Tantrums/Throwing fits and other parenting philosophies.

[flower01]

I'm just curious. I've only ever read about dealing with tantrums from a GD perspective. I am on another forum where anytime someone asks for advice about a young child's behavior...whether it's throwing a fit over not getting their way or a full on tantrum, many many people reply saying that "they don't tolerate tantrums" or something to that effect. This is applied to children as young as 2. I don't give my child whatever she wants when she throws a tantrum, but I sort of feel like at 2 "tolerating" a tantrum was the only way to get through it. These other parents see it more like a tantrum warrants immediate timeout (which never worked for my DD). I guess I'm a bit confused...do most kids immediately stop tantruming if you put them in their room by themself...cause my DD would just escalate with that kind of response. I also feel like 9 times out of 10 a tantrum is attributed to sleep or food needs...and in that case I am very sympathetic to my child's needs more than I'm concerned about "bad" behavior.

[Luke's mama]

Yikes, that sounds awful. Toddlers can't help having tantrums; they aren't deliberately acting out or "being bad," and punishment like that seems really harsh. I imagine it might stop the behavior (haha, just like cutting off hands stops stealing), but most likely creates a whole host of other problems, such as teaching the children that they aren't loved if they aren't feeling happy and compliant, that the only was to handle negative feelings is to suppress them, to be sneaky, not to trust parents, etc...

[ssh]

Punishing a toddler for throwing a tantrum can undermine their emotional development. Tantrums are how LOs learn to deal with overwhelming emotions. Learning to deal with emotions is a really important skill. Kids that do stop a tantrum because they feel rejected or afraid usually are just learning to ignore their emotions instead of learning how to deal with them.

Helping my DD become a stable emotionally mature person is a lot more important than the annoyance or embarrassment that a tantrum causes when she's little.

[LynnS6]

I've never quite understood why tantrums are a 'discipline' matter, especially for toddlers. I also don't know how to stop them for a toddler or preschooler once they've started.

Tantrums are a loss of self-regulation. A child needs to be taught how to regulate themselves. Usually that means remedying the underlying cause (hunger, tiredness, overload) as well as helping them through their emotions. It's not a time for punishment. It's also not a time for explanation. I just sort of muddle through.

Now, when our 6 year old has a tantrum (not as often as she did when she was 5, but often enough), it's usually that she's (a) hungry, (b) tired or (c) overwhelmed. We comfort her (if she'll let us), and if it goes on too long, we ask her to take it to her room to get it out of her system. We snuggle when she's done. When she was younger, we'd sometimes carry her to her room if it had gone on longer than 10-15 minutes, but that was for sanity's sake.

[mamazee]

Not tolerating a 2-year-old having a tantrum is like not tolerating a baby crawling. They do that because they haven't learned what else to do instead yet. You can "not tolerate" it all you want, but it's still going to happen until the kid is in a different developmental stage. "I don't tolerate" usually seems to mean "I punish for".

And I agree with ssh that it could be bad for their emotional development.

[Tjej]

I think it all depends on what a person means by not "tolerating" tantrums. I would say I don't particularly "tolerate" them. I let my kids get them out, but I don't let them hurt anyone, use them to get something, or disrupt everyone else with their tantrums. So if I were writing about it on a message board I might well say I don't tolerate tantrums and I would talk about what I do to stop them or to avoid them, but it doesn't mean I don't let my kids work through their intense feelings with my support. It just means I have boundaries too.

Tjej