Give me your best tips for tantrums

[RoseOudd]

My daughter is 3 and although she's generally well behaved has recently started to get very frustrated and has had more than a few tantrums lately.

Anything I say or do that she doesn't like (e.g. telling her it's time to get ready for bed/get dressed/there's no time for stories..) she cries and tells me "you're not being kind" or "you're making me sad now" or "I'm telling my teachers". I'm not sure why but this is really triggering for me and after a couple of attempts at calming her down I end up walking away as I feel so annoyed.

I'm a single mum so once we're both frustrated there's no one else to calm down the situation/take over and I feel like the atmosphere ends up ruining the whole day. I would love nothing more than to be a fun mum but I feel like at the moment I'm not able to be as everything's such a battle.

Every weekend we do fun activities but they just end up not being fun. Offering a cuddle, making whatever we're doing into a game, taking deep breaths, sitting quietly and waiting for it to pass - NOTHING WORKS!

I've shouted on a few occasions now which isn't ideal and doesn't work either, I'm absolutely at the end of my tether and am really not enjoying parenting at the moment.

Please help!

I find I'm generally the last man standing after a few (ten) verses of Hark the Herald Angels sung loudly and lustily. There is an indignant crescendo at first, then a stupified silence after a while, and a desire to change the cassette. In a strange way, it's reacting without reacting.

Acknowledge child's feelings and help them understand their feelings themselves. Kids go into tantrum mode because they simply cannot control their intense emotions (as do we!). I used to say things like "I can see you're really upset because ....... but why don't we try (nice calm activity) to see if it helps?" Etc.

When my daughter was 2, there was a show on telly called Esme & Roy and whenever the little monster baby had a tantrum the girl sung a particular soothing song to help bring calmness. This kind of became a calming association and so I used it with DD. Sometimes worked sometimes didn't.

Sometimes you just need to give time out for both of you. Put them in a safe environment and let them take some deep breaths.

Getting cross at them for being angry or upset just makes everything worse. You can't be cross at a child for experiencing a valid human emotion.

@RoseOudd I have no advice as I'm still a novice at tantrums with 2yo ds. But just wanted to say my next door neighbour threw the most horrific tantrums that we could hear through the walls when she was three often lasting up to 5 hours! Nothing her parents did seemed to help.

We barely heard her as a baby and we've nor heard any at all since she turned four. I think it was just an horrific phase.