2. When you want to say, “Big kids don’t act this way!” Replace it with, “I know you are experiencing a lot of feelings right now, but as you get older there are expectations on how we express those feelings.”
Just telling a child who is upset that they should stop feeling upset is not helpful or teaching them any life skills to improve.
Experiencing anger, frustration, sadness, and disappointment are all natural reactions to being let down in some way.
Having a child be able to learn to process the emotions they don’t understand, instead of acting out in bad behavior, helps them to feel in control; thus less tantrums in the future.
Don’t stop at the useful phrase though. After they have calmed down, let them know what acceptable ways of processing emotion looks like.