Not all toddlers have lots of tantrums, and some don't have
any. My oldest had many tantrums as she went through toddlerhood.
Our next-oldest was, and is, a comparatively laid-back child, and sailed
through his toddler years with only a handful of tantrums at the most.
But with our third toddler, we saw a fair amount of tantrums again.
And our fourth little one has taken tantruming to a whole new level(!)
We have raised all of our children similarly, attachment-style.
So I don't think toddler tantrums are something you can necessarily blame
on parenting style. They seem to have a lot more to do with individual,
inborn temperament.
How did we deal with tantrums? It wasn't easy at first.
Although, as new parents, we had learned to trust our parenting instincts and our child's
cues, neither of us (especially me) was quite sure what to do about our
daughter's tantrums when they first began. We tried time outs, but
they didn't work at all with her, especially if we left the room (following
the traditional advice of "don't reward the tantrum, just walk away...
the child is trying to manipulate you"). Maybe some tantrums are
out of manipulation, but for our daughter, they were a sign that she was
wholeheartedly overwhelmed, tired or frustrated. I think you could
say she had a "low emotional threshhold". When I tried time out for
tantrums, she would become almost hysterical. I would say, "You can
come out when you calm down," but she couldn't calm down by herself.
She would just get more and more upset, until I would finally relent and
rescue her. This was when she was between 2 1/2 and 3. At the
beginning of that time, her little brother was born, and she seemed really
jealous and insecure for months after that. No longer could she have
all of me, all the time, as she used to. Being "unseated" is hard
for many firstborns, but it can be especially difficult for high-need ones.
During those first months of tantruming, I found that if I reacted to
our daughter's tantrums by taking them personally, getting upset and speaking
sternly to her, she would only get more upset. Why would I
react so foolishly? Well, for one thing, our daughter had been precociously
verbal from the age of 9 months. She had an enormous vocabulary and
was speaking in complete sentences by the time she was about 15 months
old. With a child like that, it is easy to get the false impression
that their emotional maturity is on par with their linguistic attainments.
At least, that's the trap I fell into. I assumed and expected far
more of her than of our sons, both of whom were much later talkers, and
thus seemed baby-like to me for far longer. By the time she turned
two, I was done "coddling" her (as a "baby"), and by the time her little
brother was born, I fully expected her to act the part of big sister, and
no longer be so "babyishly" needy.
I now know that my expectations were not only unrealistic, but also
very unfair. Our daughter did need just as much -- or more
-- cuddling and reassurance and time with me, especially after her baby
brother arrived. But because I was so preoccupied with baby and with
my time-consuming outside commitments (more about those in a minute), her
still-important needs didn't get met as well as they should have.
I now feel that is why she regressed after her brother was born.
She resisted potty training, preferring to stay in diapers, and became
more clingy, asking to be picked up and carried more than she had been.
And she began having tantrums. My husband saw all these things and
gently let me know of their likely cause. Though I agreed with him
"in theory", in practice, I "needed" her to "pull herself together", to
be my obedient, helpful and well-behaved little girl, and to lay her overwhelming
needs aside. Well, that was simply asking too much of her.
I wish I could go back to that time and undo my mistakes. I mean,
I wouldn't dream of placing the expectations on our sons that I placed
upon her, our eldest. To me, our chubby 28-month-old, barely-talking
son is still very much a baby. And so was our daughter at that age.
She still had big needs, even though she was precociously verbal and seemed
"so grown-up" for her age in many ways.
Besides wrong expectations, another major problem was, as I mentioned,
that I hadn't a clue as to how to deal with tantrums. I was mystified
when our chatty, usually happy young toddler became a fussy, tantrum-prone
older toddler. After all, the AP books I owned (at the time, my only
parenting books discussed babies to age two) said things like if a baby
is raised attachment-style, then he will become an easy-to-handle toddler,
who won't give his parents much trouble but will just naturally want to
please them. So I had expected our daughter's toddler months to be
a breeze... and was floored when the tantrums began... and recurred!
As I wrote in Cherishing Our Babies, there were some days
when our daughter would have not one, but four or five intense tantrums.
Not only was this dreadful for her, but it was exhausting for me, a stay-at-home
mother with a newborn, a high-need toddler, and too many outside commitments.
In fact, one day, in a state of sheer exhaustion and despair, I realized
that my stress from being pulled in too many directions must be
contributing to our daughter's stress. After much prayer and talking
things over with my husband, I decided to drop all of my outside commitments,
which were mainly volunteer things, and focus my time much more on our
children, especially our daughter. The positive changes we
saw in her, and in our whole family, were clear evidence I had done the
right thing. Our daughter's tantrums became much less frequent.
She and I spent a lot of time together just relaxing and having fun, grubbing
in the back yard, doing messy art projects, playing at the park.
She became less clingy and more secure. She also became much more
agreeable and upbeat, so much so that within a few months, she was finally
ready and willing to graduate from diapers to toilet. And she
grew much more accepting of her baby brother, too. She came to enjoy
being with him and started doing nice things for him, like "reading" him
stories, sharing her toys, and so on. As our daughter's
contentment was restored (she "felt right" more often than "not
right"), the tenor of our entire household changed. All of us,
even our baby, were calmer and more relaxed than we had been.
So if your toddler seems too stressed-out and tantrum-prone, examine
your own schedule. Are there any extra duties you could weed out
for the time being, so that you can de-stress yourself and your household,
and become more available to your child? Speaking as one who has
been there, the peace and restorative growth that follow simplifying one's
life make any outside sacrifices well worth it.
Another important discovery that helped our daughter get over her tantrums
was the "holding pattern". That is, we figured out that she responded
best if we simply held her during a "meltdown". No more time outs!
One of us would take her on our lap and just hold her close. This
was not a reward for the tantrum! She was out of control, and
holding her and reassuring her let her know we were there for her, to help
her regain control.
I forget now if it was my husband (who is very insightful and "reads"
our children well) or I who discovered the "holding" remedy. At any
rate, taking our toddler into our arms and being with her during a tantrum
was the best thing we could do to defuse her upset and even our own tension
(for what parent does not get rather tense when his or her child is in
the midst of a tantrum?) Once we figured out to hold her during
tantrums, their incidence went down even more, so that by the time she
was 3 1/2, they occurred only occasionally.
~~~
Whatever you do, please don't spank for a tantrum. Whether or
not you feel spanking is a valid form of child discipline, know that a
toddler's tantrum is not a sign of brattiness but a sign
of immaturity, of inability to control or manage frustration, or to deal
with tiredness, etc. Do not take the tantrum personally, either.
This is hard to do (I know!), but don't let it upset you. Know that
this is indeed a passing stage in your little one's life and that things
will get easier.
Above all, know that there are simple, gentle ways to ease you both
through this difficult stage. Just holding my daughter during a tantrum
helped us both so much. It communicated to her, "I love you dearly
even when you act like this! I am here for you and want to help you
to calm down." Now, if the child were to resist being held, or even
lash out or kick (which our daughter never did), I think I would just put
the child down and sit quietly beside him or her. Don't leave your
child alone in his intensity, especially a toddler, who might easily misinterpret
your leaving as abandonment, rejection, or both. Stay quietly with
him or her, "bearing with" your child. During this time, I have found
it really helps to pray a lot, under my breath! If absolutely necessary,
do leave the room for a minute or two to count ten and/or pray and collect
yourself, then return to your child as soon as you can calmly do
so. And if the tantrum is occurring in a public place, simply
leave with your child for quieter surroundings, staying with her and
perhaps holding her until she's had a chance to settle and
regroup. At that time, you can decide whether it's best for you
and her to go home (perhaps she is overtired), or if it's okay to rejoin the
group or resume the activity.
In spite of my and my husband's commitment to attachment parenting,
which teaches that parents can come to truly know their children
and thus know how best to meet their needs, finding the above solutions
proved a great challenge to us (especially me). Both my husband and
I were, and still are, learning a "new" parenting style, one very different
from the punishment- and schedule-based styles our parents had adhered
to. Yes, attachment parenting is "different", but as Christians, we remain convinced
that as a style of childrearing, it is not only valid, but also biblical.
When our daughter was very young, our guidebooks were the Bible and the
attachment parenting books we had at the time, which mainly covered the
infant and early toddler stages. The books listed on the next page are excellent
resources as well; I wish we had had them when our daughter was two
and tantruming so much.
~~~
Go on to Part 2 of "Rx for Tantrums".
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