Tantrums in young children
Short bursts of crying, screaming, dropping to the floor or kicking when a young child is frustrated, tired or told no. They are a normal part of early childhood, when wanting is strong and the skills to wait, ask or cope are still forming. How often they come, how intense they are and where they happen separate the usual from the less usual.
What drives it
A young child’s feelings outrun the brakes they have so far, and the tantrum is what that overflow looks like. For identification, the label helps a parent tell an ordinary hard afternoon from a pattern worth a closer look, and see how much of a tantrum belongs to the child’s age.
How it shows
Work
Parents carry the morning tantrum into the workday: late to the first meeting, replaying the scene, tensing at every call in case it is daycare.
Relationships
Shoes, the wrong cup, leaving the park. A tantrum in the supermarket brings looks from strangers and sometimes advice from relatives. Partners may disagree on whether to wait it out, hold the child or give in, and argue about it later.
Self
Notice how many come in a week, how long they last and where they happen. Notice too what goes through your head while it is happening, especially in public.
What tells it apart
The coercive cycle (Patterson): A coercive cycle may be the better fit when tantrums are growing over months and keep ending with the request dropped. Ordinary tantrums come and go without a steady pattern of who gives way.
After-school restraint collapse: After-school restraint collapse describes a meltdown timed to pickup after a day of holding it together. Tantrums at any hour, set off by a ‘no’ or a frustration, are more likely ordinary tantrums.
Emotional dysregulation: Emotional dysregulation is a lasting difficulty bringing big feelings down, across settings. In a preschooler, daily, long or violent tantrums, or tantrums with teachers and sitters as well, may point that way.
A test
Count the tantrums for two weeks and note how long, where and with whom. A few a week, at home, at transitions or after a ‘no’, are more likely typical for the age. Daily tantrums, ones that come from nowhere or ones with hitting and breaking things may be worth raising with a pediatrician.
Questions to carry
- What was my child asking for in the minute before it started?
- What do I tell myself about my parenting while it’s happening?
Go deeper
- Read: The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child, Alan E. Kazdin with Carlo Rotella, 2008. Written for parents by a Yale psychologist who spent decades testing parent management training: praise and small rewards for the behavior a parent wants to see, built up in small steps. That approach has many controlled trials behind it with children referred for defiance and aggression, though Kazdin's own 1997 review said questions remained about how large, wide and lasting the effects are. The book itself does not walk through the studies. It carries the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies' Self-Help Seal of Merit.
How strong the research is
strong. In a survey of nearly 1,500 parents of 3 to 5 year olds (Wakschlag, Briggs-Gowan and colleagues, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2012), more than 80% of the children had had a tantrum in the past month, and fewer than 10% had one every day. Tantrums when frustrated, during routines and with a parent were common. Tantrums out of the blue, unusually long ones, ones with hitting or breaking things, and ones with other adults such as teachers were less common, and the authors saw daily or severe tantrums as a possible sign of a wider problem. The figures are parent reports.
Where it comes from
Long described in pediatrics. Typical and less typical patterns mapped by Lauren Wakschlag (Northwestern University), Margaret Briggs-Gowan (University of Connecticut) and colleagues, 2012