Many parents find themselves at the mercy of temper tantrums that can take the form of the child screaming, hitting, kicking, breaking things or holding breath. Sometimes the outbursts can go on for hours. Not surprisingly, the patience of parents (and others) is sorely tested and, sometimes, for relief, they "give in" to the child or lose self-control and get verbally or physically aggressive.
These responses escalate the frequency, intensity and endurance of the tantrums. Giving-in serves to reinforce the intolerable way the child communicates; aggression makes the situation worse.
It is easy to suggest to parents to stay separate from the temper tantrums and not personalise the child's blaming behaviours and "I hate you" responses, but not so easy in practice. Nevertheless, effort in this direction is essential for long-term resolution of the temper tantrums. What certainly helps is to not to attempt to reason with a child who is in such a highly emotionally charged state. Emotion is always stronger than reason and the child is not able to respond to logic. A firm "I'm not responding to your needs when you behave in this way" followed by a return to, or an adoption of, an activity and a determination to give no further verbal and non-verbal attention to the child's aggressive behaviour generally results in a de-escalation of the situation.
Some children will pursue you and keep up the temper tantrum, often because the temper tantrum has gained them what they wanted before and they are reluctant to let go of what worked previously. The aim is to break your resolve and regain power over you. A parent so besieged needs to resolve to stay separate, not personalise, and continue to focus on whatever activity is in hand.
The way adults say "No" needs to be firm but not cross, consistent but not insistent and predictable, not unpredictable. Children require parents to have definite boundaries around certain behaviours and to maintain them when the child attempts to push the limits. This creates security for children as they can depend on their parents to be strong in their caring. It does children's emotional security no good when they are allowed to rule the roost.
Sometimes the purpose of a tantrum is a subconscious attempt to correct a major imbalance in the exercise of power between parent and child. Where a parent is highly passive and "spoils" a child by giving everything demanded, the child's exercise of overpowering this parent has the subconscious intention of getting the parent to exercise responsibility and power as a parent and take charge of the situation. The more the parent resists being firm, the more the child escalates the aggressive behaviour. "Giving-in" does not reduce temper tantrums, but being firm does. Firmness means maintaining your love for the child and being very definite that the temper tantrum will not gain the child the desired goal.
Children's security rests largely on parents' strength of resolve and mature responding. Another possible source for enduring temper tantrums is the child whose parent aggressively overpowers him and deprives him of any sense of power. In this relationship the child's temper tantrums are designed to correct the imbalance of power by refusing to co-operate. All control is about self-control and an important aspect of parenting is providing children with choices so that they can learn self-control of their behaviour. Parents who dominate or over-protect deprive children of this essential aspect of mature development.
Parents can feel utterly powerless in the face of their child's temper tantrums. Sometimes the parent can feel hatred for the child and, when the storm is over, suffer a tremendous feeling of guilt. Such feelings are more likely to arise in situations where there are strong competing needs, like having to get to work on time, or get the other children out to school or get the child who is being difficult to go to the doctor or dentist and so on.
Parents need to be understanding and compassionate towards themselves in accepting how difficult parenting can be. In giving vent to such intense feelings it is desirable that they apologise to the child. Regular talking to (not at) children about what drives them to behave so, and what are their needs, and an honest expression by parents of their frustration and needs, usually shows what further actions are needed to bring about family harmony.
Dr Tony Humphreys is a consultant clinical psychologist and author of The Family: Love It and Leave It
