Question:
My six year old is always throwing tantrums. He comes home from school and melts onto the floor crying and screaming. His teachers are saying he is happy in school, how should I handle it?
Answer:
Some children feel intensely. Their range of emotions can be more extreme then other children. They can feel extremely happy or extremely sad and anywhere in between. What happens when you have a child that feels more deeply and has difficulty regulating his emotions? It can be difficult for parents to tolerate intense negative emotions. It’s so important to allow your children to feel. In order for your children to be emotionally healthy, they need to be able to express their negative emotions, even intense emotions. Parents need to increase their tolerance for emotions. Sometimes intense emotions can frighten you and you can become anxious. Sometimes watching a child tantrum can make you have a fight or flight response in which you loose control of your ability to think and you react impulsively. It’s important you take space from a tantruming child so that you don’t get angry at the child for feeling. When you respond to your children’s intense emotions with fear and anxiety they feel it and the child’s emotions will often escalate. They feel insecure because their pillar of strength is crumbling
before their eyes. They may get the message that emotions are bad and need to be shut down. For your children’s future emotional health they need to know that it’s ok to feel.
When a child tantrums you want to show the child empathy. That means you try to see things through the child’s perspective. In the example that you gave, where your son came home from school you might say, “you must me so tired and hungry, school was a long hard day, you’re so sad right now etc. “ You also want to validate the child’s emotions, you can say, “it’s ok to feel sad, it’s normal to be exhausted after a long day. “ After you give him empathy and validation you want to give him space to regulate his emotions on his own, and you want to take space for yourself. You let him cry it out and then when he calms down you now continue to give him empathy and validation and you help him assess his resources to help himself feel better and move to a better place emotionally. You can ask him, “what do you want to do to help yourself feel better. Can I serve you supper?” You’re giving him valuable tools, to be able to feel, to regulate his emotions on his own and then to do self care. Although unpleasant, tantrums are a normal learning experience for children.