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Home › Articles › Discipline › Meltdown Moments

Meltdown Moments

Dealing with Preschool Temper Tantrums

By Margaret Risk

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Afterward, if your child is 3 or 4, she has enough language skills to talk about what happened. A calm, soothing voice with a matter-of-fact attitude will go far to helping your child feel supported.

Putting the Advice Into Practice
Psychology professor Stephanie Stein, who teaches developmental psychology at Central Washington University, says that her oldest son, now 5, can have "frightening losses of temper where he hits others, throws things, cries and slams doors."

Her son's most recent meltdown occurred when he found out he couldn't go to the children's museum, something he had been looking forward to. He began to cry loudly and attempted to hit her. When he refused to go to his room to calm down, Stein says that she "helped " him to his room. He proceeded to throw toys against the door. Her strategy was to wait until he quieted and then go inside and talk to him.

"We talked about how he was feeling, what happened that upset him, what he did and how he could respond differently in the future," Stein says. Sometimes it takes a while for a child to calm down enough to talk. When Stein's son calms down, she requires that he apologize for his behavior to anyone that he hurt.

"In my opinion, the discipline strategy that is not appropriate for tantrums is to lash out in anger and physically punish the child," says Stein. "Angry put-downs are a bad idea, too. Your goal is to get the child to calm down, not to vent your anger at their behavior."


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