You're at the supermarket. Or the park. Or that restaurant you've gone to for the first time in months, trying to do something that feels a bit like normal life and hoping things don't get out of hand. And then it happens. Your three-year-old throws himself on the floor, cries at the top of his lungs, and you feel every pair of eyes in the place fixed on you like arrows.
The embarrassment. The guilt. The “what must they be thinking” and the “they're bound to think he's badly behaved and I'm a pushover for not giving him a smack”. And on top of that, you're trying to deal with a child who right now won't listen to reason because, quite simply, he can't.
If you've been through this, or think you soon will, this article is for you. We'll look at what to do when a child has a tantrum in public, why tantrums happen, which tools really work, and how to stop feeling that the whole world is judging you while you try to support your child.
📑 In this article
- Why children have tantrums (and why so many happen in public)
- What usually triggers a tantrum away from home
- What to do when a child has a tantrum in public (step by step)
- Tools for handling a tantrum without shouting or threats
- How to cope with other people's stares and judgement
- What NOT to do when your child has a tantrum in public
- After the tantrum: how to close the moment with your child
- When to worry about tantrums
- Tantrums can be opportunities
Why children have tantrums (and why so many happen in public)
First things first: tantrums are not a sign of a problem with how you're raising your little one. They are part of children's neurobiology, and have been since the beginning of time.
Between the ages of two and five, a child's brain is under heavy construction (in fact it's always under construction, but this is the most critical phase as far as behaviour goes).
The prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for regulating emotions, controlling impulses and reasoning, won't be fully developed until somewhere close to the age of thirty. Yes, thirty. So when your three-year-old explodes because you cut his sandwich into triangles when he wanted squares, or wanted it whole, he isn't being a little manipulator or a spoilt child. He's being a three-year-old with a three-year-old's brain.
Tantrums are his way of telling you, with the resources he has, that something is too much for him. That the emotion triggered by a badly cut sandwich, or by you refusing to buy him something he wants, is too big for his emotional container. And that container is still growing.
What usually triggers a tantrum away from home
Being out and about is, in itself, the perfect breeding ground for tantrums. It's no coincidence that they happen so often at the supermarket, in restaurants or at the park. Several factors add up:
- Tiredness. We often go shopping straight after nursery or school, at times that are close to, or beyond, the limit of what they can cope with.
- Hunger. The classic. A child with low blood sugar is a child on the edge of an emotional cliff.
- Overstimulation. Noise, lights, people and movement. A small child's nervous system becomes overloaded sooner than we think.
- Frustration at a limit. The world is designed to make us want things. Imagine being three, finding everything amazing, and needing to touch it, explore it, own it… He wants the toy, the sweet, five more minutes on the slide. And the “no” arrives before his brain has the tools to process it.
- Loss of control. Away from home, the environment is unpredictable. Lots of things are new and changing. Even Mum keeps changing place (who on earth decided walking was a good idea?). That makes them feel they have control over practically nothing, and small children need predictability to feel safe.
When two or three of these factors coincide, a tantrum isn't a possibility, it's a certainty. As sure as night follows day.
What to do when a child has a tantrum in public (step by step)
1. Stay calm, even if you feel pressure from outside
The hardest part, and the most important. When your child is in the middle of a tantrum, his nervous system is completely dysregulated. And the only way for it to regulate again is through a regulated adult. You are that adult. It's your turn.
If you get angry, try to pick him up roughly, speak harshly or shout at him, the intensity goes up. If you tense up and start moving around nervously, breathing fast, he notices and tenses up even more. Again, don't think it's a strategy your little one is using to get his own way. Small children read the emotional state of their main adult automatically and involuntarily.
A practical trick: before you do anything, take three deep breaths. Just three. Four seconds in, six out. Notice your belly expanding as you breathe in, and let the air out slowly. This starts to “bring your nervous system's revs down”, and lets your little one's nervous system know there is a calmer point of reference to hold on to while it regulates again.
- You can read more in our guide on how to parent calmly and without guilt.
2. Get physically close to your child
Come down to his height. Literally: crouch down and get to his level. When we approach from above at difficult moments, children read that posture as authority and confrontation. It's better to make them feel that our intentions are good, so it helps to put ourselves on the same level.
Kind eye contact, not intimidating. If your child accepts it, you can rest a hand on his shoulder or back. Not to hold him down, but to tell him with your body: “I'm here, I'm not leaving you, this isn't too much for me and I can be with you through it”.
3. Put words to what he's feeling
Children in the middle of a tantrum don't need explanations. They need to feel understood. There's a huge difference between the two.
Instead of explaining why he can't have what he wants (this isn't the moment), name what he's feeling:
- “I can see you're really angry.”
- “You wanted that toy and it's really frustrating that we're not buying it.”
- “I know you want to stay longer, and it's really hard to leave when you're having fun.”
This isn't going to make your little one stop crying and reply: “Oh Mummy, thank you so much. That's all sorted then. We can go”. What you're doing is lending him your emotional regulation, because when we name an emotion, its intensity drops.
Neuroscience studies have been confirming this for years: labelling what we feel activates the prefrontal cortex and reduces activity in the amygdala, which is what sets off the alarm response. Put more simply: you help him feel understood.
4. Hold the limit calmly
Validating the emotion doesn't mean giving up the limit. They are two completely different things and it's important not to confuse them.
You can say “I understand you're really angry because you want that toy” and then “and we're not buying it today”. Both sentences are true. Both can exist together.
What doesn't work, and what I would never recommend, is giving up the limit under pressure to make the tantrum stop. Not because “spoiling” him is bad (that idea has more myth than evidence behind it), but because it teaches him that overflowing emotions can become a tool for getting what he wants. And that doesn't help him in the long run. Feeling overwhelmed by emotions shouldn't turn into a strategy. It has to remain a consequence.
- You can read more in our guide on parenting with limits.
5. Wait for the storm to pass
Tantrums follow a curve. They rise, reach a peak and come down. Always. No tantrum lasts forever, even if it feels that way at the time. Remember: “It can't rain forever”.
While it's rising and at its peak, talking to him usually doesn't help (in fact, children often get angrier). At that point, the only thing that works is calm presence and waiting. Not ignoring him, not leaving him alone, not getting angry with him. Being there, calmly, until the storm dies down.
When it starts to come down, that's when you can try talking to him. Only then.
Tools for handling a child's tantrum without shouting or threats
Tool 1: breathing together
When your child starts to calm down a little, you can invite him to breathe with you. Not at the peak, because it won't work. Afterwards, once there's a bit of openness.
“Shall we breathe together? Look, like this: blow your tummy up like a balloon...”
Children aged two to five respond well to body metaphors. If you turn it into a game at home when he's calm, he'll already have the tool when a tantrum comes.
Tool 2: change of scene
Sometimes the surroundings are part of the problem. The noise of the supermarket, the people at the park, the overstimulation of the restaurant. If you can, step outside for a moment. Find a quieter, less stimulating space. Not as a punishment, but as help: “Let's go somewhere quieter so we can both calm down.”
A change of scene breaks the loop and gives your child's nervous system a more manageable setting, with different stimuli, in which to regulate.
Tool 3: regulating physical contact
For many children, a hug is the most powerful regulator there is. Not for all of them: some children reject physical contact in the middle of a tantrum, and that has to be respected. But if your child accepts it, a firm, calm hug can shorten a tantrum considerably.
If not, save it for later. Once it has passed, practically all children need to reconnect with us and know that, despite their outburst, we still love them and accept them just as they are.
Hugging your little one after a tantrum isn't spoiling him. It's helping him regulate. You're using your calm nervous system to help him regulate his. It's exactly what he needs.
Tool 4: preparing before you leave home
The best tool for handling a tantrum in public is the one you use before you leave home: preparing him in advance.
- Explain where you're going and what's going to happen: “We're going to the supermarket to buy food. We're not buying toys today.”
- Tell him how long it will take and what will happen afterwards: “We'll be there for an hour, then we'll come back home.”
- Take a snack. Always. A hungry child is a tantrum in child form waiting to happen.
- Offer choices within the limit, so he feels it isn't all limits and rules: “Do you want to bring the red car or the blue one while we do the shopping?”
Preparing in advance won't prevent every tantrum, but it noticeably reduces how often they happen and how intense they are.
How to cope with other people's stares and judgement
You're not being judged as much as you think
There's a psychological phenomenon called the spotlight effect, studied by psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Kenneth Savitsky, which explains that we tend to hugely overestimate how much attention other people pay to what we do. We think everyone is looking at us when, in reality, most people are busy with their own things. Honestly, we're not that important…
And most of those who do look aren't judging. They're remembering. They're thinking “oh, this takes me back” or “poor little thing, what a hard time that child is having… and his mum”. People with children recognise the scene. People without children, generally speaking, are far less qualified to judge it than you imagine.
Your priority is your child, not outside opinion
Raising a child isn't a public performance. You're not on a stage. You're supporting a small person who is having a very hard moment, and that needs all of your attention, not part of it distracted by what strangers in the tinned food aisle might think. Let them think what they like.
What you do in that moment matters. What they think doesn't.
Things to tell yourself that can help
Having a few phrases ready to say to yourself in the moment can help you stay calm:
- “My child is having a hard moment, and he needs me to focus on him.”
- “This will pass too. It always does.”
- “I'm supporting him, not losing control.”
- “I don't need anyone's approval to be a good father or a good mother.”
They aren't empty mantras. They're instructions you give your prefrontal cortex so it stays connected to what matters, just when you need it most.
What NOT to do when your child has a tantrum in public
There are things that make the situation worse, even though they're understandable when we're under pressure, because at some point they've happened to all of us, or we've considered them as a strategy because they were probably used on us:
- Shouting or humiliating. It doesn't work. Either you get him to stop crying because you've frightened him (fear), in which case you've reached him the wrong way, or the tantrum gets more intense because he feels even more misunderstood. Either way, the relationship of trust is damaged.
- Threatening disproportionate consequences. “If you don't stop crying, we're leaving and there's no dinner” is the kind of sentence that offers no emotional support or containment, and also ends up becoming an empty threat (because you don't carry it out). Since you're not going to leave, and you are going to have dinner, your child will quickly learn that he can't take this kind of threat seriously. It's better to use other strategies that bring you closer; threats tend to push us apart.
- Negotiating under pressure. “Come on, if you stop crying I'll buy you something small”: this teaches him that a tantrum can work as a bargaining chip.
- Ignoring. It's what was done to us, and you can still read it today in plenty of well-meaning but rather misguided manuals. Not reinforcing the tantrum with excessive attention is one thing; emotionally abandoning a child who is overwhelmed is something very different. Calm presence is not the same as giving in.
- Punishing him for feeling the emotion. A tantrum isn't a behaviour your little one is choosing. It's an involuntary emotional response. Punishing the emotion doesn't teach him to regulate it. It teaches him to hide it. Can you imagine someone punishing you for getting angry when you feel something unfair has happened?
After the tantrum: how to close the moment with your child
When the storm has passed and your little one is calm, there's a short, valuable window to connect and close the moment well. It isn't straight afterwards, while he's still recovering, breathing fast, with his face still wet with tears. It's a little later, when he's calm and receptive.
That's the moment to tell him something simple but really necessary:
“You were really angry before, weren't you? It's normal to get angry. What we can't do is throw things or hit. Next time you feel like that, you can tell me you're really angry.”
Short. No lecture. No dramatic replay of the moment. Just name it, validate it and point to an alternative.
Repeated over time, this builds emotional regulation, which is exactly what he's missing. It won't happen overnight, but little by little, day by day, tantrum by tantrum.
When to worry about tantrums
Tantrums are normal. But there are signs that are worth a visit to the paediatrician or a children's mental health professional:
- Tantrums that are extremely intense or regularly last more than thirty minutes.
- Very high frequency that interferes with the day-to-day running of the family, and with your little one's own day.
- Frequent aggression towards other children, adults or himself.
- Your child doesn't seem to calm down, even when the adult is calm and present.
- Tantrums that start late or are very frequent in children over five or six.
I'm not telling you this to alarm you, but to remind you that asking for help is also part of supporting your child well. It may be nothing and everything may be fine. But sometimes professional support is needed, not to put a label on anyone, but to help you and, above all, to help your little one.
Tantrums can be opportunities
Tantrums in public are one of the most demanding moments of parenting. Not because they're dangerous, but because they happen under pressure, with an audience, and with all your emotional resources stretched to the limit. It's really unpleasant to see someone suffer and feel you can't help them stop quickly. Even more so when it's your child.
But they are also opportunities. Every tantrum met with calm is a lesson in emotional regulation that your child is receiving in real time. He won't know it for many years. But his brain is recording it now.
We often say that “children nowadays can't cope with frustration”. Well, you learn to cope with frustration by being frustrated, so it has to be lived through in order to learn from it.
Supporting your child calmly doesn't mean doing it perfectly. It means trying. And trying again. And that, believe me (I've been through it three times with my three children), is more than enough.
- If you're interested in raising children with autonomy, keep reading our complete guide: Children's autonomy: “I can do it myself!” and how to support without stepping in.
