Toddler temper tantrums can be frustrating and embarrassing for the parents if they happen in a public place. Tantrums can occur in all toddlers, even those who are well behaved. It can include simple whining, or it may include holding their breath, hitting and kicking, loud screams, and crying. Both girls and boys deal with them and they occur in toddlers between the ages of 1-3. There are some children that rarely have a tantrum, whereas others deal with them on a regular basis. Some kids are more likely to have tantrums than other children are.

Although they aren’t able to, toddlers want to master the world around them. Because they end up frustrated, toddler tantrums are often used as a method of venting the frustration they’re dealing with. There are quite a few things that commonly cause tantrums to occur. The child may be hungry, sick, tired, or they may just want attention. In many cases, toddlers become frustrated with the world and a tantrum often results. Frustration is going to occur in the lives of children as they learn more about how their body, objects, and other people happen to work.

During the second year of their lives, usually tantrums become quite common to toddlers. This is usually when kids are learning to speak. Often they understand a lot more than they are able to speak. As they are better able to communicate, usually the occurrence of tantrums goes down.

If there are objects that are off limits, keep them away from toddlers so struggles over them don’t occur. Work to keep your child distracted. They have a short attention span, so make use of this by starting a new activity or giving them another object instead of the one they want. It’s important to chose the battles you fight as well. When they want something, consider it. Is it something that is outrageous or not? If you can, be accommodating.

It’s also important that you make sure your toddler isn’t throwing a tantrum because they aren’t getting the attention they need from you. In the mind of a child, if they aren’t getting any attention, getting the negative attention is better than none at all.

To help reduce the frequency of toddler temper tantrums, it’s important to work to catch your toddler doing good things so you can reward them and praise them for their good behavior. Give them attention so they realize that good behavior makes you happy and they will continue to do this over and over to get positive attention.

Last night our toddler had a temper tantrum, these are hard for me to deal with because I get caught up in it and frustrated. Frustration soon leads to me getting upset then I really have to work on keeping my voice down and remaining calm. Did you know that yelling will only make the problem worse? I’ve tried it, bad technique, does nothing to stop the temper tantrum.

The most effective strategy to quell a toddler temper tantrum starts with you… be calm and take deep breaths… relax. Our main source of toddler discipline is the use of timeouts (here is more information on stopping toddler tantrums).

Toddler Timeouts for Temper Tantrums

We use a 1 minute timeout for each year of the toddler.  So a 3 year old gets 3 minutes. I think there are a couple of important things with timeouts. First, they have to be sitting somewhere where they cannot touch anything. This isn’t time for play, it’s time to allow the toddler to calm down.  Giving them something fun to do will only set yourself up for more tantrums. Why? Because you are rewarding the toddlers behavior.

Second, set a timer. Let the toddler know that when the timer goes off the timeout is over but they have to wait until you come and get them. MAKE SURE YOU DO… this is a crucial bonding moment for you. I always crouch down to eye level (very important!) and ask if they know why they are in time out. I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough. Your toddler need to know why they have been put into time out or you have just wasted your time and theirs.

Once you are sure they know why they had to sit alone for a time out HUG THEM and tell the that you love them. The main thing a toddler wants is love and you have to make sure they feel it! (here is more detailed information on how to use a toddler timeout)