I am a teacher assistant at a Montessori school for children age 2 1/2 - 6 and I'd like to tell you what we do for discipline that generally works for most of our children when it comes to temper tantrums.
First, if a child is throwing a temper tantrum we usually wait for them to calm down before talking about it. For that to happen we ask the child to sit nicely in a chair (or wherever you'd like). Until the child is sitting nicely in the chair (this means without flopping over, etc) we aren't available (we don't talk to them or help with anything unless it is to remind them to sit nicely). If they won't sit nicely in the chair then we wait as long as neccessary, reminding them occasionaly what is expected of them. "As soon as you're sitting nicely in the chair we can talk about why you're so mad." "Sorry, I'm not available until you're sitting nicely in the chair." This shifts the control back over to you.
Once the child is sitting nicely then we thank them for listening and talk about what exactly is going on. Children usually scream, whine, etc. because they don't have the words they need to communicate. You may have to ask questions and do some guess work to find out what's wrong or you may already know. If your child threw something across the room and you took it away and they errupted into a tantrum then you may want to just explain that we never throw our toys. You could say things like, "Thank you so much for listening to my words, you're sitting so nicely. It's so hard for me to understand you when you yell, did you mean to say that you were upset because ...."
To combat screaming and yelling you can try saying things like, "When you yell it really hurts my ears. Please go away from me until you're ready to talk normally." You may also need to remove yourself from the yelling so your child knows that it isn't okay, but always follow up with trying to give them the proper words to use instead.
To follow up on the example of throwing a toy across the room, if you were to take the toy away and your child began to yell at you, you could try giving them words to say instead. "Instead of yelling did you want to say, 'Mom, I really want my toy back.' " Which you may have to say, "You know that we never throw toys. It's so dangerous and someone could have been hurt. Tomorrow you may have another chance and use your toy again. Why don't we play outside for now."
Remember to always follow through with what you say and be consistant! I hope this helps a little.
~*Amy*~
