Tantrums in babies and toddlers
In this blog we will look at why emotional meltdowns in young children occur, ways that we can prevent it or minimise the severity and frequency, the different schools of thought in parental management of tantrums, and how we can cope with the triggers our children’s behaviour can cause for us.
Why emotional meltdowns in young children occur
The evidence shows us that babies and toddlers have no capacity for emotional regulation because their brains simply are not developed enough. They don’t understand why their bodies feel different when they feel different emotions (physical symptoms) and they cannot yet link the words to describe the varying emotions. For example, when you remove a toy from your 9 month old baby, he doesn’t yet understand what the emotion disappointment means and so he cries. He cries because he needs comfort to soothe his confusion, and he needs help with organising his feelings. When your 2 year old is told it’s time to leave the playdate and she doesn’t want to go, she cries, and maybe throws herself on the floor kicking and screaming, because she also doesn’t understand what she is feeling (and big feelings can feel really scary!). Like the baby, she also needs comfort, connection with you, and help to organise her feelings.
Schools of thought
You would have probably heard the following:
‘the child is attention seeking’
‘the child is trying to get your attention by misbehaving’
‘the child is so naughty!’
‘the child has such bad behaviour’
‘the child is trying to manipulate you so they get what they want’
Sound familiar?
There are many parenting courses and programs available that suggest that children can have negative behaviour that needs modifying. The programs provide strategies to help change the behaviour to more desirable behaviour. Examples of this include the use of time out, removal of privileges, natural consequences, and grounding for older children.
I follow the school of thought that children demonstrate undesirable behaviours as a way of communicating their emotions, and that children seek connection with you as their parent and need help understanding those feelings. The research tells us that young children do not have the brain capacity to manipulate, so power plays do not exist. If we remove these thoughts from our thinking, and focus only on a child’s need for connection and help understanding feelings, we can mentally shift from our own feelings of anger and frustration, and move towards a more compassionate response. (Don’t get me wrong, your feelings of anger and frustration are likely to still be there, but we will cover more of that later…)
Prevention of meltdowns
There’s a few things we can do to minimise the severity and frequency of emotional meltdowns in our children, and they really do work - I put them into practice with my own children when they were young!
Dr Justin Coulson is a psychologist and parenting expert and suggests that if we can minimise the following in our children, they are less likely to have meltdowns. It’s an acronym he calls HALTS.
Is your child?
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
Stressed
If you can fix these things, it might prevent a tantrum. For example, anyone with a baby or toddler knows that taking them to the supermarket when they are tired and hungry can be a disaster. Taking them after a nap and after food (or feeding them throughout the shopping trip!) can be the difference between a stress free experience or not.
The other prevention strategy is preparing your child for change. When it’s time to leave the park, give the child warning. Depending on their age and capacity to understand time, you can either say ‘we are going in 10 minutes’, or, ‘we are going when you have 3 more turns down the slide’. Other examples include:
‘When this show finishes, it’s time to turn the TV off’.
‘When we finish this book, it’s time to go to sleep’.
‘We will sing one more song and then it’s time to get out of the bath’.
‘10 more minutes and then we are going home’. ‘5 more minutes and we will go’, ‘2 more minutes’, ‘1 more minute’, ‘time to go’ and then validating their feelings: “I know it’s hard to go when you are having fun”.
When I am parenting my own children I often ask myself, ‘how would I like to be treated?’ If I would like to be treated respectfully, I wouldn’t like someone taking something out of my hands and saying ‘time to finish!’ I’d like fair warning! If I’m sitting with friends, I don’t want someone coming up and saying ‘time to go, right now!’ when I’m midway through a conversation. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear, ‘when you finish your conversation, we really need to go’? I try to practice respectful parenting, and I can promise you, it really does work.
Managing the meltdown
Many of the concepts I use are from the Circle of Security® Parenting™ program. The first step is to be with your child. Imagine how huge and scary these emotions are for your child. The evidence shows that children cope better when they are held in their space. This means not abandoning them to the corner to work it out for themselves (when they have no capacity to do so), and being with them. You will know your child best, and will know if your child needs to be physically held in a hug (even if they are resisting), or if they don’t want to be touched. Respect that. Sitting on the floor next to your kicking, flaying, screaming child is still being with them. I often speak about this video of a dad who did an phenomenal job of being with his distressed child, even though she initially wouldn’t let him touch her. Have a look here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=710047286151497
When children are feeling super emotional, their limbic system of their brain is flooded. It completely removes the capacity to think and reason. In fact, the same happens for us as adults. Ever been really angry or sad and you say ‘I just can’t think straight’? Happens to me all the time. So in the being with moment, it’s not the time for talking. Not the time for asking the child why he hit his brother, not the time to ask what she is feeling, not the time for talking about the emotions. It is just time to be with and provide comfort, until the child is able to calm. Once the child is calm, the capacity for thinking returns.
The next step is helping your child organise their feelings. I like to describe what I saw, and link it to an emotion. For example:
‘You seemed really angry when you threw the toy across the room’.
‘You seem sad because I can see tears on your face’.
‘It must be really disappointing to not be able to keep watching TV’.
You can have a conversation at this point about what they are feeling, as well as what you would like to occur next time (setting boundaries based on your parenting values). For example, ‘in our family we don’t hit people because it hurts’.
There’s many great books available to help our children process their emotions. We can read them at bedtime, during the day, or even following a meltdown. I recommend The Feelings Series by Trace Moroney books, which I used over and over again with my kids, and have gifted to many children since. You can buy them in many local shops and bookshops.
Managing our own feelings
It is very common for our own feelings to be triggered when children have emotional outbursts. Feelings of anger, frustration, sadness and overwhelm are really common for mums. The more empty your emotional cup is, the more likely you will respond in a way you don’t prefer.
We all have in our minds the type of mother we want to be. You are likely to want to be a kind, gentle parent who is able to build emotional connection and security in your child. The problem with the emotional outbursts in our children is that it triggers emotions in us and we can sometimes feel out of control in them. Our own limbic system gets incredibly flooded and we often don’t have the ability to think clearly about the best way to respond with our child. We react emotionally, and it can mean that we yell at our children, we don’t hold them in their space to calm and understand their feelings, we might touch them in physically aggressive ways (‘man-handling’ or being a bit rough), we might say things we don’t want to say. All of this fills us with immense guilt and can leave us feeling like we are a bad mother and will ruin our children. I’ve been there. Absolutely.
In Circle of Security Parenting we refer to the triggering of our emotions as shark music. The scary music plays when we feel unable to cope with our child’s particular emotion. Research shows that this is linked to our own childhoods, and whether our parents supported us when we felt those same emotions. For example, if anger was not allowed in your house, if it was shut down and pushed aside, then it’s likely you will feel triggered by your child’s anger. If sadness didn’t exist in your home, if you heard comments like ‘stop crying’, ‘you have nothing to cry about’, ‘boys don’t cry, don’t be a girl’, ‘I’ll give you something to cry about’, then it is likely that you will feel triggered when your child cries.
So what can we do about it? Recognising it is the first step, but often you will need support in this if you feel it’s something you can’t manage on your own. Attending the Circle of Security® Parenting™ program through individual counselling can not only highlight what you missed as a child, but help you move forward as a mother.
Otherwise, it’s important to remember that it’s human to make mistakes. You will mess up - over and over - and it’s the repair you have with your child afterwards that makes all the difference in forming a secure relationship with them. We are not perfect. We are not perfect mothers. We only have to be ‘good enough’. What’s super interesting is research shows we only have to be ‘good enough’ 30% of the time! Wow! Does that take the pressure off? Here’s some things I remind myself of all the time when I mess up with my kids:
‘I’m doing the best I can’.
‘I made a mistake.’
‘I’m still an amazing mother’.
It’s really easy for the critical voice to start talking really loudly. We must consciously quieten it with compassionate responses. Remember, what would you tell a friend in the same situation? You can do this. You can start over.
If you would like extra support in dealing with emotional meltdowns in your children, especially if it is causing you stress with triggering your own emotions, please reach out to me. I’m happy to help and can see you for one on one sessions. Contact me here.