How to Calm Your Toddler

If you are reading this article, you are probably one of the millions of parents around the world who are frustrated with the daily battles one has to go through in order to deal with your toddler. Don’t dispair, I have been there myself and know from my own experience that it’s not easy when you are trying to calm your child, especially if you are in a public place. But believe me when I tell you that it is possible. But before I tell you what are the measures I do in order to calm my toddler, let’s get to the bottom of this behaviour to try and understand childern’s psychology.

I have come across various reasons from the various books that I have read but here are the few key reasons that made my understanding of my little one that extra bit easier.

1. Frustration: Now it might not seem like the first thing that comes to your mind but think about it. Imagine yourself in an unknown country where everyone speaks a different language to the one known to you and at every step and every single moment of the day, you have to somehow communicate your needs to other people by methods of signs and what limited knowledge you have of their language if any. Now you will probably understand how your toddler or a two year old feel when he is trying to express himself only to find that the people he is trying to communicate with i.e. his parents do not understand him as much as he would like them to. So what does he do? After hours or in some cases minutes of trying he starts showing his frustration by screaming and shouting. Let me remind you at this point that he does not understand the norms of the society and table manners so to expect anything else would be futile. The best solution to this problem that I have found is to take your child away from the situation even if it means for you to come out of that restaurent without finishing your dinner. Let me tell you about what happened last month. Me and my husband went out with few of our friends who do not have any children yet. We went to this Indian restaurent and after about half an hour I could see that our son was not very happy and reaching the stage where he would be uncontrollable. I decided to take him out for few minutes but my husband thought I shouldn’t miss out on my dinner and asked me to wait for few more minutes to see if he calms down by himself which he didn’t. At this point we could see our friends also feeling bit embarrased by the noise our son was making (they are not yet parents so they haven’t experienced anything like this before) but we remained calm. At this point I decided to put my foot down and picked up my screaming son and came out of the restaurent and sat him in our car and put some music on. He calmed down in five minutes or so. I still waited when he asked me about his dad and I told him that he is inside the restaurent and if he would like to see his dad. He looked eager to go in at which point we went back in. I must have come out for not more than 20 minutes but it saved lot more troubles and could then enjoy our dinner after that incident without a hitch. It’s not just about the language barrier but if you think about how long we sometimes expect our children to sit in one place, you would probably realise that if you were in their shoes, you would start screaming too.
3. Lack of routine: Ok, so what about the times when you are not outside and you have met all their physical needs like hunger and nappy changing etc. Why do they still scream? Here is the deal, how would you feel if everyday you are expected to rise at different times, given different things to do and you just do not have any predictability in your life? I suppose after a while, I would start pulling my hair (not to say everyone would but I certainly would) Well, children as it is have so many things they find new in their everyday life and can only take so many stimulating experiences in one day. Imagine if they didn’t have a set routine to follow, they would never know what to ask for when so all they would do is scream, not knowing what are they supposed to do next. By routine I mean simple structure to their day. In our family, we all have a routine. I like to get up at 6am and start my day. Then at 12, it’s time for lunch and so on. So we have tried to give the same routine to our little one. He wakes up between 7-7:30 pm ( I do not believe in rigid rules like waking your baby up on sharp seven as there is no need for it), then I give him half an hour to get to grips with waking up and we both play till he is fully awake. I do simple things like singing nursery rhyms with him during this time. Then it’s breakfast time at 8am after nappy change. Then we both go out to the library or mall depending on the day of the week and activity planned for the day. No matter what day, I will return before 12 noon so that he could have his lunch by this time. I will also give him some snacks in between by mid-morning like a fruit which you can take with you wherever you go. After lunch he takes a nap of two hours and then by 3pm will wake up and needs further activities. Then it’s snack time again at 4:30 and dinner time at 6:30pm. Even if we are going out for dinner we make sure we either go out by this time or let him have his meal so that he is not hungry by the time we reach the restaurent. And again we try and come back before his bedtime at 8:30pm. But we can’t then I will make sure that he has his pram or a place where he can be comfortable instead of a highchair which at sleeptime can be restricting and could cause a tantrum from your child.
5. Flexibility: You are probably thinking, I just told you about routine so how can talk about being flexible right? Well, here is the thing. Yes, routine is vital for children’s development but one has to make sure that it’s not so rigid that you can’t follow it. There are always times when you can’t make it home by your toddler’s lunchtime or naptime due to some unforseen circumstances. And if you are one of those parents who follow watch like Gina Ford, then I am sorry to say, you are in trouble. But knowing the fact that my child will spend considerable amount of time in our friend’s house or somewhere other than his home, means I have prepared him for such instances and made him realise that life is not that predictable and he needs to be a bit flexible too. For example we went to holiday some days back and had to sleep in one room instead of in our respective bedrooms. But knowing that my son was used to his quiet atmosphere we took the phone of the hook and slept with him in the same room. But he was up till we slept which was at 10pm as there was no way we were going to sleep by 8-8:30 when on holiday just so that our child could sleep. He then woke up slightly later than normal the next day but that was fine too as we were on holiday. According to me, a child is an extention of our family, he is a part of our family but he has to fit in this family. We will also make the changes but it won’t be onesided. He will also have to get accustomed to our ways and lifestyle.
7. Wrong messeges: I once came across a lady on the street with her two year old daughter. She was walking her in her pram and the child was crying and asking for a chocolate. The lady kept on saying no. As she approached the library, her daughter started screaming so loudly that everyone started looking at her. At this point the lady gave her daughter handsfull of chocolates to stop her from screaming. Now, all my thoughts and sympathies are with the lady as it’s not easy when everyone starts giving you looks instead of trying to understand that it’s just a child and things like these happen. But by giving in to her daughter so she invariably sent her a messege saying if you scream in front of lots of people, then you get what you want. Now her daughter will try this everytime she is outside in public places. Children have great memories and they will try and manipulate you if you let them. Instead if she would have taken her daughter out of the library for next few minutes (it does take longer to start with but the time for them to calm down does become lesser as you practise this everytime) and not given in, her daughter would have understood that she will not get what she wants everytime. May be this time you will give her what she wants, but what if the next time her demands are not achievable? What would you do then? One has to say no to their children sometimes, it’s just a fact of life as they are minors and you are the matured person. The only thing I would suggest is when your child takes break from screaming, try diverting their attention to something positive instead of just saying no all the time and give them lots of praise for them understanding you. They need all the encouragement to understand positive enforcements.
9. Attention:You all probably know this one. After all when your child has tried everything else to try and get your attention, they would try screaming too. I was once on the phone with my friend for 20 minutes and my son was trying to talk to me. I tried ignoring him for some time but soon his talks became screams and I had to tell my friend to call back some other time. I know that it’s not always possible for you to put the phone down or whatever work you are doing but trust me, it’s better to put your work aside for few minutes instead of having a full blown tantrum on your hand which will take hours instead of minutes to calm down. It’s all about weighing your options and doing what is best at that time for you and your child.
11. Overtired: This is another reason why children seem to cry excessively. But evey parent should realise that the child they are caring for, has a different stamina levels than them. One of my friends once went out for a day of shopping and came back after four hours because her son wouldn’t stop crying. Obviously he was too tired and would not settle because he was overstimulated by all the noise and attractive lights in the shopping mall. Now, apart from those few lucky parents whose children will sleep no matter where they are while they are shopping endlessly, for all the others like us, we need to do our shopping in smaller chunks of time. I give myself at the most 2 hours at a stretch with my son when I go out for shopping. Anything more than would be asking too much from him and I know this by experience so you should also judge your child’s capacity and plan your activities accordingly. As I said before, it’s adjustment on everyone’s part. Not just yours and definately not just your child’s either. So look out for all those signs of tiredness, need for nappy changing, lunch times etc and you will be fine mostly.

After all, parenting is not a science wherein two plus two is four. One has to try and work out what works best for them and their child but understanding him or her instead of just getting frustrated and angry might be the key towards purposeful parenting and will help you in future in creating a long-lasting relationship with your child.