Take a deep breath and count to 10 to cope with kids' tantrums

We all want to be patient parents, but how can we cope with tantrums without losing our cool?

It is not easy to be patient as a parent when your child is throwing a tantrum. Picture: iStock

SEVERAL years ago, Andrea Mara set herself a challenge. The mother-of-three decided that, no matter what, she wasn’t going to shout at her children. And she stayed true to her vow, even in the dark days of lockdown earlier this year.

Andrea is quick to point out that she’s no saint, but an article she had read about how frightening shouting can be to children had a profound effect on her. At first, she thought: “Oh for goodness sake, everybody shouts at their children.” And then she decided that she’d try it.

“It’s not that you’re not going to shout at them ever again because that would be impossible,” she says. 

“You wake up in the morning and you say ‘I’m going to make it my goal not to shout at my children’ and see how you go. Try it for one day and then do it day by day.”

Author  Andrea Mara set herself a challenge to never shout at children again.  Picture: Nick Bradshaw

Andrea, who is an author and parenting blogger, says: “There’s a difference between disciplining with kindness and permissiveness. It’s not about letting your kids do whatever they want and never calling them on it."

It’s about patiently and calmly explaining why that behaviour is not OK, rather than going ‘OK, I’m annoyed with you now, go and have a time-out.

But how can we turn ourselves into the calm, patient parent we really want to be when confronted by toddler tantrums, massive meltdowns and general grumpiness?

Say no to the naughty step

This notion of a ‘time-out’ was popularised by Supernanny Jo Frost in her Channel 4 TV series. Frost would give children a warning about bad behaviour and, if they misbehaved again, they were put on the naughty step, where they’d serve a time-out of one minute per year of their age so that they could calm down, think about their behaviour and, eventually, apologise.

When Andrea’s eldest child was a youngster, she did try this. She says that it made her child cross “but it didn’t necessarily change her behaviour in any way. If you put a small child on the naughty step, they’re just going to be humiliated or resentful or both”.

This is echoed by Dr Josephine Bleach of the Early Learning Initiative, who says: “You don’t want to label the child who on it as naughty, you want them to consider their behaviour.”

She says it’s important for children to learn the impact of their behaviour on themselves and on others.

Remember you’re only human

But if you do snap, don’t beat yourself up. “You’re going to lose your temper,” says Josephine. “You’re going to be annoyed.”

“Sit down, talk it through, explain how you were feeling, why you reacted the way you did, you apologise, and then you listen to them, listen to the impact on them and then you discuss how you can both do it differently.”

Although younger children mightn’t understand every word you’re saying, she says they understand the emotions.

“They’re reading you emotionally and they’re also picking up from you the language of emotions and the language of feelings. They’re learning from you, the things to say if they do it themselves.”

Be positive

Josephine believes in focusing on what children do right. The ‘don’t’ in a sentence is almost a challenge, so give them positive choices, she says.  “Instead of saying ‘don’t run’, say ‘wait for me at the kerb’.

“If you want them to do something, what you need to think about is how to put it to them in a positive way with a reason for why they want to do it.”

Focus on what children do right.

Parental time-out

Josephine and Andrea wholeheartedly believe that parents benefit from time-outs. 

“Rather than give the children a time-out,” says Andrea, “I take it myself. If I’m really fed-up and know I’m going to snap over something, I remove myself from the situation. 

"When they were smaller, that might have been locking myself in the bathroom with a Toblerone and my phone for a few minutes, whatever works when you’re at the end of your tether.”

Parent and relationship mentor Glenna Benson also emphasises the importance of compassion to ourselves. “It’s not about trying to be the perfect parent, but the good enough parent,” she says. 

There is a reason for that meltdown

But what is going on to make a child act out? Glenna believes that all behaviour makes sense. “When a child is displaying difficult behaviour, the child is telling us that life is difficult for them right now.”

This is echoed by Andrea Mara, who says that if a child is having a meltdown, there is always a reason.

They’re not doing it just to be bold, a child will look for attention any way they can.

Andrea started looking at the root causes of the difficulties and discovered that a lot of stresses stemmed from trying to do too much in too short a time.

Her youngest child used to get cross when they were going to collect his older sister from school and Andrea realised that she needed to build the space into her schedule to allow her time to sit on the ground with her son if he wanted to do that, rather than getting stressed about being late for the school pick-up.

Communicate, question and listen

"No matter how young they are, children want to know that their feelings count as much as their parents’ feelings,” says Josephine. 

This communication with compassion and connection is crucial, says Glenna. “If we react by saying you’re going straight to the naughty step, we’re reacting because we’re finding it difficult to cope. Whereas if we’re in a more solid place, we’re able to sit with that child and start to pose the questions.

“Ask the child: 'Why is it that you felt the need to do this, what’s happening with you?'. It’s not necessarily getting that answer straight away, children are testing boundaries but they’re also testing to see and feel if that parent is listening. Often they have these little subliminal messages in their conversation, in the story, they’re telling.”

Are they just hungry?

Don’t underestimate the power of hunger, cold or tiredness to cause a meltdown. For Andrea, her children’s lunchboxes became a crucial tool.

“I’d collect kids from school who’d be cross and cranky and then I’d get home, open the lunchbox and realise they hadn’t eaten their lunch that day.”

When she added extra sandwiches to her younger son’s lunch, it changed his mood instantly. 

It was such a quick fix that she began to wonder how much times over the years “was it as simple as food or sleep that he needed but, because they can’t always say or they don’t always know to say I’m tired or I’m hungry, instead it manifests as tears or getting really upset over how scratchy their socks are or how annoying the seatbelt is.”

What are you trying to teach your child?

Think about the values you’re trying to teach your child, says Josephine, and what are the behaviours linked to those values.

“When you sit down and you discuss what happened, you’re actually analysing a situation and you’re helping them to think more deeply. It’s a more holistic way of raising a child than just saying dos and don’ts.”

Andrea agrees, adding  that she sighed inwardly when she realised the hard work involved in going the patient, kind route. “Oh God, why is there not an easy fix for anything in parenting. But the payoff will also be greater in the long run.”