A few months ago, while walking home, I heard a child screaming about not wanting to leave the playground. The parents were also shouting, “Stop crying… we won’t go the playground anymore… if you don’t stop crying we will leave you here.”
The child, around 3 years old, was exhausted. When he heard his parents threatening him, he started screaming even more until, eventually, he stopped crying and went back on his bike to go home.
What happened?
A child, most likely exhausted by the day and the emotions he was experiencing, was having what is commonly referred to as a "tantrum". I don’t particularly like this term, I prefer to refer to these episodes as episodes of emotional dysregulation.
Emotional Dysregulation: A child acting their age
When a little child is experiencing intense emotions such as anger, frustration, boredom, or feels overwhelmed, they won’t be able to put those emotions and needs into words, as their brain is still very immature. They are still learning about emotions: what they are, how to name them, and how to regulate them. Therefore, infants and toddlers communicate with their behaviours, and these behaviours are often misinterpreted as misbehaviours that must be corrected. Clear examples of these "misbehaviours" include crying, hitting, biting, screaming, whining, throwing things on the floor, disorganized behaviours, and "general tantrums". Tiredness, overstimulation, hunger and stress increase the probability of these behaviours.
A child who is expressing these behaviours is not misbehaving. They are just saying: "I am tired, I am experiencing intense emotions which I don’t know anything about and cannot handle. I need your help to get through these emotions, without ignoring them. I need your help to feel better".
Being a little child is hard work. The inability to communicate properly creates frustration. Also, they haven’t developed compassion yet, so they don’t understand the consequences of their behaviours, lack impulse control, and struggle to accept a “no”. They need understanding, attention, and love, although their behaviour may communicate the opposite and may be difficult to tolerate.
These episodes are developmentally normal for infants and toddlers, who are not mini adults but just children with brains at the early stages of development. Indeed, these episodes typically begin between 12 and 18 months, peak at around 2 years of age, and then gradually disappear between 4 and 5 years. Indeed, as the children’s vocabulary increases, they are better able to put their emotions into words, reducing the occurrence of emotional dysregulation episodes and "misbehaviours".
The work of the caregiver: The constant process of co-regulation
The work of the sensitive caregiver is not to suppress the behaviour but to try and understand what the child is saying, and help them regulate the intense emotions they are experiencing and put them into words.
We have talked about emotional regulation in a previous blog.
Emotional regulation is the ability to regulate internal emotions, i.e., the ability to calm down, reduce the intensity of our feelings and control our behaviour, so we can respond most optimally to the stimuli. It does not mean repressing emotions, but modulating internal states and reactions. This is a crucial competence for our well-being as it helps us understand our emotions and those of others, successfully managing stressful situations and remaining resilient.
If we think that emotional regulation can sometimes be difficult even for adults, this can be almost impossible for young children.
Young children rely on their caregivers to help them with their emotional regulation, as their brain is still very immature. The prefrontal cortex, which is a key area involved in emotion regulation, is one of the last parts of the brain to develop. For this reason, they need someone else to help them regulate their internal states and emotions, so they feel calm again, in a process called hetero-regulation or co-regulation.
Co-regulation is difficult and tiring work for the caregivers, as they need to regulate their own emotions first, to be able to regulate the child’s emotions. This means: first controlling negative emotions that may arise from the episode (e.g., anger, frustration) and impulsive behaviours that may come out (e.g., wanting to tell the child off to correct the unwanted behaviour, or sometimes wanting to shout or punish the child); then focusing on calming the child.
However, this work is extremely important as little children learn self-regulation with time, through the repeated experience of co-regulation with the caregivers in the first years of life. In this way, with time and brain maturity, children learn to eventually control their emotions and behaviour independently (i.e., self-regulation).
Children learn from us; they absorb our emotions and how we cope with difficult situations and then imitate our behaviours. This is why it is fundamental to work on our self-regulation first and model positive reactions to stressful situations to the children.
What to do and not do during episodes of emotional dysregulation
For babies, physical contact is the strongest way to regulate emotions. Later on, words can also be introduced to help regulate children’s internal states.
As parents, we need to learn about staying in the emotion, without judging it as good or bad or wanting to stop it. This is not an innate competence but something that needs practice.
This is even more difficult if we are tired, going through stressful situations, lack a support network, or have grown up with the idea that these episodes need to be corrected.
When an episode of emotional dysregulation occurs, it is important to:
Stay calm (regulate your emotions first), ignore other people around you, and share your calm. As stated by Knost, "When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it is our job to share our calm, not join their chaos".
Be present
Maintain eye-contact
Start with non-verbal communication: stay close to the child, go down at their level and, if possible, offer some contact, for example, a touch or a hug. This will start calming them down.
Then, talk to them to understand, validate and regulate the emotion. Communicating to your child that you understand and accept their frustration, will help them understand that their emotions are important.
Consider this as an example: "I can see you are angry (recognition of the emotion), as you wanted to jump from that stone (recognition of the origin of the emotion). I understand it and it is ok to feel angry about it (validating the emotion). I know it is exciting to do new things (recognition that what the child feels is legitimate), but you could fall if you jumped on your own, we can do it together (there is a solution)".
Validating the emotion and how the child feels is crucial. This does not mean that we need to accept "unwanted" behaviours and not set boundaries. Assertive communication is important: "I know you are sad (recognition of the emotion) as you wanted an ice cream for breakfast (recognition of the origin of the emotion). It is ok to feel sad (validation) but you cannot hit mommy (set boundaries)". It is essential to show love towards the child, but not accept the behaviour. It is also crucial to try and put emotions in words, as this helps the child to build skills for later.
On the contrary, these things should be avoided:
Angry comments, shouting and punishment (e.g., because you are behaving badly, you are not going to the park anymore/ you won’t have this thing that you like for dinner)
Invalidating the emotion (e.g., stop crying, crying is useless; what you are doing does not make sense; you have got nothing to cry about, you are fine)
Judging the child for the behaviour (e.g., you are a spoilt/naughty child, you are acting like a baby)
Lectures/logical explanations (e.g., you are old enough to behave properly, there is no reason to cry for such a stupid thing).
Time out (e.g., now you are going to your room to reflect on what you have done)
Return the behaviour (e.g., hit back). This will create confusion on whether that behaviour is acceptable
All these strategies can prolong a tantrum without resolving it while also communicating to the child that their emotions are not right, in turn impeding their healthy emotional development.
These episodes of emotional dysregulation are not indicators that the child is misbehaving or is "spoilt", but just how little children communicate their intense emotions. The role of the caregiver is to help the child calm down and put their emotions into words.
Next time someone scolds you for not telling off your child during a tantrum, rest assured that you are doing the right thing.
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