What to do during a tantrum?

A tantrum can be exhausting, especially when it happens in public or when nothing you say seems to help.

Short answer

During a tantrum, your first task is not to make the emotion disappear. It is to keep everyone safe, stay as calm as you can, and accompany your child until the intensity comes down.

The boundary can stay in place even while you acknowledge what they feel.

What may be happening

When a child is overwhelmed, they have fewer resources available for listening, reasoning, or controlling impulses. This is why a long explanation in the middle of a tantrum often does not work.

The tantrum may have been triggered by a limit, frustration, tiredness, hunger, a transition, or simply an accumulation of things. Understanding the trigger can help later, but in the most intense moment the priority is regulation and safety.

What you can do

Stay close enough to support and protect. Use few words. If they try to hit, kick, or throw something dangerous, stop the action calmly.

You might say:

“You’re really angry. I’m here.”

“I won’t let you hit.”

“You wanted to keep playing and it’s hard to stop.”

If the tantrum began because you set a reasonable limit, you do not need to remove that limit to calm them down.

When the intensity has passed, reconnect. Later, if it makes sense, you can talk briefly about what happened and think together about another way to respond next time.

What to avoid

Avoid trying to reason at length while your child is overwhelmed. Also avoid humiliating, threatening, or turning the moment into a contest over who wins.

Giving in to every limit because the protest is intense can also teach an unintended pattern: that escalation is what changes the adult’s decision.

If this does not work

Look at the pattern around the tantrums. When do they happen? What tends to come before them? Are transitions especially difficult? Are there moments of the day when your child has fewer resources?

The answer may not be a better phrase during the tantrum, but a change in what happens before it.

When to seek help

If tantrums are extremely frequent or intense, regularly involve serious harm to the child or other people, or are significantly affecting everyday family life, it can be useful to seek professional guidance.