Q & A: Twin Tantrums

Question - A father of twins writes:  "I need some help to deal with tantrums that my twins throw. I've heard it said to just ignore them; but with two of them honestly sometimes I feel like I am going to loose my mind. What do you think? What could be a good start? Thanks for any help."

Answer - Thank you for your question. Dealing with tantrums with just one child can be a challenge, let alone adding another to the mix. While I don't have personal experience with twins, I do therapy with multiple children (as well as care for my own two boys), so I may be able to help in a few ways. First of all, as with most things, it is much easier to work to prevent tantrums from happening than it is to try and deal with them after they have occurred. Below I will address prevention and then intervention (what to do after a tantrum happens).

Prevention
Many times tantrums take place as a result of unmet needs or expectations on the part of the child. They may not be able or willing to communicate what is going on; leading parents to become more inflexible. This can create inflexible children + inflexible parents = Explosive Behavior.

Imagine a time in your life when you were too overwhelmed (either with stress, emotion, or exhaustion) to be able to respond appropriately to a request you otherwise would have had no problem with. The difference between you and your child (and the main reason you don't typically throw yourself on the ground and scream) is that you have learned over your lifetime how to properly handle your emotions so that even when you respond inappropriately is doesn't look like a full blown temper tantrum. So the tough part here is staying flexible while at the same time teaching your children appropriate behavior. Here are a few tips on responding with flexibility:

• Give lead time warnings for transitions: Make sure to give your child 10, 5, and 1 minute warnings before a major transition (i.e. dinnertime, bedtime, leaving a park or playground).
• Become familiar with your child: Take a few days or even a week or two to get in tune with your child. Know what happens before a temper tantrum so you can avoid the situation next time. For instance if a child does very well all throughout a store, but breaks down in line or in a toy section, have your spouse/partner take them out to the car when you get in line or avoid the toy section altogether. 
• Work on yourself: If you find yourself becoming frustrated, stressed or overwhelmed a lot, figure out what contributes to that frustration. Remember you have had more time to accumulate these skills, if something is wrong between you and your child, it is your job as the parent to set things right. 
• Understand the difference between Unwilling and Unable: Some children need more time to develop the skills needed to accomplish parental requests. If you are expecting your one year old to be able to cloth and bath himself before bedtime you are setting yourself and your child up for failure. Know the typical developmental milestones and know where your child differs from them. Unwilling simply means the child is refusing to comply. Unable means your child simply cannot accomplish the task no matter how hard they try. Knowing this one difference can save you and your child a lot of frustration.

A few other tips on prevention include:

• Child directed play: Spend about 45 minutes per week with each child giving them your undivided attention. Research shows that child directed play increases the parent-child bond, which also decreases the chance that tantrums will happen. For more on child directed play, click here.
• Praise and reward your child: Focus on the things they do right, and reward them with positive, social rewards ("Thank you SO MUCH!"; "You did a GREAT job listening to me, it makes me happy when you do that"; give them hugs, play toys with them). Make sure to be sincere with your praise. Reward them with things they like. For more on praise, click here. For more on rewards, click here.

Intervention

So what do you do when a child (or two) are in a full out temper tantrum? First of all, you need to have a plan of action. If the tantrum happens in the store and your alone, it becomes pretty hard to put them in time out. So after becoming more familiar with when and why a tantrum starts, develop some game plans for the more common, or more difficult tantrums. When tantrums do start, and if your partner is around, try to divide and conquer (each of you take a child and each of you implement the game plan). Some key features in your game plan should include:

• Emotion coaching: Help your child understand the emotions they are feeling and let them know it is okay to feel those emotions. For more on emotion coaching, click here.
• Use clear communication: Make sure your children know what you expect of them. For instance, "Stop doing that" is not specific enough for a child to understand. Instead tell them what to do, "Please put your fork on the table, instead of hitting the table with it. Thank you." For more on clear communication, click here. 
• Use effective consequences: Even when you have done everything right, children still need to learn consequences from their actions. Be sure to use consequences that are in some way connected to their behavior, and that are not too extreme. Click here for more on effective consequences. 

I hope this information is of some help to you and your family. Thanks for the great question, and as always, comments and more questions are welcome.