Why do young children have tantrums?
Tantrums happen because children under 7 are regulated by the unconscious mind, not logic. When they feel overwhelmed or unsafe, their nervous system reacts before reasoning is available.
Understanding Your Child’s Emotional World: From Tantrums to Connection
If you’re a parent of a young child, you’ve likely had that moment. Your child is on the floor, face red, voice loud, shoes off, arms flailing, and there you are, holding snacks, your breath, and your last ounce of patience.
It’s easy in those moments to feel like you’ve failed, or worse, to question if something is wrong with your child. But what if we told you the tantrum isn’t a sign of disobedience or defiance? What if it’s your child doing the only thing their brain knows how to do when they feel unsafe, misunderstood, or overwhelmed?
There is nothing wrong with your child. They’re just operating from the part of their mind that doesn’t use logic, words, or reason yet. That part is the unconscious mind, and in kids under 7, it’s in charge of almost everything.
Once you understand this, everything begins to shift. You stop fighting the behavior and start understanding the message underneath. You stop pushing through tantrums and start connecting through them. And you stop blaming yourself and start supporting yourself too.
Let’s take a deeper look at how the unconscious mind shapes your child’s world and how you can meet them where they truly are.
Why Discipline Doesn’t Work Before Age 7
One of the biggest misunderstandings in parenting is the assumption that children think like adults in smaller bodies. They don’t.
Before age 7, the part of the brain responsible for conscious reasoning (called the prefrontal cortex) is still developing. What this means is that your child is not learning through logic. They’re learning through repetition, rhythm, emotion, and symbolism. In other words, through the unconscious mind.
So when your child is having a meltdown and you say, “If you keep this up, we’re not going to the park,” their brain doesn’t process the cause and effect. What they experience is stress, disconnection, and often confusion.
And it’s not because your child doesn’t care or isn’t listening. It’s because their brain isn’t ready to interpret those consequences the way you intend them.
Dr. Adriana James often reminds us that discipline without connection doesn’t rewire behavior. It only reinforces fear or performance. In order to truly influence behavior, we have to engage the unconscious mind; which means starting with emotional safety, not consequences.
Your Child’s Behavior Is Communication
When your child throws, hits, yells, ignores, clings, or breaks down, they’re not trying to be difficult. They’re trying to be understood.
Behavior in children (especially the kind we label as “challenging”) is simply communication from a system that doesn’t yet know how to explain itself.
This is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of underdeveloped expression. Your child is trying to say:
- “I don’t feel safe.”
- “I’m overwhelmed.”
- “This is too much for me right now.”
- “I need help regulating my system.”
The mistake many of us make is responding to behavior as if it is intentional. But when we zoom out and recognize that children are speaking through movement, tone, and energy, we stop taking the behavior personally, and start becoming curious.
When You Regulate First, Your Child Can Follow
Have you ever tried to calm a child down by telling them to calm down?
It rarely works. That’s because calm isn’t taught through instruction. It’s transmitted through presence.
Children borrow their nervous systems from the adults around them. If you’re agitated, yelling “Calm down!” won’t create calm. If you’re disconnected, telling your child to “listen” won’t create connection.
This is why your own regulation is the first, and often most effective, tool in managing your child’s emotional world.
Here’s what self-regulation can look like in practice:
- Placing your hand on your heart or stomach and breathing slowly
- Whispering instead of raising your voice
- Pausing for five seconds before speaking
- Saying aloud: “I’m noticing my body is getting tight. I’m going to slow down.”
This kind of modeling shows your child what’s possible. It gives their system a path to follow. They may not calm immediately, but you’ve just created an emotional doorway they can walk through.
Insider Tip From Dr. Adriana: Your Nervous System Is the Blueprint
Children imprint on the emotional rhythms of their caregivers. Your nervous system becomes their nervous system over time.
If you were raised in chaos, you may find yourself responding to your child’s stress with urgency or shutdown. That isn’t your fault; it’s a pattern. And patterns can be changed.
When you begin regulating your own reactions, you’re not just helping your child feel safer. You’re giving them a new blueprint to internalize. You’re showing them what it looks like to pause, process, and move forward.
This doesn’t require perfection. It requires consistency, curiosity, and compassion… for yourself, and for them.
How Pattern Interrupts Work With Young Children
When your child is stuck in a loop like crying, yelling, repeating, or spiraling, it’s often because their nervous system is overwhelmed. In this state, they can’t process new information.
What they need isn’t more explanation. They need a state change.
That’s where pattern interrupts come in.
A pattern interrupt is any creative, unexpected shift that breaks the emotional loop and invites a different response. It redirects the system without force.
Examples:
- Start dancing or making a silly face
- Blow a raspberry on their arm
- Whisper something playful
- Offer a surprise sensory object (a lemon wedge, a soft toy, a feather)
- Ask a curious question: “What color do you feel in your belly right now?”
This isn’t about distraction. It’s about disrupting the spiral so regulation can re-enter the room.
Storytelling Rewires the Unconscious Mind
Children love stories not just because they’re fun, but because stories are how their brains organize emotion.
The unconscious mind thinks in symbols, patterns, and metaphors. When you turn your child’s emotional experience into a story, you’re giving their system a safe way to understand what just happened.
Let’s say your child had a meltdown about not getting a second cookie.
Later that night, you might say:
“There once was a little dragon who had a very hungry fire. One day, someone told him he had enough… but the fire didn’t think so. So it roared and roared… until it remembered it could breathe cool air too.”
You’re not moralizing. You’re integrating.
Stories give your child emotional language without lecture. They also open up space for your child to talk about feelings in third-person, which can feel safer and more accessible than owning them directly.
This is an approach we use often with Time Line Therapy. Symbolic integration bypasses resistance and helps rewire emotional associations.
Aggression Is a Nervous System Response
When a young child hits, bites, or throws something, many parents fear they’ve done something wrong, or worse, that their child is becoming “bad.”
Let’s reframe this.
Aggression in kids under 7 is not about disrespect. It’s about discharge. Their system is overloaded, and they don’t yet have the words or tools to release it in a regulated way.
This doesn’t mean we allow aggressive behavior. But it does mean we respond to it differently.
Instead of “Stop that right now,” try:
- “Your body has a lot of energy. Let’s find a way to move it safely.”
- “I see you’re feeling something really big.”
- “I’m going to help you stay safe while we figure this out.”
These responses show your child that boundaries and emotions can coexist. They learn that they’re not bad… just big-feeling. And they can trust you to help them navigate that.
Inside Their World: What a 4-Year-Old Is Really Processing
To understand your child, you have to imagine the world through their lens.
A four-year-old is not managing a calendar, social pressures, and deadlines. They’re managing internal sensations, new ideas, shifting relationships, and a body that’s constantly changing.
They don’t always know if they’re tired, hungry, or scared. They just know something feels wrong.
That wrongness comes out as resistance.
Understanding this allows you to soften. You stop labeling their behavior and start supporting their system. You stop reacting and start responding to what’s underneath.
Connection Rituals That Create Safety
Children crave predictability. It’s not boring to them. It’s regulating.
Simple rituals build emotional trust:
- The same three-part goodbye every morning
- A 60-second check-in when you reconnect after school
- A bedtime story that mirrors one part of the day
- Asking “What’s your color today?” or “What’s your animal feeling right now?”
These practices build emotional vocabulary and routine, which lowers anxiety and raises emotional resilience.
They also serve you as the parent. When the day feels scattered or hard, a ritual brings you both back to center.
Repair Is the Real Teaching Moment
You will raise your voice. You will lose your patience. You will say something you wish you hadn’t.
This is not failure. This is the opportunity to model repair.
Your child is learning how to be human from you. That includes how to apologize, how to soften, how to reconnect.
Try saying:
- “I was feeling overwhelmed and I didn’t handle that well. I’m sorry.”
- “I love you even when things feel hard.”
- “Let’s take a do-over moment. Want to try again together?”
This shows your child that relationships aren’t fragile. They’re resilient. And you can build that resilience together.
Expand Your Professional Toolkit
If you work with children, families, or emotional regulation — or you’d like to — understanding behaviour is only part of the equation. Having the right tools to support deep change is what makes the difference.
The FasTrak™ NLP Practitioner live, online training gives you:
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Practical unconscious-mind tools
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Communication frameworks that work with children and adults
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Regulation and behavioural change strategies
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Four internationally recognized certifications in 7 days
Learn how FasTrak™ NLP Practitioner training can support your work in parenting, counselling, coaching, education, and wellbeing.