Temper Tantrums

[taylorellen]

My daughter is now 2.5 years old. Shes been having tantrums since she was about 1. I always said it was the terrible 2's come early! Over the last week she seems to be constantly having a tantrum and we arent quite sure what to do now. My son never had tantrums like these. Little girls seem to be a totally different ball game. I feel that all ive done all week is tell her to calm down. im trying not to lose my temper but its really hard. Any advice would be very welcome. :)

They have just started here too so looking for ideas. I think maybe explaining (lots of times) what we are doing and when helps, ie, give lots of notice when leaving the park. But really I have no clue what's best whether to ignore or reason with them. I'm off to look out my margot sunderland book so may be back later with ideas.

I've posted before but not much joy tbh so I'll watch with interest

its a difficult one, shes just screamed the house down for about 5 minutes. We've ignored her and she seems to have settled but its so upsetting not understanding why shes doing it in the first place. She has a very powerful set of lungs....ha! Im going to try and just ignore it all week and see what happens. Very hard though :(

So hard, I sympathise!! We have this every day with DS who's 2.5 over one thing or another.

Have you tried teaching her about emotions when she's calm. Maybe reading stories and talking about characters' emotions? Also, with DS, if his siblings are being cross then I say 'X is cross' And then when he's cross I'll say 'you're cross' and then when he calms down 'you're calm now'. Sounds obvious I guess but he does often make comments now about 'X cross' when people are cross so maybe it's working.

Also, I ignore temper tantrums (where I can) for a short time and deliberately show that I'm ignoring them by doing something else in his view. Then I often go over, pick him up, but don't make eye contact. Then I try to distract him out of it.

Another thing, does she know how to calm down? Otherwise, telling her to calm down might not work. Maybe be specific, say 'blow' to get her to breathe deeply. And practise this when she's calm ?

It's very difficult isn't it?

I'm not so sure it's a boy/girl thing though. DS1 never had a tantrum but DS2 sounds just like your DD. He had the most terrible tantrums and would actually cry so much he made himself sick.

It passed though and he has been a delight ever since. He is 17 now!

gosh I had the most terrible time with my dd when she went through that stage and literally NOTHING worked. I used to ignore, reward good behaviour etc etc but none of it did any good. If I ignored her she used to go on for hours. She drove me to the very edge and I felt like such a terrible mother. She was my third child and my other two had never had tantrums like she did. Anyway I don't really have any good advice except to tell you that she will grow out of it. My dd is 6 now and an absolute dream. Her tantrums are a distant memory, thank goodness. She's very bright, funny and extremely loveable. She still knows her own mind though and will never be a push over!