First, look at your child's tantrum triggers. If you don't know what sets your child off, chart it for a week or so. Write down the time of day and what happened before, during and after each tantrum. At the end of a week or so, you may be able to see some patterns. You may find that your child is always losing it over sharing toys. If so, work on the language of turn taking and sharing. If they are melting down when you say "no," work on ways to manage that frustration and building emotion language.

You may look at the chart and find that your children are always tantrumming a half hour before lunch. You may find that your children fall apart in the late afternoon when they don't rest enough. Things like mealtimes and sleep are called situational conditions. Fix them. If they are tantrumming a bit before lunchtime, move lunch earlier. If they are tired in the late day, get them a longer nap and encourage actually sleeping during the rest time.

Check your own stress level. When parents are stressed out, children temper tantrum more. They may be reflecting what they feel at home. They may be learning from your meltdowns. They may also have to escalate to be heard. Escalating to be heard refers to the parents' availability or unavailability. Does the parent recognize sadness when the child whimpers or does the child have to be sobbing? Does the parent recognize exhaustion when the child rubs her eyes or does the child have to be dragging on the floor? If the child has to be sobbing and dragging, there is going to be more tantrums. They are escalating their behavior to be heard. Of course, when parents are stressed out, they are often less in tune with their children.

I will personally attest to the role of stress. When we were opening the Parenting Playgroups office a few years ago, I was entirely stressed for about a month. We were advertising and signing lease agreements with no clients in sight. Alicen, who was four years old, tantrummed much more often than usual that month. She was a child who rarely lost her cool. During that time, she was at least audibly frustrated every day. She would say in a very annoyed tone, "Mother!" indicating that I hadn't heard her the first several times she asked or I gave her an answer not related to her question. Not surprisingly, she tantrummed every few days.

When children are tantrumming, it is safe to assume they are expressing emotions: upset, anger, frustration or embarrassment. If you do not like the ways they are expressing themselves, it is in your own best interest to teach them other ways. It may be helpful to review the last two sections of Week One on finding acceptable ways to express and other ways to help children manage their emotions.

This section is for parents whose children lack an assertive voice. When Alicen was a toddler, if someone did something she didn't like, she would just stand there or just stand there and cry. When she was a preschooler, she would sadly walk away or come bury her face against my leg. She didn't have an assertive voice. She didn't readily stand up for herself.

There is a series of steps to teach children an assertive voice. Again, this is not a quick fix. We started this process with Alicen six years ago and we continue to work on it. Clearly, she has made progress, but we are still addressing the issues. If you have a child who lacks assertive voice, you'll have to make a decision about which steps are necessary depending on her age and comfort level.
 

The first thing I ask any child, whether they are at the first step or the last, whether they are two or six years old, is, "Did you like that?" It gets kids turned around. They stop thinking "Oh, poor me. I am so sad," and they start thinking, "No. I didn't like that." They start to think about standing up for themselves.

For the remainder of this example, let's assume another child took a toy your child was playing with. After you ask, "Did you like that?" the entry step is to then go with the child and do the talking for them. Take her hand, walk with her to the other child and say calmly, "She wasn't done with that. She'd like to finish her turn." You are modeling the language that you hope the child will some day take as his own. Eventually, you want him to say, "I wasn't done with that. I'd like to finish my turn."

Once they are comfortable with that, you can move to the next step.

The little gains that are made by the use of rewards are gains made at a cost to motivation. Rewards focus on extrinsic motivation. As rewards increase extrinsic motivation, they tend to decrease intrinsic motivation. My girls loved their hamster. They were intrinsically motivated by love for their hamster, to feed and water the hamster daily and to help clean the cage. I introduced extrinsic motivation. I said, "For every time you help clean the hamster cage, I'll give you an extra dollar on your allowance." Within a few days, my then six year old Alicen lost interest in the hamster. Psychologically speaking, I had just told her, "You should be paid for that." I had shifted her motivation from the intrinsic hamster love to the extrinsic dollar. I had distracted her enjoyment with the money.

To keep this intrinsically motivated, I should have offered positive logical consequences rather than rewards. I would have done better to have offered, "For every time you help clean the hamster cage, you can play longer with the hamster or you can pick the hamster's treat." That would help to keep the motivation at love for the hamster.

Take the school teacher, trying to increase reading, who says to their third graders, "For every book you read, you will get a sticker. The class with the most stickers gets a pizza party." They have just distracted children from their love of reading. The children are no longer motivated by books; instead, they are motivated by stickers and pizza. Books are now the obstacle in the way. Children will read the shortest, fastest books they can for more stickers and pizza.

To keep this intrinsically motivated, the teacher should offer positive logical consequences rather than rewards. She might offer, "For every ten minutes you read, you can check out an extra book. The class with the most books will have double library time." This rewards reading with reading and is far more likely to keep children intrinsically motivated.