Tantrums in Toddlers

At times toddler behavior can be quite a challenge.  Between tantrums, nap times, screaming, hitting, biting, and all the other various behavior you can experience with toddlers, you may want to have a tantrum yourself.  In spite of the frustration, it’s important to remember to keep your own emotions in check so your children don’t feed off your emotions and have a bigger tantrum.  

As adults we don’t remember how much attention we really wanted from the adults around us.  And as kids, we don’t really realize that there is good and bad attention, we would just do anything for it, including throwing tantrums, biting, hitting, screaming, and breaking all the rules.  As parent’s this is a vital part of toddler behavior and development that must be dealt with regularly.  Here are some tips to work with this stage without having a “terrible twos” style tantrum of your own.

1. Praise and reward systems really will work in parenting your children.  Putting your child in time out during a tantrum may seem like a good idea at the time, but doing so won’t really teach your toddler not to cry and scream for whatever reason.  Punishment is necessary on occasions, especially times when a rule is broken and the child must be taught them that actions have consequences.  But for the times a child has a tantrum because of a communication issue or because of not getting something requested, punishing will not teach your child to use their words instead tantrums.  A better way to get more positive behavior and fewer tantrums is to praise and reward the child for using words to ask for something, or other times they are acting properly.  These rewards do not necessarily have to be material goods or food, and can be praise, hugs or other positive reinforcement.  This will elicit much better results from your toddler in the long run.

2. Another reason for behavioral issues with toddlers is because they simply don’t think the same way about a situation as an adult thinks.  For example, three- year-olds won’t really understand why jumping on the bed may be bad because they can’t exactly rationalize it at their age.  They don’t understand why candy isn’t a good idea at 7pm or why they can’t have every awesome toy they want.  As adults this all makes sense to us because we learned it growing up, not because we were born with the knowledge.  This reasoning and logic came to us over years of learning from our parents and guardians.  This is exactly the learning stage toddlers are in, but developing this reasoning capacity is a gradual process.  It is understandable to feel stressed or overwhelmed by parenting a toddler sometimes, but keeping this in mind may help you from feeling defeated.  This is a gradual process that you can handle.

3. Distractions can work wonders.  Always remember this.  Involve your kids in things that they love.  For example, if you are trying to cook dinner, it may be useful to keep your child occupied with a coloring book at the table or with his own kitchen tools so he can “help” you.  It helps to give a young child a real job such as washing the vegetables, or even just a small fake kitchen set of his own to play on while you work together.  The same idea can be used with shopping or other times your child’s behavior often takes a turn for the worse.  Have multiple things in mind to distract him from the bad behavior he may often turn to at these times.

Hopefully these few tips can allow you more sanity as the parent of a toddler.  This time is filled with many challenges, but also so many rewards.  Thinking of yourself as a parent and a teacher will help you feel less overwhelmed at this time.  There are many simple ways to improve toddler behavior without losing your mind.  

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Psychological studies have repeatedly found that positive reinforcement trains people and animals to continue a good behavior, or stop bad behavior and can be very effective in modifying toddler behavior.  Positive reinforcement does this much better than any sort of punishment does.  

What this means for a parent is that there are still times when punishment s ike time outs are appropriate, but they won’t completely solving behavior problems.  If your toddler is throwing a tantrum for example, putting him in time out until they stop may seem like its working.  But it won’t really teach your child not to throw a tantrum when he doesn’t get his own way.  One positive way to handle the situation would be to calmly explain that is not how we act, and to just wait out that tantrum.  But a few minutes later when you see him sharing with a sibling, or when you see him picking up his toys nicely, praise the positive behavior.  Be specific with what you say so the child will know what behavior has resulted in the praise.  One example could be, “Good job at picking up your toys nicely.”  You may not even need to use praise words, sometimes just a hug during good behavior can make a child realize that this is how he should behave.

This approach may seem too simple, or like it won’t work, but it really does.  Praising and reinforcing the good behavior you see will create more of it.  Positive reinforcement teaches kids the proper way to act, which is a parent’s job in the first place.  Punishment will rarely teach your child anything, especially at this young age where he doesn’t have the thinking skills to really think about what he has done while in time out.  At this age he won’t really see what’s wrong with biting a sibling to get a toy back.  Getting praise from mom or dad for doing something right will make him consciously decide to do behave in a way to receive more praise.    

Positive reinforcement will always be your best bet to fix or teach better behavior.  Small amounts of punishment may be necessary on occasion, but solely using punishment will not get you the results you want from your children.  Praising the correct things in your child will result in better toddler behavior overall.  

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Parenting is no easy task, especially when dealing with the toddler behavior that comes with that terrible-twos stage. In fact, toddler behavior can be very challenging at times.  Here are two of the more common behavior issues you’ll face and how to deal with them better.

1. Biting

This starts as infants when they’re teething and may be meant as a playful type thing at that age.  However, it isn’t a good thing in a toddler who may bite when frustrated or angry.  Many will bite a playmate when they have a toy they want, or to take a toy away from them.  They may also bite if they have been told “no” to something they want.  

Remember, this is an important stage in growing up and developing for your child.  They are changing from babies to young kids who are social and great thinkers.  Biting is a natural thing they must learn not to do.  Two good things to do if your child bites when upset is to firmly explain in a short sentence that we do not bite and it hurts others.  For example, you can say, “No. We do not bite other people because it is mean and hurts them.”  There is no need to yell or get upset, because the child will feed off your emotions and probably have an even bigger tantrum.  You should also try to notice patterns of the biting behavior.  If it happens most often when toys aren’t shared well, work on sharing better and work on helping them deal with it better.  At this developmental stage they must learn to start using their words to communicate, not biting, crying or tantrum throwing.  This would be a great place to start teaching them that concept, to use words instead of biting.  Figuring out when biting most often takes place will help you find ways to diffuse the situation before it gets to that point.

2. Temper Tantrums

Even before we had kids, we heard the loud screaming temper tantrums thrown by kids in the store that were tired or had to hear the word “No” when they didn’t wanted something.  And unfortunately, it is unavoidable as the parent of a toddler, but there are many ways to lessen the severity and even number of tantrums.  

It is a good idea to take careful note about when, where and what times they happen.  Notice what the trigger was for the tantrum.  Knowing these patterns will give you the upper-hand in either side-stepping them, or fixing the root problem.  

Being a parent is difficult, especially when your child is in that “terrible twos” toddler stage.  Hopefully these tips will help you deal with the most common issues in toddler behavior.  

Technorati Tags: Toddler Behaviour