Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion tantrums

They start because she wants something..or usually because she doesn't want to stop doing something.. she breaks down and the only way to calm her is to send her to her room to cry it out.. talking does nothing she just screams over my voice, and if I don't take her to her room she will throw her fit "on me" like pulling my shirt or hitting or kicking my arms or legs. Once in her room she cries it out crying, yelling, and banging on her door for anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour. After her fit is over she is very receptive, I can talk to her, she listens, she is very sweet and accepts her punishment without a fuss (which is a revoked privilege) and then is usually very well behaved for either the rest of the day or the next few hours. She acts like she has no control but she must have some degree of control since she only does this with me. I don't understand it, she has told me that when she gets like that she "can't stop"

Tantrums as you explain it can often be about something totally unrelated. My oldest son is like you describe and I find the only thing that he is able to understand is when I acknowledge his feelings. That's all he wants is to be heard and to feel like I understand him.

So when I ask him to get off the computer (for example) and he says no he wont and starts gearing up to FREAK OUT (I am sure you get the capital emphasis here ) then I go to him, hold him gently and lovingly and quietly look him in the eye and acknowledge his feelings. "I hear that you want to keep playing. I know that you love your game and you want to keep levelling up." Then I state the boundary "It's time to eat now. You had a lot of screen time today and your eyes need to rest so that they can play more tomorrow". Then I love him and show acceptance again of his feelings by granting his wish in fantasy: "I wish we could both sit and play on the computer all the time/all day/all night." Or "I bet when you are an adult you will eat while you play or just skip dinner and play all night long!".

If he still gets upset, I just love him through it as best I am able to at the time, but he always switches off then - even if he grumbles and moans throughout.

And sometimes when I set a specific boundary and the tantrum ensues, 90% of the time he will end up talking to me about something totally unrelated to the action that seemed to spark the tantrum! Maybe someone was mean earlier, maybe he feels out of control of his own life, or whatever. He just uses the opening for the tantrum when he spots it.

But you cannot change the tantrum, and stopping it doesn't resolve the emotions behind it - stopping it would just hit the pause button, and save it up for later. Best to get it out as an expressive form. Also, teaching/learning cannot happen in the heat of the tantrum. Then she needs love and acceptance. The gentle teaching needs to happen a few hours after the tantrum is done and you are both feeling better and stronger...

I hope this makes sense.

DS (4) loves pretending to be someone else. He wanted to be me recently and I was him. He had a lot of fun being the "adult" and I had even more fun throwing tantrums and not listening . Interestingly for the last few weeks anyway his behaviour on the whole has been a lot better!
Tiredness and hunger are definite triggers for DS. I have been teaching him some deep breathing recently (not in the middle of a tantrum) which when he does will short circuit a tantrum enough to be able to validate his feelings, which helps, even if he is still not getting his way.

DD was 4/5 and playing schoolteacher. DW and I played the students. We were brats and spent the whole time trying to get the other one in trouble with the teacher. Hilarity ensued.