Is your child a brat? Here’s how to deal with it

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 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.