Why do I feel exhausted every day with my toddler?
If this is something that comes to your mind, then we have some quick tips for you on handling toddler tantrums.
Toddlers are full of energy and they have just started exploring their surroundings. They don’t know any danger or any fear. These little explorers are understanding their environment, gaining experience through trial and error.
We all know toddler is one of the most crucial stages of child development. They start to walk and talk but with limited motor skills and vocabulary.
The age of 1 to 3 years is generally called a toddler. By the time toddler reach 18 months they are now fearless, curious, impulsive, and mobile but unfortunately clueless about the results of their actions. Throwing tantrums, hitting, biting, screaming, and other less-than-adorable behaviors are typical for toddlers. This often results in frustration and what we commonly refer to as “misbehaving.”
Toddlers are in the process of gaining independence and discovering their power. The child at this age isn't capable of truly putting themselves in another's shoes. They can't yet see the connection between their actions and its consequence. There's no timetable as to how many incidents and reprimands it will take before your child stops certain misbehavior.
As the child reaches the age of two their motor skills are enhanced so they love to run, jump, throw and climb. Any distractions from these activities make them frustrated and so they are prone to tantrums.
A toddler is always a self-centered and non-social person.
They feel everything belongs to them, and they don’t like sharing things. This is another reason for their tantrums. People always ask, “How you are so good with children and why do they always listen to you?” I will like to share some tactics with you on controlling a toddler’s tantrums.I hope it will work for you as well.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
1. Be a Friend
The best way to deal with a toddler tantrum is to be their friend. The children at this age have fewer social skills, but they understand the empathy and love of elders. So, rather than getting upset or angry, calm down and understand their situation. Be their friend, it’s unnecessary a child will learn good behavior through discipline always.
Toddlers need your love, affection, and attention.
2. Never over-pamper your child
A child is developing in all aspects every day. We need to understand the difference between pampering and over-pampering. It is one of the main reasons for toddlers’ tantrums. They feel by doing so they will be able to get everything they desired. Children always love to get pampered, but it should be less materialistic and more realistic. We can give them the warmth of our love, care, and affection. The children between the ages of two and three understand that their behavior impacts others.
3. Give them their space
As an adult or parent, we always feel we have all the authority of a child. In one way, yes we as guardians always need to focus on their upbringing. But in this course sometimes children lose their personal space. We need to give personal space to them so that few things they can learn on their own. Always remember they need our personal guidance and not our harsh command.
Give your toddler enough space to make them independent learners.
4. Time out
This is one of the unique approaches I typically tried whenever I have to handle uncontrolled tantrums. This used technique actually worked out for me and I feel it is very effective. When a child throws a tantrum, gently let it happen for some time. First and foremost you naturally need to calm down and immediately remove your child from the situation triggering a tantrum. The child needs some time alone (just a precious minute or two for toddlers) to calm down and think about the behavior. This brief time-out technique helps them understand the consequences of the tantrum and give them some time In order to discipline your child with time-outs; the suitable amount of time for a child to be alone in a selected spot is one minute for each year of her life.
5. Talk, talk and talk
As toddlers have fewer memory spans so as concerned adults we need to repeat the words (avoid using the word “no”) to distract their behavior. You need to keep on repeating phrases like “we will stop biting or hitting our friends” again and again. As they lack cognitive capability, they want to say so many things but they are less in vocabulary. There are many things going on in their tiny mind and they are always in exploring mode. All of these factors result in tantrums.
By age, 3 children are a chatterbox now, and they can memorize things for a long time. So, the best way to control their bad behavior is to talk with them. You need to talk with them in short phrases like, “It hurts!! Please stop hitting.” These phrases act as a sign of caution to their brain. The more you talk to them about the cause and effect of a bad tantrum the easier will be to discipline them. You can use all these tactics with the toddlers and your young ones.
6. Have the patience to handle their feelings
Toddler feelings are like tides which are sometimes high and sometimes low. As a parent, we need to understand them and help to navigate their emotions. At this stage, they are understanding emotions like sadness, happiness, shame, embarrassment, and pride for the first time. Toddlers need your guidance and support to channelize these emotions in the right direction and positive outcome for each emotion. When a child is not able to express emotions clearly don’t just make fun of them try to understand what he/ she is trying to say.
7. Handle challenging behavior-
Many times, toddlers are not able to figure out how to express feelings and emotions in an acceptable manner or how to get their needs met. When they don’t know how to handle situations, they behave in a manner that is not acceptable.
As a parent, your responsibility is to suggest him /show different and more constructive ways of handling these feelings. Learning to cope with strong feelings usually happens naturally as children develop better language skills in their third year and have more experience with peers, handling disappointment, and following rules
At the toddler stage, the child knows that they have their own individual identity from parents, siblings, and other people around them. Now they can show likes and dislikes and wants to act independently. Over that, they are able to express their wants and needs. But the patience level is very low at this stage, so who has to keep a high level of patience? We the parents and caregivers.
Hope my blog is really helpful to severely reduce your pain while dealing with these young people. Make sure to comment and put your valuable comments.
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Interesting blog
Nice
nicely explained!
Well