It's no secret that children often struggle to deal with their emotions and they rarely have the right words to properly express and explain how they are feeling.
Subsequently, this may result in them having a terrible meltdown, screaming, crying and literally throwing their toys out of their pram, and regardless of whether this behaviour happens in the comfort of your own home, or out in public for all to witness, tantrums can still be incredibly challenging to handle.
Thankfully, it seems there are a few simple ways parents can attempt to 'defuse' a situation like this, according to child psychologist and neuroscientist, Professor Sam Wass.
The professor is an expert in child stress and attention and has previously shared his knowledge on these subjects on the Channel 4 show The Secret Life of 4 and 5 Year Olds.
Speaking to The Mirror, in partnership with Virgin Media O2 to launch the Connected Playground, Professor Wass shared his top tips for dealing with tantrums and several mistakes for parents to avoid - including attempting to use logic and reason to calm their little one or telling their child not to feel a certain way or not to cry.
Instead, there are certain word and language tricks he thinks parents should know and use.
He said: "Parents tend to find tantrums challenging as they're directed at you. When a younger child gets upset you're there to help them, but when toddlers have tantrums you're the focus and it feels like you've caused it.
"Because of that it's easy to be very calm and reasonable with your child and try to use logic to persuade them [to change their behaviour], but that doesn't work with toddlers because they don't do logic.
"They are at this stage when the emotional centres of their brains are massive and their reason centres are tiny, so a much more effective way to deal with a tantrum is to comment on what they're saying and echo it back to them using their language."
So how exactly would you go about doing this?
Professor Wass explains: "If the child is talking in two-word phrases, saying things like 'want juice' or 'want custard', you can match their language and their intonation.
"They'll be very up and down in their voice, so you copy that. Match their state and what they're saying, commentate on it, almost like a football commentator would, so if they're saying 'I want custard', you would say, 'Freddie wants custard' to make sure they feel understood.
"This feeling of being understood will help them calm down and then you'll be able to shift their attention onto something else."
He adds that doing this might feel 'weird' at first for mums and dads, but it's often the quickest way to see results and show your child you support them.
"Don't tell them not to feel what they're feeling and don't try to reason them out of it by saying something like 'you can't have custard because you've already had pudding'.
"It feels very weird to do and it feels counterintuitive but just match their emotion, make sure they feel understood and then you can say 'oh my goodness, look at that butterfly'.
"That's the quickest way to defuse the tantrum in my experience."
Do you have a parenting story to share? We want to hear all about it. Email courtney.pochin@mirror.co.uk
