A book can help with
For the floor of the supermarket, and everything that led up to it.
Tantrums are a normal part of being two or three, and they are not a sign of a badly behaved child or a failing parent. A toddler wants something enormously, can’t have it, hasn’t the words to argue and hasn’t yet the brain development to hold the frustration in. So it comes out whole, usually somewhere public.
A book won’t stop one happening, and nothing much can. What it does is give you both a shared story afterwards, and show a child a character who erupted and was loved anyway. That last part matters most, because a child needs to know the storm doesn’t cost them you.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there. The meltdowns page covers the different sort of storm that comes from being overwhelmed.
Loved anyway
For the very youngest, the reassurance is the whole point: whatever just happened, you are still theirs.
Small is grumpy and cross and asks whether Large would still love him if he turned into a bug or a crocodile, and the answer is yes, every time. It’s exactly the reassurance a toddler needs after a storm, and the rhyme makes it soothing to read. A firm bedtime favourite in a great many houses.
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A bear in a very bad mood roars everyone out of his cave, until one friend works out what he actually needed, which was a bit of peace and warmth. It shows crankiness as something with a cause rather than a wickedness. Funny, rhyming and enormously popular with the under-fours.
or on Bookshop.org
The rage, and afterwards
Now they can look back at a temper from the outside. These show the fury honestly and then the repair.
Arthur is told he can’t stay up, and his anger grows until it becomes a storm, a hurricane, an earthquake that splits the universe, and then he can’t remember what he was cross about. It takes a child’s fury completely seriously rather than treating it as naughtiness. A striking, much-praised book.
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Little Critter is told no about everything he wants to do, decides to run away, and is then distracted by his friends. It captures the ordinary daily frustrations that build into a temper, with a light touch and no moralising. Reassuringly familiar for any small child.
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Still going off at eight
Nobody calls it a tantrum once a child is eight, but the same thing happens: it goes from nought to full volume, usually in front of people, and the shame afterwards is worse than the row itself. What follows is written for the child rather than about them.
Anger as a fire that starts with a spark, and a set of what Huebner calls anger-dousing methods for catching it before it takes hold. Twelve short chapters with things to do rather than read. From Magination Press, the American Psychological Association’s children’s imprint, so there is proper technique under the cartoons.
or on Bookshop.org
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Something to do together
A page for afterwards: what happened, what it felt like in your body, and what might help next time. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
Tantrums peak somewhere around two or three and fade as language and self-control develop, which is a matter of brain development rather than discipline. A toddler in full flow genuinely cannot reason, so explaining and bargaining rarely land.
So stay nearby and steady rather than arguing or walking off, keep everyone safe, and save the talking for afterwards. And try not to feel judged in the supermarket. Every parent within earshot has been exactly where you are.
These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.