New 3 Year Old Child Throws Horrible Tantrums? HELP!!!!!!!

[newuserm13]

Alright so I am still somewhat of a newbie as a daycare teacher. I interned/volunteered at multiple daycares for 2 years while in high school, I got hired at my current day care right after graduating. I have been working there for about 7 months, I love kids and have had some very challenging episodes with working with children before. I teach 3 year old's I have had some that were stubborn, rude, wild, hyper, just did not care and even one who spoke no English! Yet I have manage to deal with them and eventually it worked out.

However I just got a new student she is a young 3, just turned 3 about 3 months ago. Her mother brought her to our daycare because she had trouble at the other one. I am up for any challenge, however this child is unlike anything I have seen. She is a sweet gentle loving little girl. She plays well for the most part with the other kids. She is very smart and independent. Yet she has problems listening and following directions when asked to do something that she does not want to do. Like washing her hands or cleaning up, taking a nap etc.

Today was very stressful with this new child. She did fine for the most part had a few bumps throughout the day with listening but nothing major. Until naptime... According to her mother she does not nap EVER! So I put her in an isolated area and went to her first during nap time. I sat with her and got her calmed down. She was doing fine until I got up and got to doing some daily notes. She started throwing her animal across the room, I gave it back to her and told her not to do it again. She proceed to do so. The second time she did it I made it clear if it happened again I would take it from her. She looks at me smiles and says I don't care! Throws it again. Took the stuffed animal and put it in "time out" she began screaming! I mean yelling so loudly everyone in the center could hear her! I attempted to get her calmed down which resulted in her clawing scratching and kicking me! After 15 minutes of her just wailing and throwing a huge tantrum and after both of my arms were scratched up and two bruises later from her kicking, I gave her the stuffed animal back. It did not satisfy her she still yelled and cried and was such a disruption it awoken the other children!

I tried everything to get her to calm down I left her alone by herself, I tried talking stern with her I tried talking calmly everything nothing worked! She eventually after 45 minutes stopped crying. During this time I was sitting at the table attempting to finish some stuff up, when this girl looks at me and starts screaming again shouting "DONT TOUCH ME YOU'RE HURTING ME!" I was across the room from her! I called other teachers in to see if they could help calm her down nothing worked she just kept crying and flaring her arms and legs. Nothing satisfied her nothing would calm her down. She kept half my class up during naptime and was outrageously disruptive!

She throws the tantrums a lot apparently, and all her parents can do is place her in her room and let her be alone. They have no idea how to deal with this and neither do I!!! She does this whenever we ask her to do something she does not want to do. She laughs though when you get upset with her and smiles every time she is in trouble. She hit a child and I told her you do it again and you will be in time out she looked at me smiled and said "Okay!" Then while staring at me smiling smacks the same kid again!!! I stick her in time out and the same thing occurs she kicks screams turns the chair over! I have to literally hold her in my lap to get her to sit still.

ANY ADVICE?!?!? What can I do about this?! How do you deal with these insane tantrums! I have seen kids have temper tantrums but not like this! Not full blown screaming that goes on for hours! This cannot be a normal thing!! What should I do?! Please I really need some advice on this one!

[Unregistered]

Oh my goodness this sounds just like one of my daycare boys. When he tantrums he goes to timeout. He is in timeout more than not!

[Givingthemgrace]

First, make sure to document her accusations of you hurting her. Write down what happened, how you handled it, etc. hopefully someone else saw that you were across the room too. I wouldn't give her stuffed animal back, she can try again the next day. She could have quiet time with books/tapes while the other kids nap, but the second she acts up, take them away and try again tomorrow. She is then free to scream through the whole nap. I'm not sure what you can do in a center for the aggression against you...at home I would hold my son down or keep him in his room until he is calm, but not sure how you can do that. She probably wouldn't stay contained in a Pack n play right?

[Shell]

Oh, I've seen this child before in a 3 yr old classroom many times. She has learned that screaming, kicking, scratching and accusing someone of hurting her gets the desired result. The child I saw only stopped a year later when she had outgrown her rage. I think all you can do is anticipate the times when she is likely to act out the most (nap time ), and when she is calm, just sit real close, not talking or shushing, but being present. Is she fine if you were to sit next to her on the floor and do some paperwork? Maybe she is looking for attention (negative attention has worked so far). If that's possible, I would sit right near her, but pretty much ignore her, and see if it works. That means no telling her to lay down or giving in to her cries for attention. If all else fails, she needs to be removed from the class so she's not interrupting the others. However, then she is still getting attention. IMHO, her parents need to help and not just put up their hands and leave someone else to deal with her behaviors- but that's unlikely to happen. Keep us posted

[daycare]

I have had a child like this in the past. It goes without saying that if the parents are not on board to help stop the behavior and teach the child how to deal with their emotions when they feel sad, angry or upset in some way you are fighting a losing battle.

I have one right now that cries when we have to stop and clean up. I just send him to a crying spot, have the others leave his mess and when he is done we talk. It has gotten so much better in the past 2 months. when the child is done crying his eyes out, I sit and talk with him. we talk about how scary that must have felt to lose control like that and what we can do to feel better. We both agreed that he can use his words. He is very close in age to your DCG, he turned 3 in dec.

I also find times to sit and play with him when he is not upset. I have built a strong bond with him and he trust me. He knows I am safe and if he starts to feel bad he can come give me a huge hug so that he feels better.


I look at it like this. we have to find their trigger, what sets them off? it's like a bomb ticking, we have to find it before it explodes. We want to be proactive and find that trigger so that we can stop it dead in it's tracks. We don't want to allow the child's emotions to escalate any further. If we don't stop them at their trigger, the behavior will continue to rise and go up and up and up in to a full blown tantrum, they may plateau but will always have to come back down. During this time a child may feel very scared about how they are feeling. I would not try to talk to a child during this time, but I may try to help them understand you are ok, you are safe. I would repeat it over and over again. Then again depending on how bad they are acting out, I may just let them throw their tanturm in a safe space so they cant hurt themselves or anyone else, then go and sit to talk with them. YES HUG them, don't look down on them. They don't know how to cope with their emotions because no one has taken the time to teach them.

It sounds like this little girl does not have clue how to cope with her emotions. You need to teach her this and let the parents know that they need to follow suit and do the same thing at home. If they can't help teach her, she may never learn and it won't get better. She will end up hurting herself or someone else.

I hope that you can find a way to help her cope and that her parents are not the kind that expect school to do it all. They need to be hands on parents with this.

[newuserm13]

Yes I tried sitting by her, there was my first thought after she began acting out. I thought maybe she was just doing it for attention, so I sat next to her then she got upset with me and wanted me to move so I sat at the table near her. I have tried talking to her during the tantrums, I attempted to just gently hold her arms down and speak to her calmly reminding her I am not here to hurt her but to help her. Yet she just grew more angry. I let her lay there by herself which resulted in her continuing to act out and scream. She was disturbing my entire class half the class could not nap!

[newuserm13]

I tried to give her something to do quietly, I gave her a book, puzzle, counting bears, a baby doll, and some little people but everything I gave her she threw across the room. She shouted and was just so incredibly upset for no reason. Even after giving her whatever she wanted she still continued to scream! It was as if she just could not stop or calm down! For 2 hours she cried screamed and yelled while kicking and hitting! I have NEVER seen a child throw a tantrum like this! Ever!!!

[daycare]

I tried to give her something to do quietly, I gave her a book, puzzle, counting bears, a baby doll, and some little people but everything I gave her she threw across the room. She shouted and was just so incredibly upset for no reason. Even after giving her whatever she wanted she still continued to scream! It was as if she just could not stop or calm down! For 2 hours she cried screamed and yelled while kicking and hitting! I have NEVER seen a child throw a tantrum like this! Ever!!!

Does your school have a rile that after a certain period of time if a child cannot be calmed you will have the parents come pick up. I have this rule that if after 45 minutes we ant control your child you will be called to pick up.

Just a word of advise don't try talking to her while she's throwing a tantrum. Trying to talk to a child throwing a tantrum is like talking to a drunk person.
They won't be able to listen or comprehend anything you are saying.

Give her a safe space to let it all out. Is that possible ?

[newuserm13]

Well we try to give new kids a grace period of at least a week before we call parents. I spoke with her mom though and even if I did call her there is not much she will even do. She just allows her to throw the fit and walk away. I will try tomorrow possibly letting her just go with me during naptime and be my "special helper" maybe allow her to just walk with me to make copies, get supplies etc. See if that will keep her from having this melt down cause I cant go everyday having her keep my other kids awake! If some of them do not sleep I will have to deal with that! And frankly I would much rather avoid forcing her to lay quietly and then going through what I did today of the non stop tantrum, by just letting her stay up and off the mat during naptime. Maybe if I just let her sit at the table and color that will keep her still quiet and not an issue..

[daycare]

Each person is different. I would never be able to handle one kid awake and the rest are sleeping. Next thing you know you have two awake, the 3, then4 who are now also your special helpers. But if you can do that with these type of repercussions then go for it. . That's also a good idea.

Is it possible that this child is over tired ?

[Unregistered]

I don't let these sort of children be my helpers, especially if they're not doing what the rest of the class is doing. It just reinforces what they already know: acting bad/not following the rules gets them their way. I would overly praise any and everything she does right. Nap time isn't optional. As daycare said, it's going to probably end up with most of the class not napping. This child needs routine and firmness. The problem is she thinks she's the boss of you. I'd be leery of getting to close to this child or giving her too much one on one time. I wonder if this pretending her caregiver hurt her is a something she does often. Clearly, she knows it works. Now a days, it takes very little to have your career in childcare ended. I would talk to the owner. Just to have your bases covered. With a child like this, I would just firmly tell them (not just during nap) "We're not doing X now" if she's not following the routine/activity or "We don't do that here" if she's throwing or do something out of line. I know some might disagree with this, but I also have the children join in and say "She's not being a nice friend. I don't want to act like her". Having the other children say something, shows that their peers aren't impressed. It also helps, because she sounds manipulative. Children like that love to turn others against you. Like when I used to watch older children in the summer I had one boy who was terrible. He was actually six. I always said around him "Jacob isn't being our friend right now. Let's not play with him until he starts to act like a friend. Can we show him the right way to act?". It really helped when about two weeks in, he decided to lose his mind and run around the room and break everything in his path. I asked him to please stop and the other students said "Jacob isn't being a nice friend". He screamed EVERYONE RUN WITH ME. SHE'S NOT THE BOSS OF ME. No one did. You should have see the look on his face. Then, just "ignore" her.