Children’s tantrums: what to do with them?

Children sometimes throw tantrums: they fall on the floor, knock with their hands and feet, destroy everything around. Where does it come from and what to do with it?

It is sometimes said that children’s tantrums are always a reaction to an adult, a response to the fact that there is something terribly wrong in the relationship between an adult and a child. This is not entirely true, this is some exaggeration of the role of an adult.

A child is a being not only reacting, not responding to this or that, correct or not, the behavior of an adult. Thank God, children are very active, leading their own game and policy towards an adult. See →

Children’s tantrums have many roots; they are not only and not always a reaction to the erroneous behavior of an adult. Disobedience and tantrums are age-related symptoms, sometimes they are signals that the child is tired or sick, and most often it is a test of parental stability by the child, a test of strength: “Is it possible, parents, to disobey you?”. Usually children start tantrums by watching other children do it, after which they try tantrums on their parents. If the parents, in fact, allow the tantrum and reinforce it with their actions, the child begins to actively use the tantrum.

Story from a reader: My daughter is 4 years old, she fell ill, her temperature is under 40. I need to give her a pill, she doesn’t give a damn: she spits out the pill, yells if we try to force the pill into her mouth, almost throws up. She and I fought for almost three hours, but I did not lag behind … When we both got exhausted and she realized that I would not leave anyway, she suddenly instantly calmed down and clearly asked: “And if I take a pill, what will I do for it?”

How to deal with tantrums and where to get the nerves to withstand the crying of a child? The answers are simple: don’t allow tantrums from the start. Remember that hysteria is an emotion, and this, in turn, is only a signal to key people in order to convey information to them. On the other hand, tell your child how to get what you want without crying, namely, teach him to make a request.

Magic formula: “When you cry and scream, I don’t understand you. Say calmly, what do you want?

If the child was able to stop crying and asked you to calmly, if possible, go to meet him, the correct actions of the child should be rewarded. It is important that if a healthy child gets everything that he really needs, he demands less of what he just wants.

Mom’s report: my daughter is 2 years old. He sits at his table and does something there. Everyone else is at the common table. All of a sudden, she starts screaming loudly. At first I can’t understand what she needs, she still speaks badly. Then I make out the words: “I want to paint.” I mean paint with a brush. I look at her carefully and say: «Come to me and calmly explain what you need.» He comes up already without a cry, but very quietly: “I want to mow.” I answer: «Take a glass and go get some water.» I went for water, the issue is resolved.

How you specifically react in one particular situation is not important at all. A prompt response can be practically anything, it is of little importance in comparison with your system of behavior, the system of your relationship with the child. If you know how to raise a child in principle, you can once afford both untimely softness and unjustified rigidity. Everything is not scary if your main line of education is correct.

Rule of thumb: You are the boss. Mom, you’re in charge too! Don’t get hysterical. Control the child, don’t let the child control you.

If you need to go about your business, and the child yells and does not want to let you go, go about your business. The child will cry, maybe even scream — no one has died from this yet. It is not harmful to health, rather it develops the child’s breath and makes him more resilient. If he does not want to wash (dress, go for a walk), but he needs to wash (dress, go for a walk) — wash him, dress him, send him for a walk, and his protests are his choice and his entertainment.

The best parent is a strong parent who uses his strength to take care of the child and knows that it is the right thing to do.

Watch an excerpt from the film «The Miracle Worker». It is based on the real story of the remarkable scientist Helen Keller, who in early childhood, having survived an illness, lost her hearing and sight. She also became a little tyrant. The new teacher, Annie Sullivan decides to give her a fight. Get ready — this is a difficult story.

Follow the Main Rule, but don’t go against yourself. If, while fulfilling the Rule, you doubt your own rightness, all the more so — you internally consider yourself a monster, a “disgusting mother”, a “moral freak” (option — they tell you this, and you feel some kind of truth in it), then — when then you might as well not get stuck. Fanaticism is not needed, exceptions are possible when you can not resist and look for more flexible options.

Once you can sit with the child when he does not let you go, it will hardly take more than 15 minutes — and then he will let you go. If he does not want to wash (dress, go for a walk) — do not pester him, no one has died from this yet. Later, you will wash and dress, and he will also run for a walk. The main thing is not to stress yourself internally.

The best parent is the one who feels good on the inside.

The main thing is to think about the future, cultivate the right habits. Responding to stubborn tantrums is like putting out a fire that has already flared up. The art of parents is not to skillfully defeat the child or successfully steer out of a difficult battle, but to ensure that the battle does not arise, so that the child does not form the very habit of hysteria. Learn more about tantrum prevention here.

Next — the experience of parents

Ignore the tantrum

My chick was one and a half years old, but he was still that butuz. I put him in a stroller, he slid down in it, so that his legs dragged along the ground and yelled. I stopped, seated him comfortably, but as soon as I started moving, he again slid down and yelled. Once he once again arranged this for me, I sat him more comfortably several times, saw that this did not help and drove the stroller without stopping. So we walked: I rolled a stroller with a stone face, and my son rode in it half-sitting, half-lying, with legs dragging along the ground and REVEEL. After a couple of blocks, he fell silent, and then he sat down in the wheelchair more comfortably and there were no more problems with the wheelchair.

Tatyana Rozova writes:

If you want to scream, go to your room and scream as much as you want. You scatter things — then you will clean it yourself. If you don’t want to leave, I’ll take it. If you go out, I’ll close it. Banning hysteria is difficult. But making it meaningless is easy. If there is no one to yell at, then children, as a rule, do not yell.

I hung it on my shoulder upside down

A simple technique helped me: if my children began to yell loudly and rage, I raised the child high to my shoulder, and then threw it further over my shoulder, so that it turned out to be butt up behind me. If he didn’t calm down from this, I slowly let go of him behind his back, lower and lower, holding him only by his legs. Sooner or later, the child already held on to me, as to the only savior, and stopped crying, because crying in this position was no longer comfortable and simply made it difficult to hold on. Well, good. Then we cheerfully and calmly moved on. See photo — something like this.

I took it under my arm

My son is not a crybaby. Now on the hockey rink, he will never show that he is hurt or offended, but as a child he had increased intracranial pressure, in connection with this, slight excitability — and frequent loud yelling. Almost every day the same picture was repeated: I go home, I carry a child under my arm, he screams loudly and kicks. At first glance, it’s creepy and unacceptable. In fact, he couldn’t help it. During a walk, he suddenly began to run somewhere (on the roadway, for example), demand something impossible, sit down on the ground and sit or lie down, and then yell. Nothing worked. There was only one way — to take the armpit (no other way, because it bent and pulled out) and carried it home. Put it on the floor there (from everything else it could fall) and leave it alone. After some time, he calmed down, if they asked why he was crying, he said — I don’t know. The main thing was not to get angry, the calmer I felt, the faster it all ended. Now he goes to the 1st grade, he is very collected in the lessons and works very well. There was emotionality left — instant crying if something went wrong (this is only in front of mom or dad). Then the main thing is to react quickly, offering a way out of the situation and saying a few comforting words — his face immediately brightens.

I’m sure you shouldn’t do such a thing — a child asks for something, you refuse him, he continues to ask, then whines, then cries, and then you agree. So you will definitely bring up a hysteria. The child must understand that yes is yes, and no is no. The basic principle of behaviorism works here: «stimulus — reaction — reinforcement.» By your indulgence in tantrums, when you eventually fulfill the child’s demand (for example, the tantrum “pick it up” or “buy a doll”, etc.), you reinforce this stereotype of behavior in the child — “hysteria works! this can achieve results!

Such indulgence is especially dangerous when raising girls, because women are more prone to hysterical reactions than men, and later, already in adulthood, hysteria learned in childhood can completely cripple a woman’s life, making a man’s life together with her unbearable, as a result why such a woman will be doomed to either be left alone, or will change husbands / roommates all her life, hoping to meet a “prince” who is ready to fulfill all her hysterical promises at the first request. If you do not want such a fate for your child, do not fall for childish tantrums, bend your line calmly and methodically, without shouting and slapping, but insisting and getting your way.

Exit to another room

These things helped me. The first — in case of hysteria, everyone should go to another room, leave the child without spectators. As the baby cries to someone, the crying soon stops. But this is not fast. If there is no time (today they were in a hurry to see a doctor, and she suddenly became stubborn), then you can hug my dear, hug her and not let go. At first she breaks out, then starts laughing, and I tickle her … Everything ended merrily and beautifully.

Don’t roll on the ground, you’ll be dirty!

When my daughter was three years old, I practiced a strict rule: if she fell to the ground on purpose, we immediately ended the walk and returned home. This had to be done only three times, after which the connection between the misconduct and the negative consequence was learned. And somewhere by the age of five, I already did this: if my daughter walked sloppily and made herself very dirty, I left everything as it was and sent her for a walk in dirty overalls, paying attention to the fact that now she does not look as attractive as usual. And when she asked me to wash, I connected her to the laundry: “You got your clothes dirty today, now put everything in order.” Mutual understanding was established quickly.

Natural Consequences Punish Visually

Nothing is more convincing to a child than the method of natural consequences. If he started throwing toys in a rage, great, we take a large garbage bag and put all the toys there. “I see you’ve decided to get rid of those toys. Okay, I accept your choice!» Further on the situation: either go throw them away (it is important that the child himself can see this clearly) or remove them for a while. Usually putting your favorite toys away even for an hour is already a good lesson.

Similarly, if we went to the store and the child got naughty there, they simply turned around and returned home without purchases, with nothing. There is nothing to eat. Without reproaching the child, you lament, and even better, the whole family laments — oh, how hungry, how bad that you couldn’t buy anything … — at the same time, they behave with the child as if nothing had happened, no guilt is imputed to him. In my family, once was enough.

Allegations of cruelty

“If you gave birth to me, you must take care of me! You have no right to take my things from me! You are not a mother, you do not love me!” “Daughter, I understand correctly that now that we have sorted things out, you would like to better understand the legal component of the relationship between parents and children, namely, what are the rights and obligations of the child, and what are the rights and obligations of the parents? I’m glad, I’ll be happy to tell you. Are you really interested in this?»

Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov

Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.