How should parents handle temper tantrums in toddlers?
Over the years, parents and psychologists have developed a series of suggestions to help deal with temper tantrums. These include • Don’t get sucked into the emotion of the situation. Remain calm and unemotional. If possible (for example, at home) tell the child you can’t understand him when he behaves that way and leave the area. Inform him that when he calms down you will talk with him about what he wants. Feeding into the situation by trying to deal with the out of control child reinforces the behavior. • Try to distract or redirect the child. Many parents observe that this strategy works better in the young toddler; the older child is less likely to be “bought off.” • Discipline should be promptly applied, brief, proportionate to the “crime,” and rendered without emotion by the parent. The classic recommendation for “time-out” of one minute per year of age has well stood the test of time. A quick verbal explanation of the infraction is reasonable (“You are going into time-out becau
