Stress, hunger, tiredness and overstimulation — these can make it harder for children to express and manage feelings and behaviour. Strong emotions — worry, fear, shame and anger can be overwhelming for children. How to make toddler tantrums less likely There are things you can do to make tantrums less likely to happen: Reduce stress.
Tired, hungry and overstimulated children are more likely to experience tantrums. You might also be able to distract your child. Identify tantrum triggers. You might be able to plan for this situation or change the environment to avoid tantrums. For example, it might help to go shopping after your child has had a nap and a snack.
Talk about emotions with your child. When your child struggles with a strong feeling, encourage your child to name the feeling and what caused it. What else could you have done? Here are some ideas for handling tantrums when they happen: Stay calm or pretend to! Take a moment for yourself if you need to. When you speak, keep your voice calm and level, and act deliberately and slowly.
For a 20 percent discount on The Tantrum Survival Guide use this link. For more strategies for surviving tantrums, and especially for heading them off, see The Tantrum Survival Guide.
Rebecca Schrag Hershberg, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and founder of Little House Calls Psychological Services, which specializes in helping kids and parents confronting a range of common early childhood challenges.
She lives in the New York City area with her husband and two young sons. Get this as a PDF. Enter email to download and get news and resources in your inbox. Share this on social. Was this article helpful? Explore Popular Topics. Behavior Problems. Learning Disorders. View More Topics. If your child continues to scream, place them securely in their car seat and head for home.
Before embarking on shopping or other excursions, make sure your child is well rested and well fed; take an interactive toy or a book with you, and have them participate by helping to pick out a few things.
You can also try this strategy from Alan Greene, M. List-making will distract them and make them feel included, and it promises a reward at the finish line. Toddlers don't like surprises, so defuse a potential eruption by giving a child plenty of advance notice before you leave the park or a friend's house. Toddlers are comforted by knowing exactly what's going to come next, so saying "You can ride your scooter two more times around the park, and then we have to go home" gives them a sense of control.
Avoid promises such as "You can ride your scooter for five minutes. Public tantrums cause some parents to give in simply to reduce embarrassment, but this response will only serve to ensure that your child will repeat the tantrum the next time you're out.
Kazdin, PhD, professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University. And what are others thinking? Post-tantrum, follow through with the original demand that started the fit in the first place. If your child got upset because you told them to pick up a toy, they should still pick up that toy once they're calm. If they went off the rails because you said they couldn't have a cookie, then don't give them the cookie after the tears stop.
Once your child follows through and picks up the toy, praise them. After all, that's the positive behavior you want them to remember and repeat. Many children just seem to snap out of a tantrum as quickly and inexplicably as they got into it in the first place.
Once the tantrum is over, go to your child, give them a hug and a kiss, tell them you love them, and move on. Dwelling on the outburst only makes them feel bad and may even cause the tantrum to start up again. If you want to have a discussion about a 3-year-old tantrum or 4-year-old tantrum, talk about it several hours after it's over.
Ask your child to tell you what set off their outburst, and help them think about problem-solving strategies for the future. Don't allow yourself to feel guilty or out of control because your child has a momentary breakdown. Though having your child shout "I hate you" can be hurtful, it's important to keep in mind that your child's actions are not so much directed at you as they are simply a show of their own frustrations.
Toddlers come with tantrums and thats quite natural. But parents find it more like worried about temper tantrums of their kids. One benchmark many parents use is that a tantrum is likely to subside if no one is paying attention to it.
Anger , of course, is the No. The child feels she deserves or needs something that is being deliberately withheld from her—the cookie, the video game, something she covets at the toy store—and is overwhelmed by her frustration and sense of injustice. But anxiety is another big trigger; it causes kids to freak out, overriding the logic that would enable her to see that her anxiety is out of proportion to the situation. Sometimes the inability to regulate emotions is the result of an underlying problem.
Some of the common causes of frequent meltdowns are:. Whatever the trigger, most mental health professionals believe that children who have frequent emotional outbursts are lacking certain skills that would help them better handle situations that cause them frustration, anxiety or anger. They include:. A good deal of tantrum behavior that parents see as intentional or manipulative is much less voluntary than they realize, Dr.
Dickstein notes. And by continuing to practice those skills, they are strengthening these behaviors over time and using them in a greater number of situations.
Whatever the cause, clinicians stress that in managing outbursts, the first step is understanding the triggers and testing ways the environment can be changed to reduce the incidence of outbursts.
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