Q: What do you do when a kid has a temper tantrum because he or she wants something in a store?
A: You never, ever let them get what they want for acting like that. Never. Not once.
It also helps to remember they're not giving you a hard time, they're having a hard time. They're overcome by emotions.
You pick him or her up and throw them over your shoulder like a screaming sack and you walk right out of the store. After they've calmed down a little, you help them by naming the emotion and explaining what happened: "You're feeling angry and disappointed because you didn't get what you want. But that isn't how you get things."
Fundamentally, what you're after is two things:
1. Teaching them that this behavior never results in success
2. Trying to teach them how to recognize and handle powerful emotions
Kids test you. Give them clear test results.
It's insanely frustrating and I completely understand the impulse to punish or hit your kids. But that's not how you solve problems. Everything you do is teaching kids how to be an adult. Do you want to teach them that the way bigger people get what they want from smaller people is to hurt or scare them?
The most important thing is: never ever let this behavior deliver a reward.
Anyone who's studied psychology knows that an intermittent reward schedule creates operant behavior that is by far the hardest to extinguish.
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