This is so out of touch with the reality of toddlers that I can’t help but think you’ve either never had children, someone else raised your children, or you got really lucky with an abnormally docile kid.
Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?
> Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?
Screaming tantrums are a great demonstration of just how irrational young humans can be. I was (and am) firmly of the opinion that even when confronted with crazy it's crucial to [attempt to] remain rational in your response ...
Speaking of irrational, one of our favourite anecdotes (one of several thousand...) when our eldest was a toddler, he was playing in the garden and for no good reason decided it would be a great idea to throw small rocks .. at our parked car.
I was in the house and heard this strange <clunk> <pause> <clunk> <pause> <clunk> sound coming from outside...
I stepped outside, he'd done about a dozen rocks by that point, judging by the dents in the panels of the car.
I was so angry I recall managing to tell him firmly to stop but then having to actually walk away, leaving my wife to explain that "Daddy is so cross he can't actually speak right now..."
He never did it again, thankfully. He's 12 now :)
I know especially in the USA we want to talk about "what people deserve" rather than "what works" (vaccines and general covid response anyone? like we'd rather have someone to blame and have the right people have bad outcomes we think they deserve, than actually do things that work?), but what a mess.
Of course, that does not mean it's a good thing that some humans destroy property and make other people's lives miserable, but it's nice to know that the indomitable still exists within us.
Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one.
And yes, I had a toddler brother and had to test this based on actual, stressful reality.
Like most kids, they still got into trouble and had major screw ups in their young lives. However I've never seen anyone who respected their parents more in my life. There were no beatings, no yelling, no destroying or selling of their property as punishment. And wouldn't you know it, when they got in trouble for something they did wrong - they didn't resent their parents for it. They were always expressive that their mistake (or the general view of society that what they did is a mistake) was the problem.
It's hardly empirical evidence but it certainly convinced me.
I have noticed male children, especially the first born male, who's father is a Psychiatrist end up--well--what's the right phrase? Some seem very angry. It's just something I noticed in my small circle.
I'm probally wrong, but it's something I have noticed.
(that and, how are you sure you're not experiencing confirmation bias?)
Unless there's some condition that make them more likely to know about first born males of male psychiatrists, I would have bet on "definitely small sample" too
Maybe it has more to do with a type of personality that professions like psychiatry attract? It's hardly disputed that your parents' personalities tend to rub off on you.
You are obviously correct here and the giant pitfall of parenting advice is generalisation.
Your kids are bickering on a car journey? You have choices in how to respond.
Your kids are throwing stones at passers by? That has to stop right now as fast as you can apply influence with a transition from verbal to physical based on distance.
Don't take anything you read here as gospel. Note the myriad of parenting attitudes and common child behaviours globally. Accept you are doing it wrong, we all have/do/will.
"Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one."
(Genuinely curious of your approach, I'm usually out of options at that point).
Most of my life experience contradicts this - parents gets angry and emotional, ignore needs of their children, do not think through their actions and do not realise possible alternatives.
I have witnessed parents 'giving away' kids to grandparents, spensong no time with them, and threatening physical punishment for poor gradea instead of offering any help
Lastly, you example is of a kid acting like a feral animal - by the time you get to the point it seems something has already royally fucked up
Toddlers skip directly to that point with varying frequency and intensity depending on the child. Some will do it for obvious reasons, some will do it for less obvious ones. Some will do it literally at random. It would be great if all toddlers followed a step wise progression from obvious stressor to obvious meltdown, like you read about in the common parenting books, but that's not how they all work.
Of course there are bad parents out there too. But theres also plenty of parents who do everything by the book, never spank, set clear boundaries with clear signals and set good routines. And they get rewarded with random slug fests that come out of nowhere. Parenting is an unimaginably challenging experience for these folks and there's little they can do about it.
it's a lot different then what i imagined before i had kids. And the thing is most of people have the same problems. It's just that we all fake it in front of others. Like we are great and so on. But im in the years, where a lot of out friends have children with same experience.
If you do issue punishments, try to make them relate to the crime. Take away toys that get thrown at a sibling, or that don't get cleaned up from the hallway, but don't take away toys because the kid refuses to put their shoes on. That's just bullying and it will confuse the child.
Maybe the punishment for being late to school is an hour earlier bedtime that night. This is less of a 'punishment' and more just a rational correction to the problem.
The alternative to punishment is therefore not ignoring, it's explaining things and setting boundaries which will have to be enforced somehow.
> The best recommendation for parents in this situation is to remain calm, try to distract the child, and ignore the tantrum if possible.
[1] https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23006014/
> Ignore the tantrum.
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544286/
> "Getting into it teaches the kid the way to get your attention is to have a big fuss," he said. "If you ignore that outburst, they're less likely to do it."
- neuropsychologist w/ lots published on quality and duration of tantrums in toddlers
[3] https://www.today.com/health/real-reasons-your-toddler-cryin...
[4] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-20030600...
[5] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024173
> Any behavior that gets attention will continue
- clinical psychologist
[6] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-respond-to-tantru...
Obviously there's lots of nuance and this is mainly advice given for tantrums in toddlers, primarily attention seeking tantrums in toddlers without development issues.
But it does generally follow 'praise good behavior, ignore bad behavior'.
I wanted to read some papers in the subject a few days ago but couldn't come up with a good search strings nor good initial references. It's not my field of expertise :x
From there I hit up pubmed and google searches (ex. site:researchgate.net) based on terms, references, and authors from the initial studies I found.
It certainly wasn't exhaustive and I would not be surprised if I missed some studies with contradicting information.
Ignoring other bad behavior isn’t the same. If a child is hurting someone, is being destructive, or ignoring what you say you absolutely should do something about it. I’ve seen plenty of parents that don’t and it doesn’t work.
And obviously some kids have psychological issues that make all of this meaningless.
I imagine ignoring a bipolar toddler's tantrum is not going to have a meaningful impact. Or at least that is my experience from dealing with bipolar adult tantrums.
Another thing that works is making the child aware that their behaviour hurts you. "What you do makes me sad/tired/feel/makes my work harder". You are not angry, just making them aware how their actions affect others.
Needless to say you should never ever give in to a tantrum. Giving in to tantrums is not part of the structure everyone abides by.
Source: my gf works with children, often with disabilities and is a psychologist interested in behavioral science. Children actually like you more if you're someone enforcing the rules and structure than a pushover who will do as they please if the tantrum is long and loud enough.
But yes, waiting, connecting with them, and helping them to calm, and process the emotions.
Precisely
Sometimes (often) that something is merely a transient disconnect between their lizard brain reward/fear-centers and their rational cortex. There's not much to be done other than wait for the jello computer to stabilize itself.
This is surprisingly applicable to humans of all ages.
After dinner I absolutely had to figure it out. He didn’t say “sorry” he said “thanks”?! I go up to the mom (who I’d never met) and say something like “that was amazing! What on earth did you say to him?”
“Oh, all I said was ‘you’re being inappropriate.’ He’s a super conscientious kid, he doesn’t really need to be punished most of the time, he just needs a bit of clear, unemotional feedback. For him and me, yelling or threatening punishment escalates things, but this works great for us! Now, my daughter… that’s entirely different!”
I find patience and a tiered approach of punishments helps. Too many people jump to harsher punishment or longer timeouts and it's just punishing themselves because they have to miss that playdate or hold that kid in timeout.
Start small and work your way up.
Observe parents with their children. But instead of focusing on the kid throwing tantrum or one listening to their parent, focus on the parents. See what their approach is, how much attention they give to the kid and in what way they treat them - not just when handling the difficult situation.
Kids are very different and definitely not rational. But if you spend some time doing the above, you can't help but notice some patterns. Some are genetics, sure, but I'm talking about their approach to the kid, this is something that's up to them.
Also, there are many books compiling data from papers about both short and long term results of different parenting approaches. Specific approaches offered in books differ, but data, especially long term studies, is pretty consistent.
Of course everything depends on your optimization function. One may choose kid's depression in later life over feeling embarrassed at Wendys ;) But more seriously, it really does depend what you want to achieve. You may want your kids to be happy, altruistic, empathetic, hard working, clever successful, well behaved, social, open minded or creative. These are different things, parts of them conflicting with one another, you can't have them all. I think this is a big part of the reason why there are so many disagreements about parenting.
What is the point of being disrespectful over tantrum? Other then you venting own emotions that is.
What poor response have you identified in the parent comment?
Regardless with a tantrum you wait till they are calm then speak to them and explain to them what's the correct thing to do in that situation.
Being a father of two (2 and 4), I think children younger than certain age cannot connect the negative result with the action they did. I yell, I lose candy, so what? I get to yell. Also, telling kids what not to do is different from what to do. You can tell kids don't do this, don't do that all day and they still fail to behave . My 2-yo tends to yell when he couldn't get the things he want. Telling him don't yell is futile. Taking snacks off his hand is even more futile. Giving him the stuff once he claim down and say "thank you" seems to help.
On the other hand, punishing has its place. But use it sparingly. I always send both of them to time out if they fail to share toys or fight each other. There is no one size fit all. Every kids are different.
Screaming and tantrums happen only if parents show to the children that that is an easy way to get attention.
I observed that catering to children and their tantrums does indeed result in problems down the road. I also observed that punishment never works.
My dataset is 5 people.
Disclaimer: I don't have children.