This document provides guidance for teachers on managing tantrums in the classroom. It discusses the structure of tantrums and suggests several strategies teachers can use, including planned ignoring, switching activities, having backup work ready, discussing triggers with the child, and manipulating tantrum routines by limiting when and where they occur. The goal is to teach the child alternative ways of getting attention and expressing emotions while also establishing that the teacher is in control of the classroom environment. Consistency and developing rapport with disruptive children are emphasized.

1. A Psychoeducation forTeachers Skill-Building Guide

2.  Although I wrote this article with teachers in mind, parents will notice
that most of these strategies are easily adapted to manage tantrums and
acting-out behaviors at home.
 Tantrums have a structure with a beginning; it continues climbing until it
reaches a peak or climax, and then gradually dies down.The child is more
accessible to verbal intervention at the beginning of the tantrum and
between outbursts. Some general guidelines to manage tantrums in the
classroom are…
 When you notice a tantrum coming, say, “Come on, Brian, get hold of
yourself.”When the tantrum is building, you can comfort the child, talk
briefly about what is happening, and you can encourage the child to
show self-control.

3.  Use planned ignoring, either leaving the scene or pretending that the child is not
there. Planned ignoring sounds easy to implement, but in reality, it requires
focused effort and concentration from a teacher or parent. In some extreme
cases, planned ignoring involves delivering the lesson, even with the child
screaming and kicking.What is important here is that we do not empower the
child to determine how and when our lesson is going to end. Empower yourself
to make the important decisions in the classroom, not the child.
 Right before the peak of the tantrum, switch activities, from a teacher-delivered
lesson or lecture to a preselected worksheet or workbook, so that the rest of the
class continues working independently.This allows you to remove yourself from
center stage, so that you can use gestures, signals, and whispering to keep the
communication open with the rest of the class. Using gestures and whispering is
a powerful nonverbal strategy, so use it consistently and use it wisely.Without
words, you are sending the message to both your class and the chronic acting-
out child that everybody in the room is going to remain quiet and calmed. By
being quiet and calmed yourself, you are modeling children how to stay quiet and
calmed during the acting-out episode.At all cost, avoid raising your voice over
the child’s screams.

4.  Always have emergency activities from worksheets or
workbooks ready to distribute to the class during tantrum
episodes.The idea is for the class to continue working as
independently as possible while you concentrate on
extinguishing the tantrum episode.
 Make sure that the tantrum-prone child knows in advance
that you are going to use planned ignoring each time the
student has a tantrum.The tantrum-prone child also needs
to know in advance that he will get all the attention and help
he wants from you, but only when he is acting calmly and is
following class rules and routines.

5.  It is important that other students do not reinforce tantrum behaviors (e.g.
laughing or mirroring disruptive behaviors), so you need to have a behavior
modification system in place for the class as well as for the acting-out child.
Students need to understand that the tantrum is a problem that is hurting
everybody in the classroom, including the acting-out child. Be careful with your
language; help the class deal with their frustration, and do not alienate the
acting-out child from the rest of the class. Help children understand that, the
acting-out behavior is the problem, the acting-out child is not the problem, and
that the child needs our help.When we present the situation to children as a
common problem, it is easier to win their cooperation to solve this common
problem.Teach the class in advance how they can ignore tantrums.Tell children
that they are going to remain on-task and focused on the independent activity
while the tantrum episode peaks and then fades. After the tantrum episode,
reward the class for ignoring, but do not reward the child that just had the
tantrum. For example, the students that remained on task and followed teacher’s
directives earn three tokens; students that partially followed directives earn one
token, and children who showed little or no effort, including the acting-out child,
earn no tokens.

6.  When using planned ignoring, be emotionally prepared for the tantrum behavior
to get worse before the child is totally and completely ready to relinquish it. As
with all behavior modification techniques, consistency and perseverance are the
keys to success.
 Discuss with the child why you think he has tantrums.You might say, “Could it be
that you are having tantrums because you want my attention?” Alternatively, “It
is frustrating for you to _____, and the tantrums are your way of letting me know
that you feel frustrated.” Discuss with the child alternative ways of getting your
attention, handling frustration, and/or handling troubling feelings. Make sure the
child understands that he can get all the attention he wants from you without
throwing a tantrum.
 Use a diversionary strategy, for instance, “You know,Tiffany, in five minutes we
are (going to the gym, having snack time, or gathering in the read aloud area).”
The distraction gives the child something to look forward to in several short
blocks of time.

7.  Teach the student the 1-2-3 tantrum stopping technique: (1) Freeze! (2) Look at
your teacher, and (3) Do what your teacher says. Prearrange with the child the
reward that she will receive when she complies with this technique.
 Use the broken-record technique. Restate your position by repeating the same
phrase up to three times, for example, “I am sorry you cannot play with your toy
right now, but we are in the middle of our reading lesson.”After the third time,
move away from the child.
 Notice temporal patterns (time of day and day of week) when tantrums happen.
Do tantrums happen more often early in the morning, mid-morning, or late in the
afternoon? Do they happen before lunch or right after lunch? Do they happen in
a particular setting or during specific activities?Are certain individuals
consistently present? In other words, under what circumstances (place, time, and
people) do the child becomes angry and/or acts out?The answers to these
questions help identify triggers to the acting-out behavior, make decisions about
which strategies to use, and implement preventive measures to remove or to
minimize the impact of those triggers.

8.  Teach the student to jot down what she was doing, thinking, and feeling just
before she had the tantrum.This way, we are teaching the child to pay attention
to the events that trigger her tantrums, so that she can prevent or avoid those
triggers.
 Creating rapport with the tantrum-prone child is an important preventative
measure. We start developing rapport when we realize that we will be more
effective in modifying habitually disruptive behaviors when we focus in
connecting emotionally with the child and we move away from trying to control
and to dominate the child.
 To develop self-awareness, after a tantrum episode, talk about it with the child.
Have the child tell about how she felt, and make the child aware of how you and
the other students felt. Discuss the cause of the tantrum, and help the child
identify early warning signals. Do not forget to identify alternative ways of
handling the problem (the event that triggered the tantrum) in the future.

9.  We can manipulate children’s tantrum routines by
changing the location, duration, frequency, and/or
time of day. Here are some examples:
 Tell the child that he can continue having tantrums,
but only in the pre-designated tantrum place, for
example, the left corner in the back of the
classroom. When the child seems ready to throw a
tantrum, calmly, remind the child that he must go to
the tantrum place.

10.  Tell the child that he can continue having tantrums, but only
at the pre-designated tantrum time, for instance, from 10:13
AM to 12:57 PM. When you see the child at a boiling point,
tell him that he must wait until _____ (tantrum time). Make
sure to include the time of the day when the tantrums are
more common. Notice that we are combining the pre-
designated time with crazy numbers, a behavior modification
technique designed to confuse the child intentionally. This
way, we keep control of the time. Gradually, give the child
less and less “tantrum time,” for example, reduce to 10:28-
12:49, then from 11:23 to 12:34, etcetera.

11.  Tell the child that he can continue having tantrums, but only in the pre-
designated place and pre-designated time, both conditions must be
present.
 If the child typically has five tantrums a week, tell him that, this current
week, you allow him to have four tantrums.When the child has the first
tantrum, say, “That was one tantrum.You are entitled to three more
tantrums this week.” Repeat the same message for the three other
tantrum episodes. At the end of the week, celebrate that the child had
one less tantrum, and give him a reward.The second week, decrease the
child’s tantrum rights to three tantrums, then (third week) reduce to two,
and finally (fourth week) to just one tantrum. At the beginning of the
fifth week, challenge the child to a tantrum free week. As you can see, this
is a five-week procedure, so you need to be patient. Also, understand
that this is a huge accomplishment for the tantrum-prone child, so make
a big deal out of it and, if necessary, reward the child both daily and
weekly.

12.  What is common in implementing the tantrum manipulation
technique is that we are reducing the tantrum episodes by
putting limits on where, when, for how long, and how many
tantrums the child can have. Manipulating the child’s
tantrum routines helps the teacher or parent gain confidence
in handling this challenging behavior, and at the same time,
sends the message to the tantrum-prone child that the adult
is in control of the behavior; the child is no longer the person
in control. In other words, we allow the child to have
tantrums “the teacher’s way,” not the student’s way.

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