Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Question for folks practicing attachment parenting - What do you do when your child tantrums?

my dear daughter is 15 months and throws major tantrums, sometimes lasting 10 minutes... how would I handle this from an attachment parenting perspective.Question for folks practicing attachment parenting - What do you do when your child tantrums?
she's kinda young for tantrums, suggesting that she's cognitively quite advanced - i assume you call these tantrums because they are related to her not getting something she wants.





are you trying to distract her, giving her what she wants in fantasy (I wish you could have a mountain of candy), giving her warnings about transitions (we're leaving in 15, then 10, then 5 minutes), encouraging her to use words to express her frustration?





If you're doing all those, you could ignore tantrums. We attachment-parented and used ignoring. We had few tantrums to deal with, but we have sons and sometimes daughters are a bit more attached to their tantrums.





Another approach would be to hold her when she has a tantrum, saying soothingly, ';I know you want to be able to control yourself. I will hold you until you can.'; And make soothing noises, rock her, contain her as she tries to gain control.Question for folks practicing attachment parenting - What do you do when your child tantrums?
leave her alon till she stops (works for me)
I'm not an AP parent. I have done much research and in some ways I am and some ways I am not. I don't know if you've seen Dr. Sears' website or not but I believe it to be a great resource for AP parents--as he is a psychologist who is all about AP parenting. I've bookmarked it to the page specifically about temper tantrums. I hope it helps. I bet if you look around more on the site it can be a great reference for you! Best of Luck.
Just ignore it and sooner or later she will realize what she is doing is wrong and will stop doing it. She is just trying to get your attention and test your patience.


Good Luck! Hope that helped
move her to her room and go to another room


or just leave the room she is in


ignoring it does wonders!
the quickest way to deal with them and stop the is just to step over her and ignore. Paying attention just teaches that they work and they will continue on for years. I did the complete ignore approach and in 2 weeks they were over and never had them again
In pyschology, they teach us that there are 3 levels of attatchment: Secure, unsecure, and indifferent. Secure means she is fine when you are there and when you leave because she knows you will be back. Unsecure is she cries when you leave and then is angry when you return for leaving her. Indifferent is she might cry sometimes, and other times not. From the parenting view point, I would set up a situation that incorporated her behavior into the indifferent stage first (i.e. leave her, let her cry, and it will fizle out resulting in intermittent tantrums), then move to the secure style. Right now, you are in the unsecure stage. They also say that if the child is too attatched, it is healthy for you to ignore the tantrum, thereby eliminating the attention she gets.

No comments:

Post a Comment