What do you do when your child chucks a tantrum?

[Mum2Romone]

my son is 16mths and loves to chuck a wobbly.
In the supermarket in line or when its time to go to bed. He throws his head back and arches his back so he cant sit or stand.... What do YOU do when your child goes crazy?
Do you lay them down (so they dont hurt themselves) Try and hold them?

What about screaming at the top of their lungs that high pitched squeel? Please help this is all new to me

[blackduckies]

Ignore it, the sooner he learns you don't take any notice the sooner he will stop!! At the moment its all in his favour mummy holds him so he does'nt get hurt etc so he is given the fuel to keep doing it, it works really well..or so he thinks.
I really like the ad that used to be on T.V the kid starts to chuck a tantrum so the mum joins in and chucks a wobbly and lays on the supermarket floor and squeals, gee I have been tempted!!!

[feeb]

At home I ignore him. If we are out I will ignore him unless he is likely to hurt himself by falling or something if being held etc.

We dont want to fuel him into thinking its a good way to get attention.

The squeeling we tend to ignore or say shhhhhh if out in public eg a restaurant.

Sorry if no help really as we are also trying to figure it all out

[~Kim~]

meh, I'm still figuring it out. FWIW I've had years pf practice with adults tantruming in my paddy wagon and the same techniques work with them lol.

What worked with DD was me using a low even tone, down at her level and just quietly. I would say "when you're finished let me know" and walk away. Even now she sings out after a couple of seconds "I'm finished mum!"....deal over lets move on to something else.
If she's being dangerous/kicking/arching whatever I pick her up and put her in her room. Not as punisment just because it's safe and her space in there....and I don't have to watch the tantrum which just gets me antsy. I have added "I'm not going to tolerate that behaviour" to the monologue.
While they are so little I didn't find explanation worked for us (and even with fantastic linguistic and understanding skills, only occasionally), just as long as she knew what I expected.

When we're out I use the same monologue and we go to the car if she hasn't stopped on three and go home. Only took a couple of times of ceasing activity before she understood.

[jackrose]

I would say "when you're finished let me know" and walk away. Even now she sings out after a couple of seconds "I'm finished mum!"

Who would have thought Kim that your work was really training for your toddler's tantrums!

I second the ignore rule. Sometimes I might say something along the lines of "It seems you are a bit angry? Why don't you get it out of your system and let me know when you are finished" and then leave DD to it. I find it doesn't last long if she doesn't have an audience.

WRT the out in public tanties, I am a fan of the cease the activity and go method too. I remember Mum doing this with us and we all knew that if mum was threatening to go home, we were going home unless we behaved quick smart. It did mean that mum had to do it a few times to get the lesson drummed in, but it was effective. In the middle of a checkout line is a tough one. You could ask them to hold your groceries for you until you were able to come back (and hopefully not have any ice-cream/freezer items in there).

[Fig]

For my DD it depends on what the tantrum is about. If its because she wanted something like 'ice cream ' and I said no and its just a tantrum to see if I might give in then I will ignore it. However, I often find that many of the tantrums she has are about her feeling out of control with her emotions. For me to walk away from her when she is in need of my help doesn't help her. I will ask her if she needs a cuddle, if she does, I give her one then when she has calmed down, we talk about what is going on for her. If she doesn't want a cuddle, i just sit by her and let her know I am there for her. Showing her kindness through her emotional melt downs has lessened the amount of tantrums she has. Also, I try to predict when a situation may cause one, like boredom, hunger, etc and head it off before it happens. Easier said then done somedays.

[aussienic]

My 2 yr old threw some great tantrums yesterday. We simply ignore it. When it gets to much for us though we put her in our bedroom and lay her on the bed. If she continues we shut the door telling her she needs to calm down

It might not work for your Ds though. It is just what works for our DD. She seems to really calm down after that

[Eng]

Its really hard at first.

DD would chuck some major ones, my SIL said when your at home just hold her and say its ok, its ok.. Well yeah that didnt work.. she got louder and louder.. Now I just get down to her level and tell her that if she wants something she has to explain it to me. I let her scream and jump up and down and then she started running up to me and saying sorry..

I remember once she screamed so much I sat on the floor crying..

Now.. Dont ask me how we got to this place but I make her have a 10 second time out. I say now we have to stop crying and count to 10. She has time to breath and re think.. (as do I)

As for the shops still working on it. I tend to tell her we are going to leave and go home if she doesnt stop. She stops for a little and then starts again.. But Im liking the idea of taking her to the car..

Oh and I always always make sure she has eatten and slept before we go to the shops.. Sometimes thats the best trick..

[Mad Scientist]

At 16 months, it's tough because they usually don't have the language skills to tell you what they want so a lot of tantrums are just due to frustration. Like a lot of the others have said, try to work out what is causing the tantrum. If it's because he can't do something, get down to his level and help him to do what he wants to do. I find with our DD1, at that age, if it was because she wasn't getting her own way, I would just walk away from her and say "let me know when you're finished". If things escalated, I would put her in her room and close the gate but not the door. I found that at 16 months, if I shut the door, it would just scare her, so shutting the gate was enough. It's all a matter of trial and error. The biggest thing is to be consistent and to stay calm. Once he gets a little older, the tantrums do tend to become more extreme (sorry to say that but they usually do!) but it's easier to deal with them because they understand so much and can communicate what the problem is (usually). You can also explain to them why you are putting them in their room or whatever and they understand really well. The high pitched screaming isn't fun either. I ignore it at home and if we are out, I shush her. I have been told they grow out of it but who knows!? Good luck with it all. It really is trial and error with kids as they are all so different!!

[Vixstar]

My kids - thank goodness - have never chcuked one in public. At home - YES!!!! We walk off and the tanty soon comes to an end. No audience...no use keeping it up.

Having said that though.........our eldest is 3 and every since he was a baby, if he got over tired....way over tired he would just have a melt down. This happened on Saturday night....40 mins later, several dry reaches....he crashed! Nothing works when he gets like that. He just follows one of us around. DH is better at dealing with it than me.

I think they go through it again at 13yrs - when they move out.......best I learn some techniques for then!

xxxx

[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.