I have read a lot of book on child psychology and still never really sure how to handle tantrums and discipline aspects.
- tantrums happen to your child
- tantrums are a regulation mechanism - your child is disregulated, their brain is overwhelmed by uncontrollable emotions and needs to flush all the stress hormones quickly to come back to normal
- there is a reason for the dis-regulation. What does the child need that the environment does not provide?
- in the case of a restaurant - yes, take the kid outside, give them undivided attention, give space for the emotions to get expressed and for their brain to self-regulate.
- become curious about the child's needs and see the tantrums as a symptom of building frustration of some needs not being met. Common possibilities are: severely depleted "reservoirs" caused by chronically unmet needs for play, physical activity, the child having control over their body, schedule, activities, company, your attention, solitude, approval, knowing that they matter etc.
- a common situation related to a restaurant is the child's need to roam, run, be physical, loud, unrestrained. One way to have well-behaved kids at the restaurant is to have a kid-guided (they have control), exhausting, loud, physical activity beforehand. You get the point.
Do not try to control (the expression of) tantrums. Extend your best interpretation and create space for the tantrum to quickly unfold so your child can regulate. Change the environment and remove the root causes.
Ideally, the outcome of your parenting is an adult who is capable of identifying what they need before they are in crisis, capable of providing it to themselves, and when this is not possible, capable of regulating themselves.
You need to model all of these, over and over and over again.
Notice what they need and help them meet the need before their emotional state gets too agitated. If a tantrum is an extreme way to "ask" for something - help them meet the need - way before reaching that stage.
Source: my training as a nonviolent parenting educator.
- drop any interpretations of your child's behaviors which see it as malicious. Develop a habit to see all behaviors as (often imperfect) strategies to fulfill a basic human need (https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory). Try to guess the need and look for better strategies to fulfilling it. If impossible to fulfill the need, provide a framework for regulating the emotions arising from that.
- you will often be triggered by your child behaving in certain ways. These are your triggers and your work. Many of these are trauma patterns installed during your own upbringing. Were your needs prioritized? What is your attachment style? What was your family's style of dealing with strong emotions?
A bunch of resources are listed near the end including NVC parenting videos.
But I have also noticed that tantrums are highly correlated with lack of sleep. Which makes sense. Even as adults, we are much more likely to lose control and snap if we are less rested and/or stressed. This is why so many parents religiously stick to a pretty structured sleep schedule.