Emotional 5 Year Old

Lots of "go to your room until you feel better."

"I do not understand your words when you are crying."

Also if you have to pick him up and carry him to the car, DO IT!.

If you have to leave an event. Do IT!

A full basket of groceries.. Leave them.

Let him know this does not work with you. And the reason you all had to leave was because of HIS behaviors. You are all disappointed that you could not stay longer, because he threw the fit.

This needs to be a work in progress,

When he is not upset and just quietly playing.. Or when you all are riding around in the car.. Talk about how he seems to get upset when he is tired.

Talk about why even grown ups get grumpy when they are tired.. What are some of the things we do?

We go and lay down. We go and quietly look at books. We listen to music and close our eyes.. We use our words to let others around us know, I am tired.

When we go to grandmas house, we only stay for a certain amount of time. We know she has loves when we visit, but she also has to clean her house, take a nap, she has people she helps, she has other friends. She loves having us there, but we do need to leave so she can get her other things done.

It is upsetting to everyone when he cannot give her a kiss, and her good bye hugs and be a big boy and get in the car. We do not like to upset Grandma, because it can make her sad.

It is also not good manners to have a tantrum after we have had such a nice visit.

Do you give him the heads up? "We are going to grandmas today. We will be eating lunch and visiting, but we will be leaving at 2:00. I will give you a reminder 15 minutes before we leave."

Also, things change. It is fun to go to the park, but if it rains, we will not be able to go, but that is ok, instead we can play games at home. We could bake cookies, we could play store.. I used to let our daughter take an umbrella and go out and play in the rain..

The most important things as parents we can do, is to put words with our own actions.. It feels strange to speak out loud what we are doing. How we are handling a situation, but this is exactly how children learn how to settle problems, how to deal with disappointments.

"Oh no! We drove all the way over hear to pick up those buns for the sandwiches, but the bakery does not have them. I am so disappointed. Oh well lets see what we can use instead."

"Oh No, look at the line at the bank! We do not have time to wait, I am frustrated. Oh well, I will come back tomorrow. Please help me remember tomorrow to come back to the bank. "

He has to have the words to match the feelings.

He has to be able to know that feeling is coming on.. Help him when you know he is going to be upset.. But guide him..

"You look scared, do you want to hold my hand?"

"You look like your feelings are hurt, Come sit with me and give me a hug."

"You look like you need a quiet minute, do you want to sit down here, or go to your room?"

Then compliment him. when he does handle a situation in a good way. I like how you took your turn.

I like how patient you were during all of these errands.

Thank you for being so understanding about the party being cancelled.

Make sure all of you adults do this. He watches and is learning from all of you at all times.

You are the parent. You have the patience and the strength to follow through on the expectations you give him. Let him know he can do this.

Purchase ear plugs if you need them and keep them all around the house, in the car and in your purse.. Place yourself in your own time out if it gets to be too much. He will see that if it works for you, it can work for him.

It really depends on the WHY of the behavior as much as the WHAT.

For my son (6, borderline Asperger's Syndrome) there is no such thing as a little deal. Everything that isn't right is wrong. There is no gray area. He also does not like surprises (even gifts), or breaking the rules... and everything is a rule.

Honestly there isn't a lot you can do once they've reached the point of no return... hence the "no return," but if you see it coming, or catch it just before it starts... here's what helps us...

DS was taught a "calm down" strategy. He puts both hands, one on top of the other, on his belly. Then he takes deep breaths that make his hands move out and in, and says in a deep, slow voice, "caaaaaaalllllmmmm dooooowwwwnnnn" between breaths. He learned and practiced it a bunch when he WAS calm, so that when he gets revved up he has this routine to return to. It kind of takes him out of the hectic moment and gives him something familiar to focus on... plus deep breathing his helpful to everyone.

I used to tell him "I can't understand you," and couldn't figure out why that didn't work for melt-downs like it does for whining... but once I realized that his meltdowns were REAL for HIM, I got that not being UNDERSTOOD was part of what was freaking him out! It helps us to say "I hear you. I know that this is hard for you, I'm doing the best I can to make it happen quickly."

Preemptively, making sure he knows what's coming... countdowns to transitions, predictable routines etc., and not telling him a plan until it's pretty well set in stone... but it sounds like you already know those.

I'm not suggesting your son has the same issues as mine, but I HAVE found it helpful to realize that what he's feeling is REAL for HIM, and even though it doesn't make sense to ME, it isn't helpful to insist that he change how he FEELS in a situation... rather teach him how to work with those feelings in the world.

Laurie A gives some excellent advice!

I'm going through somewhat the same situation you are with your son, my guy is 3 and has decided the past couple of weeks that life has to go his way and if it doesn't it's the end of the world. I can't understand him when he's whining and crying and tell him so. He goes to his room if he needs to cry, I've carried him on one occasion. We left an event and he was horrified, I told him it was because he was throwing a fit, he wanted to go back and i told him we were done. I tell him to use his words when he's upset, I know he has an outstanding vocabulary and knows how to use it, I hear him doing so all the time. I explain everything to him so he knows what's going on and what's expected out of him.

Basically I am showing him his crying and whining behavior is unacceptable and I'm not rewarding bad behavior in any way, I don't want to reinforce it. As an example, this evening after dinner he wanted a cookie, he'd been told to leave the dog alone and was reminded that if he wanted a cookie he needed to leave her alone (he likes to pick her up and carry her and she doesn't like it and tries to nip him.) He put her down and before I could wash his hands he started opening and closing the patio door. My sister asked him nicely to "please stop touching the door" and he looked at her then took his pointer finger and pointedly touched the door with the tip of his finger, a big grin on his face. So I asked him to sit down, he said he wanted a cookie, and I told him he needed to sit a couple of minutes because he still touched the door, and would then get a cookie, and the crying started. I asked him to stop crying, he got demanding so I walked him to his room where he cried a few minutes. We talked afterwards about what happened, and he didn't get a cookie.

It's hard to be consistent but if you show your son his behavior isn't going to get him his way, and teach him to talk his feelings out instead of crying he'll be learning a valuable lesson, because life is never going to always go his way.

And, yes, if my stubbornisto behaves in the morning he gets a cookie after lunch ; )

It sounds like you're dealing with several different types of situations. Our response to our daughter depends on the situation. If she's crying because she doesn't like the answer to something, isn't going to get something she wants, etc. we tell her "it's ok to be sad/disappointed. if you want to cry, you may go cry in your room. you can come back out when you're ready." she'll go cry her heart out for a minute or two, and then walk out and let us know "i'm ready to come out."

If she's throwing a tantrum at home, she also gets sent to her room (go sit on your bed until you're ready to show your good manners"). If we're out of the house, she gets to sit in the car (with mommy outside) until she's done...and we go home afterward.

In your case with grandma's house, do you give him a "countdown" (we're leaving in 20 minutes/10 minutes/5 minutes...go get your shoes on)? If that doesn't work, I would probably just carry my daughter out to the car and tell her we won't go back until she can leave without throwing a tantrum.

For situations where something planned doesn't work out, we generally do an acknowledgement of the disappointment "oh, i'm so sad we can't do XYZ. I really wanted to do that too!" and redirect "but now we have time to do ABC!" Sometimes, she'll say, "no, I don't want to do ABC" and we either say "ok, well, i'm sad you won't be doing ABC with me, but you're welcome to join us when you're ready" or just let her pick an alternative activity.

Good suggestions from everyone here, I would just like to emphasizethei portance of empathy and compassion in the situation as well. For example, I know it's sad when we have to leave because you have such a good time and you will miss them so much, Oh I know I know its ok. I understand. Make sure that he knows you are not rejecting how he feels, just the behavior that he needs to control. Validate the feelings always, sometimes that's all they want.

i think there's a big difference between a meltdown because he isn't getting his way (aka a tantrum which at 5 is a little over the top) and being upset easily.

it's quite okay to be upset about something and to express that unhappiness. but when it turns into a tantrum then it's time for discipline. i agree with going to his room until he can calm down. i agree with "i can't understand anything you're saying until you use your big boy voice and calm down." (if acting that way gains him nothing, and only speaking in a calm and big-boy way gets him what he wants, guess which he'll do) and i agree with all of the questions and discussing his feelings. that's really all you can do. but when it crosses the line from hurt feelings and being unhappy, into tantrum mode - i feel he is too old for tantrums. he needs to go to time out or to his room until he can act like a big boy. and i agree with everything laurie said as well. leave the cart of groceries. walk out of the family function. it's not okay. he has a right to feel how he feels. and everyone else has a right not to be tortured by it. teach him to hit a pillow if that helps.

mine hasn't had a tantrum like you describe for a very very long time. he was probably 3 or 4 last time. and then i sent him to his room to cool off. i don't deserve that treatment.

lately, with a dead fish on our hands, watching mom pass out from heat exhaustion...these things i believe it's fully understandable, even appropriate to be super upset about. in that case, lots of hugs, "i'm sorry's" and empathy. some things it's okay to be upset about. tantrums because we're not getting our way - no.

What I have done in the past is tell them, calmly, to go to the naughty chair (when we had one) or a corner until they are over their fit. My daughter got to the point that even if she got hurt she would go to the naughty chair until the pain went away. Once they were done we would go over what caused the melt down and I would explain to them how I expect them to handle the situation. Like if they couldn't find their other shoe and threw a fit, I would have them practice looking for it and them come to me for help. When they did, they had to talk to me with no attitude. I would have them do that several times to develope new habits. I would explain to them why throwing a fit is bad. My son used to be REALLY bad at getting mad and fighting with me everytime we came in from outside and he was still playing with his friends or telling him it was time to leave grandma's house. So what I did was play pretend!! I pretended we were at grandma's house and when I said the words "It's time to go" he got up, told me yes, and pretended to tell grandma bye. I would do that on occasion and several times before we left the house for grandmothers house. I would also do that several times before we went out side. Also, while we were outside playing (as long as it wasn't when his friends were around) I would tell him its time to go in, and he would go through the drill of putting up his bike and walking in the house with no bad attitude. After so long I would do it again.
It's all about developing new habits for those situations.
Also, something to really look for is what could be setting him off. Like how your handling him at the first wimper of not wanting to leave.
If you get frustrated with him, he picks up on that much more than you can imagine. And then when it's time for you guys to leave, he's ready for the fight and starts in.
Good luck