why do tantrums seem so much more common today?

[juliano]

i was reading through a few parenting discussions recently and one thing kept coming up over and over again: tantrums.
it seems like almost every parent has a story about a meltdown that came out of nowhere, whether at home, in a store, or right before bedtime.
what i'm curious about is whether tantrums are actually becoming more common, or if parents today are simply more aware of them and talk about them more openly than previous generations did.
for those who have children who go through tantrums regularly, what do you think is the biggest reason behind them? fatigue, frustration, screens, personality, something else, or a combination of everything?

I think the internet probably plays a big part in how much we hear about them now

Good question. I was thinking of the classic screaming, crying, throwing themselves on the floor type of tantrum

Yes the terrible twos, the troublesome threes and the effing fours!
I don't remember mine being particularly bad but that could just be the passage of time, as said upthread

thanks for your feedback lol

My SD hitting and shouting at me would soon stop my tantrum. I do not recommend this! I still suffer from the consequences.

My younger brother was a notorious screamer in the early 80s. I can remember suggesting we just left him on the beach at Stonehaven after a particularly trying car journey.

He's a very boring/ nice adult who works in finance and has his own very difficult child now.

Mine didn’t really have many tantrums. I tried the approach where you cuddle them and sooth them when it starts, and they would just pass really quickly and eventually stopped completely. I appreciate that I was lucky and it doesn’t work with all children.

As children it just wouldn't have been tolerated if we had had tantrums. My kids never had they either. I honestly don't remember it happening once.

Kids used to get smacked years ago.
I remember trying to quieten my sister down when she started having a tantrum because if my parents heard, we’d either get smacked or pulled in from playing outside and put to bed early.

I will get ripped apart for this but, personally, I think its an english people thing. I'm not from the UK. My husband is but second generation. We have very different cultures but some overarching moral apply. Such as (shock horror) a parent is a parent and a child is a child. We have two sons, one has adhd. Neither of them have what we call in our house 'english tantrums'. My husband said it brilliantly the other day: 'if i tell you to be quite/go to bed/brush your teeth/do yourhomework/ then you do it. Because I told you too. I dont care how you 'self identify, or if you're tired, or lactose intolerant, or if covid happened during your for formative years'. Do as I say. Many a times I've questioned this(as I said, culturally we are very different) but I'm raising two boysininner london and neither of them have ever let me down.

This is how I was brought up. I don't actually think it's a bad approach either/

They have always been spoken about, but parents didn’t use to give into them. Whereas now a child tantrums in a supermarket and they get bought the toy they are screaming they want.

How superior of you.

Tantrums are something specific to children between 18 months - 3 years old. You are describing something you can explain to a much older child, in which case it's simply called being naughty.

Your reference to lactose intolerance is simply fucking stupid. My child has a dairy protein allergy. The first sign that he has accidentally had some dairy is a stomach ache which, at 18 months, will absolutely cause him to act out.

I'm also not originally from the UK. Tantrums are very much a thing where I'm from too. It's pretty universal. Whether or not your toddler is prone to more or less tantrums will depend on their temperament, not just your parenting.

My DC, mid 40s now, had EPIC tantrums. They were both extraordinarily strong willed toddlers and children but evolved into model teenagers and amazing adults.

Yep, me too. I was quite a highly strung child but my mother would have absolutely no truck with tantrums, so any I had were very short lived and I grew up doing as I was told. No negotiations in our house until I reached my mid-teens.

She did on the poor door

and at school too sadly. Can’t say the finest parenting went on.

This is such bullshit. Are you saying all parents are now bad and all parents used to be better?

DD is 17 and I know she had them but I can’t remember that much about them now, I can mostly remember it involved not wanting to get in the pram. I think time makes you forget.
i know I had them as my parents would just leave me on the shop floor until I stopped apparently.

I also think children in the past at those ages didn’t go so many places so less chance for being overwhelmed/tired.

Tantrums are typically behaviour in very young children and toddlers whose comprehension is just not on par with that comment.
If your children are old enough to understand and listen to your husband’s statement then it would be developmentally abnormal for a tantrum.

Kids have always had tantrums. It just never used to be a big deal or something that the parent was judged for.

I remember my mum dragging me out of Tesco uunder her arm because I wanted a Furby.

I vividly remember her telling my Gran about it and my Gran saying, ‘you were the same’

defo not a new invention !

toddlers have been dicks throughout history.

My husband said it brilliantly the other day: 'if i tell you to be quite/go to bed/brush your teeth/do yourhomework/ then you do it. Because I told you too. I dont care how you 'self identify, or if you're tired, or lactose intolerant, or if covid happened during your for formative years'.

Who was he "brilliantly" saying this to?

I do think some children are not prone to tantrums. My eldest didn’t have many at all. Then his younger siblings came along and destroyed any hypothesis I had that it was down to superior parenting! He’s still a fairly laid back teenager and his siblings are still stroppy.

I put the stroppiness / tantrums down to my husband’s foreign genes not my English ones 😉

ah, they're called meltdowns now

My mum says this! I was her eldest and was a very placid well behaved child, never had tantrums, slept really well, easy to wean and potty train. Then my brother was a total monster!

Then her theory for the next 30 years was that girls are just easier until the monster brother had kids and his daughter is exactly like him as a child.