How to Handle Temper Tantrums

The terrible twos don’t have to be so terrible after all. It can be difficult when your child begins to have temper tantrums. It is especially stressful when they happen in public. It causes stress levels to rise which in turn raises them in the child as well. There are many ways to handle these tantrums but I would like to discuss one way that has shown to be very successful. Although this technique is more challenging on the onset. Over time it will not only reduce the amount of tantrums but the severity of them as well.

Well, to get started, you and your family (everyone in your child’s life) have to begin to ignore his bad behavior. And only give attention when they are behaving "good".

I know this is so easy to say and so difficult to do, but I promise it works!

Now if they are having a tantrum the steps that you should take are:

-Make sure that you are calm (Take a moment if you need it)

-Pick them up gently and move them to another area (where they can't hurt themselves).

-Sit them down and completely ignore them, Looking at them counts as attention!

-Once they are calm, you can approach them and say this "I know that you are feeling ____ because of   _______ . It is okay to feel ________ but it is not ok to _______.

Example: “I know you are feeling angry because Tommy took your toy. It is okay to feel angry but it is not okay to scream and throw things.

-Then you drop the subject and move on.

And remember you can never praise them enough when they are behaving well!

Another major part of this process is that since parents are only human and at times get angry as well, it is important that if and when parents lose their temper, they say the same phrase that you tell them when they have their tantrum.

For example: Mommy is feeling angry because that driver took mommy’s parking space. It is okay for mommy to feel angry but it is not ok for mommy to scream names at that car. Mommy is sorry.  This way as parents you are modeling the same behavior and there are no mixed messages sent to your child. It is also important for every adult that interacts with your child to follow these same steps. What often happens if one parent follows these techniques and the other doesn’t is that the child will start to only have the tantrums with the parent that doesn’t. That is usually enough motivation for all adults in the family to use these techniques.

Using these techniques will help ease your child’s terrible twos and continuing these techniques in modified ways throughout your child’s life will motivate your child to behave appropriately because they want to, not out of fear of being punished.

Written by: Mina Sulkowski, LMHC

Email: mina@mindtherapygroup.com