How to Deal with Toddler Tantrums? | Child Psychology Expert Shares.

Having gone through the live chat and sailing in the same boat of handling a Toddler entering the overtly famous “Terrible two”, makes me empathise even more with tiny tots. The child Psychologist within me obviously understands the psychology behind this phase but the mother within me fights faces these challenges every day. I feel terribly sorry for my baby having undergone a tug of war between his developed skills and developing skills to be unable to express himself clearly melting down into a tantrum ultimately. This is a period of testing parents’ patience and using creative skills to the maximum.

Let me explain the biological basis for a tantrum thrown around:

Neurological reason

The frontal lobe of your toddler’s brain (the part that controls logic, reasoning, planning, judgment, self-control, and emotional processing) is underdeveloped. Hence, the child feels frustrated and angry that they can’t touch the forbidden, but can’t really mentally process those feelings. Toddlers lack the self-control necessary to keep those emotions in check and lack verbal skills to communicate their skills effectively, the way an adult would. Therefore, they resort to kicking and shrieking and throwing things, as physical motor development is way ahead developed than the developing language skills. The child is not proficient enough to express their needs effectively.

Cognitive reason

As the child reaches 2 years, egocentric thinking takes a centre stage where the child is so engrossed in egocentric thoughts that they believe their view of the world is shared by everyone around them. The child cannot comprehend that there are other ways of looking at the world and interpreting information. This punts up emotions and results in a major meltdown.

Temper tantrums can however be tackled well by simply being careful to intervene at the points where frustration might take over the child and lead to crying or throwing fit. For eg. In the process of making your child self-reliant, and letting them independently take over the task, identify the point when the child is unable to do the task and gets frustrated at his/her inability to accomplish the same. A temper tantrum before reaches its tipping point can thus be resolved in one of the situations like the above, which is ‘Timely intervention’. Similarly, it is critical to recognise the time when intervention is needed. It is necessary to notice the following:

  1. Identifying the triggers: Is the child tired, bored, hungry or overstimulation, that is avoiding overscheduling or planning a big excursion (like grocery shopping) before naptime. And making sure to leave the house with your toddler’s tummy full — and with healthy snacks and a favourite small toy or book.
  2. Identifying the purpose of the tantrums: Tantrums come in two forms: frustration tantrums and manipulative tantrums
  • Frustration tantrums are those fits your child throws when she’s in the midst of learning a new skill.
  • Exhaustion tantrums are different – they’re meltdowns that are borne out of pure fatigue
  • Finally, temper tantrums are just plain old “bad mood” tantrums.
  1. Provide choice whenever possible: Giving the toddler the ability to make decisions like do you want to brush standing on the stool or the tub, do you want to sit here or there? This helps a toddler feel more in control of the things around them and less frustrated as the child is swinging between autonomy and independence while being dependent at the same time.
  2. Limiting the use of “No”: This not only frustrates the child further but also alleviates the intensity of the tantrum. Instead redirecting the child to something interesting or diverting the child into something else is the key. Like I always suggest that once the child starts scribbling, they get tempted to draw everywhere on different surfaces. Instead sticking a paper in a place especially for the child to scribble channelizes their energies, without frustrating them and hindering their creativity. Childproofing the house is also recommended before toddlerhood so that constant “no” doesn’t echo in the environment.

Different strategies tend to work for toddlers as there is no ‘one fit to all’ solution. It really depends on the child’s personality and the situation as well as the intensity of the tantrum. But few of the effective ways to diffuse a tantrum positively are as a follows:

  1. Working around the child’s personality: For many kids, keeping a schedule of regular mealtimes, naptimes and bedtimes offers a sense of what they can expect at various points in their day — which makes them feel more secure, in control and comfortable. However other kids thrive on spontaneity — so if your child seems to get stressed out by schedules, ease up a bit.
  2. Play a game and make your child laugh: Laughter releases all sorts of feel-good chemicals in the brain and stifles the stress-causing ones — so do something silly. For example, if your child won’t stand still for a diaper change, put a clean diaper on your head. If he refuses to drink his milk, pick up a banana and make a phone call. The best thing about getting a toddler to giggle is that it’s not all that hard as they tend to forget and have limited concentration span, so bank on this
  3. Allowing the forbidden: Most toddlers are fascinated by grown-up accessories — wallets, car keys, cell phones and the like. If you’re someplace where the phone won’t get thrown and broken (like a carpeted flooring) consider surprising your grouchy kid with a once-in-a-great-while chance to play with a normally outlawed object. But beware — if you have to take what you’ve offered away, you might have a toddler tantrum, till he is diverted and the thing is taken away. So be sure the setting is right!
  4. Refrain from trying to shout: Your toddler is already screaming and you shouting at the same time doesn’t solve the purpose. Talking in a calm, gentle voice instead works well at times. As soon as your toddler realizes you’re talking, they probably quiet down to try to figure out why you’re talking so quietly. Just make sure to be saying something soothing, like: “I’m sorry you’re so angry”, or something funny like a tongue-twister
  5. Giving the cold shoulder: it is often advised to divert the child to something interesting or involve them in some task. But if this becomes a habit, one needs to ignore the behaviour and walk off at that point. As long as they aren’t doing anything that could be harmful to their surroundings or themselves. This can be a highly effective way to de-escalate a tantrum. Come back in a while and acknowledge the reason and handle it with lots of holding time to the child and communicating the need to express their desire in an alternate way. Part of child development is learning the language/tone and expression one needs to get what the child needs. For eg: when the child is yelling, making eye contact and lovingly saying  “Use your nice voice, and tell what you need”, “ You will get it if you talk properly”
  6. Stand your ground: It is absolutely critical that one doesn’t give in to unreasonable demands of the childlike toys, chocolates, and ice-creams as it sets the expectations of the child that whatever tantrum the child will throw, he/she will be given in to his/her demands in the same way.
  7. Hold him and hug him: Mothers were instructed to hold their defiant child, provoking anger and rage, until such time as the child ceased to resist (Martha Welch,1988). This works well in situations as the child gradually loosens up and gives in to the love and the hug of the mother

Finally, this phase is testing time for both the toddler and the parent but remember ‘You’ aren’t responsible for ‘THE’ tantrum, nor for stopping it. These are developmental milestones and the toddler is typically acting his/her age. When a toddler loses control, they should at least be able to count on the adults to stay in control as we can be patient, but the tiny tots are going through turmoils and have not yet developed patience. This phase can last up to 4 years as they lack an understanding of the connection between impulse and control.

Hope the phenomenon behind “terrible two’s” is clearer and with your utmost patience and better understanding, this could probably just pass as “toddler parent blues”.

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— Dr. Pooja Srivastava Dewan —

EECE Expert, ProEves, Dr.(Prof.) Pooja Srivastava Dewan has a background in child psychology and that makes her a fiercely active voice for children. Having done master’s and doctoral research in child psychology, the one thing she seems to really learn is children are individuals in their own respects and we as adults need to respect this.