Driving past a Wawa can stress me out. Unfortunately, Wawas have been the scene of some of my daughter’s biggest meltdowns. They go something like this: I pull into the parking lot. I quickly jump out of the car, grab my son’s infant carrier, and race to unbuckle my toddler. Before we get inside, my daughter changes her mind about having to go to the bathroom. I suggest we still go inside, just in case. Big toddler emotions follow. She throws herself to the concrete and begins to scream. Her yelling frustrates me, so I yell for her to stop. My yelling upsets my son in his carrier, so he starts crying. Eventually, we make it to the bathroom and back into the car. Everyone is in tears, and I now have a grudge against a gas station.
Knowing how to handle big toddler emotions doesn’t come naturally for most moms. It’s easy to react to their big feelings with big feelings of our own, but that only escalates the situation. Instead, consider these 6 healthy ways to navigate big emotions in toddlers.
1. Calm yourself first.
Before we can help our toddlers regulate their behavior and emotions, we have to regulate ours. So when your child is lying on the ground kicking and screaming, refusing to leave the playground, try to respond calmly. We know it’s not easy to do. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is likely flooding our system, just like it is in our child. But mirror neurons in our child’s brain are activating and will lead him to try to mirror our behavior and emotions. If our body language says that we are tense and frustrated, he might feel more tense and frustrated. At a minimum, take a few deep breaths and act as calmly as you can.
2. Consider the toddler brain.
On the outside, we see a toddler throwing toy after toy against the wall. If we could see inside her brain, it would be just as chaotic. Toddlers have such big emotions because of their brain’s developmental stage. When a toddler senses a “threat”—having to go to bed, not getting the toy she wants—the amygdala kicks in. Then the hypothalamus calls for extra adrenaline and cortisol. Finally, a toddler’s immature prefrontal cortex offers little help with self-control. Knowing this may not make us respond to meltdowns with joy, but it does help us shift our focus from anger to empathy.
3. Aim for emotional regulation.
Ultimately, we want our children to learn to regulate their emotions. But in the toddler stage, that’s a very early work in progress. Imagine your child’s emotions during a meltdown as boiling water. Little kids are at a loss for how to organize all of those bubbling feelings. It’s just happening way too fast for them.
So resist the urge to make teaching a lesson the primary goal during a tantrum. A wise mom once told me, “You don’t teach someone to swim while they’re drowning.” We have to “save” our children from the tantrum first—calm them down, so they can then move on to learning how to process their emotions. Most lessons won’t sink in while our toddlers are out of control.
4. Try this during a meltdown.
If transitioning from one thing to another is causing the meltdown–having to put away toys, leaving a friend’s house, taking a nap–allow your toddler to take the time he needs before going on to the next thing. Say, “I understand you need some time before you’re ready to ___________. That’s OK. I will be here when you’re ready.”
If physical touch won’t further upset your toddler, try to hug him or pat his back and say things like, “You’re really frustrated right now. I can see you’re angry.” Try not to talk him out of his feelings. If he wails, “I want the truck!” resist saying, “But you had your turn.” Instead, help him feel heard: “I know you wanted the truck again.” Talking to our kids during a meltdown is OK, as long as it’s calming. Though—you know your child best. If talking just upsets him more, skip it.
5. Move on when you have to.
If you have another child to pick up from school or you can’t spend unlimited time calmly soothing your child while he’s mid-meltdown, we get it. You’re not a robot. You’re frustrated and have other things to do. If you need to leave the scene of the tantrum, scoop up your child or see if he’ll follow you if you calmly tell him you’re heading for the car. Use redirection as a strategy when you have to.
If you’re home during a meltdown, make sure your child is safe and soothe and calm him when you can. If he has tantrums at bedtime, try to calm him before you carry him to his room. Try to save any fun bedtime routines until he’s in bed. You can say, “I see you do not want to go to bed and that you’re upset. I want to read you a story as soon as you’re in your bed.” Or, offer choices: “Hmm… what do you think? Do you want to go up now and read a book or get something to drink first?” Having something to focus on might help your child shift into a calmer mode.
6. Identify big emotions.
When your child does calm down, she may not be able to articulate why she got so upset. She may not even remember it! That’s OK. You can still say things like, “I saw that you got mad today at the grocery store when you couldn’t get out of the buggy.” Or, “It seemed that you felt disappointed when Noah didn’t share his crackers with you.” Identifying emotions is a great way to start teaching the language of feelings. It helps toddlers name what they’re experiencing, and they will eventually understand that those emotions aren’t who they are, but something they experience and will learn to regulate.
Of course, that emotional regulation seems like a long way off when you have a toddler screaming at the top of her lungs in a Wawa parking lot. But if we can keep in mind that our toddlers are doing the best they can at their current developmental stage, we’ll have a better chance of doing our best too.
How do you usually respond to your child’s big emotions? Is there anything you’d like to do differently next time?
