Parents Resource

All children throw tantrums; lingering over bedtime, negotiating playtime, disagreement over food or a fight over homework. It may be a tantrum in public or at home. How you respond as a parent will determine if the tantrum escalates, lasts and or reappears.

1. Reasoning or trying to calm down with a child in the middle of a tantrum. Or trying to distract them with let’s go play with your train, let me help you, let’s get a drink of water, etc. Here it’s important to understand in a state of high-emotion your child is not in a position to rationally consider your suggestions. Any verbal communication will reinforce the behavior and confirm to the child that this is an effective strategy to get attention!

2. Not being able to stick with the discipline. It can be very frustrating to be caught in a verbal shouting match with your child and we just can’t tolerate it any longer. While you know you should remain firm, sometimes parents just don’t have the stomach for it and eventually give in. Unfortunately, this proves to the child that with some persistence on their part, you’ll eventually cave if he/she continues the tantrum long enough.
3. Punishing the child. When parents respond with a “punishment”, this is a sure way to continues and even escalate a temper tantrum. When we as parents lose our temper, physically try to stop the tantrum or spank the child, it proves to him that his tantrum is a great way to upset us, thus exerting his power over us. While he may not like the “punishment”, it does serve his goal for seeking power – even if it’s negative power.

4, Being Inconsistent. All children toddlers to teens do best when they know what to expect, whether it’s what time they bathe and go to bed or what consequences they’ll face for misbehaving. The more consistent and predictable things are, the more resilient and agreeable a child is likely to be.

5. Overdoing Family Time. It’s fun to spend time with the family, but some parents go overboard on family time. Kids value and cherish time alone with one parent if this time is always shared with siblings /other at home children will stop valuing it. Playing with your child for even half an hour or reading a book together at bedtime or telling stories to your child are all easy ways of enjoying one on one time with your child.
6. Stop with the self blame. Some parents worry that an out-of-control child makes them seem like ineffectual parents, parents need to remember that all children have tantrums at varying degrees. When they do, it’s pointless to try to talk them out of it — even if the drama is unfolding in front of company or in a public place. A child matters more than the opinions of other people — especially strangers.

If people glare or offer unwanted advice, simply smile and say something like, “Gosh, do you remember what it was like?” Then scoop up the wailing child and find a place away from prying eyes for the tantrum to run its course. Once it does, offer the child a hug and go on with your day.

Sama Adil

Counsellor at Deen’s Academy

Imagine a classroom where children are unable to wait their turn or stay focused on their work. They are easily distracted, cannot remember basic instructions or hold enough information in their head to solve problems – skills teachers rely on in order to teach successfully.

These behavioural issues are all examples of problems that can arise from attachment issues – based on the relationship between children and their main caregiver i.e. Parent.

Attachment theory is now one of the world’s most well-researched theories about human development. It was first proposed by the 20th-century British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who considered that children needed to develop a secure attachment with their main caregiver via sufficiently consistent, responsive, sensitive, appropriate and predictable care and support.

Research has shown that secure attachments create mental processes that enable a child to regulate emotions and attune to others. Securely attached children also have self-understanding and insight, empathy for others and appropriate moral reasoning.

In turn, these processes support the foundation of “executive functioning skills”. These entail a range of key skills that enable children to focus, hold and manipulate information, solve problems, make decisions, persist at tasks, inhibit impulsive behaviour, set goals and monitor their progress. These are all the skills needed for academic learning in the classroom.

Trauma has a lot to answer for:

Insecure attachments develop if early interactions between a child and their parent or caregiver are more negative, more inconsistent or more insensitive. They can also develop if the parent is unresponsive, inappropriate or unpredictable. This can have unfortunate consequences for a child’s achievements in school. Insecurely attached children invariably have lower academic grades, have reduced social competence, are less willing to take on challenges and have higher levels of ADHD and even delinquency.

Children who have experienced early relational trauma in particular, appear to have difficulty in developing effective executive functioning skills. They often have a reduced capacity to plan ahead, inhibit inappropriate behaviour and self-reflect. They also often have poor concentration, are restless and struggle with relationships. This continues into adulthood.

Attachment research indicates that at least one-third of children have an insecure attachment with at least one caregiver, which in turn is likely to affect their school performance and behaviour.

One study in 2014 of primary school children, indicated that 98% had experienced one or more trauma event (such as divorce, accident, abuse – physical, verbal or sexual) and for one in four this trauma resulted in behavioural or emotional disturbance. Other studies have suggested that a large proportion of children with ADHD may have attachment issues.

Teachers awareness

Attachment theory is well known to professionals within health and social care, but is less understood by teachers. Teachers may misinterpret insecurely attached children’s behaviour as uncooperative, aggressive, demanding, impulsive, withdrawn, reactive or unpredictable. So it’s important for teachers to better understand this behaviour and some of its possible causes.

Examples of interventions by teachers and school could include the use of emotion coaching (a way of communicating during behavioural incidents), nurture groups and theraplay, a form of family therapy designed to reinforce attachment between parents and children.

Emotion coaching actually works
Studies indicate that using these techniques show significant reductions in behavioural incidents, improved attendance, gains in maths and English scores beyond expected levels and improved well-being in both children and school staff. This evidence suggests that such strategies provide longer-term solutions and are more cost-effective than many of the existing systems in place.

As one teacher noted: It took a series of children with needs that we just found hard to identify until we started to apply attachment theory thinking. And it just unlocked these children and made us able to understand what was going on with far greater clarity. As a result we got to make much more progress with them.

– Sama Adil