Help! How do I deal with my twins' tantrums?

In today's episode, I answer a listener's question about how to deal with her twins' who are constantly screaming, crying and fighting. 

First, I talk about the developmental period of toddlerhood and why our little people are prone to emotional outbursts. 

Second, I talk about some strategies for dealing with our multiples' temper tantrums. 

Finally, I introduce a solution that you may not have yet considered. 

In today's episode, I mention my online program for soon-to-be and current parents of young multiples. If you are interested in finding out more, click the link below and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.

https://www.fiercekindmama.com/bfbkonlineprogram2023

Thanks for listening! If you are a soon-to-be or current parent of multiples, be sure to head over to my website http://www.fiercekindmama.com to get my FREE resources designed specifically for you!

Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook too.

Credits:
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Transcript

Dr Cristina Cavezza

Welcome to the Fierce Kind Mama of Multiples podcast. This podcast is for anyone raising multiples, twins, triplets or more. I speak to inspiring parents of multiples who have healed from unexpected pregnancies and birthing experiences and who candidly share the highs and lows of raising multiples.

I also speak to the professionals that work with multiple birth families.

Together we cover the practicalities of raising more than one baby at a time, as well as enhancing the emotional wellbeing of caregivers and children alike.

Come join us as we laugh, cry and share our personal and professional wisdom on all things multiples. I'm your host Dr Cristina Cavezza, and I am a Fierce Kind Mama of Multiples.
 
 Welcome to the show. Today, I will be answering a listener’s question about how to manage her children’s temper tantrums but before we get started, I wanted to let you know about my free resource available for those of you who are pregnant with multiples. 

If you want to learn more about how to be fully prepared for your multiple birth journey, then this guide is for you. In this guide, I take a holistic approach to help you prepare physically, financially, and emotionally. 

And if you know anyone else who is pregnant with multiples, please tell them to head over to my website: www.fiercekindmama.com

And click on the free resources tab. 

The link is also available in the podcast show notes.

I also wanted to share with you some lovely feedback I received from a listener. This is from Emma from New Zealand mum of 2-year-old twins. 

Let’s have a listen.

“This podcast has truly been a godsend. Being a new mum of multiples can be overwhelming and isolating. I found a lot of support and solace from these episodes. The guests are super knowledgeable, and Cristina does a wonderful job asking all the important questions. I feel less alone and less daunted having this podcast as part of my resource and support network. I hope all other mums of multiples around the world can find their way to this content as soon as possible. I really wish I’d known about it during pregnancy. Thank you for all that you do and share Cristina and guests.”

Wow. Thank you so much Emma from New Zealand for sending in this feedback. I absolutely love hearing from you and all my listeners, and I encourage you to reach out to me at anytime with your feedback, ideas and suggestions for improvements. If you want to connect with me and share any feedback, you can contact me through my website or on social media. The links are available in the podcast show notes. 

Alright. I am so glad you are here joining me because today I am going to be talking about a topic that I know will be of interest to many, if not all, parents of multiples. And that topic is how to deal with tantrums x2, 3 or more!

The inspiration for today’s episode comes from a listener who wrote to me and asked me for advice. Here’s what she wrote:

My twins are 2.5 years old, and their tantrums are killing me. They often fight and will not play independently or alone. I have two of everything when it comes to toys, and we do plenty of outdoor activities, but I feel like most of my time is spent dealing with their fighting and I am not proud to say that I often resort to yelling. Everybody talks about the “terrible twos”…is this just a phase I need to ride out? The constant screaming and crying is stressing me out and I actually dread taking them out because no matter where we go, the shops, the park, friends’ homes, they end up having a tantrum and I feel awful for not being able to stop it. Is there anything else I can do?

Oh as I read this out loud, I literally feel like I am reliving an earlier time in my life and I’ve heard similar concerns from so many parents of multiples. The reality is that the developmental period that we refer to as toddlerhood does come with some pretty challenging behaviours. And when you are dealing with more than one little person who is displaying these behaviours, well, the result can be utterly exhausting and super stressful. 

So, the first thing I want to say to this listener is thank you for being brave enough to share your struggle and for seeking out support. I also want to thank you for being vulnerable enough to share how your twins’ tantrums are bringing out behaviours in you that you are not so proud of. I think that takes real courage to admit that and it requires a degree of insight or self-reflection. And that’s a good thing. I know you want to do what’s best for your kids, most parents do and most parents experience feelings of shame or guilt when they don’t act in a way that is aligned with how they want to show up as a parent. We all fail from time to time but let this serve as a gentle reminder to you, that our greatest lessons often derive from our mistakes, not our successes. How we recover from our failures is often more important than why we made the mistake in the first place.

Let’s talk a little bit about the developmental period of toddlerhood and why tantrums even happen in the first place. Temper tantrums are usually defined as emotional outbursts that may include behaviours like crying, screaming, throwing objects, falling to the floor, and sometimes they can include aggression which might be self-directed in that the child might hit themselves or lay about on the floor kicking and screaming, for example. Sometimes, the aggression can be directed at others. Tantrums are considered for the most part to be a normal phenomenon. Some research has shown that severe temper tantrums which are usually defined as lasting more than 5 minutes, or those that involve aggressive behaviour, are associated with later adjustment problems. And when temper tantrums persist into later childhood, this is predictive of adult antisocial behaviours. 

So, why do kids have tantrums in the first place? 

It’s important to understand the answer to this question because when you as the parent can separate the behaviour from the child, you will be in a much better position to know how to deal with the behaviour. 

First of all, children, especially toddlers, are still developing their ability to regulate their emotions. They haven’t yet developed the skills to manage strong emotions, like frustration, anger or disappointment. We have to remember that the way our brains have evolved and the way our brains develop as we age is from the bottom up. The parts of our brain that are involved in reasoning, logic, problem solving, future planning and so on, reside at the top in the neocortex, and more specifically, the prefrontal cortex. The development of the prefrontal cortex doesn’t really begin until adolescence and isn’t fully mature until around the age of 25 years. So, all kids are going to struggle regulating their emotions and toddlers are especially dependent on their caregivers for managing their emotions. In a sense, they need you to not only model how to deal with strong emotions, but their brains need to borrow if you like the skills and capacities of your prefrontal cortex. 

The problem is that when we as adults are stressed or anxious our ability to use our prefrontal cortex also diminishes. So, we can have this double whammy effect where our kids’ tantrums bring out the worst in us because we too are struggling to remain calm. If this sounds familiar, stick around to the end because I have a solution for you that I think could be really useful.

But for now, let’s continue with the reasons our kids are having tantrums. The second reason I want to highlight is the fact that most toddlers cannot communicate their needs or feelings effectively. So again, when they are struggling to tell us or others how they feel or what they want, they can become frustrated, and their frustration can manifest as a tantrum. 

Another reason that toddlers have tantrums is because at this stage of development they are beginning to seek more independence and control over their environment. But at times, this can lead to a power struggle with us -the parent – because we might need to restrict or deny our toddlers’ choices. A good example here might be that your toddlers have been served some ice cream as dessert at a family event or party but then they keep asking for more. At some point, you come in and have to set a restriction and you tell your kids that they’ve had enough. Remember here that a toddler doesn’t have the same future planning and reasoning abilities as you do so when you say no, they don’t understand the logic even if you try and explain it to them. They may simply feel thwarted or blocked from getting what they want. And this I’m afraid is often a recipe for an emotional outburst.  

Another common trigger for a tantrum is fatigue or overstimulation. As I’ve said a couple of times already the prefrontal cortex of a young child is highly immature, and this can mean that they struggle to process stimuli more so than adults. Because their brain has to work harder to process stimuli, they can become overly tired or stimulated leading to a meltdown. Some children, particularly those who may be neurodivergent, may be highly sensitive to certain sounds, smells, touch, taste, bright lights etcetera. Some of the environments that we might take them to, like parks, shopping centres, birthday parties – these environments may be overstimulating for some children – and this overstimulation may make some children more likely to have an emotional outburst.   If you want to learn more about neurodivergence, then I would recommend going back to an earlier episode I released with Adelle Sushames. It is the first episode in Season 3.  

We have to remember that most multiples are born prematurely before their sensory systems are ready for the world. This can mean that those multiples born prematurely may be more prone to sensory processing issues which in turn may make them more prone to having tantrums in environments that they find overwhelming. If you want to hear more about sensory processing challenges in multiples, then I suggest you check out an earlier episode I released in Season 1 with occupational therapist Kerry Evetts. I believe it was the third episode in Season 1. Kerry does a fantastic job at explaining sensory processing difficulties in preterm infants and I think that episode is highly relevant to thinking about the reasons why our toddler twins, triplets or more might be more prone to emotional outbursts.

Some research points to the fact that major developmental milestones, like learning to walk and talk, can cause stress and frustration for some children. This might lead to a temporary increase in emotional volatility as children adjust to taking on new skills and abilities. And we’ve already highlighted that when children feel stressed and frustrated, they are more likely to have a tantrum.

Another reason that your kids might be having a tantrum is because of unmet needs. Now we all have basic needs, and we all feel pretty crappy when those meets aren’t met. Most of us don’t feel at our best when we are hungry, thirsty or tired and can’t find food, water or somewhere comfortable to sleep.  But most of us also have needs for some degree of affection, warmth and care. Sometimes we hear people say in response to toddlers having emotional outbursts something “oh they just want attention.” And I would argue that that might be true but that’s not a bad thing. That’s your child or your children telling you that they are craving some sort of affection, care or attention. 

One of the problems I see between parents and their children is when there is a mismatch in temperaments or even in sensory preferences. Kerry Evetts, the occupational therapist I mentioned earlier, talks a bit about this in the podcast episode we did in Season 1 and in the podcast show notes for that episode, there are a couple of links to some resources that you can use to determine the sensory profile of your children as well as your own. This can be useful to better understand your kids but also can help determine if there may be a mismatch. Let’s take for example, the case where you as the parent might like to catch up with your friends. Naturally, you decide let’s arrange a playdate and you bring your multiples with you. But let’s say that your multiples have a greater need to recover after social interactions than you do. What if they in fact, find these outings stressful, overstimulating and tiring. They might respond with a tantrum and then you are left feeling miserable because you didn’t get to have that social time you were craving, and your kids aren’t happy either. 

So, when it comes to how to deal with your twins, triplets or more who might be having tantrums all at the same time, the first thing I’d be suggesting is to look at whether there is an unmet need. Are they hungry, thirsty or tired? Do they want your attention, care or affection? What are they trying to communicate?

If they aren’t yet able to articulate themselves well enough to tell you what they want, then your job becomes one of trying to infer what they want or are tyring to communicate. I know how tiring this can be as a parent but it’s important to remember where your children are at developmentally and recognise that they are relying on you to help them develop the more sophisticated brain parts that they don’t yet have. 

Hi there Fierce Kind Mama

Sorry to interrupt the discussion but I have something to share with you that I know you are going to love.

We are often told that parenting can be hard. 

And whether you are soon-to-be or current parent of multiples, there is going to come a time when you will probably feel stressed, overwhelmed, or even worried about the future.

That’s why I’ve developed a free guide for parents just like you with my 5 top tips for handling stress and overwhelm.  

You can download it now from my website www.fiercekindmama.com

I think one of the problems we have as parents of multiples is that the frustration that we see in toddlers when they don’t get what they want can be amplified when they have one or more sibling the same age. We can hear this in the listener’s question, when you said that despite having two of everything your twins are constantly fighting. What I would say to you is that it is often a deeper underlying need. It’s like one twin is saying “you are playing with MY toy and that angers me.” And it doesn’t even matter that there is an exact replica of that toy somewhere else in the house. You must remember that your toddlers’ prefrontal cortex is highly immature and their ability to understand that it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day which of these two exact looking toys I play with, the reality for your toddlers is that to them it does matter. I can assure you that they do often remember which toy they were playing with, and it can be a real source of frustration for them when their sibling or siblings come round and touch the toy that they have laid claim to. 

It is for this reason that I rarely recommend to parents of multiples to have two, three or more of the exact same toys for each child. Because I don’t see it as an effective solution for managing tantrums. There are some exceptions to this, of course. For items, like ride-on trikes, or scooters and helmets, for example, where you want your individual children to be able to develop some independence while you all go out together, then yes, you will need to get more than one of these and what I find is that particularly for same-sexed multiples, they might like to have the same brand or same looking trike or scooter. But even then, I would encourage you to encourage your kids to personalise these so that they know which one belongs to whom. This can help to prevent disagreements. 

However, I do want to emphasise here that your job is not necessarily to prevent disagreements because sadly, that’s unrealistic. I will even go so far as to say that you can’t always prevent tantrums either. There are going to be times when your multiples throw a tantrum, and you will be shaking your head thinking “what the hell is going on?” Their behaviour might seem completely illogical, and it might very well be, but the real question for us as parents is not how do I prevent them from having tantrums but rather how do I show my child love and compassion even when they are having a tantrum?

Can you simply hold space for your child when they are having an outburst?

I want you to think back to a time when you were distressed or distraught and ask yourself what you needed in that moment. 

For some of us, the answer to that question might be some form of social connection. I can remember a time when I was young and upset about something that happened at school. I came home and was crying to my dad, but I didn’t tell him all the details about what happened. I remember him not knowing what to do, but I vividly can recall what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to hug me and tell me he loved me. That’s it. Nothing more. I didn’t need him to fix the problem or buy me a new toy or anything like that. I simply wanted some physical affection. 

Now, I am not suggesting that this is what your children need or want every time they have a tantrum because that’s probably not going to be the case. Some children might respond to a very strong hug from their caregiver whereas others may want you to be near but not to touch them. So, the onus is really on you as the caregiver to work out what your children’s preferences are in terms of how they want to be soothed. 

I will say that I am not a huge fan of ignoring a child who is having a tantrum. Even when children tell you to “go away,” when they are having an emotional outburst, I would still be inclined to check in on them and ask if they are ok, if they want a cuddle or if they want more time alone. You can still do this with kids who aren’t very verbal yet. You can still talk to them and ask them their preferences and infer their responses from their behaviour. 

I think it is crucial to remember that little people can have big emotions. The reasons they are upset may seem trivial to us, but their emotions are just as distressing to them as they would be to us if it were an adult problem. Think about a time that you were furious, something that doesn’t involve your kids. Think about how that emotion felt in your body – how uncomfortable you were and how much you wanted it to stop. A big emotion for you is the same as a big emotion for your kids, no matter what the trigger is. We all tend to want to run away from or avoid big, negative emotions, but I would argue that that simply makes things worse. 

I want to share with you a personal story here. I was at a shopping centre with my boys, and I can’t remember exactly why but one of my sons had a tantrum in the middle of this main walkway where people were trying to get by. Basically, it was a situation where he didn’t get what he wanted, so he fell to the ground screaming and crying. Now I could have felt embarrassed in that moment that my child was behaving this way in public, and I may have been inclined to appease him and give him the thing he wanted to stop the tantrum. But I didn’t. I chose to sit on the floor with him and let him cry out his frustration with me gently checking in on him by placing my hand over his body and simply letting him know that I was there. I didn’t tell him to stop crying. I didn’t really say anything until he eventually calmed down. At that point, I asked him if he wanted a hug and when he said yes, I told him that I know how hard it is to have big emotions. And that was it. That’s all I did. I tried not to make a big deal about it. 

I know that it can be embarrassing when your multiples fight or have tantrums in public. It’s happened to me on a few occasions and honestly, when it has gotten bad, I have ended the outing prematurely. I remember once my boys were fighting when we are out playing on the footy field kicking balls and messing around and it got so unbearable that I said this isn’t fun anymore and I think we are all getting way too tired and grumpy. Let’s try again next time. And of course, they got even more upset that we were leaving but it felt out of my capacity to tolerate and manage their behaviour at the time. 

While I don’t normally suggest leaving public situations out of embarrassment if your kids are having a tantrum, I also think that there are times when if you feel like it is getting beyond your capacity and you are struggling to remain patient, then sometimes a change of scenery can be helpful. That might mean temporarily leaving a venue or if you are at home, it could mean going outdoors for a walk or a play outside somewhere. 

When we think about how to respond to our children’s temper tantrums, I want to summarise some interesting research here on the effects of our responses on the severity and number of tantrums our kids have. 

Some common techniques that parents employ in managing tantrums are ignoring them, or using what some researchers call power assertion methods. Power assertions essentially involve raising your voice, taking away a toy or privilege, and maybe even grabbing or shaking the child, or some other form of physical punishment. Research has also looked at the effects of consistency versus inconsistency in terms of how parents respond to tantrums. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly what we find is that when parents respond to their children’s tantrums in a consistent way, then their children tend to expect certain consequences, which in turn has more of an effect on their behaviour than when parents are inconsistent in their response. 

This raises some interesting questions if you are raising children in a partnership because ideally you and your partner would agree to a similar approach for handling your multiples’ emotional outbursts. If not, then what you might find is that your children may not as easily or quickly learn how to manage their emotions. 

As I said before I am not a huge fan of ignoring tantrums because I think it can be confusing for some children. They may see it as a withdrawal of affection which I think is problematic. But it might also send the message to the child that their behaviour is silently condoned. By not saying or doing anything, you might be communicating to your child that it’s alright to have an outburst when you don’t get what you want and that’s probably not the message you want them to take away from the situation. 

When it comes to power assertion methods, where parents might raise their voice or punish their kids by taking a toy or privilege away, for example, we find that this often has the opposite effect in that we see an increase in temper tantrum severity. Most parents use these techniques in an attempt to stop their children from having tantrums and being disruptive. But what we actually see is that this type of parenting behaviour exacerbates tantrum severity. 

I also want to highlight some interesting research here that has been done more recently on the use of technology to calm or distract children. Many parents report nowadays using some type of media to calm or distract their young children when they have strong emotions. We know that toddlerhood is a critical time for learning basic emotion regulation skills so it’s important to understand whether using various forms of media to distract children from their emotions is risky or not. 

In the literature, we refer to the practice of using media to regulate difficult emotions as media emotion regulation. We might see this play out, for example, as a parent giving a child throwing a tantrum at the grocery store their phone to help them calm them down. But what research has found is that parents who report using more media to regulate their children’s difficult emotions also report more problematic media behaviour in their children. This included things like a preoccupation with media and loss of interest in other activities and it also meant that children tended to tantrum more when media was taken away. In fact, research has begun to show an association between media emotion regulation and withdrawal, tolerance, deception and other serious problems due to an overuse of media. 

While I know how tempting it can be as a parent of multiples to use TV, phones, iPads and other forms of technology to manage your children’s behaviours, I would suggest being mindful of using it as a way of managing their expression of negative emotion. 

Kids need to learn that all emotions, positive or negative, are normal and that the healthy expression of any emotion, including sadness and anger is a good thing. Now many of us, as parents, have grown up suppressing our negative emotions. How many of you listening to this remember being told to stop crying when you were a kid? As I said before, we tend to want to avoid or run away from difficult emotions because we haven’t learned the ability to tolerate that level of discomfort within ourselves. But I would argue that that is a highly important skill to learn. And if you struggle with it, then you might have difficulty teaching your children how to do it. 

I believe that parents who can model a healthy expression of negative emotions have a greater positive influence on their kids’ development. I am not just talking here about the importance of avoiding yelling or screaming at your kids. I am also talking about the tendency some of us have to not express our intense emotions and to keep them bottled away. Because both these externalising and internalising patterns of emotional expression can be problematic. 

If you are listening to this and you are thinking that you could use some more help in how to model healthy expression of negative emotions so that you can teach your children how to manage theirs, then I highly suggest you check out my Be Fierce Be Kind program designed specifically for parents of multiples. Most parenting programs don’t consider the unique challenges that we as parents of multiples face. You may have received advice from other parents or professionals that just doesn’t seem to help when you have two, three or more toddler tantrums to manage. This is where my program comes in because it is specifically designed for multiple-birth parents.

In the Be Fierce Be Kind program, I place a huge emphasis on how to manage your own discomfort that can come from parenting more than one little person and all the stressors that come with that. And once you learn effective, evidence-based strategies for managing your own emotions, you can then learn how to act in a way that is consistent with your own values so that you not only are more likely to raise emotionally healthy children but also, you are more likely to consistently show up as the parent you are most proud to be. 

If you are interested in checking that program out, head over to my website www.fiercekindmama.com and click on the Services tab where you can read about the Be Fierce Be Kind online program. I’ll pop the link in the show notes for you too and if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. 

So, some key take away messages that I hope you remember for this episode are that tantrums are developmentally normal and tend to be a product of young children’s immature brain systems. They are relying on you, the adult caregiver, to model healthy emotional expression and to help calm them down. Strategies that involve punishment, verbal reprimands, loss of privileges are rarely effective in the long-term and can in fact make things much worse. Also, we talked about the use of technology to distract your kids and calm them down. While this might be effective in the short-term, research shows that an overreliance on technology is associated with more severe tantrums and so I wouldn’t recommend it as a long-term solution. Being consistent and responsive is important too. Your kids need to feel secure knowing that you will be there even when they are displaying challenging behaviours.  Finally, in my opinion, everyone – from the very young to the old - needs to regularly practice expressing their emotions in a healthy way because we all tend to run away from, block or suppress our negative emotions. None of us want to feel bad. But it is an important skill to develop to learn to sit with uncomfortable emotions and to not let our negative emotions affect our behaviour or parenting style. 

If you want to be a better role model to your children and develop the skills to deal with challenging behaviours from your multiples, then be sure to check out the Be Fierce Be Kind program. The skills I teach you in that program are lifelong skills. You can use the same principles to effectively handle the many stressors you will undoubtedly face as a parent of multiples from toddler tantrums to adolescent woes. The program is ideal for soon-to-be and current parents of young multiples. 

So, I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and if you have any follow up questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. 

 I look forward to connecting with you again. Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you like what you've heard, then please follow and leave a review so that other expectant and current parents of multiples like yourself can find this podcast and the valuable information it contains. I'd be so very grateful if you left a review and shared this with anyone you think could benefit from listening. 

If you have a particular topic you'd like me to cover on this podcast, feel free to reach out to me via my website fiercekindmama.com.

New episodes are released every second Wednesday, so we’ll see you back here real soon. 

Any advice and information on this podcast is general only and has been prepared without taking into account your particular circumstances and needs for tailored, individualised advice, please consult with a qualified professional.