Violence during tantrums?

[JumpingIn]

My 17-month-old is prone to lengthy inconsolable tantrums. This morning for example I gently told him he couldn't have cake for breakfast (he'd spotted the cake tin) but that we did have yoghurt, banana, pancakes etc if he wanted. That was all it took to trigger a monster outburst that lasted 55 minutes.

So far I've been using empathy and a really calm approach to just ride it out. I usually sit silently as he bellows because any words or touching make him a lot worse. If I try this he kicks or hits me. The screams are so loud I get a raging headache. Once he's calmed a little I say something like 'wow you got really upset, that must have felt horrible. You wanted cake but you're only allowed banana, pancakes etc' and give him a hug and a kiss.

Today's was nasty though because he stated throwing things. He flung the cat's food bowl across the room and was hitting the cupboards hard

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it within the realms of 'normal'? And what on earth do I do?

In this instance I just took the cat bowl away and cleaned up the mess. I couldn't say anything to him because the screams were so loud I'd have to shout.

WWYD? I have ADHD and had a history of being hot-tempered when I was younger so I can't help wondering if he's just more prone to this kind of thing. He certainly has never seen that behaviour from anyone around him.

 

[Demotivated]

TBH, i dont know if that is normal or not.. but my 21 month old has also started to exhibit this kind of behaviour recently.. The other he wanted to have ice
and on refusal, he started crying / screaming hysterically, shouting and telling me to getup & give him ice cubes.. throwing things which i gave to him to calm down (blanket, binky etc) .. I asked my mother and she said i was the same..so dont know what to make out of it

 

[fxmummyduck]

My ds is older but I'm following because I'm lost too, with all the advice I'm reading about talking to them with empathy, but how do you do this when you can't even hear yourself speak without it becoming a shout!!! I'm all for talking to them about their feelings when they've calmed down but in the heat of the tantrums I'm yet to read any practical advice. Sorry I'm no help whatsoever just hoping someone will chime in with help!

Edit. I've been very lucky that distraction until he was over 2 still worked I've only recently had to deal with proper tantrums.

 

[MindUtopia]

Yes, it's very normal. It's hard learning to deal with frustration and especially when they're really little they don't have the verbal skills to be able to really express how they are feeling, so sometimes the only way is physical. My nearly 4 year old can hit or scratch or throw things when she gets so upset that she literally can't talk. What I've always done is try to stay calm and keep your voice low (easier said than done sometimes, but do your best as much as you can) and I move her to a specific location where she doesn't have things in her reach that she could throw, in our case, on the steps leading upstairs next to a window. It's not like a 'naughty step,' we don't do that. It's just a quiet out of the way stop where we don't keep toys or cups or anything that could be used as a projectile! And I sit there with her until she calms down and now that she's older, can talk to me about what happened (that wouldn't have been possible at 17 months).

You will probably find that just keeping some space and being somewhere without anything to throw or tip over will help. There have been times when she has been thrashing around so much I was concerned she might hurt herself or me, so in that case, I do sometimes hold her arms down until she can calm down, not in a painful way, just so she isn't banging on something she might hurt herself on. She usually calms down after that. After its over, we talk about it and now that she's older (nearly 4) she can explain what she did that she shouldn't have (hitting or pinching or whatever) and we can talk about why and she can say sorry. At 17 months though, most often I would ask her just to use a gentle touch. I taught her how to 'gentle touch' by stroking my hand or my cheek. So she knew what it meant. Once she calmed down, we would practice the gentle touch and I would let her touch me gently and stroke my cheek rather than hitting. That helped a lot. It wasn't magical and it didn't happen right away, but I think it's been a good way to reinforce how we should touch other people and how we shouldn't. Also, it gives them something practical to do rather than just saying no don't do this other thing. It's like a form of positive reinforcement. I think that helped. But yes, totally normal, I'm afraid. For me, the trick has really been giving her a safe space to calm down first and then talking about it. You can't reason with them in the middle of a tantrum, but it's good to sit down after and talk about it or have a cuddle and try to get across what a better way of handling that would have been.

 

[SarahBear]

No, I don't think that's normal. If it were shorter, I'd say it was, but the length is extreme. I think you're handling it perfectly though.

Edit: A lengthy tantrum can happen, but it sounds like these are the norm for your kiddo, is this correct?

Edit: I did some googling and from what I've read, the "violence" isn't concerning as it sounds like you're able to sit calmly near him. If you were regularly needing to protect yourself from him, that would be different. As for the length, if 90% of them are lasting more than 25-30 minutes, it is also concerning. It sounds consistent with your family history though.

 

[JumpingIn]

Well after another day from hell I googled too. He displays all of those red flags. The average length is around 25 minutes and he has 6+ a day on the days with me. He does hit me.

It seems he's too young for anyone to see this as a potential problem, but I know my own mental health history and my entire family was like this. I can't help but suspect because it's so extreme so young...

They don't just happen out of frustration either. It's pretty random. Like just now he's having one because I unplugged my phone charger...

Thank you everyone

 

[Ashley1021]

I'm with you. My 25 month old ds has always been like this, and since his brothers birth a month ago it's gotten worse. He hits me, smacks me, kicks me, spits in my face etc. His tantrums always last at least 30 minutes, and the screaming is so loud I can't hear myself think.

What set him off this morning is when I went to get him out of his crib I forgot to grab his blankie...

I don't know what to do. I suffer with severe anxiety and it has gotten drastically worse with the birth of ds2 and all these tantrums. It's so hard to manage a newborn and a tantruming toddler during the day

 

[SarahBear]

Well after another day from hell I googled too. He displays all of those red flags. The average length is around 25 minutes and he has 6+ a day on the days with me. He does hit me.

It seems he's too young for anyone to see this as a potential problem, but I know my own mental health history and my entire family was like this. I can't help but suspect because it's so extreme so young...

They don't just happen out of frustration either. It's pretty random. Like just now he's having one because I unplugged my phone charger...

Thank you everyone

I think that since it is so consistent with family history, a good first step would be to talk to those in your family who have parented. If you have a good relationship with your mother, that would be a good place to start. As he gets older, it might be really important to work with him on recognizing his emotions and it would be really good to be proactive with teaching him calming strategies. These are both normal things to do with kids, but it might behoove you to be particularly proactive with it. I wouldn't so much take it as an indicator to worry as I would take it as an indicator of how to parent and things to focus on.

 

[JumpingIn]

Thank you Sarah. We're definitely going to be proactive, in fact we even talked about this possibility while I was pregnant. I'm on a very high dose of ADHD meds daily at the age of 28 and couldn't function without them. My brother is hyperactive-impuslive and violent. My mother is emotionally unstable. So this kind of thing is on the radar. I think I carried my issues into adulthood because of my upbringing. My mother was an angry, self-absorbed person who belittled me for displaying emotion. I was left to my own devices as far as school work etc went and had no emotional guidance. Obviously this means I don't have anyone to ask about parenting advice on that front but it does give me a good starting point: Do the opposite!

Zach is very young and could just have a more high-strung temperament than most, but as you said these things are normal to focus on with children anyway so why not cover our bases? I think our plan is to:

Consistently model calm behaviour even in the face of the meltdowns
Talk openly about our feelings where possible in daily conversation, providing the language for sad, mad etc
Explain and model ways we calm ourselves down
Continue the empathise and sit quietly approach

Anything we're missing do you think?

It's definitely combined with age appropriate testing behaviour too. I know he's picking some of it up from nursery and checking to see how I respond to those behaviours. Tonight he tried throwing pretty much everything and checking for a reaction (he didn't get one)

Ashley I'm so sorry you're going through this too. How tough with a newborn in the mix too. How ate you dealing with it? Big hug

Yes we obviously can't do the talking thing while they're shrieking or we'd have to shout! I absolutely will not shout. So I sit there and wait.

 

[Zephram]

JumpingIn, your approach sounds great. I can't speak to any future probs with ADHD he may have but I just want to say that at his age the best way to break through a tantrum is distraction. Remove either him from the situation (if inside go outside or to another room and find something different to look at or play with) or remove the offending object from his sight. If you leave them in the same situation that triggered the meltdown they find it very hard to recover.

 

[JumpingIn]

Thank you

Unfortunately distraction does nothing for him. Any changes or introductions of new things make it worse. He seems angry that we're attempting to distract him. When I take him to another room or outside he gets especially upset Because he goes from happy to fill blown meltdown within a second there's not really a window to get the distraction in before it's too late.

I do always remove 'offending objects' though but again this sometimes makes it worse because it turns out he really did want the thing after all