Tantrums is how children communicate when they cannot express themselves with words. Temper tantrums can be frustrating for any parent. Looking at the other side, parents can treat tantrums as opportunities for education. This is a great time to teach better communication and knowledge of their emotions. The only reason that tantrums happen is when they are not able to express themselves properly. That's why communication skills are very important for children too. When children understands their feelings well, they will be able to express it well too. They will have better communication when they can understand themselves more.
Dr. Mary Barbera wrote an article about strategies on how to increase talking to decrease tantrums. The first one is 8 positives to Every Negative. Parents and teachers often focuses on children's mistakes and the negative things. According to Dr. Mary Barbera, spinning that around and look for the positives not just the negative things, can help them decrease tantrums and also learn how to communicate. Another way that she proposed is to stop giving attention to the child when they are having tantrums. The first priority is safety, but if the child is safe and he/she is still making tantrums, all attention must stop. This means no yelling, talking, counting, or labeling the behavior. This can make the child stop too. In this way the child can learn to understand that their behavior is wrong.
Children must know how to communicate their feelings so they won't throw any tantrums. But in order to have good communication skills, one must first understand what they are feeling. When they know very well their emotions, it will be easier for them to tell what they truly feel. And when that happens, they won't be throwing any tantrums anymore.
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