By Marguerite Kelly
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, July 28, 2006

Q. My two smart and lovely grandchildren -- a boy, 6, and a girl, 4 -- are usually a joy, but they do have awful tantrums. When they're upset they tend to cry or shout or strike out quickly, hitting each other or someone else.

And yet my daughter and her husband get along well; the children don't eat much sugar, they have a fairly good balanced diet and they've never been in day care. My daughter works, but part time and only on certain evenings.

During the day she reads to the children a lot; she exposes them to a variety of things and she keeps the kids busy with inside and outside activities (but not excessively so). She doesn't let them control the situation, however, because she is concerned about their behavior. Sometimes she disciplines them by taking away something they like or by sending them to their room or threatening to keep them at home when they've planned to go somewhere, but no matter what she does, my grandchildren still have tantrums.

I take care of them fairly often and have experienced the same behavior. What should I do when they're with me? What limits should I set? And how can I help my daughter deal with the tantrums, with the striking out and with their refusal to listen? Is it best to ignore these things or should we deal with them in some other way?

A.Diversion probably helps parents -- and grandparents -- avoid tantrums better than anything else, but you have to offer it at the right time.

If you watch your grandchildren at play, you can usually tell when they're getting bored before they even know it themselves. You then have a choice. You can distract them with a new activity when they reach this point. Or you can let them fall apart, cajole and console them for a half-hour or so and then suggest the activity.

Obviously it's better to ask if they'd like to go to the library or make smoothies or plant pumpkin seeds as soon as they look even a little bit bored. Just be sure to vary your suggestions so they will be interesting; alternate active play and passive play so they won't get too exhausted, and give the children a little protein every few hours, so they can keep going. If children aren't well-fed and well-rested, they can get extremely tired and then an explosion is almost inevitable.

Don't expect your grandchildren to become perfect citizens, however. They are bound to have some tantrums, simply because they're 4 and 6. This behavior will improve if you and your daughter start using positive discipline instead of threats and deprivation, and if you realize that children have tantrums because they're tired or frustrated but mostly because they want more attention. If they think that they have always gotten more of it when they behaved badly than they did when they were good, they will behave quite wretchedly.

If that's the case with your grandchildren, you can change their way of thinking by changing their own behavior.

Put your grandchildren in separate rooms when they have a tantrum, so they'll be away from each other and also from you. If they can't fight and if you don't answer them, they should stop fussing in about 10 minutes, for tantrums lose their appeal when no one pays attention to the tantrummers. Go to your grandchildren when they get quiet; give each of them a "welcome back" kiss -- rather than a lecture or a punishment -- and insist that they apologize to each other and then kiss and make up. Conflict resolution starts at home.

You can also make your grandchildren listen to you better if you lower your nag level. Few children ever do what they're told the first time, or even the second, but they will do it the third time, if only to get a big smile from someone they love rather than a steely look and a frown.

This positive approach should work quickly for you and your daughter, but if it doesn't, she and her husband should go to a parenting class, to learn how to bring out the best in their children. The finest parenting classes in the Washington area probably are those run by the Parent Encouragement Program in Kensington, Gaithersburg and Reston. For more information, call 301-929-8824 or go online at http://www.parentencouragement.org .

Questions? Send them toadvice@margueritekelly.comor to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.