Tantrums and Meltdowns

To some degree, tantrums and meltdowns are a normal part of early childhood.  When they become more frequent, intense and distressing, parents need help helping their young one.

There are many reasons for children to have tantrums, but mainly it's difficulty regulating their emotions.  There may be other underlying factors that make things worse, such as anxiety, depression, irritability, ADHD, learning problems, autism spectrum and sensory processing issues.

Certainly young children have skills they are developing, which you can focus on supporting.  These may include frustration tolerance, impulse control, problem solving, delaying gratification, negotiation, communication, understanding expectations, accepting direction and limits, and self-soothing,

From the perspective of developing skills, recommendations have moved from punishing tantrums to helping children soothe to prevent or recover from them. So rather than using conventional time outs, consider the idea of a "time in" using a "comfort corner."

Read more: http://joanneaz_2.tripod.com/positivedisciplineresourcecenter/id26.html


RELATED PARENTING BOOKS

Dr. Greenspan writes about several challenging temperaments in his book,The Challenging Child: Understanding, Raising, and Enjoying the Five "Difficult" Types of Children.  He explains what it feels like to be a defiant child, or a child with ADHD, and how parents typically respond in ways that don't work, and the counterintuitive strategies to try instead (summarized here).

One temperament he includes is the highly sensitive child.  This topic has it's own book by the expert on being Highly Sensitive, Elaine Aaron, calledThe Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them.

FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE AND FLEXIBILITY

Dr. Ross Greene presents a model of parenting to help children with low frustration tolerance and difficulty shifting agendas, in The Explosive Child. Children do well if they can. They don’t choose to be explosive and non-compliant. Rather they have a delay in developing skills critical to being flexible and tolerating frustration or difficulty applying these skills. 

Explosive Child handouts summarizing book: The Explosive Child, by Dr. Greene.
  Videos on Collaborative Problem Solving.