How to deal with a bratty Child
Parents know all too well how
difficult it is to deal with a child’s tantrums. When a child reaches pre-schooler
age, this problematic behaviour comes out and parents, not really knowing what
to do, just grin and bear it, and just basically brace for the inevitable.
Children can often display “bratty”
behaviour either towards their parents or other people because they cannot properly
articulate their feelings yet or struggle with handling their emotions.
At this age, behaviour regulation,
or the ability to use self-control to behave in socially acceptable ways is not
well developed yet. This can manifest as tantrums and are sometimes triggered
by an outburst of emotions such as anger, frustration, anxiety, and
irritability.
To avoid these behaviours among pre-schoolers,
parents should learn how to develop and nurture their child’s emotional
intelligence by teaching them how to better understand and control their
emotions.
In his book entitled, “Raising an
Emotionally Intelligent Child; The Heart of Parenting,” Dr. John Gottman offers tips on how parents can better deal
with their child’s emotional outbursts.
He advises parents to become more
aware of their child’s emotions. The first step to improving
their behaviour is to recognize that there is an array of feelings that a child
has to deal with, such as disappointment or anger, which they might not be able
to completely understand yet, or know how to handle.
Parents should also be
more observant and listen to what their child is trying to say or express. They
should be able to validate their child’s emotions, empathizing with them, and making
them understand that what they are feeling is normal.
Dr. Gottman further recommends helping the child to find
the words that best identifies what they are feeling. Labelling these correctly
can help them better deal with their emotions. It likewise helps the parents
themselves be more aware of what their child is going through.
Aside from a parent’s guidance, proper
nutrition plays a vital role towards developing a pre-schooler’s emotional
intelligence or more commonly known as “EQ”.
A recent breakthrough in pediatric
nutrition is the milk fat globule membrane or MFGM. It is the milk fat’s
coating which contains life-enhancing components. MFGM supports a child’s IQ
development and is clinically proven to improve behavioural regulation among
children.
A study[1]
conducted by Genevieve Veereman-Wauters established that children who consumed
formula enriched with MFGM demonstrated significantly improved parent-reported
scores for behavioral regulation compared to children receiving control formula
without MFGM enrichment.
But what’s really exciting experts is that for the first time in
history, MFGM can be extracted from cow’s milk and added to a children’s milk
formula: only in Enfagrow A+ Four.
Given the most recent advances in
pediatric nutrition, parents can now make healthier choices for their children,
enabling and empowering them to better understand their child’s “bratty”
behaviour, and knowing that they now can do something about it.
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