Tantrums in a 3-year-old child: advice from a psychologist
The first and most important step here is to figure out what is behind the child's tantrum. Why is he trying to achieve what he wants in this way?
When a 3-year-old child has tantrums, many caring and empathetic parents seek advice from a psychologist. In this article, we will analyze the most pressing issues that worry moms and dads when contacting specialists:
- Why does a child have tantrums, because not all children behave like this if they don't like something?
- How to react, how to behave with a child in a moment of tantrum?
- Will the child himself outgrow the tantrums of three years old or do something need to be done?
- What to do to prevent tantrums from taking hold and becoming a habitual way of responding?
Tantrums in a child 3-4 years old: age characteristics
Three years is a special age limit. This is the most important milestone in the formation of the psyche of any baby. It is during this period that the child finally separates himself from other people. Begins to feel vividly and gradually become aware of his own "I".
He has natural contradictions with the outside world: I want something, but my mother, for example, does not give. Or he offers something else in return, or maybe makes him do what he doesn't want.
Not all guys react the same in this situation. Someone is stubborn or even aggressive. Another is cunning: he pretends to agree, but at the same time can secretly take or do what is impossible. And there are children who, at the age of three, react with violent hysteria to emerging contradictions with other people.
In this difficult period, it is important to lay the child's ability to negotiate with others - this is the foundation of all future social realization. Otherwise, hysteria and emotional blackmail in the future will seriously ruin the life of an adult.
The first and most important step here is to figure out what is behind the child's tantrum. Why is he trying to achieve what he wants in this way?
Why does the child react with hysteria
Babies are born mentally unequal - each is given its own set of certain qualities, talents and properties. Nature has endowed about 5% of children with a special breadth of the emotional range. Such children from infancy react to various events more violently and vividly than their peers.
They have a changeable mood: in one minute, delight is replaced by hysterical crying. And it happens that a child gets stuck in a whiny mood for a long time, and then it is not easy to distract him. Such features are not in themselves negative signs - they are natural and natural for children with a visual vector of the psyche.
With proper development, special emotionality not only does not threaten the child in any way, but also becomes a guarantee of his happy fate and full realization in life. After all, it is people with a visual vector that can grow up to be the most mentally sensitive and responsive. And even choose for yourself a humanistic profession that allows you to be a support for sick and suffering people (for example, the specialty of a doctor or social worker).
But a special emotional range requires proper development and a competent educational approach. We will reveal deeper the structure of the psyche of such a baby and figure out what he needs in order to develop safely.
What is behind the tantrums of a child at 3 years old: a deep need of the psyche
The natural desire in the visual vector is to experience strong emotional experiences, sensually live this life to the maximum. When you observe a child's tantrum, there is always an unconscious need to emotionally, feel strongly and deeply behind it. But hysteria is also a signal that the child does not find a constructive way to realize this desire. Therefore, he unwittingly tries to "swing" you into an emotional outburst in any way possible. And the reason may not even matter much.
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One of the possible reasons for hysteria is the suppression of the child's emotions in other life situations. Spectators should not be forbidden to cry, shame for tears or for another vivid manifestation of feelings. When a child receives a ban on the expression of emotions, the very desire for strong experiences does not go anywhere, nature cannot be altered. As a result, a child can simply explode like a fountain in a situation where there is the slightest conflict of interest between him and other people.
- Another possible cause of the problem is that the child cannot fulfill his need for a deep emotional connection with his mother. A sensual connection between a mother and a child arises when the mother emotionally shares his life: she admires his achievements, empathizes with such small (but serious for him) sorrows. A particularly strong bond is formed when reading literature together with a child to empathize with the main characters.
But in the modern world it often happens that a mother is tired and exhausted: after a hard day at work, she simply does not have the strength for emotions. In the middle of reading a fairy tale, she simply falls asleep. Sometimes your own difficult conditions prevent you from building an emotional connection with your child. For example, a woman grieves and grieves after a divorce, experiences chronic depression, etc.
As a result, an emotional distance unwittingly develops between the mother and the child, and the baby does not receive enough joint experiences with her. There is a shortage, the very natural desire of the baby does not go anywhere. And he “picks up” joint experiences with his mother through a tantrum or a scandal.
Another, global reason for children's tantrums is the loss of a visual child of a sense of security and safety from the mother. This, of course, happens to the maximum extent if the baby is yelled at or physically punished. Mom's negative states also significantly affect: visual children are the most emotionally susceptible, you cannot hide your mood from them.
The banal lack of strength and energy in the mother, as well as the wrong (not suitable for visual children) model of upbringing, also affects. We will dwell on how to raise a visual child in more detail.
How to raise a hysterical baby
- A visual child should not be frightened, even in jest. Otherwise, the huge sensory range remains fixed in fear for your life. And this, of course, is accompanied by all kinds of phobias, fears, panic, and hysterics.
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A visual baby should not have pets. Otherwise, the desire to build emotional connections will be directed in the wrong place - at the animal, and not at people.
True, most of the little spectators are very touched at the sight of cute pets and ask them to get them for themselves. But it is important for parents to know that, directing their emotions to the animal, the child follows the path of "least resistance", because it is much more difficult to build connections with people. At the same time, a spiritual connection with an animal will always be due to human connections. That is, in the company of peers, the child will socialize worse - he will be afraid that he will be offended or hit, it will be painful to worry when he is teased, he will be removed from the company of other children.
There is one more risk: the lifespan of pets, alas, is short-lived. If a cute animal is lost or lost, the visual baby experiences a sharp break in the emotional connection and reacts psychologically - seriously grieves. There are also physical consequences: the child's eyesight can be significantly reduced. This is how the most sensitive zone of small spectators - the eyes - reacts to overstress.
- Visual babies cannot be taken to funerals. Even if near the entrance you are faced with the farewell ceremony, it is better to take the child away as soon as possible. The difficult emotional states of people at the funeral and a special visual line (wreaths, coffin) are then imprinted on the child's psyche for a long time and can fix him in the fear of death.
- You can't read fairy tales in which someone eats someone. Evolutionarily, the first fear in the visual vector arises in ancient times precisely in connection with the danger of being eaten (by a predator or cannibal). Any plots of this kind in fairy tales fall directly into the child's unconscious fear and significantly traumatize him.
If a child is 3 years old is hysterical: what to do in a critical situation
Without realizing that he is being controlled, the child at the moment of hysteria wants to evoke an emotional response from you. If this experience is successful (you are indignant, nervous, upset) - the baby will repeat it over and over again. Even if he does not consciously want to quarrel with his mother, his unconscious desire to experience strong emotions is much stronger than the considerations of the mind.
The correct reaction is not to give the child emotional "nourishment" at the moment of hysteria. But you can't overdo it: complete ignorance also harms the baby and is no good. It is best to calmly and concisely explain why his demand is impracticable. At the same time, maintain a friendly and warm contact with the baby.
The main thing is your own attitude to what is happening. After all, hysteria is not a sign that the child is bad or badly brought up. He is still too small, his psyche is just forming. Hysterics is just an intermediate milestone in the development of a small eye. His need for sensory experiences has grown, and he is not yet able to fill it sufficiently.
Over a long distance, you need to help the baby learn to fill his desire for strong experiences differently. So that this will contribute to his harmonious development and help build happy relationships with people in the future. What is needed for this?
What to do so that a child's tantrums at 3 years old and later never recur
- Get your child involved in reading classic literature. Choose works that encourage the child to empathize with the hero. And do not be alarmed if after such a fairy tale the child fell asleep in tears - these are not tears of hysteria about himself, but tears of empathy. This develops the baby's sensual sphere.
- As he gets older, teach him to transfer the skill of empathy into real life. Show that someone who is weak, elderly, or sick may need their support, empathy, and help.
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It is important to provide those developmental conditions that correspond to the full set of innate qualities and properties of the child. The visual vector is not the only one in the structure of the human psyche.
For example, it is useful to send a mobile and nimble kid with a skin-visual combination of vectors to a dance or theater group. It is better to take an assiduous and thorough kid with an anal-visual combination to an art school or to a circle of arts and crafts. Music school is also essential for the child's sensory development.
Tantrums in a child 4 years old what to take a photo Modern urban children are endowed on average with the properties of 3-4 vectors at the same time, so it is important for parents to have their own psychological competence. Understand what this or that child's behavior is talking about.
- Make sure that the family (especially the mother) becomes a reliable guarantor of the baby's sense of security and safety. When a child has 3 years of hysterics, the advice of a psychologist on education is not enough. The secret of the successful and happy development of our children is a good relationship and psychological state of the parents, a strong emotional connection with the baby and an unquenchable interest in him.
If you feel that it is difficult for you to provide your child with proper conditions (lack of psychological knowledge or poor conditions hinder), then you can get help at the training "System-vector psychology" by Yuri Burlan. It allows parents to get rid of any psychological problems, establish paired relationships and build an optimal model for raising and educating a child. And then any problem behavior of babies goes away forever.
