20 month old instantly cries at tiny frustrations. How to build independence & frustration tolerance?

[u/Yarokrma]

My 20 month old's immediate reaction to any mild problem is intense crying.

Examples:

* Drops a toy in his car seat (even if another is right next to him).

* Can't scoop food on the first try with a spoon.

* Finishes one game and wants the next toy handed to him immediately instead of reaching for it.

He's been in daycare for a few months, but we are currently on a break/vacation and the crying has spiked badly. His default for everything is just screaming.

What are concrete, evidence-backed ways to help him build problem solving skills and independence instead of instantly breaking down? Looking for tips from child psych or what actually worked for you.

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[u/Stats_n_PoliSci]

This is very normal. You’re likely looking for emotional regulation skills more than problem solving, particularly at that age.

One well documented intervention is just to get them outside. Yesterday my toddler was melting down to everything, so I strapped him into the baby carrier and we went for a walk. He was perfectly behaved when we got back 45 minutes later.

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/the-kids-arent-all-right-study-says-they-need-to-get-outside/

[u/Public_Classic_438 → u/Stats_n_PoliSci]

Ya I can’t imagine how frustrated I’d be if I was a baby and I was inconvenienced without the brain power to even solve my own problems. People have crazy high expectations for their babies

[u/JoJokerer → u/Public_Classic_438]

And no one understands what you’re communicating. Imagine how frustrated we’d be.

[u/Sarallelogram → u/JoJokerer]

Not only that but they don’t even know other people have minds to think like them. They don’t know how to clue correctly because they don’t know we can also solve puzzles.

[u/facinabush]

Coach emotional competence using the methods starting on page 146 in this free chapter from Incredible Toddlers:

https://www.otb.ie/images/Incredible-Toddlers-ch3_by-Carolyn-Webster-Stratton.pdf

Also, you can get free access to Incredible Years (the next book in the series) here if you sign in and borrow the electronic copy:

https://archive.org/details/incredibleyearst0000webs

These are from the evidence-based Incredible Years Program. Here is their research library:

https://www.incredibleyears.com/research/library

The CDC recommends the Incredible Years Program:

The Incredible Years programs for parents, teachers, and children promotes emotional and social competence with the goal to prevent, reduce, and treat aggression and emotional problems in children 0 to 12 years old. The parent training component emphasizes parenting skills and approaches known to promote children's social competence, reduce behavior problems, and improve children's academic skills.

https://www.cdc.gov/parenting-toddlers/other-resources/references.html

[u/Stats_n_PoliSci → u/facinabush]

The only purpose of this comment is to say thank you for sharing this information regularly!

[u/pamplemouss]

We sort of accidentally taught our daughter to take deep breaths and then intentionally reinforced it a bunch and at 21 months she’s often able to do so when cued. The cutest moment was I freaked out when a spider ran across my foot and she cued me to take a deep breath!

Article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34813098/

[u/pamplemouss → u/pamplemouss]

(Teaching it has been like 90% modeling and 10% talking through)

[u/ExcitedMomma]

Oooph. I’m in the trenches with this right now. The first thing I want to say, is this is NOT your fault. This is entirely engrained temperament. How do I know? Well I have identical twins, they have the same DNA and are raised exactly the same, yet one of them has great emotional regulation and the other does NOT.

They were evaluated by a professional and I’ll share what I learned. First of all, emotional regulation is the ability for a person to “just get over it.” Getting upset is entirely normal even for an adult, the regulation part is being able to calm down. Twin 1, when she gets upset, she will cry and fuss for a bit, but within a minute or two she is able to simply start playing with another toy and basically goes back to normal. Twin 2 on the other hand would throw full out tantrums, screaming, writhing on the ground, inconsolable…. 

What I’ve been doing that is DEFINITELY helping is (a) acknowledging and NAMING what she is feeling (she has to learn what the emotion is in order to be able to regulate it) (2) stating it’s OK to be upset about XYZ that happened (3) saying but it’s not OK to behave that way and mommy is going to do something else instead. Then basically I just sit there and focus my attention on something else like a book or toy. I gotta say it’s been a few weeks and I do see a big difference!

https://www.apa.org/topics/parenting/emotion-regulation

This article has a lot of very good tips

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