This phrase caught my attention. My daughter used it with Ben when he was having a melt down. Mind you we have tried seventy five other tactics, so this may not be a cure all, but I am still rolling it around on my tongue. 

"You are smart enough to control your temper." He paused. Only for a minute, enough to consider this. "Flies are stupid. They cannot control their tempers, but you are smarter than a fly. You can do this." He was not currently hooked up to an EKG but I think his heart rate slowed. It was a new concept for me, to think of him not as belligerent, nor a puppet to his emotions. He is a participant in the organic relationship between Ben and The World. He has since been making pithy jokes about the stupidity of flies, and amazingly, at least a few tantrums seemed truncated. 

The same daughter suggested to me that some of my chronic issues are perhaps solvable. That I am smart enough to change. I confess that a few have become such familiar companions that I have moved over on the couch to the point of being squished, as they expand themselves incrementally. 

The notion that I could rally the mental and emotional resources to at least push back against my foibles, suddenly feels like stepping into a stream on a hot day.