As parents, tantrums can be quite frustrating and annoying. However, do not be overly worried about it because this may affect you psychologically. Child tantrums is something you may not be able to avoid, as it is part of their childhood development. In this article, we offer you some useful tips to handle child tantrums.
Reasons for Child Tantrums
Tantrums include crying, whining, sulking, pouting, screaming, hitting, kicking, etc. These behaviours are displayed by both boys and girls. It is also important to know that some children have higher levels of tantrum behavior and in others, such kind of behavior occurs rarely.
According to experts, tantrums is most common when the child is 1 to 4 years old. This is the age when he or she starts to develop language skills. They haven’t developed good coping skills yet. They tend to just lose it instead.
Usually, tantrums occur when your child is feeling uncomfortable, if he or she is feeling hungry and tired. These meltdowns could also be due to the fact that the child is not getting what he wants – for example, a toy. Learning to deal with such kind of behavior is a skill, which you can learn.
Most children can’t really express what they feel, want, or need. In this regard, a tantrum can be caused by a frustrating experience. With the improvement of their language skills, you will see that your child has less or decreased tantrums.
Children want freedom and control over their environment, which is usually more than what they can manage. As a result, this leads to struggles regarding the power as your child thinks that he can do it themselves. For example, “I want this” or “give it to me.” So much so, when your child is unable to perform a certain task or if he can’t get everything he is looking for, he will throw tantrums.
How To Respond To Tantrums
You need to know that the occurrence of tantrum depends on the response of the parent or caregiver, which likewise affects the probability of the behavior happening again. Parents should resist the temptation to cope with tantrums by just giving in to what they want, but to find out the best way to help the child overcome it.
For instance, it is important that you do not try to reason (have a harsh argument) with your child who is already upset. Encourage your child to talk positively and learn the art of negotiation. Sometimes, it is also good to discipline your child but you must do it a good way – for example, do not shout at him or her. The louder he yells, the softer you should speak.
Similarly, you can teach techniques or methods for working through issues while breaking them down step-by-step for your child who is immature or is suffering from deficits in such kind of thinking or communication. It is important to be clear and calm about behavioral expectations because it will help you talk to your child in an effective way.
For example, sit with your child during mealtime and say only positive words to him or her. Your child expects positive words from you and he understands that you can reinforce with rewards and praise.
According to parenting experts, you and your child need to develop a toolkit for self-soothing, which are things that you can do for calming your children – such as relaxing and slow breathing – because you cannot be angry and calm at the same time. There are many techniques to calm your tantrum kid.
In addition, for children exhibiting higher levels of tantrums, there are protocols that can help parents respond better. Such protocols are designed by experts – specifically for parents to minimize the challenging behavior associated with a tantrum. Some of these protocols and programs, which you can do more research online are “Collaborative & Proactive Solutions,” “Ross Greene’s Seminal Approach,” and others like “Parent-child Interaction Therapy” and “Parent Management Training”.
Useful Ways to Deal with Child Tantrum
To deal with child tantrum, you can use the following techniques.
Be attentive to your child: First and foremost, it is important that you give positive attention to your child – set aside regular playtime with your preschooler. For busy parents, spending Quality Time with your child will help improve your bonding. Reward your child with necessary praise for his positive behavior. Find out what is making your child uncomfortable and his struggles that is causing the tantrums.
Walk Away or Time Out: Ignore him unless he is endangering himself or others. This is to prevent reinforcing his undersirable behavior. Leave the room for a few minutes, and come back to check on him. If he starts throwing things, kicking or hitting, stop and remove him from the environment immediately.
Distract the child: Whenever you think your child is now getting out of control, you can distract his or her attention. For example, start a new activity like playing music to kill the frustration. You can also change the environment and take your child to the nearby park where he will play in the playground.
Support your child in learn something new: Parenting experts encourage parents to help their children learn new things. When they succeed in learning a particular activity, you should praise him. This will boost his moral. At the same time, if the child doesn’t succeed in completing the new activity right away, explain to him that there is no failure, and we can always do better progressively. This is another opportunity to spend Quality Time together.
Give them control to do certain things: You can give your child control over certain things, which is good for the child’s development and will build in them a great sense of security and authority. You can offer them minor choices – for example, “do you want to play with a toy car or watch cartoon?” or “Do you want drink apple juice or mango juice?” etc.
Keep certain things out of your kid’s reach: This is a great and useful tip when it comes to children who show more aggressive tantrums behaviour. For instance, it is always better to keep away medications, electronic devices, sharp objects, and other related things so that your child does not hurt himself.
In conclusion, tantrums are a common part of your child development. You should not worry about them too much or consider it a disaster because doing so would cause further problems. Using these techniques and tips, you can help calm your child’s tantrums.