5 Things to Do When Your Kid’s Tantrum is Ruining the Fun

About five seconds into our backyard picnic today I knew it was all over.

As I was handing my four-year-old his plate, one of his pear slices slipped and fell (in absolute slow-motion) onto the ground. My heart sank. I could feel his cry building: the mounting atmospheric pressure of a volcano about to erupt. Then with wailing, tears, and tremors of sheer panic he picked up that tragic piece of fruit dusted in flecks of dirt. He was freaking out big time.

I wish I could say that I stayed calm. I guess outwardly I did. I sat down and took a bite of my sandwich, calling out instructions to wipe the pear off and comforting assurances that it was “still yummy.”

But inside I was ticked off. I was hurt. I was dejected and resentful. He was getting louder and louder and the other kids and I were feeling it. A flood of memories swirled through my brain and landed on the Christmas-light drive we’d taken when their dad had to work on Christmas Eve. I was trying to do something fun for them–something I didn’t even want to do because I was tired and alone. And guess how it ended? Yep. A meltdown over something tiny.

So now here we were again. A holiday and my sweetheart has to work (he works in the Emergency Room and often has to work holidays). Me trying to do something fun for the kids that I didn’t want to do because I am tired and parenting solo. And my little boy screaming about a dirty pear.

I was mad at him. I wanted take everybody back inside and send them to their rooms and just be alone.

But one thing I’ve learned from years of these botched-and-imperfect family activities is that the show must go on. I can let the situation beat me, or I can figure out how to turn it around. So from one tired-but-trying mom to another, here’s how to deal with tantrums when you’re out and about:

1. Press Pause.

It doesn’t matter if your kid is throwing a tantrum in the grocery store or flailing like a madman in silent church meeting, the absolute first thing to do is to press pause on yourself.

When your kid is acting like a crazy person, it is so easy to let your embarrassment, anger, frustration, or self-consciousness rule your reaction. If you’re anything like me, this is a sure-fire way to escalate the situation with your own mommy-style grown-up tantrum.

So before you do anything, stop. Take a deep breath. And remind yourself that you’re the grown-up, and that (while unpleasant!) this tantrum isn’t the end of the world.

2. Find a Neutral Territory.

Okay. You’re calm(ish). Now you need to remove yourself and your little one from the public eye. You can step into an empty aisle at Target, take your kiddo out to his car seat in the parking lot, or move into an empty room at grandma’s house–just get a little privacy however you can.

This will remove some of the stimulation that might be escalating your child’s distress and hyperactivity, and it will take the pressure off of you to perform for the crowd of family or strangers who are staring at you and your tiny tornado-child.

3. Assess and Attend to the Situation.

Once you’ve taken a breath and moved your scene into more neutral territory, look at your child and consider the H.A.L.T. acronym. Is he:

• Hungry
• Anxious
• Lonely, or
• Tired?

All these states put stress on us (grown-ups, too!), and tend to increase our tendency to react emotionally. So if your kiddo is feeling one (or all) of these things, it often helps to attend to those issues first. (I’ve noticed in my own kids that it really improves their ability to be rational!)

At today’s quite imperfect picnic, my little guy was definitely hungry (it was lunchtime), probably tired (he’d been playing with his very active big sister all morning), and anxious (he didn’t know how to clean off his pear and was failing as he tried to figure it out).

4. Adjust the Plan.

If we are at home, the kids know protocol for a tantrum. (You can ask them what happens if they start yelling and crying, and they’ll tell you, “You go up to your room until you’re ready to speak nicely.”) But when we’re trying to do something special, sometimes we just have to work with what we have. And that often means adjusting my vision of our activity.

I was really stubborn at first about making my little guy eat on the picnic blanket with us, but once I’d regained my cool (which took longer than a pause for a breath today, I’ll admit!) I realized that a lot of things could help him have a better time:

• We could have eaten inside with the door open instead of outdoors, which he isn’t used to,
• I could have let him eat inside instead of insisting we all eat together, or
• I could have carried his plate to the blanket for him so his food wouldn’t spill.

I fought him at first because I was so stuck on my vision of a perfect picnic. But my original intention had been to plan something that would be fun for everyone, and my daydream idea wasn’t fun for him.

So we made some changes. I carried his plate to the blanket and got him settled. I assured him again that his pear was clean enough to eat. And I stopped expecting everyone to have a perfect time and instead allowed everyone to have a good time.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice

This tip is a bonus, and it’s a good one. Now that you’ve discovered a new tantrum-trigger for your child, you have the chance to prevent this from going full-blown Vesuvius next time you’re out. Before you leave the house next time, run through a short pretend scene with your little one.

If I were to go through one for today’s picnic incident, it would look like this:

Mom: It can be frustrating when our food falls on the ground. Let’s practice what to do next time that happens. Can you pretend to drop some food on the ground?

Kid: *pretends to drop food on the ground*

Mom: Wow, that food is dirty! How can we fix it?

Kid: *thinks of an answer or has no idea*

Mom: What if we wiped it off? How would we do that? We’d get a napkin and wipe it off. Can you show me how you’d do that? Here’s a pretend napkin! (get a pretend napkin and hand it to your kid)

Kid: *wipes it off and thinks pretending about cleaning fruit with Mom is so hilarious*

Mom: Great! But what if you wipe it and it’s still dirty? Would it help more to cry, or to ask Mom for help? (Let your kiddo answer, and then encourage to ask mom for help instead of crying.)

Mom: Okay, so can you tell me what you can do next time some of your food falls on the ground? (Then walk them through it verbally once more.)

Next time your kid starts crying about this situation, you can say, “Wait! This is just like we practiced! We know what to do when food falls on the ground.” And then you can run through the steps you practiced when you played pretend. As I’ve continued to practice walking through stressful and unfamiliar situations with my kids, I’ve seen them grow in confidence and independence AND watched the tantrums begin to fade. Which really picks up my picnic days.

How about you? What situations make your little one lose his or her marbles? What do you do when your kid loses it when you thought you were doing something “fun”?