What To Do When Your 2-Year-Old Tantrums Daily
If your 2-year-old is having daily tantrums, you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed and exhausted. This blog aims to help provide insight, and help you learn when to worry.
We know how exhausting and worrisome it can be when your 2-year-old has lengthy, frequent tantrums. As adults we often forget how hard it is to be little, and that underneath every big behavior is a big feeling.
In this blog, you’ll learn:
The frequency of temper tantrums typically peaks at age 2-3.
Dr. Helen Egger, Little Otter’s co-founder, conducted a study of preschool tantrums. The research showed that 75% of 2-year-olds and 60% of 3-year-olds had at least one temper tantrum in the last month.
On average, 2-year-olds had four tantrums per week. Three-year-old children had on average 5 tantrums per week.
In toddlers, even daily tantrums may be within the normal range, depending on what occurs during the tantrum. We want to pay attention if and when we start to see daily, intense tantrums. By intense, we mean including aggressive behavior and/or lasting for more than 20 minutes.
These frequent and intense tantrums could indicate that there is potentially an underlying mental health concern. We sometimes refer to them as a “mental health fever”; like a physical fever, they tell us that something is happening, but they don’t tell us what. To learn if your child’s tantrums might be a sign of something more serious, take our free, 3-question online temper tantrum assessment for kids 2-6.
Temper tantrums are about feelings. They occur when your little one’s emotions overwhelm them. As your child grows and matures, they’re gaining the life skills they need to self-regulate, communicate, and control impulses. But these skills won’t develop overnight.
At this age, communicating anxiety, fatigue, frustration, fear and over-excitement through tantrums is not abnormal. In general, the key idea is to recognize that even though they are hard to tolerate for parents, children engage in tantrums to communicate that they are overwhelmed and cannot express their thoughts or feelings well.
While there are a lot of reasons why 2-year-olds tantrum, we invite you to be your child's own mental health detective by asking questions like:
When and where are the tantrums occurring?
What happens before them?
What happens during them?
What happens after them?
How do you and other adults react?
What is happening in your child’s life and your family’s life?
Over time, you’ll probably begin to notice patterns. For example, these tantrums could be due to a lack of sleep, hunger, overstimulation, or difficulty expressing their feelings. Once you understand the underlying cause, you can then begin to anticipate and even prevent some tantrums.
Once we have a better understanding of why your child’s tantrums are occurring, we can begin to build a plan to address them.
If you’re interested in learning about tantrums generally, here are a few resources that can help:
A Complete Guide to Temper Tantrums [Detailed Guide]
Are My Kid’s Tantrums Abnormal? [New York Times]
All About Toddler Aggression: When to Worry and How to Respond [Blog]
We can also provide a few tips that others parents have found to be helpful for tantrums:
Use praise to prevent tantrums by catching your toddler being good. This can include noticing when they stays calm in a difficult situation, when they uses her indoor voice to speak, as well as any other behavior you would prefer to see.
When your 2-year-old tantrums, the thinking part of their brain is completely offline. Now’s not the time to try and rationalize with them. We encourage you to make sure that your child is keeping her body and the bodies of others safe, and be with them in them big feelings. You can say, "I see you're having a hard time and I am here with you to keep you safe. I know when I'm having a big feeling, sometimes I take deep breaths to help me get through it." Then you can start taking deep breaths. This signals to your child that the big feelings are not too much for either you or your little one to handle, and that you are there to help them through a tough moment.
Do your best to empathize with your child and show compassion. Tantrums are upsetting for parents, but they’re also upsetting for children. It doesn’t feel good when your emotions are out of control. Growing up and learning so many new skills can be hard.
During the day or a calm moment when your child is not a 10/10, we encourage you to practice coping skills. For example, for 5-10 minutes each day, you can practice starfish breathing or muscle squeezing. Practicing these skills in calm moments allows your child to use them in a harder moment. Explore a few more calming activities for kids here.
Remember to take care of yourself. This can include regular self-care (e.g., going for walks, meditating) or even just taking a short break to calm down when your 2-year-old’s behavior gets intense. You also deserve support and can't pour from an empty cup.
Toddlers are also very sensitive to shame, so it’s important to avoid shaming or blaming. Shame can contribute to a vicious cycle where the tantrum starts for one reason, and then gets complicated by shame. Toddlers are also very sensitive to reinforcement; if tantrums can divert plans, the tantrum behavior is easily reinforced. (This is another reason why tantrums are so common in early childhood, especially during the toddler years.)
If tantrums are occurring at higher frequency than is developmentally appropriate (almost every day or more), it may be helpful to seek a formal evaluation. If your child’s tantrums include the following, it’s likely time to seek additional support:
Tantrums happen nearly every day.
The tantrums start or become aggressive — when a child hits, kicks, bites others or themselves and/or breaks things during the tantrum.
Tantrums are prolonged (lasting 20 minutes or more).
Tantrums continue frequently past the peak age (2-3 years old).
Temper tantrums happen in a variety of settings both in and out of the home.
These temper tantrums occur with parents or caregivers AND other adults.
Scheduling a visit with your pediatrician is a helpful place to start to rule out any underlying medical conditions.
If you’re located in select states, Little Otter provides assessment and therapeutic services for children and families should you need additional assistance.