Tantrums 101

Mia is coming up on her second birthday. The terrible two's. Let's just say she has arrived early. She can throw a tantrum to end all tantrums. And she whines. Oh the whining. After a particularly bad day of tantrums (at least 5 BIG ones) I got on the internet and researched tantrums. I learned so much and am so thankful for Google. My best technique I've learned is "biggies" and "smallies". Now if you heard No! No!, stop that, and we don't do that, constantly over and over you might want to throw a fit also. So when she asks for something, I think about it before I answer. If you answer no right away and then change your mind (aka GIVE IN) then they don't hear "no", they just hear "I need to fight harder to get what I want". So I think about my answer before I give it. I think, is this a biggie (something dangerous or inappropriate) or a smallie (something I can live with and may not love but really wouldn't hurt anything in the grand scheme of things). For example, Mia loves to have the door open to the deck. I used to always so no and then she would immediately throw a tantrum. Now I say yes and set a time limit letting her know a few minutes before we need to shut the door again. Does it bug me that I'm letting cold air in the warm house? Yes. Does it hurt anyone or anything to have the door open for 10 minutes? No. So it's a smallie and we move on. Her requests to have the door open are fewer and fewer now too. Since she gets to do it, it doesn't seem like a challenge to get what she wants.

At first I used a behavioral chart to see what things were setting the tantrums off. I noted the place, time, and severity of the tantrum. It helped me to see if she was throwing a tantrum because she was tired, hungry, or over stimulated. It helped me so much to figure out how to not only handle future tantrums but also how to keep the number of tantrums down.

One of the best things I have tried is hugging her during a tantrum or outburst. I read that at such a young age a tantrum can be scary for the kid not just the parent. They don't really understand why they are reacting this way and don't really know how to get control of themselves again. If you offer a hug it might amaze you how quickly they calm down. The article said not to coddle them though. Don't say "poor baby", say things like "I understand you are upset/sad/disappointed." Or just don't say anything at all, just a hug helps so much. Now more often than not when Mia looks like she is on the verge of a tantrum she runs to me before and hugs me and we talk about it. It isn't perfect but I can promise you it is so much better than before. Mia is a difficult child in a lot of ways and you may think I just need to spank her but I can promise you I have tried A LOT and these are the things that work for us!

Mia wanted to play with the snow outside. Biggie or smallie? Well I HATE the cold so....

I let her bring the snow inside in a bowl.

And I let her play with the door open for 10 minutes with a spatula to dig in the snow. She thought this was the coolest activity ever and guess what... NO TANTRUM. (At that point anyway!)