Tips for dealing with tantrums
With kids out of school and daycare for who knows how long, I’m going to bet that all parents have been encountering lots of big emotions and tantrums in their houses. Heck, we adults are probably also feeling like “pitching a fit” as we say in the South! I wrote this article during calmer times, but I think the mindset and action steps apply whether we are in extraordinary circumstances or just dealing with everyday life. I hope it is helpful to some of you!
Ah, tantrums, what is there to say about tantrums other than that they are terrible and really hard to deal with? Quite a lot actually, and my hope is that by the end of this article that you will have changed your mind about tantrums, understand them a little better, and maybe even get excited when you see one coming on. Are you curious now? I hope so!
Tantrums are emotions, not behaviors
The first thing to get in our heads is that tantrums are an expression of emotion, not a behavior problem. “But Meghan,” you say, “my kid breaks things, spits, and hits when they are having a tantrum, and those are all behaviors that are unacceptable in our house.” Instead of focusing solely on the behaviors, we need to lift the lid and look underneath for the emotions. Kids don’t enjoy having tantrums. It’s not something they naturally do for fun, so why do tantrums happen?
Kids go into tantrums when their brain and nervous system gets so overloaded that they cannot keep it together anymore. Think of it like static electricity. It builds up over time through friction and then discharges when the buildup gets to be too much for the electrons to handle. (Or something like that. Don’t come at me, physics professors and electrical engineers!) During the tantrum, our kids are not really in their brain and body and are reacting purely driven by their nervous system. They are out of control of themselves, which can be really scary for them and for us. As uncomfortable and overwhelming as tantrums are, they are actually very healthy. We all need ways to purge yucky feelings and get reconnected to our loved ones, and tantrums are often the way that kids get these needs met.
Why we get triggered by our kids’ big emotions
One of the biggest stumbling blocks parents encounter when it comes to tantrums is that their own emotional stuff gets triggered when their kids are venting big feelings. This can happen for a number of reasons that all depend on our individual hang ups when it comes to emotional expression and control.
I think many of us grew up in families where tantrums would be punished in various ways. At the extreme end maybe by spanking or lengthy periods of isolation. So, you learned this way of responding to the expression of big feelings and maybe also never really learned how to fully experience and express your own emotions in healthy ways. You got the message that it was safer or easier to turn off your feelings or squash them down.
Many of us also struggle with “control issues” in various ways, so it’s really hard to sit with a kid who is losing their shit while also managing our fear, guilt, helplessness, and feelings of responsibility. Emotions are messy and uncomfortable sometimes, and even very little kids can have really dark and heavy emotions. Seeing our child go through that can bring up a lot of anxiety and fear for us parents. And for those of us with control issues, when we feel anxiety, what do we want to do? Control everything around us, including our kid’s emotions!
We do this in a number of ways from doing everything we can to avoid and redirect the tantrum, to following in our parents’ footsteps and employing punishment and isolation tactics. Just like we are trying to look underneath our child’s behaviors and see the emotions and motivations, we can also look underneath our parenting choices and have compassion for the parts of ourselves that are scared that we are failing or that just don’t know how to handle a kid who is out of control.
Welcome the tantrum
What is more helpful for tantrums than trying to shut them down or avoid them is to welcome them with open arms. I know, I know, this sounds nuts, but stick with me. Remember that tantrums are our child’s way of releasing pent up emotions that need to come out. When we can expect the tantrum, welcome it, and use it as a pathway to deepen our relationship with our child, tantrums can actually be really positive. So, when you see a tantrum coming on, don’t try to distract your child from their feelings. Help them by turning toward the tough stuff with confidence that, together, you are both going to get through it and be stronger on the other side.
How to help kids with big emotions
So how do we actually help our child handle their emotions? Here come some tips and action steps.
1. Stay with them. Often our instinct is to walk away or send our child away to calm down. The younger the child, the less able they are to self-regulate. What they need even through the teenage years is co-regulation. Meaning we are helping them regulate by modeling calm acceptance of their emotions. By staying with our child, we are showing them that we will always be there and that they won’t be left alone to deal with difficult things.
2. Empathize and Validate. Using age-appropriate language we can reflect their emotions and validate that their feelings are understandable. Even if they don’t really make sense to us sometimes, our kids need to feel understood in their pain. So this can sound like “You’re feeling frustrated that your favorite cup is in the dishwasher.” “It’s so hard when you can’t have what you want.”
3. Redirect aggressive behavior. Hitting, throwing, biting, etc. are all really normal when kids get very disregulated. This is another reason why it’s important to stay with your child when they are not in control of themselves. When you see them getting ready to hit or throw, come in and stop them as gently as possible. Offer alternatives like, “I see you want to hit. You can hit this pillow.” Or, “You’re trying to bite me. I can give you an apple to bite.” We can work on teaching non-aggressive coping skills later (like another day) because when our kids are to the point of lashing out in these ways, they are in no place to learn new skills.
4. Talk about it later. After a tantrum is over and you feel like your child is re-regulated, it’s important to talk about the tantrum with them. Some kids can do this pretty much right after the tantrum. Others need hours or even the rest of the day before they are able to look back on it and reflect. But this is where the learning can take place. When you talk about it with your child, start by asking for their point of view and then share your own. You can also work with your child to brainstorm different ways the situation could have been handled. The aim of this is for both you and your kid to understand each other better and possibly have different ways of handling things the next time a similar issue comes up.
Prevent (some) tantrums through connection
We aren’t going to be able to prevent all tantrums, and if you’ve made it this far, I hope you are starting to see that preventing emotional outbursts is not the goal anyway. However, I do think we can decrease the number of tantrums our kids have if we are providing other avenues for them to express their emotions and not allowing that static electricity buildup to happen. Primarily, we need to create opportunities to connect with our kids on a daily basis so they can feel our presence and have space to share their emotions and experiences to whatever degree they would like.
I’ve written before about having Special Time with your kids, which is a technique from Hand in Hand Parenting that I use with my own kiddo and have seen work wonders for other families. With daily Special Time, 20 minutes is all you need. The child decides how they want to spend that time with you and you participate in whatever they want to do. For young kids, this usually looks like just playing with them and following their lead. Play is the primary way that young kids process their emotions, so when they can play with you, they’re getting both connection and processing time. And you get a little window into their world sometimes, which is fun too.
Again, you can be the most emotionally connected parent and your kids will still have tantrums sometimes. It’s just part of the process of growing up and having emotions. And the more we, as parents, can see tantrums as healthy and beneficial for our child the more we will be able to handle them when they come up.
If you would like individualized help with tantrums or any other parenting stumbling block, please reach out. I offer parent consultation packages which are focused, time-limited, problem solving sessions and can be done online while we are all staying home. If that appeals to you, the first step is booking a consultation call, which can be done via the scheduling tab.
Until next time, be well, stay home, and wash your hands!
Meghan