Ah, the temper tantrum! That whining, crying, screaming, kicking, hitting, breath holding, parent defying act of young toddlers has worn many a parent’s patience thin. I know firsthand—I have an 2-year-old who on occasion will throw a good one!
So, how should a parent handle their child’s temper tantrums? To better understand your child’s tantrums it may help to place yourself in your child’s shoes.
I want you to imagine that up until now someone has taken care of your every need. You have been fed when you were hungry, and have napped when tired. Then, you decide to visit a foreign country. When you get there, you find yourself surrounded by people who are at least three feet taller than you. In addition, you find that although you understand much of the language they speak, you are not proficient in speaking the language yourself, so no seems to understand much of what you have to say. You stop in the street to ask directions and it seems no one is even paying attention to you. You try to get each passerby’s attention with little success. The few who do stop and talk to you, give up and go on when they realize they can’t understand what you’re asking them. Imagine how frustrating that would be!
I know this example is a little extreme, but I think if we have some idea of what our kids are experiencing it may help us to understand how to deal with our children and their frustrations better.
Children throw temper tantrums for many reasons including for attention, because they are tired or hungry, or just because they lack communication skills. During their second year of life, your toddler is acquiring language. In fact most toddlers understand a lot more than they can express, which is where the problem begins. They understand us, yet they are not able to always communicate to us what they need. As we learned in the example, being unable to communicate leads to a lot of frustration!
Your child also wants to be independent and have control over his or her environment. (Who doesn’t?) Unfortunately, this may be more than he can handle, thus the power struggle (and resulting tantrum). My son wants to feed himself. He does not want either of his parents to spoon feed him, in fact he prefers that you do not even cut or break up his food into smaller portions. Unfortunately, he hasn’t learned moderation and will stuff his mouth with too much food. So if we want him to eat, we have to come to a compromise. I try to break his food up into smaller pieces but not tiny pieces which he will usually not eat.
As adults, most of us know how to appropriately deal with our own frustration. We realize that stomping our feet and screaming is not only inappropriate but it also doesn’t accomplish much. Our toddlers have not realized that yet. Our children’s frustration is not that much different from our own, they just do not have the skills to appropriately deal with their it. Think about this as the perfect opportunity for you to begin teaching your children one of the most important life skills they need: how to deal with frustration as they learn to interact with people, objects and themselves.
When learning to deal with temper tantrums, one of the most effective techniques I can give you is simply learning to avoid them! Here are some important tips on how to deal with your child’s frustrations and avoid temper tantrums.
1. Pay attention. Find out if you child is having tantrums because they are getting enough attention. You may be thinking, “She gets my attention all the time because I’m always having to get on to her about something!” Believe it or not, your child would prefer negative attention from you rather than no attention at all and may actually be acting out because that is the only way to get your attention. If you think this is the case, it’s time to start giving your child attention for positive behaviors. “Catch” her being good. Praise your child for good behavior. Try to ignore the misbehavior that you can safely ignore and focus on the positive. You want to be giving your child attention for more positive than negative behaviors in a day. Eventually, when your child discovers that she can get your attention from good behavior, you will see a drastic difference in the number of temper tantrums she has.
2. Pick your battles. (I use this one a lot!) Is it really necessary to say “no” all the time? Is what they are asking completely outrageous? Think about it carefully and you may decide that some things your child wants are really not that big of a deal. Don’t get in a habit of saying “no” just because you’re the parent and your reason being “because I said so!” Reserve “no” for when it’s really necessary. An example of when it’s necessary, when your son wants to help you cook, and to him that involves him opening the hot oven. 
3. Allow them a little say. Toddlers are just learning to be independent. Try to give your child some control over their life. For example, let them make minor choices, such as what to drink. Give them a couple of choices — milk or juice — and let them make the decision.
4. Redirect or distract your child. A lot of times this is the most effective way to discipline your toddler. Believe me, this another one I use a lot! Offer another object or activity to occupy them and get their mind off whatever it is that they are throwing an tantrum about. Toddlers have short attention spans and it is usually fairly easy to distract them. This may involve taking them to another room or removing the object from the room so that whatever they are wanting is no longer in their line of sight.
5. Out of sight; out of mind. If there are certain objects that your child always wants but is not allowed to have, keep it out of sight or reach (my cell phone). It will save both you a headache!
6. Make life a little easier. If your child gets frustrated easily trying to accomplish tasks or play with certain toys, help set your child up for sucess with the task by creating easier steps towards accomplishing a goal. If it’s a toy that upsets your child, put it up! It may be that your child is not developmentally ready for it yet. Bring it out later on when your child has gotten a little older.
7. Know your child’s limits. If at all possible don’t take your toddler to the grocery store at naptime. If your child is tired, don’t try to squeeze in one more errant. If your child is always hungry when he gets home from daycare, don’t try to make him wait an hour to eat.
There will be times when, even though you do everything you can to avoid temper tantrums, your child will still have one. Next time, I will discuss ways
to deal with a temper tantrum when it happens.
Aidan (2 1/2) got dressed for the first time by himself!!! We are so excited. Anyways they are number one in my life! Keaton is my youngest and he will be 4 months next week (I can’t believe how fast time is flying by). 
Since his birth I’ve decided to stay home with my kids and so I started my online business to supplement our income. I also work 1 day out of the week outside of my home. I have a wonderful husband who has been very supportive of me during this time.
