The child says, “I want candy!? As parents, you think this is not the right time for candy. But you also know that denial will have an inevitable consequence: a tantrum. But wait a minute! How can you stop it? the tantrums?
You say you don’t have a ball once in a while and then you see all the symptoms appear?The boy starts crying and screaming, relentlessly repeating that he wants a bullet. You’re trying to talk. First of all, take it easy. But so you’re getting more and more nervous and you end up screaming too?What can we do to keep the situation out of our control?Read on and find out!
“Rebellious behavior resembles a short-lived winter blizzard. -Samos-
When we’re kids, we don’t know how to express our ideas correctly, no one stopped to tell us that, or if they did, we still don’t have the ability to control it enough to put it into practice. Therefore, between one year and one year. five years, it is common for tantrums to occur in response to imposed rules that do not conform to our desires. They usually peak at age 2 or 3, when they are most common.
If it is a behavior of disobedience typical of the evolutionary stage of children, this does not mean that measures cannot be put in place to reduce the frequency of the stage, in fact, if nothing is done to stop them, tantrums can lead to others. , more serious driving problems such as early age, such as provocative opposition disorder or antisocial personality disorder.
To prevent children from using aggression as a ability to resolve conflicts and achieve what they want, it’s important for parents to understand one important thing: the crying that appears when they have a tantrum doesn’t appear because they suffer a lot, but because it’s the only tools they have to achieve their goals.
“Misaligned behavior sharpens intelligence and distorts Bonald-Louis de Bonald-
Because anger is behavior exhibited by the child, a fundamental element in being able to eliminate it is to reinforce other appropriate behaviors or attitudes, in this reasoning telling the child that we like it when he or she is calm or when he asks us things without shouting will encourage him to do so more often. The fact is that attention is the basis of maintenance and increased duct frequency.
Therefore, it is necessary to not pay attention when the tantrum occurs and to return attention when the child is exhibiting behaviors that we consider appropriate. This withdrawal corresponds to the extinction that we will explain step by step below, but before putting it into practice. It is good to have very clear ideas, first of all, it is very important to apply this method systematically and stay in our place, even if the tantrum increases in intensity at first.
Well, this is what happens when the child realizes that he is starting to be ignored in these situations: he will have even more anger and intensity, to see if that is how he gets the attention he has lost. The intensity of the tantrum is increasing, we can do two things: be careful or ignore it, if we pay attention to it, reinforce the behavior of the child, we will say: to get what you want, just shout more. we certainly don’t want that.
The second scenario requires all our patience because, after all, we have to be systematic with our attention, the goal is for the child to stop only in anger because he understands that he will achieve nothing, in this case the message she receives is this: you can shout all you want, you will not get any of that, this message will remain in your memory and mark this behavior as a failure , so the next time you want something, it’s unlikely that I’ll choose the path of anger.
Finally, it is important to realize that the longer the child practices this behavior, the harder it will be to turn it off. The way for our child to stop behaving like this is difficult, but if we do not start at some point, the consequences in the medium and long term will be worse.
“They are the ones with whom we live and love those who know how to deceive us. “-Norman Maclean-
Knowing everything that has been explained so far, it is also important to know that self-control is necessary when applying extinction to eliminate tantrums. Another tool that we can acquire that can help us in this aspect is relaxation.
So how to correctly apply extinction? Let’s see how to proceed step by step.
The truth is that when the tantrum occurs it is very difficult to ignore the yelling, kicking or cursing, but being able to do so is essential for these behaviors to disappear, that is why it is very important to be patient and act intelligently. Let’s end the tantrums!
Images courtesy of Vance Osterhout, Hunter Johnson and Eddie Kopp.