Tantrums.

[lil_miss_understood]

How do you handle them?

[MountainMamaGC]

For us it depends on the tantrum. There are 2 kinds for us.

Type 1: I am overwhelmed, exhausted and I need to vent.
This type of tantrum I let her have. I may mirror her in toddlerese and that can help or I will wait till she is done and offer hugs, a boob, or put her to bed, depending on the reason for the meltdown.

Type 2: I am going to tantrum until you give up, change your mind etc.
These tantrums get a timeout. Her timeouts are only 30 sec long and I explain to her why and give her hugs after.

I must admit that the type 2 tantrums kinda snuck up on me. I found myself giving in to her every whim to quiet her and then I realized I was creating a monster. I had to adjust my parenting accordingly. Since we started time outs both her and I have been a lot happier.

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by Lydiah

For us it depends on the tantrum. There are 2 kinds for us.

Type 1: I am overwhelmed, exhausted and I need to vent.
This type of tantrum I let her have. I may mirror her in toddlerese and that can help or I will wait till she is done and offer hugs, a boob, or put her to bed, depending on the reason for the meltdown.

Type 2: I am going to tantrum until you give up, change your mind etc.
These tantrums get a timeout. Her timeouts are only 30 sec long and I explain to her why and give her hugs after.

I must admit that the type 2 tantrums kinda snuck up on me. I found myself giving in to her every whim to quiet her and then I realized I was creating a monster. I had to adjust my parenting accordingly. Since we started time outs both her and I have been a lot happier.

Yes, I'm dealing with type 2 tantrums (self inflicted as well ). Can you tell me about how you handle time outs?

[lach]

It really depends on the tantrum. In my opinion, almost all tantrums are caused because the child is tired or hungry.

It has happened a few times that I'll just carry her kicking and screaming up to her bed, plop her in, sing her a song, and she's asleep before I even finish the song. Usually, though, this isn't practical. Either we're out, or it's too late in the afternoon for a nap and I just have to soldier on to bedtime. In those cases, I try to calm her down as best as possible: cuddles, remove stimulating things, talking quietly.

Hungry is a bit easier: give her some food. But she tends to be pretty well fed so I think this doesn't come up as much.

Some tantrums seem to really reflect what she sees as a huge injustice. Sometimes it is a huge injustice. Say, she's playing with something and it breaks, or she's eating something and drops it. Then I try to fix it. Other times, it's an injustice that she needs to suck up. It's because she snatched a toy from her brother and so I give it back to him, or she wants to wear her dress up shoes on our walk on the icy sidewalks in 2 feet of snow. I give her another toy, I let her wear her dressup hat... and sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't. I don't go out of my way to cater to these issues. Sometimes, you don't get what you want. That's life.

Honestly, I feel like this is a tough question because every situation is so different. I might leave her rolling around screaming on the living room floor because I won't turn on the TV... but if we're out in public I don't want her disturbing other people.

[Sharlla]

Woops, this is not applicable to toddler for the most part. wrong forum

I found that camomilla tablets work wonders. once he starts escalating I offer him some and he usually ends up forgetting what he's mad about.

I try to get him out of the house daily so he's not feeling so cooped up. I try to avoid situations that would cause a tantrum and I also talk with him before hand about what behavior I expect out of him, consequences for unwanted behavior and possible rewards for expected behavior. I don't expect a perfect child, he is 4 after all but I do expect that he is going to listen to me and follow the rules. we also try to maintain a routine which helps a lot. I keep snacks in the car because a lot of time when he's hungry that can put him in a crabby mood.

that being said there is the occasional tantrum still occurs. I really really try to curtail it before it starts. usually I can by talking to him or offering him a shower. I can tell when he's getting frustrated because he starts whining and yelling. if he's having a full out tantrum that can't be stopped then he has to sit in time out. when he stops screaming that's when we start a timer and he sits there for 4 minutes. I have found that being consistent with the time outs have really helped. when he's calm then we can talk about why he's having the tantrum. sometimes there is consequences like we aren't going to his friend's house for awhile because the last time we were there he screamed, kicked etc when we left and carried on in the car for several minutes.

I know that a lot of people don't like time outs but that is about the only thing that works for us when he's getting that bad. It's really hard because I don't want to give in to all his demands, but at the same time I feel like I really need to pick and choose my battles. He's what you would call spirited. he's very determined and he is particular. I do know a lot of it is his age, I can't wait until he's older LOL

[lach]

Oh, I also wanted to add that I really loved the book Happiest Toddler on the Block. It's all about how to deal with tantrums. I found it very helpful.

[MountainMamaGC]

Right now time out is simple. I put her in a room, any room, and close the door for 30 seconds. I open it and I ask her is she is ready to behave, if she says yes she comes out and if she is still tantruming then I close the door for another 30 seconds.

She is too young to understand the naughty step routine. I find 30 seconds works just fine for us.

There was a point in time that time outs were lost on her and didnt make a difference other than to give me a minute to cool off when things got heated. She gets it now and it does help us a lot. We are both a lot happier. We were in this limbo where she did not understand timeouts and I had no other way to correct her misbehavior. We shed a lot of tears and I even swatted her a couple times. I felt so guilty. Its not how I wanted things to be for us. Things are much better now.

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by lach

but if we're out in public I don't want her disturbing other people.

The problem is that I live above a salon.

[MountainMamaGC]

If we are in public, I remove her from the situation. If we need to go home then we go. I live in a small town and I am a SAHM so I have that luxury. If we are in a restaurant where we cant leave right away I try to distract her or I take her to the bathroom until she calms down.