At My Wit's End with 2.10-Year-old's Tantrums

I had the same issue with my son when he was 2 and 3 yrs old. The only thing that worked for us for me to leave the room for a couple of minutes and then when the tantrum stopped to come back and hug him and say something soothing, something completely unrelated to the tantrum. We also ignored the tantrum, so took the onus away from it. It was very hard to do this when we were outside at a store or somewhere nut it worked well at home. Picking him up and hugging also helped but since you are pregnant that would be hard!

In my sons case it was quite attention seeking, sending him to preschool really helped (since I was a stay at home mom). I learnt so much patience, now dealing with my second even more mischievious toddler seems a bit easier! Hope this helps. Good luck!

Ok, those are NOT tantrums, they are meltdowns. I am courious to see if there are any other issues going on with your child. My son used to have meltdowns for seemingly NO REASON! We learned to stop them before they started ... you have to learn the signs one is comming and help keep your kiddo calm during the situation. It seems transitions are difficult and priming helps the situation. With the shoe battle you need to try to give options so kiddo is involved with the decision making (it helps). For us we allow him to have his meltdowns only with rules ...
1. Has to be in his room
2. He can NOT bring it anywhere else
We supplied him with body pillows and throw pillows to crash on and throw. Give him things he CAN hit and a place he CAN freak out. Yes, until he learns, with your guidance, how to shorten them/stop them before they start you have to leave extra time for these to occur when going places. I suggest getting together with ECI early childhood intervention for an evaluation to see if there are anyother things going on to increase his frustration ... tantrums are typical but meltdowns are not. Meltdowns can be dealt with and reduced and eventually removed completely. My son would have 2hr long meltdowns multiple times a day over everything and nothing, once we learned ways to handle them (ECI) with in weeks they were reduced to one a day for less time and now at 4 he has maybe one a week if that. Get help, get tools, get the calm back.
This is a good site to see if your son should be evaluated for Sensory Processing Disorder ... good luck.

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/

Since you are pregnant and cant physically do much with him I would just really pay attention to the triggers and avoid them for now. Think first before you decide to have him do something that will trigger the tantrum and do something different so you can avoid it all together. Generally giving them choices so they can choose helps to eliminate some of the meltdowns. "Do you want to go to the store with me with your snow boots on or do you want a liver sandwich for lunch instead?" "Do you want to get in the bathtub with your own wash cloth and wash yourself or do you want me to take this cloth and get it wet and wash your face myself?" "Do you want to sit at the table with mommy and have your peanut butter sandwich or do you want to turn the tv off yourself and take your nap?"
Get creative, make him think. Part of tantruming has a lot to do with their own lack of being able to communicate in words how they feel. In the meantime doing lots of story times with books will build his vocabulary and help him have the skills to tell you what he's feeling and to be able to rationalize situations in a more mature fashion without meltdowns.
They dont stay this way forever, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. He'll probably be a little angel by the time your baby comes home :)

He's progressed past tantrum and into full-blown meltdown! The hitting and kicking at you or his dad must stop immediately! There's no "magic potion" that works for every single kid, but I have had a lot of experience over the last 4 years with tantrums and violent meltdowns! Time outs for my oldest are usually a joke. Unless it's a very minor infraction or he truly does just need to calm down and extract himself from a situation for a few minutes -going to a "time out" chair or the stairs doesn't work. We've tried just about everything, but what has worked for us -and it works on the 4 (almost 5) year old and our 2 year old is the "Parenting With Love and Logic" approach. When we head into this territory, we tell either child (as soon as it starts) that they can either go to their rooms and have their fits there, because the crying and screaming really bothers us, or they can be quiet and act nicely and stay where they are -playing, getting dressed, etc.). It seems so simple, but I am AMAZED at how well this has worked! Give it a try -and do it when your husband is there so if he doesn't comply, he can be picked up and put in his room. He's not allowed out until he's calm. When your husband is not there and you can't pick him up -if he goes into this mode and won't go to his room, walk away and go to a completely different place. Don't say anything to him beyond, "I understand you don't like what I said and you're unhappy, and I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't want to hear this." Then go away. If he screams for 30 minutes -let him scream! When it's over, calmly explain that you really love him and you hate for him to be angry and sad, but you don't want to hear a fit, so if he wants your attention or wants to tell you how upset he is, he's going to have to use his words. At his age, this may take some time to sink in, but you'll get there!

If he's still truly violent all the time, then you may want to take him to someone. I've also read "The Explosive Child" -and although my oldest was certainly having violent "explosions" for awhile, he wasn't quite at the level the book is talking about. You may want to check it out though and see what you think. Tantrums and even meltdowns are certainly normal for small children -especially in that 2-3 yr old stage when they don't have all the verbal skills to communicate that well, but 5-10 of these a day is quite excessive. You may also want to look into his diet and sleep. Tired children are grumpy, tantrum-prone children. Does he sleep well for long stretches? Is he down to one nap or still at two and is at least one for 1.5 -2 hours? Is he eating a lot of sugar, flour, processed food and food dyes in his diet? This is not always the answer, but it can be for some kids. A diet heavy in sugar and processed white flour makes me feel almost permanently hung over until I cleanse my system of it. People with hang overs are grumpy and have short fuses! Look into that.

Have you tried completely ignoring him. Perhaps any form of acknowledgment of the tantrum will only reinforce the behavior. I would give completely ignoring him a whirl. Seriously, don't react at all and act as though he isn't there. If it's necessary then put him in his room and shut the door.

If you think it might be something chemical then I would check with the doctor, but if not ignoring him could do the trick. I read about it in Dare to Discipline.

If your son's almost three, this is VERY age expected behavior. His brain gets overwhelmed with his emotions and they just spill out. It's not fun, but that's the best he can do at his age.

I found that playfulness helped a lot. Funny noises, slapstick humor and objects talking helped. Another great thing to do is to repeat back to him what he's telling you - using short simple sentences and matching his tone and intensity. Here's a video that shows it: http://tinyurl.com/4ftd9wq

As much as you try, you can't have your toddler/preschooler mature faster. It would be the same as trying to teach him to tie a shoe - impossible right now. The techniques in the paragraph above help you get through it until he grows out of it.

Did these start after you got pregnant? I would try ignoring them. When he starts just turn around and walk away. This is what we did with our wonderful son. Drove him nuts! He didn't get the satisfaction of seeing us upset or any attention, negative or positive. He would follow us and keep up his behavior and we would just turn and walk away again. He finally figured out he wasn't going to get what he wanted. With these types of kids consistency is very very important. You give in once and all your work goes out the window. You need to get them under control by the time his sibling comes. Another thing, he could also be stressing out about a new sibling and doesn't know how to express himself so it comes out as anger. I would also talk with him about the new baby and that you will always love him. That could help also. Good luck!

I notice you said he weighs 50 pounds which seems heavy for a 2 year old. I have seen a lot of articles relating diet to behavior so maybe this is another angle you can explore. Unforunately I'm not an expert with any details on sugar free or gluten free, but it could be worth looking into. Personally I've had trouble cutting back on sugar with my 2 and 4 year olds because diet changes require a lot of effort. But maybe not as much effort as dealing with these tantrums. Best of luck!!!

J.,
I'm taking a stab in the dark but from the little bit of info you shared, maybe your son has a problem with transitions. If so, I would suggest that you communicate clearly prior to any task, activity etc. exactly what is going to happen and for how long. Provide visuals if necessary and to make sure he understands have him repeat back to you what you will be doing and for how long. So many children meltdown when you try to transition them yet they have another scenario in mind. This might prevent future tantrums.
Good luck,
C., MSW & Parent Coach

You might have tried this already, but I used to walk away from my daughters' tantrums. No matter where I was, I would just turn my back and walk away and not give them my attention when they did this. And they all stopped doing the trantrums quickly as they saw it didn't give them any kind of results (any attention - positive or negative) at all.

My 3-year-old has always been highly emotional and prone to tantrums. Although he's probably not quite at the meltdown level most of the time, it does get frustrating, and we definitely have had trouble finding effective ways to deal with the tantrums. Time outs often go exactly as you've described -- he elects to stay there longer than we tell him to. Although offering choices is a good suggestion, we find that our son often picks a "choice" that is different from those that we have offered. We calmly tell him that wasn't a choice and repeat the choices, but this doesn't always avoid the tantrum. So I just wanted to warn you that some kids think outside the box early on :)

Also, the popular theory is that tantrums result from an inability to express oneself. I'm sure that's it a lot of the time, but my son was an early talker and, at more than 3 years old, he certainly can express his feelings if he so desires. I think his problem is more learning how to recognize that he's about to throw a tantrum and then, once he's throwing one, learning how to turn it off and try a different tactic. When he is throwing a tantrum, we ask him whether throwing a tantrum ever gets him what he wants (he usually does answer "no."). If he can't calm down and try a different tactic, we tell him he needs to go to his room until he can stop screaming because we don't want to listen to it. That usually does the trick pretty quickly. We tell him he can come out whenever he has calmed down. Of course, I recognize that you have trouble putting him in his room, so the suggestion of putting yourself in a different room (my mother used to lock herself in the bathroom!) seems good.