My wife and I have been lucky as parents. Our son has always been reasonable. When he was a baby if he was wet or hungry or tired and he was crying, if you fixed the problem, he stopped crying and was fine. Reasonable.
One day when he was about two, we were shopping and he wanted something and we said “no”. It wasn’t the first time we said no, and it wasn’t the last. But this time something happened. He started screaming and and flailing and threw himself to the ground thrashing. My wife and I looked at each other bewildered. Then it hit us and we said “Oh look, he’s throwing a temper tantrum…so that’s what one looks like”. And we watched him for a minute or two until looked up at us. Realized we were not changing our stance, and he simply moved on. He never threw another temper tantrum like that.
We were curious, where on earth did that come from? So we did some research and learned a few things. First, tantrums are normal. It’s not because your kid is badly behaved, it’s all about their development. Tantrums are a biological response to stress. The stress of not getting what they want. And the tantrum is an effort to ameliorate that stress. Biologically it’s due to the fact that in their brain, their pre-frontal cortex is not developed enough handle the stress. This area of the brain develops later, around age 4, and controls emotion and social behavior. And if you can't control your emotions or social behavior...you throw tantrums.
Tantrums are also a crude form of negotiation. You won’t give me what I want, so I’ll throw a fit, the child thinks, though it’s more reflexive than thought out. At this point, how you respond will determine the frequency of future tantrums. Basically if you give in, your child will throw more tantrums. If you like tantrums, this is the path to take. If not, well, don’t give in. On the same note, don’t respond in-kind. Yelling back at them only reinforces their anxiety and will lead to a longer tantrum, and potentially a higher rate in the future (some response is always better than no response in a kids mind).
And comforting your child in the middle of the behavior will also reinforce it. The best response is to calmly say “I can’t help you when you are like this. When you are done acting this way we can hug and discuss what happened”. And leave it at that.
However, this approach only works in the “I want this” type of tantrum. Where you are not giving them what they want. In the “I don’t want” type of tantrum, then you have to take action. Such as you want them to put on their shoes on and they don’t want to. Ignoring them in this case gives them the “win”. They don’t have to put their shoes on. So what do you do? Experts recommend helping them put on their shoes. Take their hands and forcefully but without pain or punishment, go through the machinations and put their shoes on with them.
It can be stressful on us parents to watch this scene play out. But keep in mind most tantrums only last about three minutes. And it may seem like a long time when people are staring at you, in the grand scheme of things it’s just a blip. And within another three to five minutes, the vast majority of kids act as if it never happened while you may be shaking for 30 minutes...(Oh to be a toddler!).
Consistency and firmness are keys to managing tantrums. And while you may not be lucky enough to only experience one or two, you can lessen the amount you’ll have to deal with.
