Tantrums and emotional intelligence — not just in children, but in adults too.

Every morning, Sofka and I walk to her school through the quiet streets of our neighborhood.

That morning quiet is essential to us. It’s our time — the time we use to talk to each other without anyone rushing us.

But one morning, that quiet was broken by what sounded, at first, like superhuman screaming.

“What’s that, Mommy?” Sofka asked, startled and a little frightened.

I wasn’t afraid, because I recognized every note of it. No — no one was being tortured, robbed, or murdered.

It was simply the cries of a child somewhere between two and five, in the middle of a tantrum.

Soon the sound found its picture: a mother came hurrying around the corner, pushing a stroller, her toddler screaming at the top of their lungs and trying to climb out of it.

She was probably rushing to drop her little one at daycare so she could make it to work on time.

I don’t know this woman. But I know her — I know exactly what she’s thinking right now, her fear, her frustration.

She was using everything she had not to scream back at her already-screaming child, pushing the stroller forward toward wherever she was going while keeping the boy from tumbling headfirst out of it — he was in a state medieval monks would probably have called “possessed by the devil himself.”

I must have had a faint smile on my face, because Sofka soon asked, “Mommy, what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s nothing scary. The boy is just trying to cope with a lot of feelings at once — he’s having a tantrum.”

“What are tantrums, Mommy? That sounds really dangerous.”

“Every child has them when they’re small — before they’ve learned to put their needs into words, or to recognize their own emotions.“

“Good thing I never had them,” Sofka said, relieved.

“Oh, you did. Very much so, my love,” I answered with a smile.

“Really?! How come I don’t remember it,” she said, astonished.

And with that, the topic for our walk to school that day was decided.

Why do children have tantrums?

Why does it seem like our generation never had tantrums — like they just didn’t happen back then?

You’re wrong. We had emotions too. But the way we were raised taught us to swallow them, to keep them under control — because god forbid you showed the wrong emotion, what would people say? And that’s exactly why we are where we are.

That’s why, well into our thirties, most of us still can’t recognize our own basic emotions, let alone deal with them — we’re confused. We don’t know if we’re angry or sad, happy or overwhelmed. In other words, we never developed emotional intelligence.

And our children — who are “allowed” to have tantrums — can already handle their feelings better than we can, by the time they’re barely ten. Sometimes they read our emotions more accurately than we do, and know exactly what to call them.

Children are our mirror — they learn by watching us.

And we, their parents, are the model they’re watching.

Children absorb everything from us — not just what we say, but how we say it, and how we react when things get hard.

So if we ourselves don’t know how to manage our own feelings in the moment, how can we possibly expect our children to know how to do it by instinct?

Children aren’t machines you can program. They’re people, with feelings they often don’t understand themselves.

As parents, we’re responsible for our children — but not for making them look “well-behaved” to the world. Our job is to understand what they need and help them get it.

Coldness and authority have never raised an emotionally healthy person, or built a healthy relationship.

And just because you were raised that way doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to break the pattern — to listen to your own child instead of tradition, instead of what people around you expect. In our culture, it’s deeply ingrained to think, “they’re doing this on purpose, just to spite me, just to embarrass me” — so we threaten and punish children for struggling with feelings we ourselves were never taught how to handle.

And the moment a child starts “screaming,” we don’t stop to ask if something’s actually wrong — if a need went unmet, if something’s missing.

No. We take it personally — as an attack on us, on who we are, and worst of all, on our authority as parents. But no — they’re not doing it to spite us.

 

Children are not cruel by nature, and they’re not out for revenge — no matter how old they are.

It’s very possible that through behavior we consider socially “unacceptable,” they’re simply asking for our attention, because they don’t know any other way to get it.

The real reason children have tantrums is much simpler than we make it.

Between the ages of three and five, children start feeling a whole range of emotions they have no way yet to name or manage. And when those feelings pile up, at some point they explode — as a tantrum.

Small children have tantrums that aren’t outbursts of rage. They’re an attempt to cope with something the child doesn’t yet understand, and probably can’t yet put into words.

And when those feelings — hunger, exhaustion, a need for closeness, or some other unmet need — build up enough inside a child, they become a ticking bomb. It’s only a question of when.

And no — it’s not really about the sock on the wrong foot, or the wrong amount of butter on the bread, or the backpack set down with the wrong hand. Those are just triggers. The real reasons live somewhere else entirely.

“If children aren’t allowed to feel the full wave of an emotion — without an adult saying ‘calm down,’ ‘that’s silly,’ or ‘you’re overreacting’ — they never learn how to process normal human emotions in a healthy way. Instead, they grow into emotionally immature adults who take their frustration out on everyone around them.” (Robbins, p. 98)

In those moments, when a child is screaming, the easiest thing to do — because we don’t know what else to do — is to scream right back.

But that, as you already know, leads nowhere except to more frustration in you. And it’s not really your fault either — we were all taught this: a child screaming in public is, by default, badly raised, and its parents incompetent.

How many times have you thought exactly that? Me too. And then I learned the hard way.

The hardest thing about tantrums is that you can never predict when or where one will happen.

If the explosion happens at home, consider it a small jackpot — that’s an environment you both know, one you can actually control.

Say your child runs to their room. You follow. The first thing you do is clear away anything they could get hurt on, then stay close enough to make sure that in the middle of all those uncontrolled emotions, they don’t hurt themselves jumping off the bed, the dresser, or any other piece of furniture.

And the most important thing — and the hardest — is what comes next: calm yourself, don’t react, and wait for the wave to pass.

It’s hard. In the beginning it feels impossible. But trust me, it’s necessary. And once the storm passes, your child will look exhausted — either they’ll come to curl up against you, or you go to them, hold them close, and say, “Everything’s okay. Mommy’s here” (or Daddy).

I would always ask Sofka afterward: “Do you feel better now?”

And every time, with a sigh: “So much better!”

That’s when it’s time to talk.

To find, together, what might have set it off — and to name the feeling that came before the tantrum, clearly, by its real name.

After a few conversations like that, you’ll start to notice a shift. After a tantrum, Sofka would say on her own, “I think I was just really hungry, Mommy. Can I eat something now?” Or: “I’m just really tired.”

Why is our calm so essential?

First, for our own mental and physical wellbeing. And second, so our child receives the message loud and clear: every feeling is okay, I’m here for you, and I love you.

“You let her get away with too much” — I’ve heard that sentence more times than I can count, usually from people who see a parent’s calm during a tantrum as weakness, or as proof of a spoiled child.

Yes. I let her feel everything she feels, and I let her learn from it, and accept it.

Yes — if that means letting my daughter wear the pants that actually feel good to her instead of the ones I picked out, I let her.

A lot of people don’t understand this approach, and dismiss it easily.

I get it. I used to think differently too, before I actually became a parent.

Theory is one thing. So are expectations. Reality is something else entirely — something you can only truly understand once you’ve lived it.

Sofka didn’t cry as a toddler because she was “spoiled” or “difficult.” She cried because we stayed too long at a café and it was long past her bedtime.

Or because we were rushing to catch a bus, so we didn’t eat at home and planned to grab something in town instead. And then the bomb goes off — no warning, no plan.

In moments like that, the most important thing is to calm yourself first, and remember: you are not the center of what’s happening — your child is. They’re the one who needs your attention.

Once you’ve calmed down and swallowed the urge to yell, threaten, or punish, make sure the space you’re in is safe, so your child doesn’t accidentally hurt themselves. Because no — they can’t control themselves right now. And your job, as the adult responsible for this small person, is to protect them, maybe more than ever.

And when the storm passes — and it always does, even though it feels endless while it’s happening — don’t use that moment to finally let out your own frustration.

No. That’s exactly when it’s your job, as the grown, emotionally mature one in the room, to show your child that they’re loved, that you’re there for them, and that even if they don’t understand what just happened to them, they can always count on you.

Because that’s the real job of a parent — not just to love your child, but to be the ground they can always stand on.

Otherwise, you put both your child and your relationship with them at risk. Words, in a relationship with a child, are mostly empty and useless — but a hug, when things are hard, can’t be replaced by the sentence “I’m always here if you need me.”

 

Do adults have tantrums too?!

This is also a good reminder for us grown-ups: suppressing emotions isn’t healthy — not when you’re small, and not once you’re an adult either. Mel Robbins dedicates an entire chapter to exactly this — how adults have tantrums, precisely because they were never allowed to have them when it mattered — in her book, “The Let Them Theory.”

“Most adults are really just eight-year-olds trapped in grown bodies. Next time you’re with someone and something they say or do irritates you, picture that person as a fourth grader, sitting in the room with you. Because what you’re describing is someone with the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old. And whether we like it or not, that’s most adults.” (Robbins, p. 96)

Here’s what it looks like in practice: you have a terrible day at work, you come home, you’re in tears telling your partner what happened — and instead of holding you and showing you they actually care about your feelings, they say something like “well, we all know who’s the boss around here.” And just like that, it all gets swept under the rug.

The truth is, none of us were ever taught how to do this.

To manage your emotions, you first have to understand them, and know how to process them in a healthy way. And in my experience, most people have no idea how. “Emotional maturity isn’t something you’re born with, and it doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s a skill — one that takes time, practice, and a real willingness to learn.” (Robbins, p. 97)

Just imagine how much easier life would be if, from the beginning, you’d been allowed to say what actually bothered you, or what you didn’t want to do.

To simply not wear the sweater that itches, or the pants that dig in.

Instead, parents carry around little trophies called “I’m the parent, and it’s my way” — while you, visibly angry and upset, swallow your rage and your tears, counting down the days until you’re finally grown and can wear whatever you want.

How much easier would it be if you’d learned to notice when you’re tired, and could simply ask for a break — instead of pushing past your limits just because it’s expected of you.

How many fewer “games” would we play in our relationships, if we’d simply learned to communicate instead of suppressing what we feel, or expressing it in the wrong way.

These are all “small things” that quietly become part of who we are — learned behaviors that turn into real problems once we’re grown. Not because of how the world sees us — we’re already very well trained in worrying about that — but because of what it does to us.

That’s exactly why it matters so much to me to help my daughter, as much as I can, learn her own feelings — to express them, and to trust us, her parents, enough to actually share them with us.

That’s why it matters to me to hold her when she needs it. To let her say no when she doesn’t want something. To let her ask for “a day off from daycare,” or refuse to wear a dress she doesn’t like.

The biggest mistake in moments like that is forcing a child to do something against their will — because it sends one clear message: what you feel doesn’t matter. What’s expected of you does.

But what she can take from all of this, with absolute certainty, is this: I’m not alone. There’s always someone here for me — someone who actually sees me, and hears me.

And that feeling of safety is priceless. It stays with you for life.

Warmly,
S-Mama