Tantrums are most common in the toddler and preschool years when there are massive developmental shifts in a child’s verbal and thinking skills; at that age, kids don’t have the emotional maturity to properly express frustration, helplessness, and powerlessness, says Claudia Gold, MD, a pediatrician at Community Health Programs of the Berkshires in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and author of Keeping Your Child In Mind. “Temper tantrums are a normal developmental phenomenon,” she…
