Uncontrollable tantrums

[Froggie37]

My 3 year old son has started having uncontrollable tantrums. There is no trigger and it escalates very quickly. He gets so worked up that you cannot communicate with him as he goes beyond all reasoning. He has also started to hit me in these moments. One minute we can be playing a nice game or reading and he will realise he is having too much fun so starts something. Usually begins with "I want to do this now". So we change but he wants to return to what we were doing and so it progresses until he is screaming, crying and hitting. It is like a Jerkyll and Hyde character.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how did you cope and discipline such behaviour? There is no reasoining with him as he is so worked up he wont listen. He justs keeps repeating whatever he wants. Lasted for 2 full hours yesterday until he fell asleep from exhaustion.

I am at my wits end and don't know what to do anymore. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like my DS1, who has just turned 3. Unlike your DS though, my DS tantrums when hungry and / or tired.

Similarly, he cannot be reasoned with at all and doesn't listen whatsoever. I might as well be talking gibberish.

Not sure if right or not, but I just ignore him. I found that if I do interact with / cajole / bribe / tell off, that just totally makes his tantrum worse. So I just carry on with what I'm doing (a lot easier at home I know!) and if we are out, I have to physically remove him / put him in car seat. I find that after a while, he does calm down by himself. But it can take time.

Thankfully, the tantrums do seem to start to be less frequent. I think a lot with DS is he is a late speaker and he gets frustrated.

I think a tantrum like this is a bit like colic, not much you can do about it to be honest. Ignore ignore ignore is my strategy. He still tantrums though!

Thanks for the advice. I have gone down the route of ignoring but he throws himself at me and clings on or starts hitting. Had some really horrible situations out in the supermarket where everyone seems to have a comment to make! I can only hope that it is another phase that will stop soon.

We have just moved house and nursery so it maybe linked to that but he only does it with us and no one else.