You are having family dinner in a luxury restaurant, enjoying your meal and having good time but your child doesn’t eat food because you didn’t give her mobile to watch her favourite cartoon while eating, so she denies to eat and show you tantrums by throwing away the cutleries here and there, moving chair and sitting showing her back towards you, and when you ask her to say sorry to you for this behaviour she show you attitude, like a 25-year-old girl, by not talking to you and sitting or moving away from you!
Being angry is okay, but your child has to learn that throwing objects and misbehaving is always against the rules.
At age 5, kids still have a hard time dealing with anger& attitude, but they’re old enough to learn from consequences. “Your child needs clear, consistent punishment when she behaves like this,” says Hilary Flower, author of Adventures in Gentle Discipline. “If she knows you’re in control, the bad behavior will disappear fast.” In this case, calmly take away a privilege, and make her understand that her behavior is not good, punishing her in a way that explains why you’re doing it. Don’t back down no matter how much your child pleads or apologizes.
Learning how to feel mad without behaving badly and showing attitude is something even grown-ups struggle with. “Kids who react physically when they’re feeling angry are usually doing it because they don’t have another way of expressing this overwhelming emotion,” says Henry A. Paul, MD, author of When Kids Are Mad, Not Bad.
So the long-term project is to give your kid constructive ways to communicate her feelings. Help her get used to describe her emotions with words or a drawing rather than with a temper tantrum and misbehaving.
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Enjoy parenthood!
Article By: Garima