What do you do when your child chucks a tantrum?

[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.