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Green, J.A., Whitney, P.G., & Potegal, M. (2011). Screaming, yelling, whining, and crying: Categorical and intensity differences in vocal expressions of anger and sadness in children’s tantrums. Emotion 11(5), 1124-1133. DOI: 10.1037/a0024173
Levine, L.J. (1995). Young children’s understanding of the causes of anger and sadness. Child Development 66(2), 697-709.
LeVine, R., & LeVine, S. (2016). Do parents matter? Why Japanese babies sleep soundly, Mexican siblings don’t fight, and American families should just relax. New York: Public Affairs.
Lieberman, M.D., Eisenberger, N.E., Crockett, M.J., Tom, S.M., Pfeifer, J.H., & Way, B.M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science 18(5), 421-428.
Parens, H. (1987). Aggression in our children: Coping with it constructively. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Potegal, M., & Davidson, R.J. (1997). Young children’s post tantrum affiliation with their parents. Aggressive Behavior 23, 329-341.
Potegal, M., & Davidson, R.J. (2003). Temper tantrums in young children: 1. Behavioral composition. Development and Behavioral Pediatrics 24(3), 140-147.
Potegal, M., Kosorok, M.R., & Davidson, R.J. (2003). Temper tantrums in young children: 1. Tantrum duration and temporal organization. Development and Behavioral Pediatrics 24(3), 148-154.
Transcripts
Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today's episode is the second in a two-part series on tantrums. When I started these episodes a few weeks ago, I mentioned that it was a bit of an altruistic topic for me to write about because we haven't suffered from tantrums too much in our house. Well, it turns out that I spoke too soon. We're in the full swing of regular tantrums at our house these days, probably one every other day or so for the last couple of weeks. So let's bring on the research. The first of these two episodes ran a few weeks ago and talked about the study done in nineteen thirty-nine that really forms the backbone for all of the research on tantrums that's been done since then. And I was actually quite surprised to see that actually not a ton of research has been done since. So that first study really remains the gold standard in terms of the basis of our understanding of tantrums. This episode builds on that study and considers the more recent literature that can help us to understand what's going on in a tantrum, as well as methods we might try to avoid tantrums in the first place and also get through them once they start. Much of the more recent work to understand tantrums has been done by Michael Portigal at the University of Minnesota. He published a two-part series of articles a while back now in two thousand three, which aimed to understand what kinds of behaviors occur in tantrums and for how long they tend to last in children. The first paper was on the behaviors in tantrums, which were gathered via a phone and follow-up mailed survey of one thousand two hundred nineteen families in Madison, Wisconsin. And I should note here that if you're a white middle-class parent of a toddler and want to understand more about your child's tantrums, then great, you're in the right place. Michael Portigal found his families by getting in touch with parents who announced their child's birth in the local newspaper who were largely white, college-educated and middle-class people in and around Madison, Wisconsin. So if you're not a white middle-class parent, then it's definitely possible that your child's tantrums might be different from the behavior I'm going to describe here. But unfortunately, there seems to be literally no data on tantrums in other modern cultures within or outside of the U.S. The first thing to get clear on is, what is a tantrum? It actually turns out to be quite difficult to define. The parents who were surveyed reported everything from a brief isolated incident of negative behavior to full-blown kicking, screaming and falling down. And the parents described a continuum of intensity and complexity. And the researchers found that while it's clear what a tantrum is, it's hard to define what it isn't, which is to say that while parents don't like to call an episode of less than 30 seconds in duration a tantrum, the researchers found in a subsequent study that the same behaviors that are seen in a tantrum are found in little mini tantrum events that only last for 10 to 20 seconds. So they ended up defining a tantrum as a negative emotional episode containing at least one of a set of behaviors, no matter how long the episode lasted.
Jen Lumanlan:And so those behaviors included in the set were a stiffening of the limbs and arching of the back, dropping to the floor, shouting, screaming, crying, pushing or pulling, stamping, hitting, kicking, throwing and running away. And the tantrum officially begins when the first of these behaviors is noticed and ends when the last of them is stopped. All right, on to the results. 87% of children between 18 and 24 months experienced tantrums, and this number rose to 91% between 30 to 36 months before dropping to 59% between 42 to 48 months, which mirrors the results found in a different study as well. So parents of the almost threes, you guys are in it right now, as Natalie Portman's character said in the movie Garden State. Give it another year and there's a better than even chance you'll still be in it, but hopefully the prevalence of tantrums continues to decline after that. The researchers found that several different types of behaviors were correlated, meaning they often occurred together in tantrums. So screaming, kicking, stiffening and hitting tended to be grouped in what the researchers called a high anger tantrum, while whining, crying and attempting to get comfort, perhaps by hanging off your leg, were part of a different group of behaviors called distress. Finally, stamping, shouting and throwing were identified as low and intermediate anger group. I actually found this categorization really helpful to understand what my daughter might be feeling when she's experiencing a tantrum based on the behavior that she shows. The second paper in the series looked at the duration of tantrums. You may find it encouraging to know that tantrums are mostly actually quite short, although I'm sure they don't feel that way when you're in the middle of one. I know they don't at our house. The median length was three minutes, so half of tantrums were less than that long and the other half were more, with the majority being less than about six minutes in duration and the remainder were one or two tantrums with a variety of durations up to 39 minutes. But yeah, 39 minutes. The duration didn't seem to be affected by the child's mood before the tantrum or the issue that triggered the tantrum. Intensity was linked to duration and if the child stamped or dropped to the floor in the first 30 seconds, the tantrum was likely to be shorter in duration. The tantrum seems to involve the expression of two independent emotions that actually overlap in the tantrum, and these are anger and distress. The physical expression of anger tends to increase really quickly and peaks at or near the beginning of the tantrum, expressed most intensely as screaming and kicking, but sometimes also as hitting and stiffening. Crying and looking for comfort tended to increase over the course of the tantrum and they form a larger part of the tantrum than the initial anger. The researchers hypothesized that the children initially became angry when they realized that the parent doesn't intend to give the child what he wanted and then that anger turns to sadness as the child realizes that getting angry won't help to get what they want either. In a later study, Professor Potagel and a colleague embedded a microphone into a onesie so that they could record tantrums as they occurred and then analyze the sound frequency and the amount of energy above a frequency threshold to understand the duration of anger versus distress in a tantrum. And it turns out that while anger does peak at the beginning, it's actually overlapped with distress throughout the tantrum. As a parent, you can watch for those signs of anger.
Jen Lumanlan:If you try and pick your child up while he's still angry, he will likely resist your touch by arching his back. In fact, one of Professor Potagel's studies found a correlation between parental intervention in a tantrum and the duration of the tantrum. So if the parent intervened, the tantrum tended to last longer. Contrary to the way that the study has been reported in the news media, the study found a correlation, but not causation. It's not at all clear whether the parent's intervention in the tantrum made it last longer or whether the parent decided to intervene because it seemed like the child was having an especially long tantrum. So you can try watching for the signs of anger, like kicking and screaming and yelling, to subside, and the signs of distress, like crying and falling to the floor and coming to you for comfort before you actually offer comfort yourself. A different set of researchers found that children are more likely to seek some kind of affectionate response from parents as they get older within the range of the 18 to 63 months that was studied, and also if they scream for a long time and if they were separated from the parent during the tantrum. Each of these factors points to prolonged distress in the child, and some researchers say that maybe children also feel shame, guilt, and embarrassment about their tantrums as well. I do want to think about the idea of separation from the parent for a minute. Researchers in the fifties and sixties used to think that tantrumming was kind of a performance for parents, and if you left the tantrumming child alone, he would stop the behavior. That was really consistent with the behaviorist approach to psychology that was popular at the time, which saw parental attention as a kind of reward for the tantrum behavior. But more recent research shows that if this separation is initiated by the child, like the child running away from you, then the child probably won't be too distressed by the separation. The distress is much worse when the separation is initiated by the parent, when the parent leaves the child alone to work through the tantrum by himself. It may also convey to the child that whatever emotions she's feeling are unacceptable, and that their parent can't cope with these strong feelings. The child may also feel scared about being isolated when they're feeling such intense emotions. So if you find the tantrum really presses your buttons and you might be in danger of harming the child if you stay close by, then by all means leave the child alone for a few minutes. But if you can stand it, researchers suggest that you should stay. You might want to duck out for a few seconds to grab some earplugs and then just come back and sit near your child. And once you see the signs that the anger has subsided, let your child know that you're there and ready and willing to help whenever he's ready to accept it. Unfortunately, most of the literature that even well-regarded papers about tantrums in toddlers cite on the management and control of tantrums tend to be about situations that actually aren't very applicable to toddlers. One study describes a clinical literature on tantrum control, which got me all excited, but it turns out that this literature is comprised of two studies, one of which followed three severely mentally disabled children in a residential facility and found that rewarding them for good behavior dramatically decreased the incidence of tantrums, while the other is on tantrums in institutionalized teenagers. Hardly the ideal basis for a study of tantrums in normally developing toddlers. It seems as though children grow out of tantrums when their brains develop other mechanisms for coping with their disappointments. A group of researchers at UCLA put adults in an MRI machine and scanned their brains while they labeled the emotions on the faces of a series of photographs of people. They were asked to say if each person looked scared or angry in the photo. The results showed that the process of labeling, of saying in words the emotion that the people in the photos seemed to be feeling, disrupted the effective feeling of the people participating in the experiment. The participants felt scared themselves when they saw a scared face in the photo, but they didn't feel scared if they said the word scared.
Jen Lumanlan:Assuming that this finding holds true for young children, which the researchers didn't make any attempt to test, this study has simple but really profound implications for how we might be able to help toddlers deal with their emotions in more productive ways than tantrums. Children begin to talk about emotions at about age two or three, and while I'm not aware of any research that directly proves this, the results of the study on adults implies that if you can help along the process of children naming their emotions, they might feel those emotions less strongly. So our job is to help get our children from the point where they don't have any distance between the emotion and the action, they feel angry and they immediately hit, to the point where they can label emotions, bringing them from the unconscious mind to the conscious mind, and thus regulate them in a more socially acceptable way. And we can do this by supporting them as they express their own emotions, which actually means accepting their emotions. So let's say that your son reaches for a sharp knife, and you need to prevent him from touching it. If he really wants to touch it, he might have a flash of anger and scream or maybe even hit you or something like that. But what if you say, you really wanted to touch the knife, you seem really angry. This is basically the advice given by practitioners of the Resources for Infant Educators approach to young children's development, and it's only in the course of doing research for this episode that I learned why RIE suggests this wording. It's what we do with our toddler, and while she's never responded to say, yes, I'm angry when we prevent her from touching that she wants, it does seem to diffuse the situation a bit. We do get the occasional stiffening of back arching when she can't do something, and it's been happening a lot more recently, or when she's not feeling great because she's tired. But by and large, she seems to get over it relatively quickly when we just acknowledge her emotions. I do say you seem angry or sad or whatever it is, because I don't want to presume that I understand what she's feeling. It's better to say what I think she's feeling in case I'm wrong. But if it's genuinely delivered, it can work with people of any age. I actually remember a training on listening skills that I did for work years ago where one participant had to describe a difficult situation, and another had to say how he thought the first person was feeling until the first person said, yes, that's how I felt. And I remember it being quite a cathartic feeling to know that somebody else understood how I felt about that situation that I described. So shifting gears a bit, what causes tantrums? I read a book that's spectacularly well researched and referenced, even though it has a bit of an odd title. It's called Social and Emotional Prevention and Intervention Programming for Preschoolers. I think it's a bit odd because the book advocates for exactly the opposite of emotion prevention. One chapter begins with an anecdote that the authors describe as a classic conversation between a mother and her five-year-old daughter, and it goes like this. Child, I don't want to go to Melanie's party. The mother says, what do you mean, sweetie? You'll have a wonderful time. The child says, no, I won't. I hate Melanie. Mother says, you don't hate her. Don't be silly. You know you love going to Melanie's house and it's always fun to go to parties. So by telling the child how she feels, you don't hate Melanie, and invalidating her feelings, saying don't be silly, you set yourself up for a classic cause of tantrums, the child feeling misunderstood. The authors also cite other common causes of anger as being frustration with limits, a desire for independence, perceived injustice, not wanting to share prized possessions, not being able to complete physical tasks, anxiety, embarrassment, and many more. The long list of potential causes of anger and tantrums might sound a bit intimidating. It certainly did to me. But then I realized I can use this information to prevent some tantrums by doing things like putting favorite toys away before friends come over, and also by helping with a task just enough to help my toddler succeed. There's actually a lot more information on that idea in the recent podcast episode called Scaffolding.
Jen Lumanlan:But my job isn't to prevent all tantrums. The more I prevent, the easier my life is, but eventually my daughter and I are going to disagree. So what do I do then? Then I reach into my naming the feelings toolbox. The social and emotional prevention book authors describe a really interesting approach to a child whose tantrums had gotten totally out of control at preschool. And it's a little bit long, but I'm going to read it because it was so insightful for me. And it's about a toddler called Kareem, and it starts out, Once Kareem's tantrum had begun, there was little a teacher could do but physically restrain him. If he was left to himself, he would physically attack the teacher in his anger. During that time, he seemed unresponsive to reason. He fought, he kicked, he bit the arm of the person holding him. He even foamed at the mouth. He wasn't himself. Once he lost control of his emotions, his tantrums were long and excruciating. One day, it was my turn to hold him as he kicked and screamed and cried. And as I held him, he made attempts to kick and bite me, but I held him securely while I protected myself. As I held him, I tried a different tactic than had heretofore been the norm in his classroom. Normally, the teacher would tell him in a calm, quiet voice, We'll let you go when you calm down. You're angry, but we can't let you hurt me or anyone else. Or even calm down, calm down, calm down. This time I whispered to Kareem, Look, you're crying. Your eyes are red. Your face is wet. Your face is red. Your heart is racing. Your muscles are tense. Feel your heart. Your heart is beating. While I was saying these things, he stopped thrashing. His muscles relaxed. I immediately loosened my grasp on him. He reached for his chest, and I helped him feel his heart. I repeated to him, your heart is beating. Your face is red. There are tears in your eyes. He felt his chest and his head quietly. Sensing the worst was over, I asked him if he wanted a drink of water. He nodded his head. I took him by the hand. He stood and we went to the kitchen. I gave him a cup of water, and he drank it, and then went to look in the mirror, feeling his head. I stood next to him, and we talked about his red face, his tear-stained cheeks, and his sweaty forehead. He said, Maybe I need to go to the hospital. I said, hiding my amusement, Actually, you don't need to go to the hospital. When you feel this way, it means you're angry. This is anger. He looked at me, and a light dawned on his face, and he understood. And then the anecdote goes on to talk about how they talked about emotional regulation, and the teacher actually taught him to cross his arms when he felt angry. And so he was able to use that tool to communicate to other people around him that he was angry and needed some space to think through something. And after that, his tantrums actually decreased dramatically.
Jen Lumanlan:But you don't have to wait for a tantrum to start to help children learn about emotions. When you're reading stories with your child, you can point out the emotions that the characters might be feeling, and also point out the features that lead you to label this specific emotion. So you could say, Oh, Harry has his mouth wide open, and his eyebrows are raised. He looks really scared. My daughter's daycare actually has photographs of the teacher acting various emotions with their faces, and they encourage the children to point out which face resembles how they feel. So let's take a step back and talk about limit setting, because this really seems to be an important key to reducing tantrums. Limits help you to define what is acceptable behavior and what isn't, and the two important factors here are to set a limit for a reason, and also to set it before you get angry yourself, and do something like yelling at your child that's pretty sure to result in a meltdown, both for you and for your child. I actually find that getting angry thing to be a really helpful cue for me. It tells me that I should have set a limit already, and that I should set it earlier next time. And having a reason behind the limit helps me to stick to it, which helps my toddler understand where the limit is. So a good example is how she sits on chairs. We require that she either have her knees or her bum on the seat, because the chances of her falling or tipping off the seat seem to be much higher if she's standing, rather than if she's sitting or kneeling. So we word it positively in what she can do, rather than negatively what she can't do. So we're setting a limit, but still in a way saying yes to her by telling her the things she's allowed to do. We're also giving her a choice. She can decide whether she sits on her knees or on her bum, so she still has some control over the situation. And she's tried to test it at various points by having her bum on the seat but being half up on one foot as well, or having one knee and one foot on the seat as well. All of those are very normal behaviors. She's testing the boundary of the limit to see whether I really mean it. As long as I respond consistently each time, then over time she tests less and less on this particular issue. Psychologist Henri Perrin says that parents should set a limit as soon as they know the limit is needed, and really only when it's needed, even with very young children. And he advises distinguishing between setting limits and punishing, because the two are very different. A limit can be set in a very clear, direct way. So in our example, I'd like you to put your knees or your bum on the seat, please, which we've shortened over time to a cheerful but still firm knees, bum, please. If she doesn't comply, which she almost always does, then I say knees or bum on the seat, please, or I'm going to have to ask you to get off the chair. Sometimes she will then get off the chair willingly by herself if she prefers that option, but occasionally I do have to lift her off the chair, at which time she might well protest by having a tantrum. At that point I have absolutely no problem accepting her feelings because I know that the limit was necessary.
Jen Lumanlan:It's not safe for her to stand on a chair. So in the early stages of her tantrum, I usually stroke her back gently and say, you really wanted to stand on the chair, huh? And then I pause for a second to let her acknowledge if she wants to. And then I say, it's not safe to stand on chairs. And then I don't say a lot else until she seems to be out of the angry phase at the beginning of the tantrum and into the distress phase when she starts to look for me to comfort her. Then I offer to give her a hug if she wants one, which she usually does, and eventually she calms down and we move on. So my approach to tantrums has been refined over time and it may not work so well for you. I'd suggest you try a variety of different techniques to diffuse anger before the tantrum starts. The social and emotional prevention book authors recommend talking to the child about ways to calm down, perhaps by using a slow breathing technique. At other times the child may want to be held, or you might want to suggest ways to express anger in an acceptable way, like jumping on the trampoline or going to your bedroom and shouting really loud, or going to a quiet room with the parent not in timeout for a few minutes. The child might also be embarrassed or worried about being rejected, so accepting all of these feelings is really important. And when they're in the middle of a tantrum, some children might want to be held, but others don't want to be touched. When the tantrum seems to be winding down, a distraction can help stop it from winding up again. Not an I'm going to dangle my shiny keys in your face kind of distraction that sometimes people do to babies, but maybe a hey I was going to ask you if you want to bake cookies, do you want to do that now? Or my daughter will actually quite often distract herself. Maybe she's just winding down from a tantrum and she sees a hummingbird on the hummingbird feeder, and then we engage her in thinking about that hummingbird and it seems to move her attention away from the tantrum that she just experienced. So you won't prevent all instances of behaviors that are associated with tantrums until children fully develop executive function and control, which comes really slowly over time. But maybe some of the things we've talked about today can help you understand and cope with them just a little bit better. I know I found the tantrums we've experienced easier to deal with when I just kind of accept them and let them run their course rather than trying to shorten them. Maybe it's kind of a metaphor for parenting. Accepting what comes is ultimately easier than getting too invested in a particular solution. You can find all the references for this episode on yourparentingmojo.com forward slash tantrums part two. Thanks for listening. Talk again soon.