is the first part of the brain to be constructed in utero. And then it goes all the way like after birth, your brain's still developing and it's probably the most sophisticated regions of the brain that take the longest to develop. That makes sense. Yeah. So the Victorians were right all along. About throwing up. All right. Well, should we talk about what the tantrum that there was a doctor who clearly has some masochistic tendencies because he did a study in which he rigged toddlers with microphones. He's the temper tantrum specialist.

He's like the guy. He's definitely a masochist. Yeah. No, I'm saying God bless this guy because it is not fun work to record and analyze audio tapes of temper tantrums over and over and over. But that's what he did. And he did find some patterns. First of all, they only last a few minutes. Parents, it might seem like an eternity there in target. Well, your kid is like buried in the clothes rack screaming, but it's only going to be a few minutes. And then 10 minutes later, your kid has just probably forgotten about it. Right. Even though you have not. Yes. He also found that based on the types of sounds that the kids made,

they can basically be classified as sad sounds and angry sounds. And he found that his name is Michael Potagall. And Potagall found that rather than one giving into the other, leading into the other, they're pretty much simultaneous. And then once the anger, it's basically you have sadness all along and then it's overlaid with anger. And then once the anger subsides, all is left to sadness. And now the healing can begin because when kids are sad, they want to be comforted. So they go to you, the parent, hopefully. Yeah. And then the temper tantrum can subside. Yeah. And he broke it down into three phases, three stages. You got your yelling and screaming.

You've got your physical actions, which is what we talked about, like throwing yourself on the floor. And that's what you typically think of, like kicking and screaming. Right. And then, or biting. And then you've got your whimpering and whining, which is the third and saddest stage to witness. Yeah. Because the kid has just played out at this point and it's just really sad. Yeah. And a protocol also found that if the kid goes straight into the physical stage, yes, the tantrum is even shorter lived, I think because they tax themselves more quickly. Yeah. That makes sense. And these, we talked earlier about Noel's tantrum before we came in

and how his face is flush. That is something that can happen if they are screaming loud enough, they can pop blood vessels in the face and capillaries and they can induce vomiting. It can get like really serious and violent and disturbing. Inducing vomiting. Is that funny to you? Don't just, wouldn't you just be like, you stupid kid, what is wrong with you? You just screamed until you threw up. Yeah. I think that's a good approach. Well, I mean, you don't say it, but you certainly think it. All right. So back to the prefrontal cortex. We said it develops very, I don't know about slowly,

but it develops over the course of your life until you're about 18, but it doesn't even start to till you're four. Right. And they think the reason why, or not necessarily the reason why they think because of this, this malleability and plasticity in the prefrontal cortex, we are able to acquire language skills as humans. So it's kind of a trade-off. Right. Because while we can acquire language skills while our PFC is developing, we don't have the emotional stability that we have later on in life with the fully developed PFC because the prefrontal cortex is in charge of regulating our emotional stability. Yeah. And basically saying like, whoa, it's the part of the, it's the Joey part of the brain. Right.

So your kid, your kid doesn't have the Joey part of the brain yet. Yeah. And there is, since you brought up language, there is a, there's a conflict between what the kid can understand and then relay back to you at that age. Like they may be able to understand what you're saying, but they can't speak the words yet. So you've got a really frustrated kid because it can't get out what it wants to say. Right. And then you've got the prefrontal cortex not doing anything yet. Right. It's not putting the brakes on. Yeah. So that is a tantrum. I mean, that's a recipe for a tantrum. And why don't you stew on that for a minute while we take a message break? Cause that was some heavy stuff. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new

iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously. I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the

story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and

let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. So we're back. We just talked about the prefront cortex and you, Chuck, just explained what a temper tantrum is. Yeah. Because we all have moments of frustration.

Oh, sure. We all have times when like we act out a little bit like, you know, this light bulb is supposed to work. You know, that kind of thing. Or road rage. That's an adult temper tantrum. Exactly. But we have prefrontal cortexes. We've been socialized to feel embarrassed for acting out. If you took that away and shrunk us down by several feet, you would have what's a normal temper tantrum in kids. Yeah. And we also should point out that the fight or flight kicks into a big shot of cortisol happens. Right. And so everything is just messed up. Like it's a wonder your kid doesn't have more of these when you think about this. So that frustration does trigger cortisol. It triggers

norepinephrine. Your fight or flight syndrome or responses kicked into high gear. And again, you have nothing to put the brakes on all of this. Yeah. What's interesting is some of the physical signs that the fight or flight responses kicked in are also signs that your kid's about to have like a major meltdown. Yeah. Things like your breathing, fresh skin. Sweating. Sweating. Pupils dilated. Drilling and spitting. Yeah. Yeah. All these things where if like you see your kid starting to do that, you just be like, how long the exorcists gonna blow? Yes. And the reason they stop or at least taper off by the ages of four or five is because you're the Joey part of your brain starts to work and the kid can now talk to you and all of these things kind of undo

and the kid's like, that was the problem because they can now tell you that. Right. I couldn't talk. Yeah. It smelled like chili dogs all the time. And I tried. I just couldn't tell you that. Yeah. And my PFC wasn't working. So what am I to do? Just go berserk. Exactly. The thing is, is like, yes, your kid is going to likely age out of this. If your kid doesn't age out of it, then perhaps it's time to consult a specialist, say around five, six years of age, usually six, I think. But along the way, you can help your kid have fewer temper tantrums, have less severe temper tantrums, and basically just be a better human being in general by how you as the parent address the temper tantrums. By telling them they're dumb for just throwing up? No. You think

that in your head. You don't say it out loud or else you're a terrible parent. If you think it, you're fine. Okay. No. The number one thing you want to do prior to temper tantrums is giving the kid a schedule. Yeah. Because apparently a lot of the temper tantrums come from a fear that something's that they're not going to get food or they're not going to get held or attention or whatever. If they're on a schedule, they'll know that it's coming. And if they start to freak out, you can say, of course, your goldfish are coming. It's almost 2pm. Right. Settle down. You little goldfish junkie. Yeah. And I know they stress scheduling all out with kids with like Asperger's and autism, but it's a big deal period. You should get your kids on a schedule.

Kids like no one what to expect. They don't like curveballs. Sure. If you have to make your own bowl of cereal at age like two, the parent needs to take some time and figure out what's going wrong here with water. Yeah. Remember that? What's that Fridays? Yeah. When they didn't have milk. Yeah. That's funny that you said that because I just remembered yesterday. What a good movie Friday is. Oh yeah. It was really funny. It's wonderful. Okay. So get your kids on a schedule. That's a big one. This is preventing temper tantrums. And that's regular sleep, regular feeding, regular interaction, any kind of thing they can rely on is going to help like chill your kid out and get them stable. And remember one of the things, one of the bases of temper tantrums

is frustration. Yeah. And one way around that is to give your kid, make them feel empowered. Yeah. I like this bit of advice. I thought that was spot on. So like in this article, I think Congress says if your kid hates putting shoes on, basically distract them by saying, hey, big boy, do you want to wear your duck boots or your cowboy boots? Yeah. You choose. Yeah. It's up to you. Yeah. Sort of like heading them off at the pass. Simpleton. You still have to wear shoes, but you get to choose which ones. Yeah. I've heard that's a pretty common thing because a lot of kids don't want to get dressed when they should or put on their shoes when they should. And a lot of parents now are like letting their kids dress themselves. Yeah. You can tell. Yeah.

You look around. I know. And it's, I think it's great and fun to see little kids walking around in these crazy outfits that they clearly picked out. It's like many mental asylums all let out. It's like the Reagan era all over again, but for kids. I think it's awesome. Okay. So, empowering choices. Great advice. So, okay, you've taken these steps to avoid it. It's still not going to, do your kids still going to have a temper tantrum? It's just, you can expect it. It's inevitable. So, when a temper tantrum happens, here's the hard part. You have to stay calm. And apparently the advice du jour from parenting experts, psychologists is ignore it. Yeah. This is not us talking. No. We've researched this and they say to try and ignore it. They say that that

is the quickest way to put an end to that particular tantrum. If they're not getting the attention, then they will quit sooner. Yeah. That's what they say. So, long as they're not hurting themselves or other people or destroying property. Yeah. If they're just screaming and being a brat, basically, is what it amounts to, then ignoring it is the best course of action. Yeah. The reason why is if you say you are like, oh, I know you feel so bad and you pick them up and you hug them and everything, you're giving your kid positive reinforcement. You're saying, hey, scream your head off and I'll pick you up and rub your back and comfort you. You don't want to do that. You want to remain neutral and basically not associate this thing with anything during it.

That's what I would do. Especially in public. It'd just be like, man, whose kid is that? Right. I'm going to go over here and eat a box of Nutri Green bars by myself while this little kid finishes up. And I'll just pay for it at the register with an empty box and it's all good. Yeah. In the sense of shame. The other reason, and we're joking around here, this is if someone like, I have friends who have had big trouble with this and it's not a laughing matter. It's really a lot of stress on a family. Oh, I can't imagine. Yeah. We joke because it's just what we always do. I'm the guy in the grocery store. He gets to go, see you later. Good luck. Another reason not to, like they say, to muffle that is because there could be other underlying causes like hearing problem or vision

impairment that you won't notice if you're not just like, you know, if you've got the kid buried in your chest. Yeah, it's weird. It's like you want to ignore it. Let it run its natural course. But watch it. Out of like the side of your eye, you know? Yeah. Because you don't want them, like you really don't want them to think you're paying any attention to them at all. Right. And apparently when that's done, it just runs its course and it's over with. And like we said earlier, the kid forgets even what was bothering him or her. Yeah. You know, a few minutes afterward. Yeah. What you really don't want to do is punish the kid or reprimand the kid in the middle of a tantrum or right after a tantrum because it's a natural thing. It's going

to happen. That is not a healthy approach to getting your child to not do something because they're two and three years old and to be punished for something that they don't understand is just that's not going to help anything. Sure. So what you do want to do is after a meltdown is taken place and things are calm again, you want to take some time to explain to the kid basically what went wrong or what they didn't do. Let's say it's over the shoes again. Right. They've just told you, we need to talk about shoes again. Right. Now that things are calm, we have to talk about shoes because I just had a meltdown about it. Yeah. So now that they're calm, you have to say you need to wear shoes because they protect your feet from all of the terrible stuff that you can

step on. Yeah. That's why you have to wear shoes and put them on when I tell you to and it's time to leave. It's my trickier kid. So you're explaining it to them. It's understanding the value of shoes. Right. In a very understandable two-year-old way. Sure. Apparently you don't want to moralize it and say you better not pitch a fit when I tell you to put your shoes on. Yeah. This happens every morning. Right. That doesn't help. It doesn't help. And if your kid the next day says, well, I want to pick out my shoes today, mom, because they protect my feet. Then you get a toy. Yeah. You get a toy. You get a big playmobile box set. Well, depending on how much money you have, you could at least give them positive reinforcement

in a cookie or a pat on the head. You could also get a knockoff flood mobile box set. That's fine. The kid doesn't know. He's too. We got so many knockoff toys growing up. Have you seen that gallery of knockoff toys that I made? It's great. If you have not seen it, go check it out at stuffyshow.com. I think I had a few of those. Did you really? Yeah. I mean, my parents were teachers. We weren't like poor, but we didn't. There were three kids. We didn't all get everything we wanted. No. I remember. I wanted the BMX Mongoose and I got the Sears Goose. I wanted Pong. Again, Sears. I got the Sears version. You're like, what's pink? Basically. Nice to the round table. Pretty much. Do you remember that? Yeah, but I didn't suffer. Look

at me. Yeah, I never had brand name clothes unless they had a button missing or the collar was misshapen or something. Again, I don't think I can stress enough how awesome that gallery of beloved knockoff, knockoffs of beloved toys that we made that's on our site is, it's great. Yeah, we'll repost it, but you should definitely look under gallery. There's some real misses. I have to say, I remember going to plenty of stores as a kid and being told I could pick out a toy, but it was like something liquidators. What is this thing? Did you have any rich kid friends? Yeah, they weren't rich kids, but yeah, there were some parents who were like lawyers and stuff like that. I had one particular that I was always just so like,

his house was so cool. It was like a modern house. Back then, I'd never seen a modern house. He had the green machine, and then television, and horses, and a trampoline, and a pool, and a go-kart, and a motorcycle. Dude, he had everything. Yeah, and look at him now. He's super successful and wealthy. His parents raised him right. They did. Okay, so we're going to hit what you touched on earlier of when you might have a problem that's a little deeper than your average temper tantrum, and they say three or more tantrums per day that last more than 15 minutes could qualify as what is now called in the new DSM-5 disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. That depends. That depends on the age too. So there's a big hubbub over this, right?

Yeah, because it was just added to the new DSM in 2013, a new disorder. Yes, and basically, it turns temper tantrums into a mental illness, like pure and simple. If you are over age six, yeah, between six and 10. Yeah, and you have that number, what was it? Three per day that last 15 minutes or more. Yeah, or it says here three or more for one year. So I think there's a couple of criteria. Yes, then you are eligible for anti-psychotic medications, and all other manner of prescription drugs, even though you're six. Yeah, and critics are saying there's not enough data on this to create a new diagnosis. Some critics are saying you shouldn't have done this at all. Proponents are saying no, this will actually help because

kids are being diagnosed as bipolar at six, and this will prevent that. So it's a little awkward right now. But it's funny that they bring up bipolar because when they expanded and basically created children's bipolar disorder, pediatric bipolar disorder is what it's called. When they expanded that, there was a 40-fold spike in diagnoses, and as a result, the anti-psychotic prescriptions for kids aged two to five doubled between 2000 and 2007. So there's a definite trend of any time a new disorder is identified or described in the DSM. I've got that. My kid has that. He won't shut up. Can you give him some anti-psychotics, please? Yeah. And the psychiatrist says, sure. Right. Because he has this because he fits this criteria. Yeah, it's definitely been a

controversial addition to the DSM as are many additions to the DSM. Sure. But that's not to say that there isn't a larger issue at work because some of the times there is. So they want to teach you as parents to monitor. Maybe you don't like go put them on psychotropic drugs, but maybe monitor them after the age of four and see how violent they are and how long they last. And are they trying to injure themselves or others? Are they holding their breath and feigning? How severe is it? Which is the thing, breath holding spells. Oh yeah. Apparently the understanding of that now though is that kids don't necessarily hold their breaths on purpose. Like it just kind of happens too. Oh, they forget to breathe. They get so worked up that they forget. Yeah. Wow. And

faint. And apparently when your kid does that, it forereaks parents out. Oh, sure. And then kids learn that if they hold their breath or even threaten to hold their breath, they'll get what they want. Right. But apparently if your kid holds his or her breath or it's held for them. Yeah. When they faint, their normal breathing will take over again. And as a parent, you can kick start the whole process by blowing air into their mouth. It almost like tickles their breathing mechanism. Really? To take back over normally again, even though they fainted. And the advice is that I read that if your kid is feigning from holding his or her breath during a tantrum, you can't let that alter your parenting skills. Oh, like how you react to it? Yeah. You can't

be held hostage by it. Man, that's so challenging. I can't imagine. Yeah. Because your kid feints. Sure. It's bad news. Yeah. I mean, hats off. That's like going back to the shark again. Good luck remembering to punch the shark in the nose while you're being attacked. Yeah. But that is a criteria. If your kid is doing this now and it's new and they're like after age four and their tantrums are increasing rather than decreasing, these are all red flags for, okay, this may be abnormal and let's see what's going on. The first step isn't necessarily taking your kid to a psychiatrist for drugs. You can also do a self-survey of your house. Is there a new step parent? Did we move recently? Am I an alcoholic and do we always fight? Yeah. It happens where parents

think all our kids, they don't understand what's going on. We keep the fighting away from them, but they understand and they pick up on body language and emotional cues that you don't think are there. Yeah. And they're little sponges and that could be a reason. Did you mention maybe if you've moved? Yeah. Yeah, that's a big one. I think I said moved. Yeah. Did his best friend get a better bike than him recently? Right. You need to go get that bike then too. But the point is to not be freaked out by isolated incidences past the age of four because they happen and it's not atypical. You just need, and if your kid has a problem with this as parents, you probably have a plan in place like you're not just reacting to each incident. Like you get together and you

huddle and be like, all right, we have an issue because little Timmy is a nightmare and so how are we going to deal with this and like stick to it? And if little Timmy also is breaking your humble figurines all the time now? Then good because those are awful. Well, that's actually, it can be a sign, but it's not necessarily a sign. Right. For example, there was a study that had a pretty decent population size from 2007. It researched temper tantrums among 279 preschoolers, almost 280 preschoolers. Wow. And they found that kids who were considered healthy were less likely to become violent, self-injurious, destructive, or verbally combative like during their temper tantrums. But it's also been found that around 20% of, quote, mentally stable preschoolers

will still become one of these unhealthy things during a temper tantrum from time to time. It's not like, there goes a humble figurine. We have to go to the psychiatrist now. Or if your kid rips the head off their Barbie in a violent way, that might be disturbing to you. But that is about as normal American behavior as has ever been generated by a child. Yeah. If your kid is being mean to animals, that's a different story. Yeah. Because that is, you know, it's not a good sign. And it's certainly, you want to stop any kind of like violent aggression toward humans or animals. Yeah. Like that's not like, oh, let's just see, I'll put this blaze out. Yeah. You want to get in there, take care of business. Yeah. In the right way.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in

general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it.

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So you raise your kid, you get them out of the terrible twos, age four comes along and all of a sudden they're like talking to you and making sense and expressing themselves. They're able to settle

themselves down. They're just human beings. You made it out of the woods until the teenage years ago. And then it starts all over again. Yes, and it starts all over again for the same reason. The prefrontal cortex undergoes a new round of development during puberty from age about 11 to 18. And as a result, the emotional breaks that are provided by that region of the brain are lost again for several years. And it's also similar in that teenagers might not feel like they can express themselves even though as a toddler you literally can't talk. But as a teen, parents just don't understand. That's the old adage. And you've got the hormones and you've got new things happening to your body and you've got new things happening in your heart for the little girls and little boys.

You start feeling those feelings and it's confusing and it's all happening all over again. All these things you don't understand and can't express. And then you've got your prefrontal cortex not helping you out. And that's why you're going to see the same but similar behaviors at least. It's basically temper tantrums, the sequel. And it may not manifest itself the same way. They may not be on the floor like kicking and screaming and vomiting. But they may rampage through your house and slam the doors and scream and yell. And they'll grow out of that though. And again, if they don't then psychiatry is there to back you up with some diagnoses and pills. There's oppositional defiant disorder. Yeah. Which is basically, it sounds like

temper tantrums that, it sounds like temper tantrums basically. The same thing. Yeah. This study from University of San Diego was pretty interesting. I thought they studied kids between the ages of 10 and 22. That's not a kid by the way. And between 11 and 18 years old, during that window, the speed that they identified emotions indicated by facial expressions dropped by 20%. So between 10 and 18, if you're, like your kid can't even look at your face and read your emotional cues, like that's how out of it they are. You know? Yeah. Teenagers. Like I couldn't even tell dad was mad at me. Yeah. Because the wires aren't connecting upstairs. Yeah. And apparently the prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal cortex is also involved in

regulating behavior. Yeah. Which explains why teenagers are prone to like risk taking. Well, yeah. Because if the prefrontal cortex isn't doing the job, then I think the amygdala takes over and the amygdala is not a good thing to be running your emotions. Running the show? No. Not emotionally. So you got anything else? You want to talk about that girl from Millageville? Yeah. Go ahead. I didn't actually read that part. There is a girl who, in 2012, at the age of six, was arrested and taken to the police station from her kindergarten class because the temper tantrum she threw was so bad. She was wrecking her kindergarten class. She was taken to jail for a temper tantrum. Like knocking over bookcases onto the principal?

Yeah. And injuring the principal. Yeah. And she apparently was just on a rampage and the cops took her to jail. Didn't book her process or anything, but I'm sure scared the daylights out of this little girl. Yeah. And the school said she can't come back the rest of this year. Yeah. She's just invited. Yeah. Luckily, it was in April. So I imagine there was only a couple months left of school still. Yeah. So we hope she's doing better. Sure. We won't say her name. We didn't say her name, did we? Nope. The article does, which I thought was slightly irresponsible. Oh, she was a news item. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. Hey, you don't want to be in the news, little girl. Right. Don't turn over a lesson to you. That's it. All right. If you want to learn

more about temper tantrums, you can procreate and have a kid and then see it firsthand. That's right. You can also, before you do that, if you want to find out if you're interested in that kind of thing, type in temper tantrums in the search bar at housestuffworks.com and it'll bring up this article and I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this positive amnesia. Hey guys, nearly five years ago in Portland, Oregon, I was in a near fatal motorcycle wreck that not only knocked my brain around in my full face helmet, but also shattered my pelvis, broke two ribs, two vertebrae, left wrist, right thumb, left collar bone. You guys just showing off? I know. Evil can evil. I was in the hospital for two weeks but only remember

bits and pieces of the last few days of my stay, though I was mostly awake the whole time. The doctors told me that nearly, I had a nearly two week gap in my memory and it was a combination of shock and medically induced amnesia. I learned a lot about the different kinds of amnesia from your show in ways that my team of doctor never took the time to explain me. Yeah. But I didn't, you're like, yeah, that always happens. But I didn't hear you mention any positive effects of memory loss. Through my memory loss, it did not, though my memory loss did not prevent severe PTSD after the incident, I think it has ultimately helped me be less afraid of red light running land rovers. I think we did mention that it was, that was one positive effect of it. I

thought. Did we? I think so, maybe not. Well, if we're not, then we're glad that Adrian wrote in. He said, also, I don't have the additional trauma of remembering the numerous surgeries and operations. Your podcast made amnesia sound confusing and scary, which it is, but I'm living proof that sometimes it's best if you don't remember. Well, thanks a lot, Adrian. We're glad you are doing okay. Yeah, be careful, man. Watch out for those land rovers. Yeah, red light running land rovers. Hope that dude got in trouble. Yeah, I got nothing else. If you want to let us know about, well, if you want to fill in the gaps on our memories, something we left out of an episode, we always want to hear that kind of thing. You can go on to stuffyshino.com and check out our social links,

and you can also send us a good old-fashioned email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom with it, some good old country goodness, and send it off to stuffpodcastandihardradio.com. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in major league baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.