Don’t let the smiles deceive you. This picture happened because Faiz took both our hats and threw them on the ground. My two-year-old has a vendetta against hats (and his Mama’s photoshoots).

Managing a tantrum from the comfort of our home is hard enough, when you’re out traveling, away from routine, and in public, it can be even harder. An area of improvement for me is to learn how to better manage my toddlers tantrums in a way that is understanding and effective, especially when in public. I have not achieved this goal, by any means, but I do follow a few accounts that keep inspiring me to learn and do better!

Here are a few of my favorite accounts that educate me on my toddlers brain and behaviours and give ideas on how to respond:

• Big Little Feelings: These toddler experts provide great tips on managing toddler tantrums. They offer an online course for parents of kids between one to six, but also share great content with tips (and ways to phrase sentences to our toddlers) on their instagram account.
• Spark Wonder: Mona Singhal is a toddler expert, with a masters in early childhood and special education. She writes great content on managing tantrums, home schooling, picky eaters, and other developmental areas. We did a consult with her last summer, and it was terrific!
• Responsive Parenting: This blogger writes content related to child development, and inspires me to take a step back, calm down, and think about how to respond to my child.

I have learned a great deal from these accounts (among others), on understanding that my two-year-old’s brain is still going through major development. I have to remember that when he has a tantrum, as frustrating as it is on the outside, he is as frustrated as he in the inside. It is on me to calmly think through how to respond, the words and tone to use, and the action to take based on the severity of his behavior. It is hard. This is probably one of the hardest parts of parenting that I have dealt with up to this point, and I am grateful for the subject matter experts that take the time to share their wisdom and experiences.

Any tips on how you have managed a tantrum while on a trip? PLEASE SHARE!

See below for some photos of our child’s meltdown during our photoshoot, and us trying to desperately calm him down with the Amazon Kids Tablet. Hopefully, reading these parenting accounts will helps us better manage the next tantrum 🙂