Why do children throw tantrums? | Integrated Learning Therapy

We’ve all had the experience of standing hopelessly by while a three-year old writhes on the floor in the throes of a massive tantrum. Recently I witnessed this in a supermarket, where the desperately embarrassed mother tried hard to convince the child why she couldn’t have sweets and to calm down. It’s hard for a grandmother to resist giving advice so I moved away but was tempted to tell the young mother that her use of logic and reason were literally falling on deaf ears. It’s all due to the power of the primitive brain that rules in young children.

Dr Paul MacLean describes the brain’s structure in terms of three levels operating as one. The lowest level he called the ‘reptilian brain’. This lies at the very base of the brain and is responsible for essential behaviours such as protecting us from danger, adapting to social groups, instinctively foraging for food, and so on. The next layer is the ‘mammalian brain which is tied up with our emotions and the highest layer is the ‘thinking brain’, the cortex, which is the seat of our highest forms of functioning.

Now let’s go back to the screaming child on the floor. At her age, she is still in the grip of the reptilian, non-thinking brain. She simply hasn’t been alive for long enough to see higher brain levels adequately developed yet. A desire for a sweet or toy being denied causes her to feel that her interests and even safety are threatened. Strong emotions flood the brain and a meltdown follows. At this age, she doesn’t have the intellectual controls that develop as we grow. When the reptilian brain is in control, she doesn’t even have access to those areas of the higher brain that may ordinarily be used to listen to reasonable adults.

While the despairing mom is trying hard to use words to explain her reasoning to the child and offering some choices, those lower brain levels are simply not able to take in and process the language. It will need time to calm down, so picking her up, giving her a big hug and moving away as quickly as possible from the situation in silence would be a better alternative.

This is not the time to cajole, punish or manipulate. Simply keep your cool and get her out of the situation as quickly as possible. Not always easy when you have to leave a full trolley behind, but helping your child cope with her overwhelming flood of feelings is the priority here.

The same reason underlies tantrums at home or anywhere else. The pain of having to stop an enjoyable activity to have a bath ‘NOW’ is too much for a young brain to bear – so a meltdown occurs. This is one reason why it is wise to warn children of impending changes. Tell them that playtime will end in 10 minutes, when it is time to bath. Then tell them when bathtime is 5 minutes away. This gives them time to adjust to the idea of having to stop playing

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.