10 changes that TRANSFORMED our tantrums!

I have 10 tips for tantrums that have actually worked for us. And my last tip is a way to actually avoid the tantrum.

By the way, I am not a tantrum expert. I have learned as we go and found some things that have actually worked. When I have shared these with friends, sometimes they have worked for them and sometimes they haven’t. So, I can’t guarantee success (every kid is different) but they’re worth testing out.

First, some general advice…

Must Reads

I read two books on this topic that I highly recommend reading. How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen gives you general advice on talking to children in a way they’ll respond to. And, The Child Whisperer details 4 generic categories that kids behavior typically fits into, then gives tactics for supporting each type of child. Before each of my girls even turned one, I could already tell which of the 4 categories they belong to.

Firm and Kind

Also, words that I live by in parenting are FIRM and KIND.

Firm – set your boundaries. Ours are mostly around safety and respect and anything that fits within that goes. We let our girls take calculated risks and say no when we do a risk assessment and it seems too risky. For example, I have a friend who is an ER nurse and says anything that’s twice their height can cause a severe injury. If it’s just a bit taller than that, let them do it. And obviously it’s different if they would land on concrete or grass. Let them do things within your boundaries and if it goes outside of your boundaries, be very clear and consistent so they know you mean.

Kind – do all things with kindness. Your kids just want to be loved, even when they’re having a hard time. It sounds simple, but when you’re stressed and things feel chaotic and overwhelming, you may need a reminder to stay kind, even while being firm.

Now let’s get into it!

1. Be the calm

When they’re feeling all the feelings, your kids need you to be the anchor. Your kid might be losing their mind and you need to be the eye of the storm.

Easier said than done, but you need to be cool, calm, and collected.

Sometimes I do bedtime alone and keep them up just a bit too long so they end up overtired. While the girls are having a moment, I always have more success when I remind myself to stay calm and talk to them in an even, cool tone.

2. Learn your triggers

Figure out which things will make you fly off the handle. Because I will admit, I have flown off the handle before (every parent has). Is it a sound? Is it when you’re tired? Is it when you’re solo parenting?

For me, it’s lack of sleep. I have a whole blog on what we do to get more sleep, but I actually do pretty well on minimal sleep when it’s a couple of nights. But, when I hit 3 or 4 days of little sleep in a row, I know it’ll be a tougher day for me. It’s good for me to be aware of this because I know my kids aren’t being any different and it’s me who’s different. I’m being short tempered because I’m tired. And, it helps me know that if we’ve already had a couple nights of less sleep, I need to prioritize getting to bed early that night.

The self-awareness helps you make choose your responses more carefully and try to avoid those tough days as much as you can.

3. They expect what you predictably do

If in the mornings, you put on a show for your kids before breakfast and then decide you’d like a little less screen time and don’t give it to them the next morning, they might not react so well to that. They expect and predict you to do what you normally do. So, if you want to make a change, you might just need to accept that it might be difficult for a little while. Or, find a replacement (like a puzzle in this case) or see if you can try to find a way to ease into the change so it’s less abrupt.

4. Acknowledge their experience

Holy cow!!! You literally just have to say “I understand you feel like ___” Or “Oh you’d like for me to get you the Barbie? I will buckle you in first and then I will get you the Barbie”. If you acknowledge how they feel or what they’re experiencing and then offer to help if you can, it makes a world of difference.

One other example of how you can do this differently is one day when we went to Starbucks and she asked for a cake pop. Some days I say yes to a cake pop at 7 am and some days I don’t. This day I didn’t say yes to a cake pop. So I said, “today we aren’t going to get a cake pop, but they do look really good! Do you have a favorite one? Oh, you like the pink sparkly one? I like that one too”. And it freaking worked! She dropped it. I felt insane trying this but was amazed when it was successful.

If you validate their experience in some way, they assume you don’t understand what they want. Simply stating you know what they want or how they feel is a game changer.

5. Give them choices

Choices give them a little bit of control in their lives where they don’t have very much control yet. This goes for literally everything from “which color vitamin do you want today” or “which towel should you use after your bath”. Or, instead of “if you don’t finish dinner tonight, you don’t get dessert”, ask them “you can be done and skip dessert OR you can finish your fruit and then have a treat, it’s up to you” and put up clear options for them.

We do this so much that sometimes my daughter asks “what are my choices mom”.

6. Say what you mean – good or bad

If you tell your kid “if you do that again, we’re not going to grandma’s house”, knowing you’re definitely going to grandma’s house or tell them “no we can’t go to the park right now but we can after dinner”, knowing you won’t have time after dinner, they won’t believe what you say. Sometimes it seems easier in the moment to say these things to squash bad behavior, avoid a meltdown, etc. But, saying something like “we can try to go after dinner” or “maybe we can see if we can go tomorrow” or even “no today we can’t go to the park, but we can do _____ today instead” shows them that when you say something you mean it.

In the long run, this is a much better solution. It works well for us. Our kids know no means no and when we say yes, it means yes. And they generally accept that pretty well.

7. Say yes

The more agreeable I am with my toddler, the more likely she is to say yes to me.

I try to say yes as much as I can, especially to the small things “mom can I go outside in my pajamas?” Yep! “Can I have some strawberries?” Sure! “Mom, can you play with me?” In ten minutes, I would love to play with you!

This way, when I ask her to do things like “hey you spilled on the floor, can you wipe it up please?” she’s a lot more likely to do it. If I get into a habit of saying no, I feel like she mirrors that and starts to say no back to me.

Of course, you can’t say yes to everything, but if it’s a simple request that doesn’t harm anything or anyone, why not! Sometimes it’s easier to just say no, but for small things, make an effort to say yes.

8. Ask them to help with the solutions

Get them involved! “Hey buddy, you’ve been forgetting to wear your bike helmet. How can we make sure you remember that?” Put it on the bike handle? Love it! Oh you want a special hook for it? Sounds good!

Including them in the process instead of dictating what they do gets much better results.

9. Get a visual timer

This. Is. Gold.

“We have 5 minutes left until dinner time” and you crank the visual timer to 5 minutes and they can watch the clock tick down. They seriously don’t fight it when the timer goes off.

Imagine your spouse coming into the room, abruptly turning your show off and saying it’s time to eat. Ummm…no thank you! We don’t like it either. The heads up and ability to check how much time they have left makes the transitions SO much easier.

You can use it other ways too, like setting a timer for 10 minutes so you can clean before playing with them OR saying you can play for 15 minutes now and then when the timer goes off, you need to make lunch.

This has been KEY for us!

10. Giving yourself enough time

This is the most important thing that has helped us with tantrums.

The times when I feel the most frazzled, upset, and frustrated is when I’m in those moments of “we need to leave right NOW! We are late. Everyone get your shoes on!”. And those emotions gets replicated by other people in your household (kids and spouse included).

If you gave yourself a little more time, a little more breathing time you’d be much less stressed. Preschool starts at 8 am and is 10 minutes away from our house. Instead of planning to leave at 7:50, I plan to leave at 7:30, which means we usually leave between 7:45 and 7:50. But, at 7:30, I’m like okay let’s get the train moving. This way, when my toddler refuses to put her shoes on, I have the time to turn it into a game to get them to cooperate versus getting us all stressed and rushed.

Every kid is different

When the actual, inevitable tantrums come, every kid is different. Mine usually just needs you to ask “do you want a hug?”. Occasionally she’ll say no, but usually she says yes so I just need to hold her and let her (while bawling) try to tell me what she needs. I normally need to remind her to take a couple deep breaths and calmly explain what she wants so I can help her. Because I want to help her, but I don’t know what she wants. Then, she’ll calm herself down (I’ll tell her to take her time) and tell me.

My sister was a child that needed to be alone. Didn’t want anyone to touch her or talk to her. And then, once she took her time, she’d come back a different person. Often even remorseful for whatever happened.

So, you’ll have to experiment a bit and see what your kid needs and what works best for them.

I hope this was helpful! I’m sure there’s lot of other great tips other moms can share and that you’ll discover along the way.