Kristen Volk, Parenting by Connection, Denver, on Tantrums

0:03 hello my name is kristen volk and i'm a certified instructor for parenting by connection out of denver colorado and thank you so much for coming today and watching my video i want to talk to you about tantrums i have two lovely children who have had a lot of experience with tantrums and in fact um it was out of control in my family until because of some trauma experiences until i found parenting by connection and they were really

0:32 able to help me to support me in now not having any kind of tantrum issue within my family it's important to understand that when a child has a tantrum it's a big response from the child and it looks like it's controlling it's manipulative it's unruly it's the child trying to get back at you or to make trouble for you and everyone else around them it's a child who's uncooperative and then for the parent who's also

1:05 and the adults around them it's really puts everybody on edge a tantrum behavior does and um and so we all people oftentimes think oh that parent cannot get their child under control that's a bad parent it feels like parental failure to us we know that all eyes are on us and that we're we feel like we're failing as a parent and we also don't want to reinforce um it's not acceptable to reinforce the behavior by being kind to the child

1:35 either in that moment and so the the fact of the matter is though is that a tantrum is actually a natural response the body's natural response to the emotion of frustration so what happens is that when a child feels frustration the social emotional part of the child's brain basically becomes flooded with that emotion and says oh i'm not safe things are not going well this is not good for me i'm not doing

2:08 well right now and so it then shuts down the other part another part of the brain that does the thinking that gives attention that does reasoning and impulse control so when we come to a child who's frustrated in having a tantrum and because they wanted the red balloon but they got the blue balloon and we try to convince them like oh the blue balloon is great sweetheart it matches your shirt or your shoes

2:39 you'll love it or you're getting the blue balloon and that's it these these words they basically don't come into the child and don't make any sense to the child and it doesn't help the situation and so what we recommend is a tool by the name of stay listening and with stay listening what you're really doing is you're you're communicating to the child's social emotional part of the brain

3:10 that you're safe everything's okay i'm here to support you so that it can calm down and the child can then again think give its attention conduct reasoning and have impulse control as well so what it looks like is when if a child starts a tantrum we would move in close offer our warmth and our attention and very few words so most of our communication is non-verbal

3:42 we offer eye contact and um and also we sort of corral the child with loose um loose touch loose but firm so they can't hurt themselves or anyone else usually they in a tantrum they don't try to hurt anybody but sometimes because their movements are so wild they can get out of control so we do need to corral them and just support them and say i know it's hard you wanted the red balloon

4:12 and so i have a story that goes along with this too well basically what happens just to go back sorry but um is that that their social emotional brain calms down they begin to think again and um and so the process has happened and they've basically gone through their tantrum and afterwards you find a very relaxed warm loving very playful and child that is so thankful to the parent for sticking with

4:43 them through their storm it's it's amazing to watch what happens after a tantrum now and so um then i have a story to share with you too the um there was an instructor who has a four-year-old and a newborn baby and she went to the grocery store to buy some things and her son wanted gum at the last minute she's not used to having tantrums in the store but she so she said no and he immediately flared up with a

5:12 tantrum she had a lot going on she had the baby she had the groceries she had to pay and so she just like take the gum and let's go get out of the store then she decided okay i'm i got through the moment but i don't want it to happen again so i'm gonna make a plan and she decided to bring a friend with her to the store who could support her and then they went to check out and her child had

5:41 a tantrum the friend took over the baby and the rest of the groceries and she even explained to the people around her what was going on the mother could step in and be close to her son and attuned to him and give him warmth give him attention give him eye contact and make sure that he didn't get hurt by corralling him and knowing that he was safe and she didn't say much to him but she just

6:08 would say sorry sweetheart no gum today and and one of the things she ended up saying too was it's hard having a baby brother and um and then he got to have a really big cry about um he expressed you love baby more than you love me ah it's not fair you love baby more than you love me so we got to have a really big cry while he was being supported by mom

6:38 and then and then it was over and and then he was very relaxed and calm and had a very close connection with his mother after that as well and even the next time they went to the grocery store um he wanted to get gum and the mother said no and then he just said philly and that was it no more no tantruming there was no need to the issue that he was really dealing with was over

7:04 so thank you for listening to my video and i have an upcoming talk that's that i'm doing about tantrums with more detail and more tools um on september 14th on a saturday in denver and if you can make it you can contact me through facebook at facebook.com forward slash parenting by connection or through hand in handparenting.org

7:34 they both have the information about the upcoming talk thank you so much