Doctor Komarovsky about hysterics in a child

Children's tantrums can make life difficult for any, even very patient adults. Just yesterday, the baby was a “sweetheart”, and today it has been replaced as it is - he screams for any reason, screams, falls to the floor, beats his head against the walls and the palace and no exhortations do not help. Such unpleasant scenes are hardly ever a one-off protest. Often hysterics in a child are repeated systematically, sometimes several times a day.

This can not but alarm and perplex parents who ask themselves questions, what did they do wrong, is everything in order with the baby and how to stop these antics. Authoritative well-known children's doctor Yevgeny Komarovsky tells moms and dads how to react to children's tantrums.

Children's tantrums - the phenomenon is widespread. And even if the parents karapuz say that they have the most peaceful pipsqueak in the world, this does not mean that he never arranges scenes out of the blue. Not so long ago, it was somehow embarrassing to confess to hysterics of one’s own child, parents were embarrassed, all of a sudden people would think that they were ill-raising a toddler, and sometimes they were afraid that others would consider their beloved child mentally “not so. So we fought as best we could with family.

In recent years, they began to talk about the problem with specialists, child psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and pediatricians. And the insight came: wiping children are much more than it might seem at first glance. According to statistics, which children's psychologists have in one of the largest clinics in Moscow, 80% of children under 6 years of age get hysterics periodically, and 55% of such babies have hysteria in the nature of regular ones. On average, children can fall into such attacks from 1 time per week to 3-5 times a day.

During a tantrum, a child may scream, shiver, choke, and tears will not be too much. There may be breathing problems, rapid heartbeat, many children try to hurt themselves by scratching their faces, biting their hands, hitting the walls or the floor. Attacks in children are quite long, after them they can not calm down for a long time, sobbing.

At certain age periods, hysterics acquire stronger manifestations; at such “critical” stages of growing up, emotional outliers change their color. They may suddenly appear, and may disappear just as suddenly. But the tantrums in no case can not be ignored, as it is impossible to allow the child with the help of shouting and stamping his feet began manipulate adult family members.

First of all, Yevgeny Komarovsky considers, parents should remember that a child in a state of hysterics necessarily require the viewer. Kids never make scandals in front of the TV or a washing machine, they choose a living person, and from the family members it is the one who is most sensitive to his behavior who is the spectator.

How to wean a child from hysterics will tell Dr. Komarovskaya in the next video.

This opinion is somewhat contrary to the generally accepted opinion of child psychologists, who argue that the child is in a state of hysterics and does not control himself at all. Komarovsky is sure that the baby is perfectly aware of the situation and the alignment of forces, and everything that he does at this moment does quite arbitrarily.

If a child ever gets his way with the help of hysteria, he will use this method all the time. Komarovsky warns parents to coax the baby during a tantrum.

It is advisable to calm tactics of behavior and rejection hysterics adhered to all family members, so that mom's "no" never turned into father's "yes" or grandmother's "maybe." Then the child will quickly understand that hysteria is not a method at all, and will stop testing adult nerves for strength.

If the grandmother begins to show softness, to pity the offended child by the parental refusal, then she risks becoming the only spectator of children's tantrums. The problem, says Komarovsky, is the lack of physical security with such grandmothers. After all, usually a grandson or granddaughter gradually cease listen they can get into an unpleasant situation in which they can be injured while walking, burn yourself with boiling water in the kitchen, put something into a wall outlet, etc., because the baby will not react to the grandmother’s calls.

If a child is 1-2 years old, he is quickly able to form the correct behavior at the reflex level. Komarovsky advises to put the baby in the playpen, where he will have a safe space. As soon as the hysterics began - leave the room, but let the child understand that they hear it. As soon as the peanut is silent, you can go to his room. If the cry is repeated - go out again.

For such a "training" parents will need truly iron nerves, the doctor stresses. However, their efforts will be rewarded by the fact that in a short time an adequate, calm and obedient child will grow up in their family. And one more important point - the earlier parents apply this knowledge in practice, the better it will be for everyone. If the child has already passed for 3 years, this method alone will not do. It will take more painstaking work on the bugs. First of all, over parental mistakes in raising your own child.

Absolutely any children can be naughty, Komarovsky says. Much depends on the character, temperament, upbringing, norms of behavior that are adopted in the family, on the relations between the members of this family.

At the age of about three years, the child has an understanding and awareness of himself in this big world, and naturally he wants to try this world for strength. In addition, children at this age are not yet all and far from always able to express in words their feelings, emotions and experiences for any reason. That shows them in the form of hysteria.

Quite often at this age stage begin night tantrums. They are spontaneous, the child just wakes up at night and immediately practices a piercing scream, arches, sometimes tries to escape from adults and try to escape. Usually nightly hysterics do not last as long, and the child "outgrows" them, they stop as suddenly as they began.

In 6-7 years, there is a new stage of maturation.The baby is already ripe to go to school, and they are starting to demand more from him than before. He is very afraid of not meeting these requirements, he is afraid of “letting down”, stress accumulates and sometimes spills out again in the form of hysteria.

Evgeny Komarovsky emphasizes that parents most often go to doctors with this problem when the child is 4-5 years old, when hysterics occur “out of habit.”

Parents are usually frightened by some external manifestations of hysteria, such as a child’s semi-unconscious state, convulsions, a “hysterical bridge” (arching the back), deep sobs and breathing problems. Affective and respiratory disorders, Yevgeny O. so called this phenomenon, mainly characteristic of young children - up to 3 years. With a strong cry, the child exhales almost the entire volume of air from the lungs, and this leads to blanching, holding the breath.

Such attacks are peculiar to children capricious, excitable, says Komarovsky. Many children use other methods of putting out anger, disappointment or resentment — they sublimate emotion into motion — they fall, beat their feet and hands, beat their heads on objects, walls, and floor.

With a long and severe hysterical affective-respiratory attack, involuntary seizures can begin if the child begins to suffer consciousness. Sometimes in this state, the baby can be described, even if he has long been walking around the pot beautifully, and incidents do not happen. Usually, after convulsions (tonic - with muscle tension or clonic - with relaxation, “limping”), breathing is restored, the skin ceases to be “bluish”, the baby begins to calm down.

• Teach your child to express emotions in words. Do not be angry or annoyed like any other normal person, your child cannot. You just need to teach him to properly express his anger or irritation.
• A child prone to hysterical attacks should not be overly protective, cherished and cherished; it is best to send him to kindergarten as early as possible. There, Komarovsky says, seizures usually do not occur at all due to the lack of constant and impressionable viewers of hysterics - mothers and fathers.
• Hysterical attacks can be learned to foresee and control. To do this, parents need to carefully observe when a tantrum usually begins. A child may be sleepy, hungry, or he will not tolerate being rushed. Try to avoid potential “conflict” situations.
• At the first sign of a beginning tantrum, you should try to distract the child. Usually, Komarovsky says, this quite successfully “works” with children up to three years old. With older guys it will be more difficult.
• If your child is inclined to hold his breath when hysterical, there is nothing particularly terrible about this. Komarovsky says that in order to adjust breathing, all you need is to blow the baby in the face, and he will definitely take a reflexive breath.
• No matter how difficult it is for parents to fight the child’s tantrums, Komarovsky strongly recommends that this be the way to the end. If you give your baby a tantrum, then it will be even harder. After all, a hysterical and completely unbearable teenager of 15-16 years old will grow out of a fraying three-year-old. He will ruin the life of not only parents. He will greatly complicate her to himself.