The Simple Strategy to Stop Kids’ Temper Tantrums Before They Start

Are you looking for a way to stop your child’s temper tantrums before they even begin? No matter the age of your child, temper tantrums can and will happen. However, making just one simple change can help lessen the amount of temper tantrums that your child has. Stopping temper tantrums before they begin by sharing control with your child through choices is a powerful way to transform your relationship.

Why do children have temper tantrums?

Temper tantrums are a regular part of most families with young kids, but even older children will have the occasional temper tantrum. A temper tantrum does not mean you are a bad parent, it doesn’t even mean you did anything wrong. While a child’s temper tantrum may be frustrating or embarrassing for the parents at times, a child’s temper tantrum does not mean you failed.

The fun comes in with the why? Why do children, especially toddlers, have temper tantrums? Well, it usually has to do with communication. Most toddlers can understand language much better than they can speak it. They also begin to want things and have expectations. But with their limited speaking vocabulary and practice, children struggle with expressing these expectations and desires.

The second piece comes in with understanding various emotions. While most young children feel a range of emotions, they cannot necessarily understand what those emotions mean or how to express those emotions in an appropriate way. Instead, these emotions take over their body making it difficult for them to process anything else.

How to stop child temper tantrums with a simple positive parenting change

Even though temper tantrums are quite normal for children, there is one simple change that can help parents to bypass many temper tantrums and power struggles. If you can make this change when your child is younger, all the better. However, this simple change does help with older children too.

Give your child the opportunity to take control of as many parts of their day as you are able. Now, you may be thinking, how do I do this? Well, the answer is simple, provide choices where and when you can. By offering choices, you are allowing your child to take control while providing options that keep your child safe and your day moving in the direction that works best for your family.

These choices don’t have to be big ones either. Start small, give your child one simple choice and then slowly add more ways to provide choices into your day. In my house, we love to make simple visual choice charts with our children. In fact, we often have our children create them together with us. Now, you may be wondering why this works.

Why Turning Over Control Helps with Temper Tantrums?

You may start asking, how does turning over control help with temper tantrums? Well, let’s think about how you may feel when life just feels “out of control” and nothing you do seems to get the desired results. For me, my mind makes it rather difficult to think ideas through and actually get work completed. And of course, we are adults. Now imagine being a child and feeling this way without years of practice navigating.

The less control your child feels, the more powerless they may feel. And well, when kids feel powerless, they look for little ways to get some of that control back. This often times is a temper tantrum for our younger children, but may also be forgetfulness, selective hearing, doing the exact opposite of what you are asking, or even playing right on your fine line. They know exactly what to do to get the reaction they are seeking.

So why not turn over the control throughout the day, so your child feels powerful and in control of their actions? Thus, your child will not need to seek the control and power in negative ways because you provide them so many different positive ways to get it.

Giving Up Some Control Helps to Regulate Your Child

I once attended a training, and the head trainer gave me a parallel I cannot soon forget. Imagine your checking account. The more deposits you put in, the more secure and comfortable you feel. However, when all those withdrawals start to come out, we sometimes feel a lot less powerful and seem to be losing control.

Well, your child feels the same way. Each time your child makes a choice, they make a little deposit into their savings account. The more deposits that they make, the more in control they feel. However, when you need to start making choices for your child then you are making a withdrawal. As long as you make fewer withdrawals than deposits, this will help to curb the number of temper tantrums or other power struggles you may engage in with your child.

When your child makes many little choices throughout the day, they fill up their account and feel in control of their actions and desires. If you need to make a withdrawal, that is perfectly okay. We all know there are times when we just don’t have time for choices because we need to arrive quickly or keep our child safe. However, since your child has a full bank from all their choices, making a withdrawal or two doesn’t cause them to feel quite as powerless. Instead, they begin to recognize that while you needed to make a safety decision here, you will provide them the opportunity to make choices again.

Let’s Explore Choices for Children a Little More

I hope you are with me so far and that you are ready to try out some choices with your little ones. Before we dive into the types of choices you can and should safely let your children make, let’s discuss a few tips for offering choices and one special caveat if you happen to have a child who loves to think outside the box.

What Kind of Choices to Offer?

When you offer choices, only offer choices where you will happily accept either outcome. We prefer to offer only two options when possible. However, if you happen to have a child who thinks outside the box, we have found that offering more open ended questions can be helpful.

Sometimes as parents, we offer choices where there is only one clear option or we offer one option we want our child to pick and one we definitely don’t like. Well, this is really not offering a choice, instead it is making a withdrawal since your child only has one option. Instead, offer two equal choices where either option is acceptable and something both you and your child can live with.

When to Offer Choices?

Always try to offer choices before your child begins to become upset. By offering the choices early, you prevent the temper tantrum or other power struggle most times. Your child makes a choice that is acceptable to both of you and your day continues while building up your child’s sense of control.

If you wait until your child objects to what you ask, then your child may see the offering as choices as a reward for their defiant behaviors. Thus causing your child to resort to even more temper tantrums or power struggles.

How Long to Offer Choices?

Finally, you don’t want choices to cause more delay to your already busy schedule. To ensure that offering your child choices doesn’t become a big problem, offer your child a time limit too. First, offer the choices. If your child chooses right away, that’s awesome. If they need to think about it, be sure to let them know that you need an answer quickly (in 10 seconds, the next minutes, five minutes) or you will need to make the choice for them. Then do not hesitate to make the choice for them.

Now, this may lead to a temper tantrum a time or two. However, child want to make choices, they want to take control, and will quickly learn to make the choice a little more quickly in the future. Be sure to stick with your time frame. If you do need to make the choice, we prefer to pick one of the two options, not introduce a third option. This way your child also stays with your two options.

A Caution for Using Choices with a Child Who Thinks Out of the Box

Now, every once in a while, we have a child who cannot be limited by two or even three choices. My son is definitely like this, and I’m pretty sure our youngest is too! When we offer him two choices, he seems to always pick a third acceptable choice. For example, we may offer, “Would you like an apple or a banana for snack today?” And he will reply back with, “Can I have grapes?” Well, he is doing exactly what we want by picking a fruit and he also picks a third fruit we have in the house, so it’s not like we have to run to the grocery store or anything.

So what do you do when your child always seems to find the loop hole? Well, we simply change the question. If there are more than two acceptable answers, we ask instead, “Which fruit would you like to have for snack?” or “Bring me the fruit you would like to have for snack.” This way your little one gets to make a choice while you are still limiting their options.

Sometimes when our son choices a different option, we will hold him to the original provided choices. We say something like, “Sorry bud, we are saving those for tomorrow (or dinner). Let’s have an apple today.” We will provide even more ways to phrases choices below.

What Choices Can I Use to Stop Temper Tantrums Before They Begin?

Well, there are so many different choices you can offer your little one. We are going to run through our day and present the different choices we offer from wake up to bed time. We will try to add options for your out of the box thinking child as well. Questions to use with your outside the box thinker are in italics.

As your offer your child choices, be sure to praise them for making a choice. Then try to provide another choice to really fill up their sense of control.

Choices to Offer in the Morning

• Would you like to eat breakfast or get dressed first? What would you like to do first?
• Would you prefer to wear the red or blue shirt?
• Do you want to wear shorts or pants today? What would you like to wear to school?
• Today is a pants day, but you can wear athletic pants or jeans. Which do you prefer? Which pair of pants would you prefer to wear today?
• Would you like to put on your pants or shirt first?
• Would you like to have waffles or pancakes for breakfast? From our visual choice chart, what would you like for breakfast?
• Would you like to eat with a character fork or use a bigger one?
• Would you like milk or water to drink with breakfast? Which healthy drink would you like?
• Wear would you like to brush your teeth, upstairs or downstairs (or kitchen)? Which sink would you like to use to brush your teeth?

Leaving for the Bus or Day Care Choices

• Would you like to carry your backpack or would you like me to?
• We are leaving for the school bus in 5 minutes, would you like to wear your shoes or should I carry them?
• Would you like to put your shoes on or brush your teeth first? Using our getting ready for school visual choice chart, what would you like to do first?
• Should we walk or drive to the bus stop? How would you like to get to the bus stop today?
• Do you want to get in the car all by yourself or should I help you?
• Should we put your backpack in the trunk or the seat next to you? Where should we put your backpack in the car to keep everyone safe?
• Are you going to wear your coat or would you like to carry it?

Lunch and After School Choices

• Would you prefer a turkey or ham sandwich for lunch? Which type of sandwich would you like for lunch?
• Would you like grapes or an apple for lunch? Which fruit would you like for lunch?
• We have carrots or celery. Which would you prefer?
• You can have yogurt or goldfish for snack. From our visual choices chart for snacks, which snack would you like today?
• Do you think you should put your shoes on now or in five minutes when we leave for the bus stop?
• Would you like to tell me about your day on the walk home or when we get home?
• Should we do our homework first or have a snack?
• You can have a granola bar or smoothie for snack. Which would you like?
• Should we eat our snack at the kitchen table or dining room table? At which table would you like to eat your snack?
• Would you like to listen to music (watch TV) or talk while we eat our snack?
• Should we do our math or reading homework first? Which homework assignment would you like to complete first?
• Would you like to use the big pencil or little pencil for homework today?
• Do you want to work together or have my check your homework when you finish?
• Would you prefer to have me check each problem (or page) or wait until you finish?
• Should we do our homework at the dining room table or in the kitchen?
• Would you like to read a library book or a book on your app?

Choices to Offer about Dinner and Bed Time

• Will you take your medicine before dinner or after dinner?
• Would you like your dinner in a bowl or on a plate?
• Should I put the food on your plate or would you like to?
• Would you like to sit by mom or dad tonight? Which chair would you like to sit in tonight for dinner?
• We can talk about your school day or tomorrow’s schedule. Which would you prefer?
• Would you like juice or milk with dinner?
• Would you like to help clean up the toys or start the dishwasher? From our visual choice chart for chores, which chore would you prefer to help?
• Will you walk the dog or feed her?
• Tonight, should we brush our teeth or take a bath (shower) first?
• Should we use the watermelon or grape soap tonight?
• Are you going to wash your hair or your body first?
• Would you like to read to me or independently?
• Who would you like to read to you, Mom or Dad?
• Would you like to walk upstairs or be carried?
• Would you like me to tucked you in or give you a goodnight kiss here?
• Should we pick out your clothes for tomorrow now or in the morning?
• Would you like to turn the lights off or shall I?
• When would you like to wake up: 30 minutes before we leave or an hour?

Using Visual Choice Charts

One simple tool that we have begun to add to our routine are visual choice charts. We have found these so helpful and hope that you will love them too.

A visual choice chart includes a few pictures to show the different choices your child can pick from. You may have a visual choice chart showing the different fruits you have in the house. On the other hand, you might make a visual choice chart to show what to do each morning. These charts really are endless and so very helpful, especially if you have a more outside the box thinking child.

Creating them can be easy as well. We simply snap a photo of the different options or our child doing each action. Then, either print out the photos and display or arrange the photos into a table before printing. As your children get a little older, they can actually create these themselves.

Tips for dealing with a child who is having a temper tantrum

Now we all know that temper tantrums will happen and even with the best parenting strategies, our child will most likely have one at some point in time. If you happen to be lucky and skip all the toddler temper tantrums, you will most likely have some other types of power struggles along the way. So what should a parent do when your child is in the midst of a temper tantrum?

What Not to Do

First, do not start to offer choices now. If you do that, your child will learn that their negative behaviors are rewarded. Instead of eliminating temper tantrums, you will encourage more of them. And we definitely do not want to do this.

Second, don’t try to rationalize or tell your child to stop their temper tantrum. Never try to talk with your child when their emotions are out of their control. They need to learn how to handle their emotions and this is something that they will need practice with too. Your child is having these feelings and no amount of words or demands will change that. Accept their feelings and disappointments, then try to work through it once they calm down.

Don’t force physical contact unless your child is hurting themselves or another person. We love to open our arms and welcome our children in, but if they choose to stay away, that’s okay. Allow your child to come to you for the physical love they may need instead of forcing it onto them. Often times when we are angry, our body tenses and we begin to receive too much stimuli. Touch only adds to this. For some children touch helps and for others, touch can push them even further over the edge.

What to Do to Help Your Child While in Temper Tantrum

We begin by making sure our child is safe. This may involve moving anything around the child that could hurt them or physically moving your child to another location. We prefer trying to help our child to their bedroom whenever possible since we know it is a safe space where they can have some privacy, but we also may have a video baby monitor in the room.

Once the child is safe, we stay near but not too close. If our child is in their room, we may stay just outside the bedroom. Depending on our child we may leave the door open or close it, especially if we have a video baby monitor. If your child is in a more open room, you could sit in the room with them or just outside the room. We have a child who prefers to have us close and will move to where we are and another child who doesn’t want us to watch and will actually move away from us.

What Can You as the Parent Do?

Open your arms and let you child know you are here if they want to be held, hugged, or snuggled. Some children need the physical reminder of love and others shy away from it. Let your child choose when they are ready for a physical touch.

Then we monitor but mostly ignore, unless our child is getting hurt. Allow your child the time and space to work out their feelings. Sit quietly or continue your daily activities nearby. Allow your child the few minutes (okay, maybe even a half an hour), to process their emotions and calm down. It’s most important that you child is safe and has the opportunity to self-soothe as much as possible.

Once they are able to speak with words that you can understand, or at least with a calmer body, you can discuss what happened. We try to focus on moving forward instead of staying on the past. So instead of rehashing why they were upset or the temper tantrum, talk about what they can do next time. Reassure your child that you love them and want to help.

Tips for Dealing with Toddler Temper Tantrums

While all of these tips above will work with children of any age, I thought it best to focus on toddler temper tantrums as well. I will share our 5 favorite tips that best help when your toddler is having a temper tantrum. Why? Because we all know that toddlers are just a little different than older children. They haven’t had as much opportunity to regulate their emotions and their language skills are not as effective.

1. Out of sight – Out of Mind. If your toddler routinely gets upset because he/she cannot have something, especially a food. Try to keep these items out of sight for your toddler. By moving the items to where the toddler cannot see them, they will often forget about them. Thus eliminating the temper tantrum. While this may work with older children, they often remember or search for items.
2. Plan Around Your Child’s Schedule. While older children need sleep too, their emotions don’t usually change as dramatically as a tired toddler. So plan your day to ensure you go out with your toddler when they are well rested and ready for anything. If nap or bedtime is approaching, reconsider that trip to the store.
3. Meet Your Toddler’s Needs. Since many toddlers lack the communication skills to let you know exactly what they need, consider if your child may be hungry, hurt, or tired. If they have an unmet need, meet that need for them. Help them first, then worry about the temper tantrum later. We do this with our older children too, but they are much better at communicating their needs.
4. Teach when Your Child Calms Down. Use the time after the temper tantrum to teach your child. We talk about our feelings and teach other ways to cope with these feelings. Helping your child learn the vocabulary and different strategies can go a long way with both preventing toddler temper tantrums and shortening those that do occur.
5. Remember that Your Child is Trying to Communication. While we would all prefer our child use a different method to communicate with us, we need to remember that temper tantrums are one way our child communications. Children use this method when they are most upset and unable to communicate in any other way. So whenever possible, listen to your child, use sign language or gestures to communicate, and be patient.

We’d Love to Connect with You

Now that you’ve tackled temper tantrums, let’s take a peek at a few other common parenting woes. A great place to begin is to put your visual choice charts to work by teaching your child how to clean their own room. If you have a toddler or young preschool child, you may wish to head over to our posts on making toddler diaper changes fun and beginning potty training, everything you need to know.

While children temper tantrums are part of growing up, you can definitely try a few things to lessen your child’s temper tantrums. Leave a comment below and let us know your favorite ways to prevent temper tantrums or what precautions you take during your child’s temper tantrum. Have other tips for parents, we’d love for you to drop them in the comments too. Looking for more fun activities for your family? Subscribe to our newsletter for families for more practical solutions to real-life parenting problems and a few freebies too!

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.