Temper Tantrums (TT) are unpleasant and disruptive behaviours or emotional outbursts.It involves explosives of anger, frustration, and disorganised behaviour in the form of
🔅 Crying
🔅 Screaming
🔅 Stiffening limbs
🔅 An arched back
🔅 Kicking
🔅 Falling down
🔅 Running away
Extreme behaviours:
🔅 Holding breath
🔅 Vomitting
🔅 Breaking and throwing things
🔅 Aggression
TT occurs in response to unmet needs and is common among 1-3 year olds.
Why do TTs occur?
✳️ Children’s social and emotional skills are starting to develop at this age.
✳️ They don’t have words to express big emotions.
✳️ They might be testing out their growing independence.
✳️ They’re discovering that the way they behave can influence the way other people behave.
TT is one of the ways young children express and manage feelings. They’re trying to understand or change what’s going on around them.
Some older children also have TT, because, they haven’t learnt more appropriate ways to express or manage feelings.
Factors that make TT more likely:
🔷 Influence of Temperament – Children who get upset easily are more likely to have TT.
🔷 Stress, hunger, tiredness and overstimulation are harder to express.
🔷 Situations in which they can’t cope with, like when an older child takes away a toddler’s toy.
🔷 Strong emotions like fear, shame, anger are overwhelming, lead to TT.
To make TT less likely:
🔷 Reduce stress (Ex. Don’t overstimulate the child; observe and fulfill needs like hunger and sleep)
🔷 Talk to your child about his/her feelings and help him/her manage them.
🔷 Identify triggers and alter the environment.
🔷 Help him/her label her emotions.
Handling tantrums:
🌱 Stay calm
🌱 Acknowledge your child’s feelings
🌱 Wait it out and don’t distract them
🌱 Do not oblige to their demands to stop the tantrum
🌱 Do not plead or shout at or hit them
🌱 Use your judgement to take charge
🌱 Be consistent in disciplining
The life skill that children have to be trained at to manage (reduce/prevent) their Temper Tantrums is – Self-regulation – the ability to monitor and positively manage emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that are socially acceptable.
Tips for you to stay calm during a TT:
🧘🏻♀️ Have a strategy to deal with the TT
🧘🏻♀️ Accept that you can’t control your child’s behaviour and emotions directly
🧘🏻♀️ Accept it takes time for a change to happen
🧘🏻♀️ Understand that the child is not doing it on purpose
🧘🏻♀️ Have a sense of humour, but don’t laugh at the TT
🧘🏻♀️ Ignore judgemental people around you. They are not living your life.
“Do not judge yourself based on the no. of tantrums your child has. All children have TT at some point in their childhood. Focus on your response to those tantrums.Parenting is a lifelong learning process. Noone is perfect in parenting.”
Tiny Learns 