5-year-old temper tantrums

Are you wondering why your 5-year-old is so angry and aggressive all the time, or whether or not you should ignore their tantrums?  Are you asking yourself how to deal with tantrums in 5-year-olds?

5-year-old tantrums are very common and are often associated with your child’s development. That said, it is not always easy to know how to deal with tantrums in a 5-year-old.

In this post, we’ll look at the reasons behind 5-year-old temper tantrums, several strategies that you can use to manage these tantrums, and also the red flags in kids’ tantrum behavior.

Is it normal for a 5-year-old to have temper tantrums?

Many parents struggling with 5-year-old tantrums often wonder whether their kids’ tantrums are normal. The short answer is “yes”. Tantrums are common behavior in young children under age six and often arise because of their inability to process big emotions.

In other words, if your child experiences an emotion that they are unfamiliar with and are not quite sure what to do with it, they might act aggressively in an attempt to deal with that emotion. This behavior is simply their way of trying to come to terms with a difficult and frustrating situation.

Numerous studies have linked behavior such as tantrums, meltdowns, extreme anxiety and even aggressive behavior such as hitting and biting to an inability to manage emotions appropriately.

Knowing that your child’s 5-year-old tantrums are normal helps, but having the tools to help them cope with those emotions when they strike is even better. Here are five simple strategies to help you manage your child’s tantrums.

How to deal with 5-year-old temper tantrums

1) Strengthen your child’s emotional intelligence

5-year-old temper tantrums are often a sign that your child needs help to manage big emotions. We now know that it is possible to strengthen children’s emotional intelligence and to help them adopt coping mechanisms to deal with emotion-provoking situations.

In other words, an emotionally intelligent child is one who has learned to pick the right coping mechanism to deal with an unpleasant situation.

The numerous scientific studies that have focused on the development of emotional intelligence in children suggest that emotionally intelligent kids:

• Have better social and academic outcomes.

• View themselves less as “victims” and try to find solutions to their problems.

• Have fewer behavioral issues.

• Are more school-ready.

The good news is that there are simple strategies to help your child. The first step toward reinforcing their emotional intelligence is to make them more aware of emotions – theirs and those of others.

At age 5, simply talking about the emotions around you is an easy way to help familiarize your child with different emotions.

For example, when you’re reading a book, or even watching a TV show together, you can comment on the emotions displayed by the different characters: “Sam sure looks anxious”, “She’s so sad”…

Helping your child name their own emotions “I understand that you’re angry because you would like to continue playing your videogame” is another simple strategy to help them become more aware of different emotions.

A third strategy is to talk about your own emotions. This is one of the most effective strategies, not only because it allows your child understand emotions, but also because it helps them become aware that emotions are normal and that everyone experiences them.

2) Identifying the triggers makes it easier to deal with 5-year-old temper tantrums

Many children often react to similar triggers: hunger, fatigue, frustration, overwhelm, and so on. Being aware of your child’s triggers makes it easy to intervene before their behavior gets out of control.

For example, if hunger is a huge trigger for your kid, ensuring that they take a snack before outings, or ensuring that there is always a snack in your bag, can be an easy way to reduce tantrum episodes.

That said, it can be difficult to predict the triggers behind your child’s behavior. In such cases, keeping an “emotions diary” and noting when that behavior occurs can make it easier to understand those triggers.

When it comes to the development of emotional intelligence, it is important to help your child learn to identify by themselves what triggers their emotions.

In the example above, you could say something like “have you ever felt like Sam?”, or “I would be sad too if…”, or “would you be sad if that happened to you?”.

3) Choose the right coping mechanisms

A coping mechanism that works today may fail tomorrow, or a coping mechanism that works in a given emotion-provoking situation may have strictly no impact in a different situation. 

In other words, although there are thousands of coping mechanisms, not all of them will help calm your 5-year-old’s tantrums so you will have to find what works. It may be a bit trial and error at first, but finding the right coping mechanism is totally worth it.

The good news is that there are numerous resources – both conventional and unconventional – that your child can choose from.

Some kids need things that they can cuddle to help them cope with difficult situations, others need fidgets, and others need executive function activities such as drawing or coloring mandalas or completing sudokus. Remember that your kid may find comfort in surprising places: for years, our daughter was inseparable from her water bottle and its bite valve.

The “Emotions Kit” is a great resource filled with multiple age-appropriate tools (cards, games, worksheets, tools, etc) to help your child learn to identify emotions, identify their triggers, and discover different coping mechanisms to test. This kit is designed to help you communicate with your child about emotions.

4) Use positive reinforcement instead of punishment

Punishment does not help your child learn how to deal with difficult emotions. Worse, it can make their behavior worse. Instead, use positive reinforcement to help them adopt positive ways of reacting to difficult emotions.

Positive reinforcement is a very effective and positive discipline strategy that can help reduce and eventually eliminate your 5-year-old’s temper tantrums.

This strategy works because it revolves around teaching your child more appropriate ways to express their emotions. It reinforces their positive behavior, thus increasing the chances that this behavior gets repeated and eventually becomes normal.

That said, the positive reinforcement approach often fails because it is used inappropriately. If you use this strategy, it is important to choose your child’s behavior calendar and behavior incentives wisely, watch out for the most common pitfalls you are likely to encounter, and adopt a strategy that increases your chances of success.

The Positive Behavior Kit has all the resources that you need to help foster your child’s positive behavior. It uses specially designed and colorful Robo-bucks and Robo-cards to help you successfully reduce 5-year-old tantrums.

Helpful tips for dealing with 5-year-old tantrums

Dealing with our kids’ big emotions is never easy, but you are not alone: anxiety and anger are among the most common, and most recurring, emotions children struggle with, sometimes well into adolescence.

Here are a few simple tips to help you during this process.

1) Talk often, but for short periods: It is more effective to talk about emotions often but for short periods than to talk infrequently over long periods. As mentioned earlier, take advantage of your environment to talk to your child about emotions.

2) Pick the right moment for your child: Do not try to talk to your child about emotions when they are in the middle of a meltdown. It won’t work.

3) Pick the right moment for yourself: If you react to your child in anger, you will only make the situation worse. Avoid reacting in the heat of the moment. Walk away, or take a few moments, before you react to their behavior.

The best time to talk to your child about emotions is when you are both calm, relaxed and attentive.

When should I worry about my 5-year-old’s tantrums

Tantrums decrease in intensity and frequency as your child grows older and learns to better manage their difficult emotions. There is no need to worry about 5-year-old tantrums if:

• They do not interfere with your child’s normal routine

• They do not overwhelm them

• You can identify what triggers their behavior

• They are short-lived

• Your child does not overreact to everything

That said, 5-year-old temper tantrums may be a sign of something else. Several studies have found that tantrums are more common in kids with autism[1],  ADHD[2], or kids with sensory processing issues. Kids experiencing speech difficulties[3] may also display more tantrums.

Wakschlag and colleagues studied the behavior of 1, 490 preschoolers. They found that there is cause for concern if your child displays certain types of behavior several times a week:

• Violent behavior

• Repeated tantrums per day

• Intense tantrums

• Disproportionate behavior

• Frequent reports from school about your child’s out of control behavior

• Difficulty recovering from tantrums

• Aggressive behavior toward inanimate objects

• Self-harmful tantrum behaviors

The free guide below provides more information from the study to help you assess 5-year-old temper tantrums.

There is good news and bad news for parents struggling with 5-year-old temper tantrums. The good news is that if you focus on strengthening your child’s emotional intelligence skills, they will eventually learn to manage their emotions in more socially appropriate ways.

But the bad news is that this is a long process, and you will not obtain the results that you seek overnight. This means that you must be patient and must keep at helping your child deal with their emotions more appropriately, even when your attempts seem futile.

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Scientific references

[1] Drug-refractory aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums in autism spectrum disorders

[2] A comparison of tantrum behavior profiles in children with ASD, ADHD and comorbid ASD and ADHD

[3] Functional Analysis of Severe Tantrums Displayed by Children with Language Delays