How to deal with temper tantrums in child?

Are you tired of temper tantrums in your child? Well, there are ways to handle your sulking child, grumpy child or an upset child. The first thing is to maintain your cool - do not get carried away emotionally. Try to analyze the situation like, ‘when does this generally happen? Is it when your child didn’t get your quality time, or when she wants her favorite food? Is it when she could not take ‘no’ as the answer; or wants her way?’ You may think of different ways to handle it – say, set aside a small amount per week that the child can spend by him/herself and don’t buy such things from your pocket. Be firm.

Read on to know, how to handle such situation from Param Pujya Dadashri from the discourse below:

Do not give in to the child

Questioner: My son frequently gets upset very easily and sulks.

Dadashri: It is because people give too much importance to the boys and not enough to the girls. The girls are less likely to sulk. (In India, the male child receives more importance.)

Questioner: Why do they sulk, Dada?

Dadashri: It is because you constantly give in to them. Just let them come to me and sulk! They do not sulk with me because I never give in to them. Even when they refuse to eat, I would not bother with them, whereas you make a big fuss and insist that they eat. I do not coddle them to eat. In doing so you are reinforcing bad habits. I know what bad habits it creates.

When he gets hungry, he will eat, you will not have to pamper him. I know of other tactics. And sometimes if he is being very obstinate, he may not eat anything even if he is hungry. So then I would communicate directly with his Soul. You should not do this; you should just continue to do whatever you normally do. Children do not sulk with me. What good does sulking do?

One sulks when the other person has the need for him

Questioner: Dada, show us your tactics because the sulking and pampering goes on day in day out. So if you give us your key, it will help us all.

Dadashri: They sulk because of your own selfish interest and expectations. Why should you have so many selfish motives?

Questioner: I don’t understand what you mean by selfishness. Whose selfishness?

Dadashri: A person who is sulking does so because he knows that you want something from him (knows of your self-interest).

Questioner: That means we should not indeed show our self-interest.

Dadashri: There shouldn’t indeed be any self-interest. Why should you have any self-interest? You will get whatever your karma unfolds, so how much should you expect from it? And it is indeed unfolding of karma. On the contrary he will become even more obstinate if you show self-interest.

When the child throws temper tantrums

Questioner: How can we pacify a youngster who throws temper tantrums?

Dadashri: How will it help the situation by getting rid of his temper?

Questioner: He will not fight with us.

Dadashri: As a parent, you should conduct yourself in such a way that he does not detect anger in you. When he sees you get angry, he will decide that he can be angrier than his father.

If you stop getting angry, he will too. Look at me. Since I have conquered my anger, no one fights with me. Even when I tell them to get angry with me, they shrug their shoulders.

Should the parents show anger to control the child?

Questioner: We have to get angry with our children so that they do the right thing. Don’t we have to fulfill this duty as parents?

Dadashri: Why must you become angry? What is wrong with simply explaining things to them? You are not creating anger.

Anger just happens. The anger that you display is not considered anger. It is not considered anger to scold your child. So show anger. It is acceptable to demonstrate anger, but instead you become angry from within. It is one thing to display anger and another to become angry.

Questioner: What is the reason behind anger?

Dadashri: Weakness. Anger is a weakness. It is this weakness that makes a person angry. He himself does not get angry. After he gets angry, he realizes that it was wrong. He is remorseful, which goes to show that it is not in his control. This machine, this body and its contents get overheated, so you should wait for it to cool down and then you can pursue the matter.

When you become irritated with your children, you are binding new karma for your next life. There is nothing wrong in displaying irritation towards them as long as you do not feel and suffer the irritation. It should be dramatic.

Questioner: They do not become quiet unless we scold them.

Dadashri: There is nothing wrong in scolding them. But when you become involved in the scolding, your facial expression changes to one of disgust. In doing so, you will bind negative karma. Go ahead and scold them, but keep your facial expression pleasant. It is because your ego arises that your facial expression becomes ugly.