So what are tantrums?

"When children have pent-up emotions from stress or unhealed trauma, almost anything can trigger a tantrum… These triggers provide a pretext for children to have a meltdown… they are doing what their body needs to do”

Aletha Solter - Healing your traumatized child

Last night I talked about how crying and tantrums are children’s innate healing mechanisms. I would love for more people to understand that our job is not to “tame” the tantrums. Yes, we can reduce the sources of stress and we can provide information when children don’t understand what’s happening. But above all, the most helpful thing we can do is… to just listen. To hold space. To be present. And after the storm has passed, to observe.

As I was preparing for the class I also came upon this quote:

“My friend Michael and I started a fathers' group...(...). When the children were infants, many fathers would leap up to race home with the babies as soon as they started to cry. They thought they had to get them to their mothers to nurse. I had to wean the fathers off this, and explain that babies cry for many other reasons besides hunger. And, even most important, the fathers were missing out on a great joy of fathering: holding a crying baby as he or she releases all those feelings - the only way a baby knows how to talk - and then settles down in our arms. These men had all held their babies more in the first few months than their own fathers had held them their whole lives, but they still couldn't stand to hold a crying baby."
Lawrence J. Cohen, Playful Parenting

The only thing that changes between a baby and a toddler who is crying to release all those feelings is that toddlers don’t need to be held. They need us nearby, but the principle is the same. And just like in the quote, it strikes me how hard parents find it to really let toddlers cry and rage and tantrum.

If you want to find out more about tantrums, email me and I’ll send you the link to the replay.