Screaming, Fighting, And Biting The Temper Tantrum

This is something I deal with every day.  Have not one, or two, but four, yes I said four darling children.  Now I know why some lions eat their young. (just joking)  With that said, I used to be a mental health technician that worked with abused children with behavior problems.

After spending so much time with these children, I decided that I needed to stay home with my own children.  Well let me tell you: If I had known then, what I know now……..anyway.

When you have to deal with inappropriate or attention seeking behaviors it can such the life out of you.  Our natural urge is to take something away, yell, punish (hopefully never abuse), but the problem is that they don’t know the difference between negative attention and positive.  All they know is that, “Hey Cool, got there attention.”  My 15 month old sees me get mad, he looks at me laughs, takes off running, stops to see if I am chasing him yet and laughs and runs away.

One important thing to remember is that when ever a child is getting attention their body releases a hormone that helps them grow, so the next time you are showing your child attention just think about how you have found yet another way to help your child grow, to be happy, and healthy.  The hormone is necessary for your child to survive.

You need to understand if you are to change your child’s behavior you must make a plan first.  Make sure you have back ups.  This process with take a while and you will need to stick with it or your children won’t take you serious.  Start out at first by trying to redirect their attention.  If they have something like a glass and you know if you take it away they will scream, find a favorite two and try to swap.   There are many different ways to do this and each time it could be different.  After you do it for a while it will just come naturally.  

Just ignore them.  If your child has thrown himself on the floor and is kicking his feet and screaming, just step over him like he is not there and go about your business.  Pretend that they are not there.  The first few times that you do this you may end up with the child freaking out like someone is killing them, but after a few more times they will know your serious and usually stop.  You will notice at first it may be each incident is shorter in time, or some children after only a day or two will stop.

Always make sure that your child is some where that they cannot get hurt.

Your child will test you.  They will really will get worse at first.  What they are doing is trying to find out how far they have to go to get you to respond.  I know it is hard and 10 minutes into the temper tantrum I want you to remember this:

My 18 month old decided that she didn’t want to go to bed any more.  She wanted to stay up all night and I wouldn’t let her.  So I followed the old, let her cry a few minutes, check her, calmer her down and leave the room.  Wait twices as long and go in again, etc.  Well it didn’t work for me.

So I tried the let her cry it out.  Well she woke up at 1 am and started crying, then screaming.  It was horrible, then the police department paid me a visit because neighbors complained.  I spent the next month on the couch with her.
What can I say? I caved, I lost, oh well….

Any way, if you give them what they want you are just teaching them that if they throw a fit big enough that they will get what they want.

Remember to reward any good behavior.  You need to look for it sometimes.  It can be as little as stopping in the middle of a tantrum, even if it is just to take a big breath of air.  If you can get a sentence in verbally reward them for not crying for a minute.  If they start in again, ignore them again.  As soon as they stop give them a hug and verbally reward them again.  This is teaching them that good behaviors get your attention.

Most behaviors, if this is done each and every time that they misbehave, usually are stopped within a few days.

This works because they are not getting any attention for the bad behavior.  They are getting attention for the wanted behavior.  If done right they will continue with the wanted behavior to get the attention.

Always stop and make time to give them attention just because…
With older children you can use the same technique to teach them the importance of responsibility.  Reward your child for cleaning his room, doing the dishes, taking out the trash, doing well in school, for being nice to a sibling even if it was just for a second.  This will create a need to succeed that will help the child through out their lives.

Stick with it.  The worse it seems the closer you are to really extinguishing an unwanted behavior, just make sure to reward the wanted ones.  Replace on with the other.

Isn’t it scary how much we, as parents and care givers, impact the lives of our children?  In the first five years children are not exposed to many people.  And at five they start school but their home is still their safe place, the one that matters the most, and the place they learn the most.  Take advantage of the time that you have with them.

It is hard when you feel you understand why the mother bird throws her babies out of the nest.  Some day your children will leave on their own.  So what you can today so you will have a great many memories when they fly off on their own taking their memories with them as well.