The word ‘tantrum’ is frequently used in parenting advice, research and official early years documentation, but as we continue to understand more about brain development, is this a word that early years professionals should still be using?
DICTIONARY VIEW
Oxford Languages defines the word ‘tantrum’ as ‘an uncontrolled outburst of anger and frustration, typically in a young child’. The Cambridge Dictionary has a very similar definition – ‘a sudden period of uncontrolled anger like a young child’s’ – and gives the examples: ‘Charlie had/threw a tantrum in the shop because I wouldn’t buy him any sweets’ and ‘If she doesn’t get her own way she has temper tantrums’. In these scenarios – despite it saying that the emotion being displayed is ‘uncontrolled’ – the onus put on the child could be perceived as negative because it is implied that they are deliberately misbehaving.
Early years consultant Dr Mine Conkbayir, who specialises in neuroscience, strongly believes that ‘tantrum’ is inappropriate. ‘It’s simple,’ she says. ‘The term tantrum is offensive, disrespectful of the child’s distress in-the-moment, it is hurtful, derogatory and actually, it is wholly unprofessional.’
FAMILIAR LANGUAGE
But Dr Abigail Miranda, head of early years and prevention at the Anna Freud Centre, defends the continued use of the word ‘tantrum’ in the organisation’s work as being a word that is understood by many. ‘Language is a powerful tool for shaping the way people think and feel,’ she says. ‘It is important that the language we use is familiar to people who use our resources. For this reason, we refer to “tantrums” in the early years. The key point is that through the use of a familiar word, we are able to help others to view the behaviour in context and with an understanding of child development and mental health.’
Early years consultant Penny Tassoni says that the word ‘tantrum’ has ‘negative connotations’ and suggests that a more appropriate word to use is ‘overwhelmed’. ‘That is actually what happens,’ she explains. ‘The child has been overwhelmed by tiredness, hunger, stress, frustration. There are many reasons why the child might be overwhelmed. When we talk about a tantrum, we do not explore the reason and focus on the point when they felt overwhelmed – overwhelmed by tiredness, or overwhelmed by a desire to do something and not being able to because they were too frustrated.’
‘DYSREGULATED’
Conkbayir argues, ‘For the sake of children’s emotional and holistic wellbeing, we should all be encouraged to use the more exact, respectful and correct term, “dysregulation”. This refers to a child’s – or adult’s – difficulty in managing their emotions, responses and behaviour in ways that are socially acceptable. This refers to a wide range of emotions, like sadness, anger, irritability and frustration. The resulting behaviour of dysregulation typically looks like screaming, crying, refusing to engage, harming self or others.’
While Tassoni concurs that ‘dysregulated’ does accurately describe what happened to the child at that point in time – he/she was not able to regulate their responses – she warns, ‘We don’t want to over-pathologise something when an hour later that child may be fine.’
Miranda agrees, ‘It could have the unintended consequence of pathologising normal responses. The prefix “dys” comes from the Greek language and carries meaning around something ill or bad. Children can be dysregulated when they are upset or angry; however, we must remember that they are displaying a normal range of transient emotions.
Their developmental stage intersects with their emotional development as they may struggle to articulate what they are feeling, resulting in immense and intense reactions.’
Importantly she adds, ‘If the word was used alongside an explanation of the neuroscience of development in the early years, this could help to build patience and empathy towards the child and move the focus away from “bad” behaviour.’
UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS BRAIN
This is the aim at Thrive Childcare and Education where there is a policy of supporting self-regulation through co-regulation. An understanding of neuroscience, following training including with Conkbayir, has led to practitioners at the nursery group moving away from using the term ‘tantrum’ both within the nurseries and when conversing with parents.
Head of early years Ursula Krystek-Walton explains that when the group recruits practitioners or acquires new nurseries, it shares its practice of the adult being the co-regulator alongside the child to calm them, help them understand their emotions and develop coping strategies.
The Hand Brain model developed by Dr Dan Siegel (see Further information) is used to visually explain to both practitioners and parents how the human brain functions and what happens when we ‘flip our lids’ and become overwhelmed or dysregulated and the lower brain takes over.
‘We completely avoid using the words “terrible twos”, “temper tantrums” and anything like that,’ says Krystek-Walton.
‘Instead we use terms such as a child being in a state of dysregulation or that they have lost control of their emotions.’ She adds, ‘We shouldn’t be scared of using bigger, more scientific words.’
While exactly which terminology should be used may still be in debate, there is an agreement that the focus should be on increasing an understanding of neuroscience and child development in the early years, reflecting on why a child is reacting in a certain way and on how they can be supported.
‘It is important to challenge the status quo, and language is a great vehicle to do this through as the use of words changes with time,’ says Miranda.
‘The words suggested are helpful to contextualise what might be going on for a child at a moment in time. Changes in terminology must be supported with a drive to increase understanding. Without this baseline, there is a risk that any new word used will have negative connotations too.’
Ultimately a child’s emotional response should never be regarded as bad behaviour. As Tassoni says, ‘A child does not choose to spend ten minutes thrashing on the floor feeling overwhelmed.’
CASE STUDY: Portico Nursery Group
‘We have done a lot of work around supporting children to understand their feelings and emotions, and helping them to co-regulate their feelings and behaviours after implementing the SSTEW audit [Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being scale] across our settings in 2015. More so in the last four years after completing some amazing training that gave us the confidence to change things that were not working, and causing our staff team much stress and deliberation at the time,’ explains area manager Sarah Fillingham.
‘The way we were “managing children’s behaviour” wasn’t working and the staff were getting more and more stressed until we came at it from this different perspective. Now that we understand how a brain develops in the early years and how this affects a child’s ability to regulate their emotions, we are more able to respond to children’s needs rather than react to any behaviours. It has also changed the way in which we talk about it too.
‘Our team learns about and we talk to parents about the “upstairs and downstairs brain” and why children react so emotionally in this way. To call it a tantrum just doesn’t seem to fit any more. Thinking about it now, the word tantrum seems like we see it as something a child is doing deliberately to get their own way or for the attention. Rather than use the word tantrum, we name the feelings, so we say “you are very cross” or “it is OK to feel scared” and help the children return to a calm state. Then we talk about the inappropriateness of the behaviour, whether this be biting because it hurt their friend, or crying and shouting at story time.
‘We talk to our parents and share what we learned, and do actually use the words “dysregulated” and “co-regulate” between ourselves professionally and also with parents. I don’t think it’s scary using words like this – knowledge is power and when parents understand it like we do, it makes so much more sense. I also think it makes these behaviours sound more ordinary and less scary and stressful to deal with when parents realise that their child is not doing anything wrong, that it is part of natural development.
‘The more early brain development and self-regulation is included in training for early years professionals then vocabulary used will change.’
FURTHER READING
- Early Childhood and Neuroscience: Theory, Research and Implications for Practiceby Dr Mine Conkbayir
- The Neuroscience of the Developing Child: Self-Regulation for Wellbeing and a Sustainable Futureby Dr Mine Conkbayir is due to be published in December 2022
