Understanding Your Child’s Temper Tantrums — and How to Deal with Them
Temper tantrums are one of the most difficult challenges of raising children; here’s a guide to help you manage your little one’s outbursts and restore calm
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Human beings love to be in control. We like to know what time our flight will take off for our next vacation, what time to be at work and what time our favorite TV show will be on. Conversely, when life becomes unpredictable, it makes people uncomfortable and sometimes even nervous. Before becoming a parent, most adults enjoy a mostly predictable and planned out life, involving a good sense of order. After becoming a parent… not so much.
Before having my first child, I worked as a Paralegal in NYC and enjoyed the predictability of my Long Island Railroad train leaving every morning at exactly 8:17AM, lunch promptly at 1pm and a return trip home on a train leaving from Penn Station at 5:37. My how things changed afterward.
Just after a child is born, most of us retain this feeling of control and the early days of infancy are often fairly easy and predictable with the baby sleeping most of the time. Not long after this, as the temporary false sense of ease slips away, many parents begin feeling a loss of control when the baby starts to cry and the real frustration comes in not knowing what is wrong: Sometimes the baby is hungry or tired or they have soiled their diaper. Usually the parent will figure out what to do. Once we discover the solution, we can regain a reasonable sense of control.
Fast forward to the age of 18 months when the child’s ego starts to enter the picture — now the parent has to
