Energy Techniques to Support Caregivers and Children During Tantrums

Managing a child's tantrums from an energetic perspective involves staying grounded and approaching the situation with mindfulness. It's an opportunity to delve into our own past, recognizing any personal triggers stemming from our childhood. This process of self-awareness allows us to break free from generational learning, where behaviors and coping mechanisms are passed down through the family. We are then empowered to respond to our child's tantrums with empathy, patience, and a deeper sense of spiritual connection - fostering a beneficial environment for both child and caregiver.

What Triggers a Tantrum?

Tantrums typically occur because a child is tired, hungry, worried, frustrated, afraid, or overstimulated. When a tantrum begins, do your best not to react impulsively. Take a quick moment to assess what need or emotion triggered the child’s dysregulation.

How to Help Yourself

Ground, ground, ground! Bring awareness to your body through breathing, posture and voice. Slowing your breathing, being present in your posture, and using a calm tone of voice will help your child feel a connection to you.
Tune into your own emotional dial. Identify and validate your feelings (frustration, anger, exhaustion, etc.).
Observe your inner triggers and tension patterns that light up in your body. Look inward to your own childhood and generational patterns. Does this trigger feel familiar to the way your parents responded to you when you were a child? How can you break unhelpful cycles?
Have an “elevator speech” or “code word.” Have a game plan prepared for those moments when you feel yourself losing your temper. Ideas include asking your partner to step in, pausing to leave the room to regroup if the environment is safe to do so, or calling a friend for emotional support.
Breathing exercises. Simply pause to breathe for 10 seconds.
Use helpful affirmations, pictures, or symbols to help bring you back to your body.

How to Help Your Child

Assess the child's environment. Is it safe for the child during the tantrum? If not, move the child to a safe space.
Calmly acknowledge the emotion they are expressing. Speak in a low and slow voice.
Touch or hold them if this feels right or give them more physical space if that is what they need. This is not a time to reason with the child.
Be consistent about not giving in to tantrums so the child doesn't think this is a tool to get what they want. Do not bribe the child with sugar or toys in order to calm the child down.
Give the child the space to fully express themselves and to release the emotion that's triggered. If the child is screaming let them scream and don't try to shush them.
Shifting the environment can help calm the child. If the child is in an overstimulating environment with the TV or iPad on, shut down devices. If the child is in a loud public environment, take the child to the restroom, car, or away from the stimulation.
Comfort the child when they have calmed down.

After the Tantrum

After you’ve acknowledged the child’s emotions, engage in activities to help them ground themselves. Here are some suggestions to help re-regulate mind and body:

Jump on the trampoline
Turn on music and dance!
Race
Turn off the TV, shut down the iPad, and reduce electronic stimulation.
Observe your environment and choose any activity that will best help shift the energy.
Do breathing exercises with the child – blow bubbles, or blow into a pinwheel.

Additional Support

Having difficulty understanding or holding space for your own emotions while dealing with your child's tantrums? Please know that it's okay to ask for help. Reach out to a mental health professional for support, or ask your obstetrician or pediatrician for a referral.

Practice Energy Work with a Professional

Energy work at Touch of Nature Healing can help you get back in touch with your nervous system. With techniques to help improve posture, breathing and shifting energy, I can assist your body back into a parasympathetic (relaxed) state. My services can be an effective tool to help improve self-awareness and to calm and reset the nervous system.

Want to learn more? Check out my website, or contact me for a complimentary phone consultation.

Love and Light,

Briana

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