Cognitive Science Every Parent Should Know
Article inspired by Holmes K. 2017. How to Be a Toddler Whisperer: 7 Things Your Toddler Wishes You Knew.
TANTRUMS: WHAT ARE THEY?
Those sudden episodes of extreme, unpleasant behaviours in response to frustration or anger which are usually disproportionate to the situation. In toddlers, this behaviour can include crying, screaming, going limp, flailing, hitting, throwing items, pushing, biting, breath-holding – until they are blue in the face, etc. Thinking about it, it resembles some drivers during peak hour traffic. This article inspects this phenomenon and provides some tips on how to deal with these unpleasant events.
When we view a tantrum as something that needs to be avoided; or something that calls for strict discipline, we rob the child of an opportunity to learn critical skills around limits, rules, feelings and self-regulation.
DEALING WITH TANTRUMS
So how do we deal with tantrums? I will not sugarcoat it. Dealing with tantrums is unpleasant and, just like peak-hour traffic, unavoidable. However, when we understand the reasons behind tantrums and view tantrums not just as a normal part of human behaviour but as opportunities to teach, there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel (for toddlers, at least). With this in mind, let’s dig deeper into the science behind these behaviours and look at what goes on inside a toddler’s brain.
IS THIS NORMAL? THE TERRIBLE TWOS
Although I dislike using the term “terrible twos” because there is nothing terrible about being two, you have likely heard of it, read about it, or spoken about it. Yes, along with the power struggles and pushing of boundaries (I touch on this later in the article), tantrums are perfectly normal and developmentally appropriate and typically peak around age 2. Before you continue with the rest of the article, I highly recommend reading up on the basic cognitive science theories around executive function skills.
TIPS FOR PARENTS (and teachers).
The following are general tips and advice but remember that you know your child best, so trust your instinct on what will and won’t work for you.
1.) Tell me what you are going to tell me, then tell me, then tell me what you just told me, then, repeat.
What moulds the brain? Experience. Even into old age, our experiences change the brain’s physical structure. When we undergo an experience, our brain cells (neurons) become active, or ‘fire’. The brain has one hundred billion neurons, each with an average of ten thousand connections to other neurons. When neurons fire, they grow new relationships between them. Over time, the connections that result from all this firing lead to the ‘rewiring’ in the brain (Siegle and Bryson, 2012).
How particular circuits in the brain are activated determines the nature of our mental activities, ranging from perceiving sights or sounds to more abstract thought and reasoning. The ability to remember instructions remain focused on a task, and control impulses form is part of our executive function skills and plays a critical role in how our mind interprets and deals with new experiences. If you think of these experiences as planes landing and departing in a busy airport, executive functions act as the “flight control centre”. And who’s executive function skills might still be lacking/developing? You got it, toddlers!
A good analogy for dealing with toddler behaviour, such as tantrums, is to picture a big canyon. On one side is your toddler’s impulse to……. (add any of the hundreds of annoying or inappropriate toddler behaviours here). On the other side is the ability to control these behaviours and impulses.
In the toddler’s brain, these two sides are not yet connected. They still have to build a bridge over the canyon. The first time you tell them, ‘Please keep your food on your plate’, it is like laying a long flimsy piece of timber across the canyon. It will probably hold little weight and will unlikely last very long if left over time. So each time you repeat something, tell or show them how to react appropriately or how to do something, you add one more board or screw to help build the bridge. In other words, Toddlers need repetition to learn. This is the primary reason establishing and following a routine is so important. With every repetition, calmly keep reminding yourself that you are helping them build the bridge. Building sturdy bridges takes time and effort.
2.) I can not express myself.
“I’m feeling big, scary feelings, and I don’t have the words to tell you how it feels. When the bad feelings overwhelm me, I can’t think straight.” – the result? A tantrum.
Toddlers are human beings with a full range of feelings and emotions, just like those experienced by adults. Sometimes these are negative — anger, frustration, sadness, fear, anxiety, confusion, powerlessness, missing mom or dad when they are not around, and so on.
As adults, we have learned that when you experience a negative feeling or emotion, it’s best to stop, think it through, and then carefully decide how to react. And yet, after years of experiencing negative emotions, adults sometimes react without thinking. This can also take milder forms, such as lashing out at someone or shutting down!
This is a normal part of our brain’s primal wiring. If you see a threat (e.g. a hungry lion or a giant scary spider), you rarely want to waste time thinking about it, and you want to react to your first impulse and run for the hills or pulverise the threat with whatever might be close at hand. This behaviour is a basic survival instinct – the well-known “fight or flight” actions that kick in.
Although this is a complex subject, viewing this as our “emotional brain” and our “logical brain” is helpful. When we face a perceived threat, our emotional brain takes over. Sometimes this leads to otherwise sensible people reacting on impulse and doing idiotic, scary, and dangerous things. Our emotional brain “hijacks” our logical brain is one of the biggest reasons for tantrums.
Looking at it from our children’s perspective, not only does a toddler still need to learn what is a threat and what is not, but the part of the brain capable of stopping, thinking, and deciding how to react has yet to fully develop.
The first thing to understand is that there is very little you can do once the brain goes into fight-or-flight mode. Logic does not work when the “emotional brain” takes over. However, we can help our children deal with these situations by demonstrating and teaching them techniques to calm themselves down.
Which techniques to use can be a whole topic of discussion, so I will touch on them later in the article. For now, it is worth mentioning that children learn the behaviour of any situation by mimicking others around them. Hence, getting upset or having your own version of an “adult tantrum” is not helpful.
Once your child has calmed down, the best thing to do is to help your toddler understand what happened. Help to put words to her feelings. You can also explain the situation that led up to the outburst and why the behaviour was inappropriate. Be mindful not to negate emotions.
3.) I can not understand you right now.
‘I am dealing with some big emotions here, so I can’t quite understand what you are trying to tell me, and I can not stop crying.’
As mentioned earlier, there are moments when children (and adults) cannot retain information effectively, no matter what you do or try. During a tantrum, or other very stressful events, the amygdala (emotional brain) takes over, and your child’s little body releases a bunch of stress hormones like adrenaline, which makes it nearly impossible for the higher-functioning parts of the brain to function fully. In those fleeting moments, the human brain cannot use higher-order thinking skills like considering consequences, the feeling of others, etc. English has a saying for these moments… “flipping one’s lid”. Your toddler can not compute what you are trying to say.
As a role model for behaviour, the adult must remain calm, which is far easier in theory than in practice. You can also use some calming techniques ranging from giving the child a tissue to wipe their tiers, playing calming music, distracting the child by pointing out something interesting or using tools such as a calm-down bottle. Experiment to find what works best for you and your child.
It also helps take the child to a different and calmer environment. An environment that is more conducive to conversation. This could be taking them to another room or outside. At Liberté School, where I am the Principal, we use the calm-down couch outside the busy classrooms. Here it is calmer and more relaxed, and there is always a sympathetic ear willing to listen and help.
Once calm, it is essential to talk to your child about what just happened, why they are feeling what they are feeling, and to validate, name and acknowledge their emotions. Ensure they understand there is nothing wrong with experiencing the emotion; instead, the action they took based on the feelings is the problem. This is also a great way to deal with disciplinary issues, such as a child hitting or biting another child. This is the critical part where the most opportunity for teaching lies as it helps them to build connections in their brain for future use. Oh, and remember to… Repeat. A side note here: This technique also works for children who cannot yet talk. Children can understand us much earlier than they can speak. I have found that on some occasions, as children start to understand their emotions, they might ask their teacher if they can go to the calm-down couch. For those interested, this is a variation of the positive discipline technique called the teepee technique, where a calming sensory retreat away from the hustle and bustle is created within the classroom (often in a Teepee, but it can also be underneath a teacher’s desk.) You might be able to replicate this at home.
Do any of the below sound familiar?
- Your child insists (and when I say insist, it is in that absolute insistence that only toddlers can) on wearing a sweater even if it is 40 degrees Celsius outside or going to school without shoes and socks.
- Your child wants to buckle up their seat belt, but it takes 20 minutes. Every time you try to help, they become incredibly and disproportionately upset. – Yip, a tantrum.
These types of situations can be very frustrating for parents. It can feel like your child is doing this specifically to annoy you. However, they are not purposefully trying to make a mess or trying to make you late for work. Although there might be an element of truth to this – as children start to understand their own emotions, they also start to realise that people around them have feelings and that they can influence them.
Remember that children spend their waking moments interacting with and observing the people around them. Now, as a toddler, they can move more freely, which brings an incredible desire to explore the world and express their newfound independence (doing things by and for themselves). This step encompasses some of the first expressions of their developing executive functioning skills. Some of these behaviours are incredibly cute and comic, like when they mimic us sweeping the floor or washing the windows. Others, like spilling food on the floor while unsuccessfully trying to use a spoon by themselves, can be incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to learning, and you HAVE to let them make mistakes.
“This age group seems to be in perpetual motion. They are heedless explorers ready to take on the world without all the necessary skills yet in place. “
And that’s how we want them to be—curious and adventurous! It is from this place that self-confidence and the ability to take initiative emerge. The challenge for us as parents and teachers is to give children between ages two and five enough freedom to start making some of their own choices, so they can begin to make—and own—their mistakes. What we see as mistakes, they take as part of the natural process of growing.
Sound difficult? It may be for you, but it’s not for them. Young children are not yet self-conscious or judgmental about their actions. They leap into activities and toward situations without thinking them through. They live in the moment. Jumping off the slide at full tilt? Building a beautiful sand castle simply to destroy it? Wearing rain boots when it’s sunny outside? These may seem illogical, but they make perfect sense to a toddler…Indeed, many of these choices make us parents very nervous. Our response? We tend to overcorrect and attempt to control them, making them feel bad about themselves, resulting in shame.” – Klein P, 2015.
What can we take away from this understanding? Pick your battles! In those frustrating moments when you feel exasperated, remember one thing, let them learn and make their own mistakes. Children and toddlers learn best through experience (remember the bridge).
And if you still are tempted to overcorrect or control – or worse, step in and do the task yourself – ask the following question: “If I let my child do this on their own, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Another tip: if the moment is right (you must trust your parental gut to decide when this is), ask your child, “Can I show you how to do that and then let you try? This leaves them with a choice (and toddlers love choices) and allows them to do things by themselves while you are still providing the supportive guidance they might (or to their mind might not) need.
Although choosing this path can seem complicated and painful, there is a tremendous long-term benefit. Before long, and likely way before others in their peer group, your child will get up in the morning, shower and get ready for school before you have even woken up.
5. Setting and Pushing Boundaries.
I enjoy doing things myself, but I need you to keep me safe. I need you to be kind and firm at the same time.
As children enter toddlerhood, they increasingly realise that the world does not revolve only around them. They can now act on their own ideas, opinions and preferences. And they start pushing boundaries.
It’s our job as parents to set these boundaries to keep our toddlers safe. But we have to do this with care. It comes from a good place, as we all want them to be safe. When we feel like toddlers are doing something dangerous, we easily lose our cool and say, “What on earth were you thinking? Never, ever do that again.”
However, from your toddler’s perspective, you got upset because of a decision made independently by your toddler. If not done carefully, feelings of guilt or shame might overwhelm the developing toddler brain, leaving them unable to learn anything from the experience. It can quickly become a missed opportunity to build onto that bridge. And if children experience that shame or guilt regularly, they may become anxious, defiant, or less confident. (Holmes, 2017)
Two to five is an age of testing out who they are and their “power” level. It is too scary to think their power is unlimited. They want to know you will keep them safe (even if they battle you!). The world they are exploring during these years is a big place. There is much to learn, much to see, and so much to figure out…So much is going on, and they cannot do it alone. Children count on parents to set up limits and guidelines, show them when to stop and let them know we will keep them safe. The feeling that they are not on their own, that we are setting limits, gives them security and comfort…Deep inside, they want to know we will not let them go too far.” (Klein, 2015)
Conclusion: As a parent, you need to set firm limits/boundaries when something is important to you or your child’s safety, but avoid overreacting. First, try to connect with your toddler and explain why the boundary is there while simultaneously allowing the freedom to explore and make mistakes. Boundaries also need to shift as children grow older and increasingly independent. E.g. you can give a sharp knife to a 5-year-old to help cut up carrots for dinner, but this is probably a hospital trip waiting to happen if you do the same with an 18-month-old.
There is an excellent book called French Children Don’t Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman, a mom from New York who lives in Paris with her English husband. A hilarious book about cultural differences where the key message is that as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon culture, where children continuously push and fight against boundaries, French children tend not to. Why? French parents set strict boundaries (sometimes severely so), but children are generally allowed to move within those boundaries with a surprising amount of freedom. It is well worth a read.
6. Language is powerful. Say it so I can understand it and in a way that I know what to do.
Now, please be very careful, and pay attention. Do NOT think of a panda. Whatever you do, do not picture a panda in your head. It would be best to not think of a panda right now.
You just pictured a cute fuzzy black and white bear, did you not?
When we say, don’t run, stop running, you will fall when you run like that. What do you think your toddler would like to do at that moment? You got it; they want to run. Because “run” is all that sticks in their head. Plus, when you say “stop” or “don’t,” your toddler has to double-process your request. First, they must understand what you don’t want them to do: don’t run. Then compute this into what you want them to do. This can confuse young kids.
But wait, let us turn this on its head: what if you told them to walk instead? Please walk when you are inside. If you walk, you will not fall and get hurt.
So when giving instructions to your toddler, erase “don’t” and “stop” from your vocabulary. Instead, try to reframe your statements. Here are a few examples
- Instead of “Stop banging your fork on the table.” Try, “Remember, your fork goes in your mouth or on your plate.
- Instead of, “Don’t run!” Try, “Please walk slowly. Can you pretend you are a tortoise?”
- Instead of, “Don’t colour on the walls!” Try, “Pens are for paper only. Can you draw a picture on this paper for me?”
- Instead of, “Don’t be rough with the baby!” Try, “Please use a gentle touch with the baby. It’s our job to keep the baby safe.”
- Instead of, “Don’t take that toy from your sister!” Try, “Your sister is playing with that right now. Maybe ask her if she wants to play with (Insert Random Toy Here) instead or ask if you can have that when you’re done?’”
A little added trick if you make a statement at the front to empathise with emotions and “reverse project” the situation, the power of using the right language can triple. For example, “You really wanted that toy right now! It looks like it is fun to play with. But your sister is busy with that right now. How would you feel if she grabbed your favourite toy while you played with it? Don’t you think it is better to ask her nicely if you can play with it when she is done?
7. All I need is Love.
Human beings are happiest when they can share that happiness with others.
Children crave and actively seek those moments with their loved ones, those extra special times when they can form connections with those they love and feel loved in return. Consider the following scenarios:
- You are doing the dishes when your toddler asks you to read a story. Your response, “Later! “I’m busy right now.”
- You and your friend are messaging each other when your child asks, “Can we play a game?”. “Not right now, honey,” I would like to finish this first.
- You are putting your baby down for a nap, and right when those little eyes finally close, your toddler bangs the door wide open, looking for you. “Not now”, you hiss.
These are all moments of missed connection. What makes this worse is that with our busy modern lives filled with distractions such as emails and social media, it is easy to forget about our children’s requests and need for connection. These missed connections could influence our children’s behaviour, and when a toddler is uncooperative, this could be the root cause. The next time you ask your child to do something (or not do something), they don’t listen. Sometimes, they can be outright defiant.
But if you think about it, your toddler told you precisely what they needed from you – a story, a game, your physical presence – and you brushed them off or forgot about it.
“Children freely, even enthusiastically, cooperate when they believe we’re on their side. When they don’t have that belief deep in their bones, our standards of behaviour seem unfair, contradicting what they perceive as their best interests, whether taking the biggest piece of cake or lying to us. No amount of “parenting skills” can make up for an eroded parent-child bond. It’s like riding a bike up a very steep hill. By contrast, parenting with a good relationship is like coasting downhill—you still have to pay attention and stay on the road, and twists and turns certainly arise, but the momentum is with you.” (Markham, 2012)
Although some of these missed connections are unavoidable, missing one here and there does not make you a terrible parent. The above clearly shows that things are far easier with happy relationships, and we need connections for happy relationships. Science tells us that to form a happy relationship, you need a ratio of five positive interactions to every negative interaction. If you have too few positive interactions to balance out the negative ones, you’ll end up with an unhappy, unhealthy relationship.
So what can we do? To get more cooperation from your toddler, make time for those positive interactions to balance out negative experiences. Schedule special one-on-one time and remind your toddler you will be there for them. Doing so makes things much more manageable when those negative experiences occur.
REFERENCES
Bailey, B.A. 2001, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for Turning Conflict into Cooperation. William Morrow Paperbacks.
Druckerman, P. 2013. French Children Don’t Throw Food. Black Swan Publishers
Holmes K. 2017. How to Be a Toddler Whisperer: 7 Things Your Toddler Wishes You Knew. [Internet] Available from <https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/toddler-brain/> [Accessed 9th March 2020]
Klein, T.P 2015. How Toddlers Thrive: What Parents Can Do Today for Children Ages 2-5 to Plant the Seeds of Lifelong Success. Touchstone Publishers
Markham, L.D. 2012, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting. TarcherPerigee Publishers
Siegel, D.J. and Siegle and Bryson T.P, 2012. The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind. Bentam Publishers