to ask what your children's worst toddler trantrums were, and how you dealt with it?

[ollieplimsoles]

DD is our pfb, she's nearly 15 months and has always been quite a loud, demanded and spirited little blighter.

Lately she has started throwing herself on the floor when her toys wont do what she wants, snatching, screaming and pointing at things and generally being very short tempered.

I think we are on the way to some tantrums but I have no idea of the best way to handle things, I have anxiety and would probably get very flustered in public. I watch the mums of the older kids at play groups deal with their kids to get some ideas, but I really want to know if anyone can remember a particularly bad tantrum, and how they dealt with it?

Id say the only thing you shouldn't do is give in to the tantrum ie tantrums because you cant have chocolate/new toy/magazine by all means distract and sympathise but don't go back on your first decision.

The only thing not to do is give in.

That said my DD had a (now rare) Epic Tantrum the other day, and I might have given in if I had had a fucking clue what she wanted. Generally so long as I avoid over-hunger and over-tiredness she just has small strops (she's 2.6, more or less non-verbal) these days but if she does have a proper tantrum, all I can do is remove anything dangerous and sit at a distance to wait for it to blow over. Any attempt at intervention just fuels the fire.

I normally try to get on my son's level, and first talk to him, labelling his feelings. Then I either fix the issue if I can, or I leave him alone after telling him I'm there for a cuddle when he needs one. He generally gets more frustrated if I talk to him too much, which is why I leave him alone ( but always reassure him first).

We had a pretty bad one this morning, lasted about half an hour!

I read somewhere, that when your child have a tantrum or melt down, it's your job to bring calm, not join them in their chaos.

Avoid tantrum triggers if DD is tired, these include those stupid ride on things in shopping centres and chocolate or sweet aisles in shops. If she is in a perfectly good mood then I can easily explain why she can't have something or do something and she will maybe grumble a bit but accept it. If she is tired and grumpy then she will just cry and refuse to move and once we get to that point it's really hard to stop!

Dd used to have spectacular tantrums right up to the age of 10, involving kicking, biting and generally needing to be restrained. She does have an anxiety disorder though and a chronic pain disorder, so not likely that most parents will end up having to deal with similar.

When she was 2 I would still do what Humphrey said on p. 1: pick her up and remover her from the centre of attention and then just wait it out. Distraction never worked very well on dd: she was too distraught. What did help was distracting myself, by humming, or thinking very hard about something else or putting the kettle on (if at home).

purple that's so true about not joining them in their chaos. My dd is nearly 3 and this morning she had a tantrum because I put the babies coat on before hers (despite me asking her a million times to put her coat on before ds). Anyway, I've had hardly any sleep and we were running late and I got cross and threw the coat down on the floor in a huff. I then realised I was also on the verge of a tantrum! So I apologised to DD for throwing the coat and getting cross. Gave her a cuddle , wiped her tears away , left her alone while I sorted out the buggy and when I was totally ready to leave I said " we are going now do you want your coat on?" She said yes and off we went! I'd have saved myself a lot of time and stress if I'd acted calmer myself but it is so hard when you've had 3 hours sleep!

I watched my aunt deal with my 2.5yo cousin once and it's always stuck with me. He's her nephew, not her son - the aunt who is his mum was awful at dealing with him - if he tantrummed for chocolate or sweets, she'd just give it to him so he would have tantrums all the time.

Nephew threw huge tantrum in a souvenir shop filled with breakables whilst we were all on holiday together because he wanted all the toys in the shop. His mum just flapped ineffectually and started trying to work out which ones to buy him. Aunt scooped him up, strapped him tightly into his pushchair, turned the pushchair around so it was facing a completely blank wall, and walked off. As soon as nephew realised he had no audience, he stopped!

Carry under arm or over shoulder to place of safety. Put down, ignore. At home, carry upstairs into their bedroom, close the door, have a coffee.

Got out my phone and told her "I'm reading my book now, let me know when you're finished." And stood engrossed in my phone as she rolled around on the floor of the supermarket. As soon as she realised I was ignoring her and other people were laughing she got up and hid behind my legs.

There's a book called Toddler Taming that's excellent. Very sensible advice. The main one being"toddlers crave an audience".

So when they're being good, they want an audience. Fine. But when they're stroppy, they want an audience too. Remove their audience, or ignore their performance.

Also agree with not giving in (they REMEMBER and will be twice as strident the next time), not losing your temper yourself (cos then there are two people having tantrums in the room and no-one to calm either down).....and also start developing a repertoire of LIES!

You want that thing you can't have? Ooh sorry, that's broken/Mummy forgot her money/HotHotHOT! etc.

Ime it depends on the child and the situation.

Distraction is good....."can you see that squirrel in the tree (fake squirrel)"....."shall we go and get a biscuit/drink/raisens ".....a good tickle sometimes works too but it really depends on your child.

Our middle dc would throw 40-50 minute meltdowns at 2/3/4- (communication difficulties so it was difficult to manage).

Sometimes it's best to just pick up dc, walk away from the situation and into a quiet room/place for a few minutes. But you can't do that if you're waiting for the dr in a waiting room for example-sometimes you just have to sit it out.

As long as your dc is safe, not hurting anyone....sometimes you just have to let them let it out.

The trick is to pre-empt where there may be trouble coming but I'm not always successful with that. (One dc had a meltdown because he had just eaten his chocolate and he wanted to save it for later)

My DD would have spectacular tantrums. Luckily she was kid no 3 so I knew it wasn't due to parenting. She still can have a hissy fit age 6.

You've got to find what works for you. My DD didn't do distraction (worked for milder mannered brothers) and would hit/kick if I touched her. So I just leave her to it mainly. I would ask if she wanted a cuddle at regular intervals, and eventually she would, that seemed to always be the start of a rapid de escalation. When she was really little I'd pick her up and remove her from the situation, but at times where that wasn't possible e.g. In massive shop, I'd stand over her so she wasn't trodden on. And smile at the people looking- soon makes them stop! Just remember to keep breathing...count to 10 in your head. Things not to do: get cross yourself as it adds fuel, stay calm (on the outside at least) as it will show your DD you are not scared of her emotions. She may be scared herself. And try not to laugh (sometimes this is hard).

I think the best one was when I wouldn't let her sleep with a helium balloon in her bed (strangulation risk from the ribbon). That went on forever. I actually thought she was going to either make herself sick or the neighbours were going to call social services with the screaming, banging and thumping! Her brothers remember it well!

I think there are different types of tantrums though. There's 'performance' tantrums where they're trying to get something, be it sweets, attention, whatever, and removing an audience/distraction can help. Then there's honest-to-goodness pure utter heartbreak and rage tantrums, which the child (usually but not always younger children) simply cannot help because they've gone past the point of being able to control themselves. Nothing can be done for those except weathering the storm.

My son aged 3 had an epic tantrum because ... he wanted me to put his bum "on the front" as he decided it would be fun to poo standing up.
When I explained that wasn't possible he kicked off big time. I can't remember how I handled it because I was laughing too much.

I had a fun one that started on my way out the door to work one day, can't even remember what it was about. Moved onto using the naughty step as a reprimand (should have known this would be a disaster as it always was) one hour later it culminated with my DD purposely wetting herself and storming up the stairs. My mum called at this point and I started crying- pathetic.
We never used time out/ naughty step again, I went all hippy with 'time- in' which worked well for a while.

In a supermarket. A full on screaming, crying tears & snot meltdown because he wanted a babybel that (he was so busy crying about) was already in his hand.
just had to carry on doing the shopping ignoring the meltdown, the tuts from the older people or childless couples,
take comfort from the fellow mom's who were in there & give him a hug when it was over

The worst tantrum we ever had was in TK Maxx in Kew. I was there yesterday and as I walked in I shuddered at the remembrance of it even six years on. I posted about on here actually because it was so awful and one sensible poster said shop on line for everything, just for a bit till she grows out of it. That one piece of simple advice made life so much easier. I had kept thinking that they need to get used to it, we can't just not go shopping - well they didn't and could. Eveything on line for about two years and a MUCH easier life.

I have twins. I once took them for a dayout to a summer fayre thing, they were toddling on reins but it was in a big field thing so I could handle them there on my own.

When it came to go home they both kicked off FULL THROTTLE. Neither would walk, they just plonked themselves face down wailing. I had to pick one up under each arm and march across the field with them both screaming like piglets. It was horrendous.

DS was a nightmare about leaving places, still is tbh. No matter what tactic we tried he would kick off. If it was all going wrong DH and I just to say 'commando extraction', pick him up, throw him over one shoulder and leg it sometimes to shorten the pain!

he wanted me to put his bum "on the front" as he decided it would be fun to poo standing up.

This is amazing.. I'm simply at some of the reasons they come up with D:

I try not to give in to dd, at the moment her main reasons are wanting things she isn't allowed, like full cups of coffee, cleaning solution bottles, etc, she cries when I open and close the fridge too.

I try and pick my battles without 'giving in'

What's worse is when you're actually happy to give them what they want, and they strop anyway because it doesn't come immediately. I remember giving DD something in a supermarket and saying "you were always getting that, it's not because you've kicked off" (which was true) and some other woman trying and failing not to laugh at me

I might add that the above applies to small children with no concept of the future and very few words rather than impatient older children

Yes that drives me bonkers! The tantrums because she wants the toy which I was already passing to her. No amount of 'look! Here it is!' will work, because she's already got upset about not having it at that moment in the past.

She also tantrums about things not being already in her hand when she's asked for them. I don't mind the ones where I'm not giving her something, they're understandable, but the ones where she's crying because I'm giving her the thing she asked for? Pfft. Ridiculous.

Worst tantrum here was about 8 months ago (dd is 3 tomorrow). We were on a late flight to the uk, so she was really tired and just lost it. The final straw was having to get on a bus to get to the terminal upon arrival, and she was sat on my knee with people crammed in around us. Older ds was sat down with people in-between us so couldn't help me. DD screamed SO much that she threw up all over us both - I was completely stuck, covered in vomit and couldn't get to any wipes... Anyway, a hand came sneaking through the crowd of standing passengers to give me a pack of tissues, haven't a clue who is it was but am forever thankful. Until that point we had just been getting nasty glares from other people!
The tantrum continued - I carried a kicking and screaming dd up the stairs into the terminal, and at the first possible place I just put her down on the ground. She lay and screamed, probably for another few minutes. Ds and I stayed next to her, watching but pretending to just chat between ourselves. Dd calmed down, I gave her a cuddle and that was that.

Try not to let yourself get flustered - remember that you are doing the best job you can, but it is impossible to control another humans emotions. Anyone with any nouse will understand that, so just do in public as you would do at home. Stay calm, make sure your dd knows that you're next to her, but give her space to cry out those emotions. She should calm down at some point, then offer her a cuddle. There's nothing you can do with a proper full blown tantrum, you just have to see it through. By rushing it I find it only makes it worse. Ime tantrums are just a build up of frustrations, and they all combine together then erupt - try to stay on top of it by not allowing her to get too hungry, and by trying to make sure she doesn't get too tired. We went through a tough few weeks with dd before we realised how we could help, and since then she's had maybe 4 tantrums in the last year I would say.

Good luck, and don't worry too much!!

Worse tantrum, on a ferry. She was already horrible and tantrummy but I took her to the soft play - big mistake, she got stuck, she got angry, she wouldn't play nicely, she threw balls everywhere hitting the nicely behaved children. I grabbed her out and carried her back to the cabin whilst she screamed and kicked and people gave me dirty looks. Had to walk past so many people trying to enjoy their journey. I had terrible sea sickness and sat in the cabin and cried.