Olympic Tantrums

When a mom and writer discusses Olympic Tantrums, one can only imagine a typical toddler meltdown. Let's picture my three year old daughter having a gargantuan hissy over something terribly insulting to her, such as my demanding we leave the playground as gale force winds and lightning follow us to the parking lot. I can also recall fondly the playdate where she insisted that she was the winner at Candyland and threw down her playing piece, storming off to wail it out. These behaviors were of course followed by an immediate consequense, respectful apology, and reinforcement of appropriate behavior.

Civilizing a toddler is hard work, but my hope is that by doing the hard work now, I will help my child learn to live in the world later. I consider this part of parenting my right, privilege, and my duty to the rest of society.

Armed with all of this information, you can take a quick guess about my reaction to Ara Abrahamian's titanic and actual "Olympic Tantrum". Disputing a penalty, he angrily confronted judges, stormed off and then displayed what can best be described as the ideal "before video" for any anger management class. Once he completed the competition, he considered the Bronze medal an insult, and refused it.

My 4 year old witnessed some of the replay on this turn of events, and had a few questions for me:

"Mama, why is that man yelling?"

"Because he lost a game and he is misbehaving."

"But he is like, older, like a daddy-man...Why is he throwing a fit?"

(Pause)
"Because maybe he never learned how to behave as a child."

"Mommy, that is bad, bad, bad! That is the baddest fit! Will he lose a big privilege? Like no dessert or no TV?"

(Pause)
"This is a big game, and I don't know what the judges will say, but YES he absolutely SHOULD lose a privilege."

This of course lead us into a simplified and short conversation about the purpose of the Olympic games, along with a reminder of why it is important to be a good sport.

An Olympic athlete is revered and respected, and required to uphold the goodwill spirit and requisite sportsmanship expected for this worldwide competition. While it took a short time, I was pleased to learn that Abrahamian was ultimately called out for poor sportsmanship and stripped of the Bronze medal.

I then made a point to show my daughter the news clipping, and explain to her that the "daddy-man" who threw "a fit" got into "trouble" and lost his "privileges".

Thank you International Olympic Commitee, for doing what many governing bodies and businesses fail to do today: requiring civilized behavior of its participants. This is, after all, the most difficult and most critical lesson we will teach our children.