Minti - Recent Comments on Question "what do I do?"

safe environment

upinchina — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:29:20 -0700

It sounds like the terrible 2's. My youngest started with it early. She would throw herself on the floor and just scream.

So I started to count to 5 and if she wasn't up then I'd pick her up and put her in a safe environment to cry it out, her crib in her room. I told her I'd be back when she stopped which probably took no longer than 5 minutes. After I go back to get her and I'd chat w/her and tell her "no more throwing yourself on the floor", tell me what you want or show me what you want. Needless to say she learned to count to 5 at an early age ;).

If you're in public and she does that, leave the situation, I have left plenty of baskets full at the store.

tantrums

mewannaboy — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 20:02:37 -0700

She sounds as if she just wants to make some noise and get attention. maybe toys and stuff wont let her see that her trantrum is bad thing,but at her age its more likely to be something that may not last shes little and unable to comunicate all of her fears and things.When my daughter has a little spat i just sing silly songs and re direct her thoughts to something else. sometimes i even chuck a tantrum too let her see what a silly thing it is,when mummy does the same.with my older kids i just tut and walk away i wouldnt even warrent the time taken to listen. but at preeschool they ask them to "use their words".why is it that they will listen to teachers but not mums. anyway hope you get help here or someone else.cheers

different children, different needs

wildrose — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:17:25 -0700

I agree with you. Some kids may calm down when we leave them alone, but some kids not. I remember with my son when he was around 1-2 I couldn't leave him alone otherwise he'd keep on and on and on. Instead, I used to take him to his bedroom and gave him cuddle and talked to him calmly and softly. I still do this to him even he's 4 now. I understand he would a bit upset and throw tantrum when he's overtired or frustrated. So, I always try not to make him overtired or give him help before he gets frustrated.
I just don't like seeing kids hurting themself.
I suppose we as parent, just have to find out what make our kids throw their tantrum then you could try different tactics for different tantrum's reason.

what do i do

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:42:22 -0700

if you reward them by giving the behaviour attension, or what they want the child/ren will continue to behave this was. My children (now 4and6yrs) know that we ignore bad behavoir and reward good. Also no needs to mean no. If you give in it allows the child to see that by doing the bad behaiour they get what they want anyway. Also in shops and so forth if a child is behaiving badly, point it out to your child and thank them for not acting like that. It worked for me.

tantrums

MoonShadow — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:36:04 -0700

HI Lyndseyb
At 13 months old, a baby may do this for many reasons. usually its for attention, other times it could be frustration because she doesn’t know how to express her emotions in another way, another reason could be she not getting her own way.
But at 13 months old she is still a baby, and the tantrums may stop.
For now, I would try ignoring her, don't even look at her when she has a tantrum, just make sure she out of harms way.
Or simply say "that’s not going to work anymore" (that’s my favorite one for friend children)
and turn around.
When she learns she's not getting your goat (so to speak), and she stops, turn back around, don’t say any thing about the tantrum, then give she some attention, and if she starts again, turn back around, it may take a few times before she learns, but be careful not to teach her that after having a tantrum she'll get goodies, reward her with love and kindness.

I do agree that miss-distraction by using a toy does work, as well as soft music, finding some thing to look at out the window, like a bus, birds, or some thing she may not have seen before.
All of theses strategies have worked, especially for my children, and family and friends children’s.
Be consistent with your method which ever rout you choose
I hope you can find one that works for you and your baby*
Good Luck*

different children, different needs

underthewillow — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:24:23 -0700

I think you need to give all the options a shot. Some kids burn out quickly if you ignore them and are completely happy 60 seconds after the tantrum starts. Sometimes, that just provokes them and they need a hug instead. Sometimes you could give into what they want (cookies, toys, whatever) and that would make that tantrum go away, but the next one would be worse.

I guess what I'm getting at is that differnet kids have different personalities. With Ben, we made sure he was safe as he threw his fit and tried to figure out what he wanted. If it was something reasonable, like a drink of water, we gave it to him. If he wanted cookies, he just threw his tantrum till his heart's contentment.

Two Options

KileeGiles — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:30:21 -0700

Our daughter is 2 1/2 and I firmly believe it is the terrible ones not twos. She started tantrums just after her first birthday. We did one of two things. If we could see it coming we would warn her to stop or give her time out. It sounds young to do time out but it was the only thing we could think of that we hadn't tried and it worked a charm. We would leave her in her room for a minute, she would yell and bang the door but when we went back in there she would stop.

If we didn't see it coming and it started, even in public we would just leave her alone. At times this was extrememly embarressing but I quickly learned that those starting and judging usually didn't have kids of their own so what did they know.

Leave her alone.

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:07:26 -0700

A friend of ours had a son who would get on all fours and bang his head on the floor when he was throwing a tantrum. For a while they would pick him up and keep him from doing so, but this was only a temporary solution to the problem. Once they put him down if he didn't get what he wanted he was right back to banging his head.

After one week of ignoring him, letting him sit there and bang his head on the ground, and he was done with it. He learned he could no longer get what he wanted that way.

Your child understands pain - they won't intentionally hurt themselves and in a tantrum what is the worse they can do? In my friend's case, he could knock himself out (which he did once). So, he wakes up after a few seconds realized he had knocked himself out, his head hurt really bad, and he still didn't get the ice cream he wanted. He understood, "maybe I shouldn't do this anymore, it's stupid and it hurts."

Sometimes they have to teach themselves their own lessons.

Tantrums

mrslunar — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:00:46 -0700

Well, the question is why is she throwing them? Often times, tantrums increase at this age because kids get a better understanding of their world around them but don't yet know how to express their feelings about it, and thus they get frustrated. I find the two biggest difusers, for us, are getting on my toddlers level and trying to figure out why he's mad, or just taking him and holding him for a few minutes. Sometimes some undivided attention is all they need.