Physiological needs. The most basic cause of your child’s meltdown may be when they need food, sleep, or downtime due to an illness. 

Unrealistic expectations. It is helpful to have realistic expectations of how your child should behave. For instance, it is not realistic to expect a child to wait patiently and quietly for two hours before eating at a fancy restaurant. But it is realistic to think that your child could sit through a 30-minute dinner.

Preparation. This goes hand-in-hand with having realistic expectations. A favorite toy or something new, snacks, reading and activity books, and even electronic devices (when used judiciously) are all appropriate and will go a long way in preventing tantrums.

Understanding expectations. The other side of preparation is mentally preparing your child. Depending upon their temperament for adaptability, start talking with your child about how you’d like for them to act at an upcoming birthday party. For instance, watching quietly while their friend opens their own presents. How much in advance you mentally prepare your child depends on your child’s temperament. Preparing too far in advance can induce anxiety in some children.

Consistency. Preschoolers thrive on routines and repetition. Being consistent about the rules in common situations and settings (e.g., store, restaurant) will go a long way to helping you prevent those tantrums in the future.

Missing warning signs. Sometimes we may miss the early warning signs of an oncoming tantrum. Intervening sooner might help prevent the early whining from turning into a full-blown meltdown.

Special issues. Some children are sensitive to bright light, noise, or big crowds. For instance, if your child is always upset by the noise level in a particular store, find out if there are times in the day in which they don’t have the music blaring. If the music level doesn’t vary, it might be a good idea to go there without your child or use headphones. 

Information Adapted From:

The immature structure of a baby or toddler’s ear can make it more difficult for fluid to drain from the middle ear. Sometimes this fluid becomes infected, by either a virus or bacteria, and causes the tell-tale signs of a childhood ear infection: crying, pulling at the ears, general fussiness, fever, and difficulty sleeping. This fluid does not always become the source of an actual infection, so the fluid can remain in the middle ear without causing the typical symptoms of an infection. The signs of fluid in the middle ear can be as subtle as a slight loss of balance and changes in eating habits to hearing and speech related symptoms. Because fluid in the middle ear that is not infected often causes no pain in children, the condition can go left undiagnosed and untreated for a long period of time, increasing the likelihood of more severe symptoms down the road.

Children first learn to speak by hearing, and the early years of life are crucial to their language development skills. During these years they are hearing sounds modeled for them, and while they might not be speaking in complete sentences, they are learning how to form the sounds needed for speech. Ear infections and excess fluid in the ears can result in hearing loss, often temporary.  Imagine you are walking around underwater and the sounds are all distorted – this is what the world might sound like to a child with fluid in her ears, and this problem can be amplified if there is pain associated with it. When problems exist and hearing loss for any reason occurs, there is an increased risk that a child will have a speech delay.

Ear infections in childhood are often more easily recognized and therefore more quickly treated, reducing long-term consequences on hearing and speech development. You wouldn’t be the first parent, however, to not recognize the signs of uninfected fluid in the middle ear. Some of the first signs you might see include:

If you suspect fluid in the ear or another cause of hearing loss might be the cause of your child’s speech delays, it is important to have your child’s hearing tested and ears examined. 

*Information taken from Speechbuddy.com