What is the cause of a temper tantrum?
In three short words, the cause of a temper tantrum is generally “loss of control.”
Starting in infancy, every day is rich with opportunities for new experiences and learning new skills that allow us to gain more and more control over our lives. In fact, “growing up” is all about becoming more and more independent and self-sufficient.
Think about growing up. First, our bodies become coordinated enough so we can independently feed ourselves and walk and run. From there, everything seems to happen all at once. Cognitive skills mature, allowing us to understand how things work and how to begin making decisions for ourselves. Our motor skills and coordination continue to improve allowing us to better navigate our world. At the same time, social skills continue to develop and improve, allowing us to learn how to interact with others and build relationships. With growth in all of these areas of development comes our need for independence, and our tolerance for mommy and daddy to manage our lives decreases as we strive to take on the world on our own.
The result? We want more and more independence and less and less supervision from the adults in our lives: “leave me alone!” and/or “I can do it myself!” are common phrases from most children.
As young children, we know what we know! We become pretty happy with ourselves and our ability to control our world.
What about coping skills?
What’s missing, though, and still to be learned in the “College of Hard Knocks” are the coping skills needed when we are frustrated, when we fail, when our freedom is limited. As young children, we do not always understand that things in our lives don’t work the way they’re “supposed to” and we can’t do everything we want to do as effortlessly as we’d like. Add to all of this the adults in our lives who bug us with, “I told you to stop!” or “You can’t have that now!” or “Clean up your mess!”
To increase the problem, as young children, we DON’T know what we DON’T know. We get angry when adults create rules, say “no” and limit us. We get mad when toys don’t work right, when our darn shoes won’t slip on easily, when other kids don’t do want we want, and when mommy and daddy tell us what to do. What you see in front of you may be a growing number of behavior problems, but what you don’t see are the causes.
To sum it up, the causes of temper tantrums (whether they are toddler tantrums or teenage tantrums) are:
- Loss of control
- Frustration because things like toys or other objects in our world don’t work they way they’re “supposed to”
- Bossy adults who keep telling us what to do
- Coping skills that are still developing but often inadequate when we have to deal with frustration in our lives.
So how do you tame a child’s tantrums?
So how do you help your child survive the “learning curves of life?” How do you deal with tantrums that are out of control?
We suggest that you begin by being very watchful and noticing the very early signs of frustration. These vary for every child, so it is important that you are observing your child when you see frustration… and particularly when you see it increasing.
Here are five of the ways to help calm or avoid tantrums:
Method #1: Help your child recognize what is happening.
At the earliest signs, help your child recognize what is happening. For example, “I see that trying to stack those blocks is frustrating because they keep falling over. Maybe stack only three at a time.” OR “Would you like me to help you?”
Method #2: Increase opportunities for success.
Do what you can to increase positive experiences by increasing opportunities for success. Also be sure that toys and opportunities for play do not exceed your child’s current coping skills. If sharing all of his toys frustrates your child, then help him decide which toys he is comfortable sharing before friends come over. Similarly, help him choose which toys should be put away so he doesn’t have to share anything he is uncomfortable sharing.
If your child gets upset because he cannot kick the ball as well as other kids, then practice with him when no one else is around. Perhaps put the ball away when other kids come to play until his own kicking skills increase.
If your child becomes overwhelmed and feels left out when he has to play with more than one or two kids then allow him to practice social skills with more kids for short periods of time until his skills and confidence begin to grow.
Method #3: Praise your child
Remember to praise your child for even the smallest steps toward conquering situations that were experienced as frustrating. For example:
“Wow, Susie, you are doing such a good job playing with your friend and sharing your baby doll.”
“I bet you are so happy that you and Joey can run around the playground together now that you can run almost as fast as he runs.”
Method #4: Acknowledge frustration and help your child learn how to identify solutions
Your most helpful role is to support your child in learning the skills that will help him find workable solutions. For example:
“I know you want to keep riding your toy car and crashing into the wall. I know you are frustrated when I stop you so let’s try this: I’ll set up a big empty box that you can crash your car into and how ‘bout if we blow up some balloons and tape them to the box so you can try to crash into the balloons!?”
“It seems like you are very frustrated because some of the kids on your soccer team kick more goals than you do. Would you like to practice kicking goals? We can go to the soccer field together when it is empty and just keep practicing ‘til your kicking becomes more powerful and your aim improves.”
Method #5: “Come alongside” your child
If your child keeps challenging the rules then “come alongside” your child and express your empathy about how hard it is for him to follow the rules. Suggest that from now on every times he says “okay” when rules are mentioned, you will have a surprise treat for him. (This treat can be a piece of yummy cereal, a piece of gum, a coin, spending time together doing something he enjoys, or anything else that he will want and you are willing to offer.)
In all cases, remember that the challenging times are often the best opportunities to help your child grow and develop necessary coping skills. While being successful is easy to handle no matter how old you are, the growing pains that come from learning to deal with frustration and/or loss of control over a situation can be exhausting.
Look forward to a future rich with possibilities.
As most adults have learned from their own experiences, everybody cannot be successful at everything. While avoiding and/or taming temper tantrums is identified as the ultimate goal by most adults, perhaps helping our children learn positive coping skills is actually the ultimate goal. While we cannot protect them from having to face the challenges that life presents we can help them to develop the coping skills that will allow them to successfully face these challenges.
