Tired of the tantrums? Let's talk about how to stop
tantrums forever. This stuff really works. I'll give you 3 easy steps.
Understanding a little bit of child psychology will get us started on eliminating the tantrums
forever. And then I'll get you into 3 specific steps that you can apply immediately. I'm curious
to see how this is going to work for you. One of the most important things to understand first
about child psychology in the context of these tantrums is that children have a very difficult
time regulating their emotions. In fact, developmentally, they are not equipped to regulate
their emotions. -Yeah. That comes with maturity, with age, with neurological development. And so,
if you can remember that, it takes some of the pressure off you expecting them to be what they
aren't able to get to be. -This happens especially with first children. -Yeah, because we don't
realize how long it might take for them to mature into things. -You don't have the norms in your
head. -Yeah. -Let us reassure you that tantrums or emotional overload is very, very common for
children. Now, there's some things we can do. We're going to get to those three steps that we
promised you. -But just first recognize that it is part of their development that they don't regulate
super well. -A normal part of their development. Now, with that in mind, let's not allow their
emotional dysregulation to tip us over, okay? It's very important to remain the adult
in this case. It's almost funny sometimes when you see adults losing their cool with their kids.
The kids this big, right? -Yeah, it doesn't feel funny in the moment. -No. No, I said to watch it.
But it's not fun to be in that. Let's do what we need to to take care of our own emotional
state so that we don't get pushed into that. We've got other videos to help you with that.
Just take a moment to cue up one of those videos for your next view if you want to. You can you can
do that right up here in the corner. Click on that card, it'll cue it up for you so you can watch it.
Even though it's pretty normal for kids to not have a very good regulation of their emotions,
it can become problematic. And this is where it can tip us over as parents because it's
inconvenient or it's loud or it's embarrassing or it's happening in a public place. Actually,
it works better for the child if it's inconvenient or embarrassing or in a public place/ Why?
Let's get down to the reasons why they're doing this in the first place. Typically, a tantrum has
1 of 2 main objectives. And the first one is to gain attention from the parent or from some other
person in their environment to gain attention. That's one objective. The other objective
is to obtain something that they would have a hard time obtaining without the tantrum.
Like a treat or a preferred toy or something that they're throwing the tantrum about. Quite frankly,
the best way to stop tantrums is to take away whatever the payoff is
for that tantrum and provide an alternative that's socially appropriate and something
that is more acceptable to you as a parent. So, with that in mind, let's go into 3 specific steps
that you can apply. And I want you to just practice these, okay? Try something a little
different from what you've done in the past. And it really has to start with consequences.
-Definitely. When the tantrum occurs, we want to have that consequence be pretty immediate.
And so, it goes along with wherever their emotional immaturity is at. -Well, by immediate,
you want to interrupt the tantrum with the consequence. So, by immediate, we're talking
in the moment as it's occurring. That's when we're going to jump in with the consequence.
Now, we're talking about toddlers here with the tantrum. If you've got a tantrum with a teenager,
we need to hook you up with a... -Whole different conversation. -Yeah. We got
some other stuff available for you. Especially at Live On Purpose Central in our positive parenting
courses. But let's go back to the toddler. So, it needs to be immediate, it interrupts
the consequence. And the most effective way to do this is through isolation. Most of us call it time
out. -Right. And it needs to be delivered in kind of a dispassionate robotic way. Just simply moving
the child putting them in an isolated situation and you're not emotionally charged. You're not
telling them all the reasons that they're getting in trouble at the moment. You're just simply
disrupting the tantrum. -This is not the time for a lecture. And your child as a toddler,
they're not equipped to handle or process a lecture anyway. So, you grab their little hand and
you lead them away from the center of activity. It has to be isolated for time out to be effective.
It needs to be in a room where the other things aren't going on where they will be isolated and
separated from all of that activity. So, you march them in there. And it like you said, kind
of robotic dispassionate. We're going to remove all the emotion from the discipline. This is
important for you as a parent to keep your cool. But it also makes the discipline more effective.
Because it shows that you as the adult are in control. Now, it doesn't have to be
a time out. There's another consequence that we've talked about here on the channel before called
response cost. -Okay, yeah. -And this is where if you've got a lot of issues going on with this,
you can get a little ziploc bag or something you know, the little clear plastic bags. Put several
things in the kiddo likes and then you seal it up. That becomes their consequence. When the tantrum
occurs, you can reach in very quickly and it needs to be brief but business-like. You reach in very
quickly, you take one of those out you seal it back up. And that one becomes yours. -And you
don't need to do any big talking about it. -No. -You just... You just do it business-like and you
move on. -Brief and business-like. Robotic, consistent. Either isolation or a response
cost. Let's use a good consequence quickly in the moment to interrupt that behavior. So, let's talk
about the second step that we wanted to get to today. And I'm calling this situational planning.
But it has to do with giving your kids a heads up to what's going on. In fact,
as we were talking about the consequences, Vicki... -Right. When we talked about the
little cost response where they had a baggie of something that they wanted, right? We want to
to set it up ahead of time. Maybe you know, you kind of know whenever you go to Smith's after
after 4 o'clock, they throw a fit. -Right. -So, you want some sort of a
situational planning you're going to see before. If we get all the way through the store, you
get out of the store, you get this baggie full of treats. -Right. -If there's going to be a tantrum,
that's okay. -That's okay. -You'll just... -It'll just cost you. -Yeah. -Now, this works better with
a little older. -Right. -Toddlers, they can they can process that. For the littles, the isolation
and the timeouts... -It's really the easiest and best way. -And going back to the grocery store
example. Sometimes we don't intervene right then because we're busy doing our thing,
right? Well, if it becomes an issue or a recurring problem, you may want to sacrifice your shopping
to address the behavior so that we don't have to deal with this every time you go to the store. So,
for situational planning, if you can anticipate it, give your child a heads up
and also watch for the cues, watch for the signs that it's coming. Sometimes you see the storm
gathering, right? -Definitely. Definitely see it. -And that might be a time to do a distraction.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. -You've got a small child or a toddler who you can see
is about to lose their cool for whatever situation is going on. And you quickly jump
up and you run over to the window and you say, "Wow. Look at those cars out there."
-So, you've just a redirect.... -And they're like, "Huh? What cars? I want to see the cars."
-They always talk about redirects and magic tricks. This is kind of your own magic trick. As
you start to see things... You know your kids. You can read their cues. Just get to the point where
you read them and give a little distraction. -Do a little intervention there to prevent the tantrum
from occurring in the first place. This requires a little bit of thinking a little bit of monitoring
on your part. If you miss that then you go back to what we talked about in step 1. You do a quick
robotic consistent consequence for the tantrum. And wait till they calm down to bring them out of
the isolation. Okay? They're going to be demanding Well, that's not how they're going to get out.
Okay? So, you wait and you wait and you wait. When they calm down, you open the door. And then
they start it again, you close the door again. Wait, wait, wait until they calm down. And then
you bring them back out. -This is the one you like, right? -The next one? -Yeah. -It has the
word positive in it. -Yeah. Well, you think about why kids are throwing the tantrums, okay? It's
usually to get something that they want. And the reason they keep doing is it because it works,
alright? Honestly. And we have to really take a look at ourselves and see, "Oh, am I really
giving them attention only when they're throwing the tantrums?" Well, part of the remedy for that
is to come up with frequent interactions with your child where you're giving them positive. It can be
brief, okay? But yeah brief positive attention. -It's almost like you become the super sleuth
to try to catch your child and all the good things. And you get good at commenting about
it. -And it doesn't even have to be do something they're doing. -Yeah. -You might just suddenly
take all your attention off of whatever you're doing get down on their level and say,
"Oh, you're wearing your yellow shoes today." -Or it could even just be just commenting on them or
being with them or playing or smiling with them. -The key is contact, okay? Get connected to them
in a positive way and you can go over the top a little bit. (I'm good at this, right?) Definitely
but enhance it or embellish it in a way that is really engaging for that child. The more
you can connect in positive ways consistently throughout the day, the more you're going to be
able to avoid those tantrums and you're showing that child that they can get positive attention
from you at times that are not even connected to whatever the tantrum was about. -Right.
-Parenting is not one of those things that you want to do yourself. It's kind
of like dentistry or brain surgery. Don't do this yourself. Get the help that you need
and the support that's available to you through resources like Live On Purpose Central. We have an
entire positive parenting area there where you can get the tools that you need to do this well.
Go.liveonpurposecentral.com. Some see what's available for you.