In Part 1 of this two part series on tantrums, I talked about the reasons you might want to sometimes “ride out” your child’s tantrums. While it is sometimes therapeutic for kids to simply vent their feelings, more often parents need to work to find the source of the frustration and put a label on the child’s feelings. But dealing with tantrums is not easy, and many of us (myself included!) may sometimes be uncomfortable helping our toddler work through their big emotions.
Allowing Children to Feel Their Emotions
In Naomi Aldort’s book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, Aldort discusses parents’ “need” to stop tantrums. A parent may believe that ending a tantrum is in the child’s best interest, but it is usually based on less altruistic motives: avoiding an unpleasant “scene,” a desire for the child to be happy, the parent’s own discomfort at seeing her child in pain, or the parent’s discomfort in being out of control or in the presence of intense emotions.
But how will our children ever be able to resolve emotional difficulties and become resilient if we do not allow them to experience the full depth of their emotions? Aldort discourages cajoling or distraction by using this analogy:
imagine that you have just learned that your mother is dying or your partner is filing for divorce. In desperation you visit a friend, yearning to talk, cry, or rage in a supportive environment. No sooner do you begin letting out your emotions than your friend offers advice or suggests a distraction: ‘Let’s go to a movie, that will take your mind off of it.’ You are more likely to wish that your friend would listen to you attentively, ignore telephone calls and other intrusions, and focus on you. A child is a person with the same needs.
Aldort lists several strategies parents use to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions:
Denial
Denial of a child’s emotions can take the form of silence, avoidance, or distraction. Examples of denying your child’s emotions are expressions such as: “It wasn’t that bad”; “It’s not the end of the world”; “You’re all right”; “But you love to play with Susan”; “Don’t be scared/shy/upset.” Children are perplexed at such admonisions, because they contradict what the child is feeling.
Rather than denying uncomfortable emotion, try validating: “Does the scratch hurt?” or “Are you afraid it will stay like this?” Then reassure: “It is painful right now, but it will stop hurting soon.” Don’t be afraid of your child’s tears, hug her and listen without adding drama.
Distraction
A child’s pain or sadness will not go away simply by engaging him in another activity. Distraction only serves to teach a child that his feelings are wrong and should not be expressed. “I am supposed to get busy quickly with something else. I should avoid all emotional discomfort and take no risks . . . .” Distraction in the teen years and adulthood takes a much more dangerous turn, when people turn to drugs, alcohol, or other escapes from their emotions.
Our children are better served by learning how to work through their problems. Instead of distracting your child from her upset, point it out calmly, without attaching unnecessary emotion to it. “Your crayon broke, and you are frustrated because you wanted to use it to color.” You have probably noticed that children are able to move on from their upsets very easily, especially when their upset is acknowledged. Allowing them to feel their emotions fully makes it easier for them to come up with solutions and find alternatives instead of dwelling on the hurt.
Avoidance
Parents who pretend not to notice a child’s emotion are usually trying not to “reinforce” the behavior; this is avoidance. Again, parents should ask themselves why they are uncomfortable with the emotion. Isn’t it healthier to allow a child to work through her emotions?
Stifling the emotional expression doesn’t make the hurt go away. Again, talk about your child’s frustration or hurt calmly. Help him work through it and come up with his own solutions.
Inducing Fear
Parents who scold, lecture or demean, or punish children for tantrums produce children who are insecure and submissive, or who may even experience increased rage and aggression. Children should not be taught to bury or suppress emotions, otherwise they are not able to move on from them.
We’re Working On It
I’ve recently re-read Aldort’s chapter on self-expression, and I handed the book over to my husband so he could read it too. We realize that we need to do more to respect and value our toddler’s emotions. He may be two years old, but he is a whole person.
When addressing the question of “how to deal with tantrums,” it is important to ask ourselves what we are trying to accomplish. What is our ultimate goal? In our home, we want to make sure everyone’s feelings are respected, even the big ones. Even the tough ones. We want to help our son learn how to identify his emotions and deal with his feelings, so he does not feel overwhelmed by them later.
How do you handle tantrums? Do you have ideas on how to overcome the urge to deny, distract from, or avoid our toddlers’ big emotions?
Photo credit: SWQBRA
You are right, Children are whole people with real feelings and emotions, sometimes its hard to remember that in the middle of a tantrum that may seem ridiculous to an adult but to the child it is very real. I love that quote you chose from Naomi Aldort’s book, it was one of the paragraphs that I remember best concerning distracting a child. I used to distract, more often now we find as parents separating our feeling/thoughts from the situation and really listening and believing in what our children have to say, even if we don’t like it, helps us all to connect. Thank you for writing this!
I understand and support this. my problem is my lacking in experiential skills to deal with it. My three year old is volatile. Increasing violence- hitting me kicking and hitting cats- I mean chasing them down or catching them by surprise- depending upon the length or severity of the outburst, she is immediately sad and asks for a hug, which I give her.
Naomi Aldort`s book really changed my outlook on parenting !!!!
Tantrums are so difficult to deal with at times. I love your article about letting the child feel their emotions. This is hard to do because a lot of times we want to happy up the child or feel threatened by their crying. I have four children 8 and under and deal with tantrums daily. What helped me was Dr. Becky Bailey’s Conscious Discipline(C) Have any of you heard of this? She many great resources and one book that has been helpful to me is “Easy To Love Difficult To Discipline” Her curriculum focuses on changing yourself and looking at what your triggers are…self contol. If you want more information, go to her website: http://www.lovingguidance.com or on Facebook it is under Conscious Discpline.
Back to the tantrums. One thing that we do at our home is use a safe place. This is a place where the kids can go when they are upset, sad, mad etc…. to calm down. This is not a punishment and I don’t force them to go ther.e We have this in one area of their room and the kids help develop it with a soft chair, journal, soft balls etc… anything that will help them calm down. It has been very essential because then the kids can go there when they want to calm down.
When my 2 year old is screaming(which he does a lot and has since birth) I describe what he is doing….”your face is going like this,,,,your voice went AHHHH,…you seem angry or frustrated…” when he makes eye contact with me. I say,”there you are! and then I either hold him, breathe with him or use empathy with him.. “you really wanted to go out side. Its hard to have to stay inside.” The key for me is to stay calm and “unhook” myself like you said above from the situation. This is not my problem it is the child who is hurting……how can I be the most helpful. This concept is hard for me because crying is one of my triggers. I really have to breathe a lot and tell myself, “I’m safe, I’m calm, I can handle this….” so I can be with that child and not react.
When your toddler is hitting/kicking, describe what she is doing, “your hand went like this….your foot went like this….” you seem mad…..then when you get eye contact say, “you wanted………its hard when______” after she has calmed down, then explain, “You wanted to have that toy and didn’t know what to say. You may not hit, When you want the toy say, “toy please or ask mom for help.” Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. What you focus on the more you will get. Which is why I tell my son what he can do like, “ask mom help or say “up” instead of screaming. I don’t focus on the screaming much at all this way he doesn’t hear scream, he hears “say up”
thanks again for your article.