Victoria Rogers MD McEvoy - Taming Your Childs Temper Tantrums

Taming Your Childs Temper Tantrums

Dr. Victoria Rogers McEvoy and Karen Weintraub

Copyright

Taming Your Childs Temper Tantrums

Copyright 2012 by Harvard University

Cover art to the electronic edition copyright 2012 by RosettaBooks, LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Authors note:

The case examples in this book are drawn from media accounts or are composite examples based upon behaviors encountered in the authors own professional experiences. None of the individuals described were patients or clients. The names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

This publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Electronic edition published 2012 by RosettaBooks, LLC, New York.

Cover jacket design by Carly Schnur

ISBN ePub edition: 9780795332883

Contents

This e-book was written by two moms, one a pediatrician, and the other a journalist. Together, we have six children, and have spent decades observing others on the playground, in the grocery store and at doctors offices. The specific stories told here have been changed to protect privacy, and we often refer to I, though sometimes it is one of us and sometimes the other. We alternate between referring to a child as he and as she, but everything we say pertains to both genders.

In writing an e-book, our goal was to give you the information you need as quickly as possible. Weve organized the book so that the first chapters explain tantrums (and that nearly every child has them) and offer strategies for surviving them in the moment. The middle chapters take the long view, offering strategies for understanding tantrums and heading them off before they can get started. The last two chapters offer advice for dealing with truly intractable tantrums, and the consequences of letting children reach adulthood without learning the lessons that tantrums can teach.

No book can address all the specific needs you may face at home, but we hope this will offer some strategies that will give you confidence, insights and the knowledge that you are not alone.

Dr. Victoria Rogers McEvoy is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Pediatrician on the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital. She is the Medical Director and Chief of Pediatrics of Mass General West Medical Group. Her column The Exam Room appeared in The Boston Globe for several years, she wrote a blog in the Health section of Gather.com, and her book, The 24/7 Baby Doctor: A Harvard Pediatrician Answers All Your Questions from Birth to One Year, was published in 2010.

Karen Weintraub is a longtime medical journalist who was on staff at The Boston Globe and has also written for USA Today, the BBC and other outlets. She has written two other Harvard Health Publications books: The Autism Revolution, with Dr. Martha Herbert, was published by Ballantine Books in 2012, and Fast Minds, about adult ADHD, with Drs. Craig Surman and Timothy Bilkey, by Berkley Books in 2013.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and my husband and I (this is Dr. McEvoy speaking) realized that we had neglected to expose our three young children, ages two, four and six to any culture. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a somewhat formal Boston institution, seemed like a good optionprobably because we were still too sleep-deprived to think clearly. Several hours later amidst the aging Oriental tapestries and lush Rubens paintings, my two-year-old was pounding on the floor, screaming, crying and kicking. Unsure how to abort this embarrassing event, we decided to proceed into the next room, nose in air, wondering who in their right mind would bring a 2-year-old to this museum. He quickly followed us.

No doubt, if you have children and have passed the one-year watershed, you know what a tantrum is. No Wikipedia search is needed for a definition.

For three decades as a practicing pediatrician I have been warning parents that the cute, gurgling baby who is starting to toddle around the living room will soon begin to have opinions. Since words are few, these opinions will often resemble thunder storms or, on occasion, full-blown hurricanes. All this is well within the range of normal. Research shows that tantrums are a nearly universal experience. If an older child doesnt throw them, a younger child usually will.

Oppositional behavior often starts sometimes during the second year of life and blossoms with the terrible twos. In my practice, I try to reassure parents that these tantrums are developmentally appropriate, and that if the child does not have them during the twos, he or she may have them at three or later when they are more challenging to manage. Research suggests that two-thirds of children start having tantrums when they are two or three, andmercifullywell over half are done by age five.

Most tantrums in young children do not last very long although they may seem to at the time. About 75 percent of tantrums last five minutes or less. If the child stamps or drops to the floor in the first 30 seconds, the tantrum is likely to be shorter, researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found.

Pop quiz and important lessons

Tantrums may be a normal part of your childs development, but they are also a major test of your parenting and can be terrifying to watch. Give in to a toddlers every whim and youll end up with a child whos hard to live with. Turning a cold shoulder to a terrified child sends an equally bad message. In a few cases, which Ill describe later, chronic or violent tantrums can be a sign of larger problems.

Unlike a test in school, tantrums arent a one-off quiz. If your child is tantrum-prone, you are likely to be tested repeatedly, particularly if you mishandle the first few explosions. It can get harder to stop tantruming behavior the longer it goes on. But it is almost always possible to stop tantrums with a concerted, constructive approach.

Helping your child learn how to get what she needs without pitching a fit is an important life skill. Children who learn that they have to scream to get their way, or who never develop self-control over their emotions will make lousy adults.

Setting goals

We all know children who insist on getting what they want, and whose parents seem to follow them around for the sole purpose of meeting the kings or queens demands. My familys favorite example is the fictional (and over-the-top) character Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Whenever one child starts acting like a spoiled brat, one of ussiblings includedmimics Verucas British accent. That usually causes enough laughter that whatever was being demanded is forgotten.

Parents worry that if they give in to their childrens demands too much, they will have a Veruca on their hands. Certainly, letting the child run the household and buying her whatever she wants could create such a difficult child.

On the other hand, parents who harshly discipline their child are also more likely to create problems. Research suggests that three to six year olds whose parents use extreme discipline are more prone to intensely disruptive behaviors than other children.

Decades of parenting research shows that the most effective style of discipline for children is a middle ground between these two extremes: authoritative parenting, or child-centered approach, where parents set guidelines and respond to a childs needs. This is likely the best approach for dealing with temper tantrums, as well, and forms the basis for many of the suggestions in this book.