Tantrum or Big feelings of child is a part of their growth. Young children especially toddlers are emotional beings and act out their feelings through their behavior. Cognitive thinking abilities of toddlers are not developed fully and they can’t express themselves in a rational way. When the cortex is not developed, young children are unable to calm themselves on their own. Toddlers require support from adults to calm down and help them to sail through their big feelings. We need to address the causes or triggers of tantrums.

Below are the triggers of tantrums that are common for toddlers:

Tired trigger:

Child is not at his/her best when he/she is tired. Tired trigger is the most common cause of tantrum. Worse, almost all toddlers don’t understand  their tiredness or why they’re feeling so low. They just lose it, often for no rational reason.

Hungry trigger:

Like fatigue, hunger reduces anyone’s ability to cope. Normally hunger is a kind of anxious feeling which irritates the toddlers.Due to this anxious feeling,they keep throwing tantrums on irrational issues.

Waiting Trigger:

Sometimes melt down occurs  when toddlers don’t get what they want, or have to stop doing which they are enjoying. When kids resist stopping a fun activity, try to make the transition easier.

Desired attention:

Toddlers always seek for attentions. If they don’t get desired attention they throw tantrum or meltdown occurs. . If you are too tied up  with something important, ask them to sit/stand near you while you finishes the work. Often, that closeness is enough to satisfy them for a while.

Frustration

Sometimes toddler gets frustrated from parents especially about not being understood or not having enough language skills to communicate needs to their parents. They melt down due to the frustration of not able to communicate properly.

You can cope with their big feelings with below tips:

Keep calm: Don’t lose your patience. Try to represent behavior that you want your child to display.Try to understand what is bothering the kid.

Use Distraction: Some kids melt down when they don’t get what they want. Use distraction as much as possible especially for toddlers. Toddlers have short span of attention time and soon they forget the tantrum trigger.

Avoid giving in to their demands: If your child is throwing tantrum because they don’t want to do something for example- don’t want to go to school or drink milk. Wait until he/she clams down. Once he/she calms down tell them that it’s good that they’ve calmed down, but they still need to go to school or drink milk.

If kid shows big feeling at public place: Don’t lose patience. Do not scream  at your child or hit them. Stick to your tantrum strategy no matter what and just stay calm. If the tantrum is severe or prolonged, than just leave the shop/public place and go home. May be you can have  ‘time out’ at home.