What do you do when your child chucks a tantrum?

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

DS never really tantrummed. Here's what I did to help minimise tantrumming:

Time warnings. DS is told that "we leave the park in ten minutes" then five, then "this is your last go". He may be upset when we leave, but it's anticipated so it's not so bad. I do have to carry him out the park half the time, but he's calm before we leave the field.

I tell DS what his emotions are. "You're frustrated because you wanted XYZ and you can't do that." I then offered a solution. That worked well.

At home, I tell him that asking for what he wants in English works wonders. It does. I let him have what he wants if it doesn't matter and he asks nicely. He wants a biscuit at ten to ten... why make him wait 10 minutes if it causes a fuss? Or say we'll have biscuits after we tidy up the trains... then it's not an arbitrary time thing. When I say no he can be upset, but he knows that no means no and screaming about it doesn't help: I tell him that too! I do ignore those tantrums.

Public tanties... I don't go. He's tantrumming because he wants to leave the supermarket half-way through the shopping. I tell him he can play in the trolley, help me, or look silly. He usually wants to help me, sometimes to sit in the baby seat. Again, I overlook behaviour that doesn't matter: he wants to spend five minutes picking a tin of tomatoes, fine. I could do it more quickly, but this way he gets to "help" and it increases his self-esteem.

My final tactic is a bit mean. I tell DS he has to stop some undesireable behaviour and come to me in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If he hasn't moved by 3 then I walk to him and after I say "1" then I pick him up and force him to do what I want. He's usually running away from me or playing with wires. I can now tell him to "stop the tantrum in 5, 4, 3... thank you for stopping screaming. Can we talk about it normally now?"

[krysalyss]

We offer comfort (e.g. cuddles) as it must be so frustrating for them to have such lack of control over their own life. sometimes he wants the cuddle and sometimes not. We never give in to what he wants though as there is always a reason we said no in the first place. The only time I don't offer comfort is whe he has hit me and is tantruming because I then walked away from him.

[Rosie's Mum]

I've got 2 hot tips, the first is foolproof but is really for home tantrums

- when your angels loses it, sit down a couple of metres away and start playing with something, anything. But you have to completely ignore them and give your total focus to the toys, within minutes he or she will stop crying and come and play with you.

the second is for when you are out, a friend once told me that kids are like adults in that they feel embarassed about losing it in front of people but they lack the ability to calm themselves down. So the embarassment and loss of control becomes overwhelming and this just feeds the tantrum so

- when my 20 month old loses it in public I pick her up, facing outwards ideally and hold her in a firm bear hug. However long it takes, I hold her so she feels safe but I give her no attention so she learns she doesn't get anywhere with tantrums.


Hope that helps! Those cheeky monkies!

[Doing my best]

I kneel down and ask DD to come and tell Mummy what is wrong (always did this even though she couldn't actually tell me). If she came for a cuddle, all was good and I could normally distract her. If not, I say 'Until you are ready for Mummy to help you, I am over here'. All this while down on the ground..

I do the same out in public, and have had to carry her under my arm out to the car when she would just not settle. But except for making sure she wasn't going to hit anything (cause she was like she was flying), I totally ignored her.

But we are getting less tantrums when I am around, but I have been sick the last few days, and DH just doesn't pick up on her signs to help eliminate them, so I am normally woken by a tantruming DD screaming for Mummy.