- Reduce stress . Tired, hungry and overstimulated children are more likely to throw tantrums.
- Be aware of how your child is feeling . If you can see a tantrum brewing, step in and try distracting your child with another activity.
- Identify tantrum triggers . Certain situations – shopping, visiting or mealtimes – might frequently involve temper tantrums. Think of ways to make these events easier on your child. For example, you could time the situations so your child isn’t tired, eats before you go out, or doesn’t need to behave for too long.
- When a tantrum occurs, stay calm (or pretend to!). If you get angry, it will make the situation worse and harder for both of you. If you need to speak at all, keep your voice calm and level, and act deliberately and slowly.
- Wait out the tantrum. Ignore the behaviour until it stops. Once a temper tantrum is in full swing, it’s too late for reasoning or distraction. Your child won’t be in the mood to listen. You also run the risk of teaching your child that tantrums get your full involvement and attention.
- Make sure there’s no pay-off for the tantrum. If the tantrum occurs because your child doesn’t want to do something (such as get out of the bath), gently insist that she does (pick her up out of the bath). If the tantrum occurs because your child wants something, don’t give her what she wants.
- Be consistent and calm in your approach. If you sometimes give your child what he wants when he tantrums and sometimes don’t, the problem could become worse.
- Reward good behaviour . Enthusiastically praise your child when she manages frustration well.
Tips on staying tantrum-free yourself
Dealing with tantrums can be enormously draining and stressful for parents. Here are some ideas for staying calm and keeping things in perspective.- Develop a strategy. Have a clear plan for how you’ll handle a tantrum in whatever situation you’re in. Concentrate on implementing your plan when the tantrum occurs.
- Accept that you can’t control your child’s emotions or behaviours directly. You can only keep your child safe and do what you need to do so tantrums will be less likely to occur in the future.
- Accept that it will take time for change to occur. Your child has a lot of growing up to do before tantrums become a thing of the past.
- Beware of thoughts that your child is doing it on purpose or is trying to get you. Children don’t deliberately scheme to throw tantrums – they’re stuck in a bad habit or just don’t have the skills right now to cope with the situation.
- Keep your sense of humour. Try to see the funny side of the human blowfly on the supermarket floor. But don’t laugh at the tantrum – if you do, it might reward your child with attention. It might also upset him even more if he thinks you’re laughing at him.
- If other people give you dirty looks, ignore them. They’ve either never had children or it’s been so long since they had a young child they’ve forgotten what it’s like.
* Don’t judge yourself as a parent based on how
many tantrums your child has. Remember that all children have tantrums.
Instead, focus on how you respond. Even then, give yourself plenty of
leeway to be human and make mistakes.
