Hi Guys. So today I want to talk about temper tantrums and how to cope with them. I put
my recent Thanksgiving blog up and there were lots of temper tantrums in it and a lot of
you could relate to it and were like, "How do you deal with it?" So I thought I would
do a video on that. I found it really hard the second time. I've got two sons, so I don't
ever remember my eldest having this many temper tantrums or them being that bad. And I don't
know if it's because I've forgotten, if it was his personality, it was because he was
my one and only so all I had to deal with was his temper tantrums and nothing else.
I really don't know. I think it might be my youngest's personality. He's very strong willed,
stubborn. He doesn't give in easily. I'm hoping that that'll be a good thing in
the future that he will never give up, and be stubborn at work and stuff like that. I'm
trying to think of it as in a positive, but it's really hard at the moment. He's going
to be two years old in two weeks time. So we are in the thick of terrible twos at the
moment. I really hope that some of my tips will help you. My first tip is the best way
to deal with a temper tantrum is to avoid it completely. What I mean by that is by always
having snacks on you, by not trying to do things when they're tired. You know, sometimes
you're invited to things and you think, "Oh, I'd love to go to that, but I just know that's
a really bad time of day, it's nap time. It's not going to be fun for anyone."
So you kind of have to maybe turn those kinds of things down. Also, it's important to have
age appropriate toys. I've really felt this the second time round because Caleb gets so
frustrated sometimes when he's playing with his older brother's things that that results
in a temper tantrum. So if you can have age appropriate toys, snacks, and just everything
they need really, because a temper tantrum is because they are frustrated, they're tired,
they're hungry, they want your attention, they can't do something. If you can try your
hardest to avoid it, that's probably the best. The second tip is distraction. As a mother
to your child, you know them so well. Sometimes you can prompt when one is coming. If you
sense that one is on its way because he can't finish a puzzle or something like that, quickly
distract them with something else. Caleb can be really easily distracted with food that
he likes, and Umizoomi his favorite show, going outside and looking for airplanes and
those kinds of things. So my third tip is to stay calm. Always be
calm because although it might be tempting to shout and be like, "What do you want? I
don't understand." That is the very behavior that you don't want them to do. You need to
be as calm as possible and collected and just be like, "No, we're not doing that. I'm sorry,
but we can do this." And sometimes you have to just walk away and I've done that twice
to my boys. I've literally been in a situation near bedtime where I'm like, "I can't deal
with this." And I literally walk out of the room, close the baby gate, walk into the bathroom
and count to 10, and I'm telling you, it scares them more than anything.
If your child throws a huge temper tantrum in front of family or out when you're somewhere,
is to remove them from that situation. Just calmly pick them up. Don't say anything, and
just walk away with them and remove them to somewhere where they don't have an audience.
They're not getting any attention, they just need to calm down. That's really effective.
Sometimes action speak louder than words. But my fourth tip is to be consistent. If
you give in to temper tantrums, they will last longer. I know it might not feel like
it when your child's in the terrible twos, all of these temper tantrums will have stopped
by the age of three. You'll be able to reason with them. You'll be able to talk them round.
You wouldn't have all of these temper tantrums as long as you are consistent. So as long
as you are sticking with your rules, "No we don't have chocolate for breakfast. And if
you throw a temper tantrum, it doesn't mean you're going to get chocolate for breakfast.
That's the rules." You have to be consistent with your rules
or you're teaching them that by behaving in that way results in what they want. And that's
really not where you want to be. You just stick to your guns. As hard as it is, don't
give in. That's easier said than done. I mean, I freak out sometimes too, right? So my last
tip is one I've only recently just discovered and that is to give my baby choice. He has
been having temper tantrums over the color of socks that I put on him in the morning.
So now I'm giving him the choice. Do you want to wear the blue socks or do you want to wear
the red socks? Do you want to wear the yellow top, or do you want to wear the green top?
And then he can choose. He feels like he's in control of the situation. And I don't know,
he's obviously going through something where he needs to exert his ... He needs to have
his own power and make his own decision. I don't remember my eldest ever doing this,
so this might just be his personality, but by giving him choice of snack, "Do you want
breadsticks, or do you want an apple?" He can choose. And he feels like he's had that.
So that has also been helping with the temper tantrum. Right, so I hope you liked my video
and I hope that a few of these tips have been useful. Good luck. I know it can be really
hard, but if I could just reassure you that like everything with children, it is a phase
and it's a phase that is going to go. This is just a temporary glitch and they're going
to be fine. Yeah, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you all soon. Bye.
(singing)