Tantrums and Terrible 2’s. I have never been a fan of the expression terrible 2’s-our 2 year olds are not terrible they are mostly adorable! I have always found this one of the most fascinating times in a child’s development. Our little ones are growing up fast, they are learning how to communicate and they are learning that their behaviour can influence the behaviour of others. This does not give the green light to all tantrums, or mean that tantrums are ok. It simply means that all tantrums have a clear function and it is our job as parents to try to work out why our kids are tantrumming and apply clear strategies to work through tantrums teaching our kids more alternative ways of communicating with us.
Tantrumming is an essential developmental stage that we need to guide our children through. This stage is also an essential part of growing up, it teaches us to stand up for ourselves and to negotiate. As our toddlers’ understanding of spoken language far exceeds their use of spoken language a tantrum is often the only way a pre-verbal child can tell us they are not happy. When we are cross or feeling frustrated our ability to communicate or use our words effectively often greatly diminishes -so it is important to mention that tantrums are not just behaviours associated with toddlers, children will continue to have tantrums as they grow up-the tantrums just take a different guise.
Our children can have the most amazing tantrums over things like not getting the plate they wanted, to not wanting to wear their seat belts. Tantrums can shape how our children grow up and how we parent them. Let’s Ask Livvy can help you work through your child’s tantrums, teaching you how to applying strategies on a child by child, tantrum by tantrum basis. Let’s ask Livvy will teach you how to use these strategies and give you as parents the skills to be able to teach your child that there are better, more effective means of communicating. A feeling of being judged often effects how we manage our children’s tantrums-let’s face it the worst ones usually happen in big public spaces (and there is a reason for this-our kids learn that we are more likely to try to bend our rules when we feel like everyone is watching us!) It can be hard to work through a tantrum when you feel others are looking, judging your parenting skills or your child. We have all been through this with our kids and we should offer support to those parents who are trying to deal with tantrums in an appropriate and pro-active way. Let’s Ask Livvy will also teach you how to feel confident while working through tantrums with your kids.