8 Top Tips for Dealing With an Older Child's Tantrum

#1. Choose to stay calm.

Focus on your breathing. (You want your calm to be stronger than her anger. The strongest emotion will be the most contagious!)

#2. Don’t hook in to the behavior.

Be like Teflon not like Velcro. Show with your warm, soft eye contact and with your open body language that you are ‘there’ for your child – but refuse to be drawn in to the tantrum. Just let the outburst roll off, like Teflon! Your child’s tantrum is about her, your response is about you.

#3. When your child is overwrought, don’t try to reason.

Once the reactive part of your child’s brain (the ‘crocodile brain’) has been triggered the reasoning part of the brain is temporarily ‘offline’. So, explaining doesn’t work – the conflict is just likely to escalate. Rather, refuse to be drawn into discussion about the issue until your child has calmed down.

#4. Acknowledge your child’s emotion.

Keep calm and, try to see life through your child’s eyes. Without being drawn into trying to explain or justify, name her emotion. ‘You’re upset.’ ‘You’re angry.’

#5. Avoid threatening or punishing your child.

Your comments like, ‘You won’t go to the movies’ or ‘You’ll be grounded’ aren’t helpful. She’s already reactive. Threatening comments will just push her further into meltdown. Calmly sidestep the fight. As Brer Rabbit said, ‘You don’t have to jump into every briar patch you see.’

#6. Needs not Wants.

Give her what she needs (compassionate connection) not what she wants (the toy in the bottom of the shopping trolley!)

#7. Assure her you can talk about it once everyone has calmed down.

If your child shouts something like, ‘It’s not fair.’ or ‘You don’t love me.’ it’s tempting to try to explain yourself – to tell her that what she is saying isn’t true when she makesaccusatory comments. But her reasoning brain is ‘offline’ when she’s angry. Now is not the time to try to reason.

#8. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

If you’ve told your child that he can’t have the toy till your home, then calmly and firmly stick to what you said. Your child will test you to see if you mean what you say.

When you cave in even once, or state consequences your child knows you won’t follow through, you set yourself up for more of the same nagging, tears, shouting or other annoying behavior.

Try Not to Change the Child’s Behavior

Ideally, the child will naturally outgrow the tantrum stage at a younger age. Even if you have developed a habit of giving in to the child’s tantrum for the sake of peace, it’s always possible to develop healthier ways of interacting, no matter what age your child.What matters is not to try to change the child’s behavior.

Rather, if tantrums have become a habit, change your own behavior! Focus on how you can handle the situation differently. Focus on handling yourself differently. When you do differently, you’ll get a different outcome. Choose to remain the adult rather than become part of the problem.he time when situations become heated and tantrums threaten to overwhelm is when you most want to be calm, compassionate and firm.