Every parents have been approached with tantrum on their children. But sometime, I notice some parent did not realize what trigger tantrum on their child.
I like to share some opinions and approach based on my family experiences.
I believe tantrum occurs when a child is over-tired/stimulated and/or
frustrated (e.g. Frustration: a child cannot fix his toys, or parent doesn't listen to her when she talks, etc).
The way I approach my son when he had tantrum:
1. Stay Calm and Use Words.
I believe a frustration/tiredness from your child cannot be dealt with your own frustration/tiredness too. If you thought you cannot be calm, ask someone to deal with the child. If no one there, they you have no choice to stay calm.
When he had his tantrum, I will:
- sit infront of him
- look at him in his eye and ask him to look at me
- ask him to calm down and take a deep breath
- I told him that no one will understand him if he throws his anger like that
- I will ask him to speak calmly and tell me what the problem is. If he cannot be calm, I would say that I will ignore him untill he can be calm.
Sometime I could throw a little joke when he had tantrum, I would say 'I will not talk to you until you throw your anger to the bin and press your normal voice button.'
*Please remember each child will take different times to be calm. And for Toddler (under 3 years old), you might also try to cuddle/hold him when you talk to the child. I used to do this when he was that age.
2. Find out what trigger the tantrum and when.
You could find out from certain situations, such as:
-
a child cannot deal with his toys (frustration), if this happened before, try to offer your help before the frustration occur.
-
over-tired cause he pass his bedtime either afternoon/night, if this happened try not to do activity over his bed time, but if you have to do so, make sure your child had enough sleep before hand.
- cannot put his mind in words when he wants to express his feeling, if this happened try to help him in finding the right sentences
-
being ignored, sometime we forget that we are ignoring our child, so please take off your time to listen to your child
3. Time Out
I put my child to Time Out
only when the talk doesn't work out to calm the tantrum. Before putting a child to Time Out (I called a
Chilled Out) corner/chair, tell him that you will deal with him if he could show me that he's calming down. After the finish the time out, make sure you ask your child the reason you gave him time out. If he doesn't understand, try to explain him in simple words (depends on each child ability to understand words. Each child has different level of understanding).
4. Consistent
Be consistent with your approach when deal with tantrum. It will teach your child that tantrum is not the way to deal with frustration (specially for pre-schooler).
5. Praise Your Child
Praise your child whenever he shows you that he able to conquer his own tantrum by talking/asking calmly.
We have to understand that is not easy for a child to learn lots of thing in this life. Some child would take it easily some would take it the hard ways. We are the adults, we have been in their shoes, we are the one who should give a good example to them. I understand too that sometime we just loosing our patience, but I am sure you have someone to help you out with this situation. Remember you are not alone.
(September 2006) (
