Parents Share An Odd Trick That Stops Tantrums Almost Immediately, But Has Others Asking 'Who's Jessica?'
Dasha Trofimova | Shutterstock When their toddler inevitably throws a tantrum, desperate parents will do whatever it takes to calm them down. Many are trying out a new trick that’s going viral. It seems like it works, but it’s also leaving people pretty confused.
There’s not much parents can do to stop tantrums from happening in the first place, but how they respond is key. They probably feel like it’s the perfect time to raise their voice, but the best thing for them to do is actually remain calm. That’s easier said than done when you have a screaming kid on your hands, but all it may take is saying one random name.
A lot of parents have discovered that saying the name ‘Jessica’ calms their toddlers down when they’re in the middle of a tantrum.
There’s a good chance that you’ve seen one of the many videos that have popped up on social media over the last few weeks. A mom named Ki shared one of her own. “Somebody said to yell ‘Jessica’ whenever your kid is having a tantrum,” she said.
In the video, Ki held her young daughter, who was throwing an absolute fit, tears and screams included. Suddenly, Ki called out, “Jessica!” and everything stopped. She repeated the name a few times for good measure, but her daughter seemed mesmerized by the name, her mind off of whatever she was so upset about.
Other moms, like Tiffani Ortega, have done the same thing after seeing it work for other parents. She told Today.com that her son hates being put in his car seat after a trip to the park, so she decided it couldn’t hurt to yell out, “Jessica!” when he started to melt down.
As soon as he heard the name, her son quieted down and looked around for this mysterious Jessica person. “If I hadn’t said that, he probably would have cried the whole way home,” she said.
It seems the trick's power probably comes from the surprise it causes rather than the name itself.
Another mom, Evanthia Davis, said that after the trick worked on her daughter, she tried other names out as well. This led her to believe that it’s all about the “element of surprise,” and not some magical powers held by the name “Jessica.”
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Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family physician and resilience expert, confirmed Davis’ suspicions. She explained that it can be harder to get a toddler to shift their focus to something new because “they have more perseverance, and they have more object permanence” than babies. But when a parent introduces an unexpected name, it does grab their attention.
“It works because the brain is like, ‘Wait, what?’” she continued. Apparently, the toddler will decide that figuring out who “Jessica” is is more important than the thing that upset them. It probably won’t work for long, though.
Although this method works, not all experts think it’s the right way to handle a tantrum.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Vasco Lopes, PsyD, argued that the best way for a parent to respond to a tantrum is to give it as little attention as possible so the toddler doesn’t feel like that behavior is effective.
“By positively reinforcing compliance and appropriate responses to frustration, you’re teaching skills and — since you can’t comply with a command and tantrum at the same time — simultaneously decreasing that aggressive noncompliant tantrum behavior,” he said.
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That sounds very logical in theory, but it can be hard to put into practice when you’re in the middle of the grocery store, and your kid is screaming and trying to jump out of the shopping cart because you won’t let them eat a cookie.
Calling out “Jessica” to calm your toddler down might not have any scientific basis, and it might not really teach your kid anything about how they should actually be acting, but there’s no harm in giving it a try when you feel like you’re at your wits’ end. Parenting is hard, and everyone is just doing their best. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
