Advice for dealing with a very "spirited" 15 month olds tantrums?

Question

Our first child was easy going, never fussed, had tantrums or thrived on chaos. Our 15th month old son is very intelligent for his age & what I like to call "spirited". He is in to everything, despite babyproofing. He knows exactly what to do to get a rise out of people & grab all the attention. He intentionally does things that are a "no-no" & gives you that rotten little smile & evil laugh while he does it! He is always on the go, into something & bursting with energy. He's a wonderful loving toddler until he gets mad
My concern is that when things don't go his way he tantrums. He'll throw himself on the floor, kick, scream, throw anything in reach, hit anything in reach & headbutt the floor or wall or what ever he can. Like I said, I never had this "lovely" experience with my first born! Of course he stops headbutting when he hurts himself, but it still bothers me. He has a bad temper. I try to avoid situations that cause this. How can you train/discipline a 15 month old for this

Answer 1

My son is the same exact way. He does the little "dance" then falls to the ground kicking and crying. I tried the walking away bit and ignoring it but the problem is that only is effective at home not anywhere else. Because you can't stay consistent on the ignoring bit he is still getting your attention at the other places and is encouraged to continue. I was finally recommended a great book called "Raising the strong willed child" by Dr. Dobsen. It has been a lifesaver. Your son sounds smart and with the right guidance strong willed kids usually become successful leaders. It is our 2nd week into the "new approach" with him and already I can see success. He still throws temper tantrums but they are ending just as quick now and I finally feel I have some control over the situation. Good luck -PS I got the book used off of Amazon.com really cheap.

Answer 2

Sounds like to me, like the last parent I posted an answer to you were spoiled by your first child. My son is fourteen months old, and he started throwing these tantrums you talk about when he was a year old. When I tell him no he would crawl over to the linoleum and bang his head on the floor. The only way you can control the head butting (because as you said they never really intend to injure theirself anyway) is to walk away and ignore it. That's what i did when he was thirteen months if he were in the living room and threw a tantrum and head butted his head on the floor I would walk into the bedroom. Because high need infants such as our live for that attention. My son has heard no say many times that he actually will shake his head no. But you are doing a terrific job at heading it off at the pass. That's the best thing to do when you see your child is getting upset, try to intervene before he blows up. As far as training and discipline there is really nothing you can do until they start to talk and tell you what they want, and how they feel. Because at this age he doesn't know how he feels he's too young to understand himself. It's like when you feel bad and can't talk or communicate how or why you feel bad that's how our infants will be until probably age two this frustrates them. Also appreciate the fact that he is strong willed and determined because that might prove to be a positive thing in the future. Just keep a strong head on your shoulder, try to get him to tell you what's wrong, and keep doing what your doing by avoiding stressful situations in the first place. Your doing a great job.

Answer 3

You are describing my son, funny, I don't remember getting a break.

This is what my doctor told me to do and I did it and now he is 2 1/2 and very rarely (maybe once a month) and they are not as strong.

When the tantrum hits and he hits the floor put a pillow under his head and walk away. My son turned red and purple in the face and would move the pillow and hurt his head. Then after a little while when he realized that he wasn't getting a reaction he would stop look at either me or Daddy or Sister and cry louder and turn a deeper shade of purple and eventually give up. Then he would stop in mid tantrum come get one of us from the other room and bring us in the room he was having his fit in and make us sit down on the couch to watch how good he was at tantrums.

We started this at around 18 months and and it took about 1 month to see good results and another month for his main issue to turn from tantrums to flying off of anything he could climb on.

Good luck!

Answer 4

It's called "the terrible twos" You ignore the head butting, as well as the tantrums and you stop encouraging his getting a rise out of people, which is what you HAVE been doing (I can tell by your post). The tantrums are a mechanisim to get YOU to give in to his demands. Stop doing so. He needs to learn now that his actions are NOT cute although you've allowed him to think they are. You encouraged the behavior now it's going to be tougher to get him to stop. You're going to have to employ time outs, behavior/reward and start learning to say NO rather than encouraging that "rotten little smile and evil laugh". It won't be funny when he is 16 years old smiling and lauging as he beats the crap out of someone.

Answer 5

Ignore him. My daughter is 14 months and throws the same kind of tantrums. I make sure she is on the floor (carpet). I move stuff she might bump her head on and then I leave the room. If I would try and comfort her or hold her it would just make her madder and she would start hitting or kicking or headbutting. Eventually she settles down a bit and then I am allowed to hold her. I am not worried, I am sure its a phase. It is pretty embarrassing when she is around other people and does it, but welcome to parenthood I guess.

Answer 6

Tantrums happen when our toddlers feel intense feelings that they just don't know how to deal with. They can get really frustrated, angry, sad, what have you, and they don't know the "right" way to release their emotions. Even as adults, when we get really really angry or upset, sometimes we need a good cry or to punch a pillow!

What I do with my son is empathize with him and try to help him verbalize what he's feeling. "You are angry because you can't have the candy bar. It's okay to feel angry." It helps them put the words to the emotions they are having. I don't "give in" to whatever he's tantruming about if there is a good reason that I said no (or obviously if I can't fix it). But his anger or sadness or frustration is still just as valid. I don't try to stop the tantrum either. I let him express his emotions, and I stay nearby and either give him physical affection or just sit near him and talk, whichever he seems to need. But I don't want to stifle his reactions because he needs to learn to work through them.

Good luck!

Answer 7

Whenever my little girl throws a tantrum I just simply walk away....I don't even ackowledge it.....her tantrums don't last very long because she knows she's not getting what she wants!!! Don't worry, your son wont bang his head hard enough to cause damage to himself, it's just another way of manipulating you.

Answer 8

My son used to throw a lot of tantrums but never headbutted anything. He was terrible, I used to hate taking him to the shops or to playgroup. But, all that stopped when I enrolled him in pre-school. I don't think you can really stop them, we used to disipline by sending him to his room or taking away his favourite toy and sometimes smacking, they worked for a little while.