Toddler hood begins right around your child’s second birthday and lasts up until the fifth. The second birthday is the time in your child’s life marks that transition. Your cuddly baby is in the process of becoming an independent toddler. A little big kid. Babies do not throw tantrums…but toddlers do. Why? It is because of their new found and emerging independence. Read on…
Around your child’s second birthday you will begin to notice subtle changes taking place in your child’s behavior. They may try to refuse to let you dress them, and insist on doing it themselves. Little things like this will show that they are ready to begin learning how to do things for themselves. However, children begin to wish for independence before they are capable of being independent. That, exactly, is why toddlers have tantrums.
A tantrum will result when a toddler is frustrated. Tantrums tend to occur more often and abruptly when children are tired. This is because they frustrate more easily when they are tired. The tantrum is the result. In order to deal with the tantrum appropriately you must figure out what caused, or triggered it. With a toddler it is just a matter of observation. To know why your child is throwing a tantrum think back to right before the tantrum began. Was your child doing an activity? For example playing with blocks? Many parents have said they didn’t know why their children had burst into tantrum, they had just been playing happily a second before the tantrum began. The reason why can be so simple that it is easily overlooked by us, but so complex to the toddler that is causes tantrum. If we go back to the example of playing with blocks…your child is content as can be, playing with blocks and suddenly he bursts into tantrum…it could be because he wanted a block to set on another and it fell off. Or, maybe he built a tower of three blocks and it fell over. These things may seem trivial to us, but, when you’re two years old and have just watched the third block tower you’ve ever built fall over and crumble to pieces it is devastating…and frustrating. Frustrating enough sometimes to erupt a tantrum!
What YOU do when your child bursts into tantrum is the very most important thing. As parents we have responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to teach our child how to deal with frustration. If you yourself become frustrated by your child’s tantrum you will make the tantrums worse and more occurrent. If you stay calm and rationalize with your child you will teach your child to stay calm when frustrated, and to rationalize. When dealing with a toddler in tantrum one needs to understand how the toddler is feeling. Again visiting the previous example…a parent could say something as follows to their child... ” It’s okay, blocks sometimes fall down. We can rebuild it together…” When something as such is said to a toddler in a calm and soothing voice it tends to calm and sooth the child regardless of what is said. However, the offer to help your child rebuild together is sure to bring back the smiles along with giving you a few minutes of special time. The facts that you remain calm, and try to sooth, and offer to rebuild teaches your child so very much. Those facts let your child know that when they’re frustrated you’ll be there to help. They learn to “rebuild” on a level higher than rebuilding the block tower. In other words, they learn to not give up, to keep trying until they succeed. As parents, that’s what we want. When a parent see’s their child in tantrum and yells at them, telling them to knock it off, or treating them like they’re being “bad” they are teaching their child to be frustrated and angry. They are teaching them to react to frustration by becoming angry. They are teaching them that their parents will only become frustrated and angry when they are viewed by the child as needed, calm and soothing needed parents.
Tantrums are a very normal part of a toddlers life. Learning to be independent is hard work, and frustrating. How we as parent act during our children tantrums will determine how our children’s future tantrums will be. When we act appropriately we will in the end see less and less tantrums and more perseverance as our children grow into adults. If we do not act appropriately we will be faced with increasing tantrums beyond childhood, and with a vast array of other emotional and behavioral issues caused by the lack of appropriate parenting.
