Children and Tantrums

Temper tantrums usually increase if the child is hungry, tired or ill so parents must help them to cope up with these situations. A lot of patience is requires in dealing temper tantrums.

Infants may cry a lot not because they have tantrums but because they are hungry, wet, cold or lonely. Crying is the only way of letting know that they need something. By giving the needs of infant quickly, they feel secured and may actually cry much less later on.

Most toddlers have tantrums because they are easily frustrated since they don’t talk so much. They have trouble asking for things and expressing their feeling. If you can see that your child is getting frustrated, you can try to distract him or divert his interest to other things. When a toddler is exhausted, hungry and overexcited, tantrums is likely to happen.

Preschoolers are less likely to thrown their tantrums because they have more coping skills and able to communicate better. Some children may learn that a tantrum is getting what they want as parents give in to demands.

Older children are more tolerate of frustrating situation since they learn to deal with anger. Also, they learn the acceptable ways to deal with their feelings and recognize the feeling of upset or frustrated.

Parents must know how to deal with tantrums. Avoid shaking, spanking or yelling at your child, it tends tantrums getting worse. If your toddler is screaming because you take away unsafe object, divert his attention by offering him something else. Also, you can move your child in a quiet and private place to calm down. Avoid talking to a child while screaming. Wait until your child calm down before talking about the situation.

Some children throw tantrums to get attention. Try to ignore attention-seeking tantrums and avoid situation that will lead to tantrums. Make your child realize that temper tantrums won’t work and not going to help them get out of doing what they need.

Don’t ignore frustration tantrums because it needs understanding. Instead, offers a helping hand and tell them that is it okay. Help him out where he feels frustrated and not able to accomplish a task. Always remember to praise your child when he learns to control his temper and be a good example to them by staying cool and calm.

Some ways to prevent Public Tantrums

Children throw tantrums anytime whether at home or public place such as department store, grocery, park, church or mall. Anyone who has toddlers experience public tantrum because it is natural and part of growing up. The following are some ways to prevent public tantrums.

• Remain cool and calm. You’re teaching him self-control
• If you’re going to grocery, make it sure to bring snacks for the child to keep occupied
• Make sure that a child is well-rested and fed. Some cause of tantrums is hungry, sick, or tired
• Divert child’s attention if you feel that tantrum is coming out
• Don’t reward, bribe or punish your child
• Avoid yelling, spanking or screaming at your child
• Emphasize expected behavior before going to public place
• Finally, make apology at some people around you
  

Temper Tantrums

Every young child has tantrums. It is a way of expressing their feelings and frustrations. Don’t panic it is a part of their growing up. It is often occurs in children between one to fours years old and frequently after the second birthday. It may happen anytime such as during bedtime, getting dress, getting up, bath time, meal time, watching TV, visitors at home, interaction with peers, car rides and playtime.

As parents we must know how to deal with tantrums. We must know what cause of tantrums is so that we can cope up with it. The following are tips to prevent temper tantrums.

• Know the situation that triggers your child tantrums. Tantrum usually increases if the child is hungry, upset, frustrated, tired or ill.
• Remain cool and calm. Remember that we are teaching our child to have self-control.
• Ignore the attention-seeking tantrums. Once he is calm down, give the attention that he is desired. It makes them realize that it is not work out and they may choose to behave.
• Avoid shouting or yelling at your child. It can make things even worse.
• Don’t bribe, reward or punish your children.
  
• Discuss tantrums afterwards. Don’t talk to your child while he is screaming and wait until he is calm down.
• Distract your child. Divert child’s attention by offering other things.
• Hold the child who is out of control to ensure that he may not get hurt. Reassure that everything is all right and help the child to calm down.
  

Importance of Child Discipline

One of the main jobs of being a parent is to enforce proper discipline and guidance. Effective discipline helps our child developed self-control. It is more on teaching rather than punishment. It involve the teaching the concept of right or wrong, how to respect the right of other and what behavior is acceptable or expected. Parents often worry about child’s misbehavior and how to handle it. An emotional and behavioral problem takes place if parents may not implement proper behavior.

Tips on how to enforce discipline

• Be a role model. Children is a great imitators so parents must act properly If a parent is honest, industrious, patient, kind, thoughtful, eat fruits and veggies, read bible and pray, it is likely adopt the values and habits of their parents. Children learn many things by observing the person closest to them. Parents must practice traits they wish for their children.
  
• Make sure the child understand what behavior is expected. Make explanation is simple, short and age-appropriate so that children understand what you are trying to say easily.
  
• Don’t make too much criticism. Make sure that a child understands that it is misbehavior and teach them the expected behavior and show them how much you love them.
• Avoid negatives all the time. You can tell instructions in a nice way such as “It is better to put your clothes here” instead of saying “Put your clothes here without my asking”
• Stay cool and calm. Avoid yelling and screaming because it teaches a child that it is okay to lose control. Just take a break few minutes break until you regain your composure.
• Don’t use bribery. Some parents make a habit of promising a reward if the child is good. In this case, the child is good because of the tangible reward not because it is the right thing to do. Also, he learns to manipulate adults. It is okay to give a reward occasionally and unexpectedly to show your appreciation. Reward is different from bribery.
• Give simple rewards and praise for the good behavior. It lets the child knows that you appreciated his efforts.
• Avoid physical punishment. Spanking your child and other form of punishment may trigger aggressiveness. A child may feel angry. Parents who find themselves swatting their children constantly, are not disciplining them but doing them harm.
• Promote good behavior. Give your child an opportunity to make decisions or choices such as food to eat, shirt to wear. He sees that he has control over his world. Offer him two choices in decision making and explain what is acceptable. It is important for the toddler to become independent.
  
• Give your child a warm and loving environment at home. Makes them feel loved and secured.
  

If you are having difficulty of disciplining your child, don’t be upset because children have different temperament and other ways of discipline may work on some children but not work with you. Also the best way is know your child so that you can enforce the right way to encourage proper behavior. Just do the best you can do and don’t give up.

Emotional Development of Toddler

12-15 months

• Imitate actions such as covering eyes while playing Peekaboo.
• Make use of gesture words to express desires such as: Raising arms to be picked up, or saying “ball” or pointing a certain object.

15-18 months

• Know how to respond to others.
• Address other with greetings.
• Imitate activities such as cleaning up or talking on a phone, sweeping the floor.
  

18-24 months

• Learn to be separate with their parents.
• Use words to label his or her emotions.
• Develop social behavior such as hugging a teddy bear or feeding a doll.
• Self-recognition, self reference.
  
• Can play turn-taking games.
• Display attachment such as giving a hug to a parent, sharing toys with playmates, and showing empathy to others.
• Separation anxiety.
  

24-36 months

• Make choices in terms of clothes and entertainment.
• Knows the difference between the boys and the girls.

Mental Development of the Toddler

12-15 months

• Imitate the sound around him
• May use four to six letter words such as “doll” or “ball”
• Understand simple command such as bringing a cup to you when you point at and say “Please bring me the cup”, throwing the garbage” by saying “Please throw away the garbage by pointing the trash can.
• Remembers things still exist when they are out of sight, such as a ball or doll placed into a closed box.
  

15-18 months

• May use 10–20 words.
• Follow a command without a gesture.
• Stack two blocks.
  

18-24 months

• May speaks 20–50 words; understands many more
• Stack six blocks
• Able to know non-physical relationships such as turning off the radio or TV or pressing the buttons
  
• Knows how to sort toys.
• Able to search for hidden objects.
• Problem solving through experimentation.
  

24-36 months

• Practice voice modulation by yelling or whispering word.
• May string nouns and verbs to form complete but simple sentences.
• May be able learn new words, place and people’ names easily.
• Anticipates routines.
• Plays with toys in imaginative ways.
• Singing simple songs
  

Physical Development of a Toddler

12-15 months

• Having gross motor skills
• Standing alone well
  
• Walking well
• Drinking from cup (poorly)
• Turning pages of the book
• Learning to walk backwards and up steps
• Playing ball by rolling or tossing it
  

15-18 months

• Placing block in a cup
• Bending down and standing up without help
• Walking well alone.
• Holding a crayon well enough to scribble.
• Lifting a cup to mouth for drinking
• Climbing onto furniture
  

18-24 months

• Feeding self with a spoon
• Running
• Climbing into small chair
• Walking up steps
• Throwing ball over hand
• Jumping in place
  

24-36 months

• Advanced mobility and climbing skills.
• Increased dexterity with small objects, puzzles.
• Able to dress oneself.

Exploring the World around Him

Toddler is usually between the stage of infancy and childhood. Also, it is a time that a child begins to walk. The toddler is discovering that they are a separate being from their mother or caregiver and are testing their boundaries in learning the way the world around them works.

The toddler wants to explore and investigate all the things around him. He stays very busy. He has things to do and places to go. Take him outdoors as much as possible for order for him to meet children of his own age so that he can play and learn the beginnings of social contact.

You must have a lot of patient with your toddler; this is the period that your child is intrinsically curious. Curiosity often gets the toddler into trouble. He doesn’t recognize potential danger so it is the mother or child’s caregivers to watch out for him. It is important for parents to provide safe, secure setting for the child to investigate and to encourage his exploration.

Obviously, you must set limits on your child’s behavior – on what is acceptable and what is not, while still giving him the freedom to express his emotions and energies in vigorous physical play. Make the regulations easy to understand so that the child will not become confused about what is expected of him and never set up impossible standards.

Lot of patience and wisdom is required for caring a busy toddler. Understanding the learning process and knowing what is normal and age-appropriate help equip parents to assist their child to grow in the most effective manner.

Relationships with Mother and Father

It is important that mother provides a warm and loving environment as the child’s need. During the toddler stage, wherein the child develops the real relationship with his mother. In most cases, the mother is the loving, warm, secure comforter in child’s life, the giver of rewards and disciplinarian of his activities, the center of his life. During this time, it is imperative that the child’s father spend as much time with his son or daughter as possible, so that the child starts to recognize the difference between his relationship to his mother and father.

In most cases, the father is the provider of financial needs. He is responsible for the financial obligation of the family, may it impossible to spend enough time with his family. This is an unfortunate fact, but one can be dealt positively, it is the quality of the time a father spends with his child rather than the quantity that is most important.

Second Year: Toddler Stage

At the age of 2, child begins to develop independence and separateness from his mother. He explore everything around him more actively. He experiments with greater and greater distances and increasing independence from his mother. At the end of second year, children frequently become quite independent, trying to do many things for themselves, and resenting their parents or other adults doing things for them. They tend to perform the adult's task, he should be encouraged in these early moves toward independence, It is also the time when the child develop his speech skills. The child may probably hum and sing and make three word sentences like "bird fly high" at the end of second year.

Suspicion of Strangers

At the age of eight months, an infant who has in the past without complaint allowed anyone to pick her up begins to distinguish her mother from other individuals. When picked up by another the infant usually cries, acts frightened, and, in general, looks unhappy. The infant recognize her mother from other individual, this is one of the milestone of infant's development.

Usually around the age of one year, the infant starts to become fearful upon separation from her mother. The child may respond with crying, fear and anger when he realize that her mother is away or walks out of the room or leaves the baby with a sitter. Although the response is normal and usually subsides within 3 to 4 months, parents should learn to leave the child in the hands of a sitter, and walk out without guilt or anger. The child must learn that separations are temporary and that parents do return.

Social Responses

As the baby matures, one of the tasks is to begin to see himself as separate from the world around her. During early infancy, the infant does not see himself as an individual who is separate from his mother, from other adults, and from the rest of the world. One of the gratifying events in the early months of a child's life is the smiling responses. An infant can respond in a social way to other human for the first time. The smile could be considered one of the infant's first social communications.

Fondling and Sucking

Most of the infant's satisfaction and gratifications are through the skin's perception of being touched - through physical contact with her mother and other caring adults - and through the mouth, especially sucking. Infants have a great need to suck even when they are not hungry, and this sucking should be both allowed and encouraged.

Parents frequently worry that if they respond to a baby's crying by picking her up they will spoil her, and the baby will cry often in order to get attention. It could be said that during its first year and infant cannot be spoiled. When a infant cries she usually does so because she is uncomfortable, hungry, sick or needs some physical attention.

Behavioral Development During Infancy

During a child's first year she needs a warm and loving emotional environment in the home. Trust must be established in child's first year. That is, he learns to be a trusting individual who feels that her important needs - those of being cared for, fed, and comforted - will be met by other human beings, initially by her mother.

Holding and cuddling the infant, talking to her, and playing with her in an affectionate, relaxed way are important for her emotional growth. It shown that infants growing up in a environment lacking warm, loving, close physical and emotional contact with a mother often failed to thrive and may even die.

Emotional Development of the Newborn

Emotional development is noticed as the child learns to express feelings. The first emotion a child will display is excitement. A child may show the emotions of fear, pleasure, anger and joy for the first few months. A child is capable of expressing affection at about 9 months. The first hug and kiss are one of the most precious moments treasured by parents.

Infant's total dependency forces him to interact with others in order to fulfill his needs. Social interaction begins almost immediately. Evidence of social development is seen as the baby responds to the people around him. At 4 to 6 weeks the child's face lights up as his mother or father approaches. At about 6 months the baby wants to play interactive game such as "pat-a-cake" and "peek-a-boo". At about 9 or 10 months the child learns that things continue to exist even when they are out-of-sight. Prior to this, the child assumes things become nonexistent when they vanish from sight. The child begins to show signs of curiosity about things happening outside his vision. He knows to look for lost toys or forbidden objects.

Learning is enhanced by routine. The child learns to associate being bathe, dressed in pajamas, and listening stories in bedtime. The child learns from interaction with others.

The First Months

The first months following the birth of a child are filled with new developments and major adjustments. Sleep patterns well established over the years are often disturbed by a cry in the night. Not all the changes will not be inconveniences. Your home will be enriched by your child's first smile, the gentle sounds of a baby's coo, and the joy of holding your baby close.

It will be necessary that the baby have regular health supervision. Your baby's physician - whether pediatrician or general practitioner - will check the baby's height and weight on each visit, and make certain she is growing or gaining at a satisfactory rate.

Developmental changes

At birth, a baby's vision is limited. Bright colors are more noticeable than pastels. For the first few weeks, the baby's range of vision is from 8 to 12 inches. It is interesting that this is the approximate distance from the newborn's face to his mother's and father' s eyes when she is being held. Vision improves quickly. In the fourth month, a baby's vision is almost as good as a young adults.

A newborn's hearing is quite good at the time of birth. The sense of hearing is one the baby practiced while still in the womb. The senses of taste and smell are less developed. However, it only takes a few days for them to become more sensitive. A 10-day-old baby responds to his mother more on the basis of smell than sight or sound.

Preparing for your Newborn

The parent-relationship provides feelings of satisfaction, pride and joy. At other times, the parent-child relationship results in feelings of frustration and inadequacy. Preparations must be made to greet the new arrival.

A good place to sleep a baby is a must because baby may sleep from 12 to 20 hours a day the few first few weeks. Either a crib or a bassinet with a firm mattress provide a suitable resting place. The child should sleep in a room of its own if possible. Soundproofing the sleeping area is not necessary. The infant needs to learn to sleep through normal household noises. Be sure the room is free of drafts which can chill the baby.

Feeding a Baby

Another decision to be made before the baby's arrival concerns feeding. Mother must ask herself on how to feed her baby. Its either breast-feeding or bottle-feeding.

Breast-feeding is certainly the simplest method, and many women believe that a both mother and child get more emotional satisfaction from it than from bottle-feeding. It is also less expensive. But formula feeding can also be nutritious and satisfying. Parents may prop bottles on pillows or other objects so the infant can eat while the parent carries other activities.

Child Care

Many parents agree it would be desirable for the child to stay home with a loving parent for the first few years. Unfortunately, societal conditions make this difficult, if not possible. Many couples believe they need two incomes to get by, and most single parents have to work outside the home. Some couples make the necessary sacrifice in lifestyle so Mom or Dad can stay home with the baby. Many feel full-time parent provides the most advantages for the child, and the whole family.

In some cases, parents may find a child care. Options for the child care may include family members, neighbors, those who provide care in their homes, caregivers who come to your home, and day-care centers. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Your primary concern as a parent is to provide for your child's safety and well-being. The caregiver you select needs to supply a loving environment to stimulate the child's growth and development.

Before the Baby Arrives

When a husband and wife decide to have a baby they should be aware of responsibilities of having a child. They must know how to take care of the baby. In addition, they should both undergo complete physical examinations to ensure the safety of the baby. This will make it possible to detect and treat abnormalities like diabetes and anemia that might affect the future pregnancy.

Advice to a New Mother

New Father and Mother are need to prepare for the arrival of the newborn baby. They must prepared to change some of the conditioned patterns of their relationship, both can be in for a very difficult time. The father suddenly finds himself taking second place in his wife's attentions and affections. The new mother is tired physically and mentally.

Some Guidelines to a New Mother

• The new baby is a shared responsibility. Make your husband feel just as important to the baby as you are, and just as important to you as he was before the baby was born. Let him learn to feed the baby, diaper her, hold her, get acquainted with her. Do not shut your husband out of the experience of parenthood.
  
• Make some arrangement regarding assistance in your home, and don't wait until the day you bring the baby home to do it. Plan ahead You will be tired after childbirth, no matter how marvelous you may feel when you leave the hospital. If you cannot get your mother or another relative to stay with you, engage a housekeeper or some other trained person.
  
• If possible have a separate area for the baby. It is best for a baby not to be kept in the parent's room. Parents must have privacy.
• Don't make the baby focus of attention for 24 hours a day. If she fidgets and fusses at times, try not to get nervous. Just relax, the baby will be very sensitive to your emotional responses, particularly when you hold her.
  
• As important as it is for you and your husband to avoid overhandling the baby, it is more important that family and friends be made to follow a "hands off" policy except at your discretion. A new baby should not be subjected to excessive stimulation.