by Ann Marie Dwyer

Created on: January 08, 2008   Last Updated: January 09, 2008

The January 2008 Journal of Pediatrics will reveal research linking tantrums in children to a more serious risk disorders, such as depression and disruptive disorders, than healthy children. The study resulted in identifying five warning signs.

Dr. Andrew C. Belden of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis authored the study. Researchers compared tantrums in healthy children aged 3-6 to those in children that had been previously diagnosed with depression and disruptive disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).

In a telephone interview on Thursday, December 20, 2007, Dr. Belden stated, "It's clearly normal for young children to have occasional tantrums." He went on to add that healthy children may even display extreme behavior during tantrums.

His warning came in this statement: "But if a child is regularly engaging in specific types of tantrum behaviors, there may be a problem." The study has identified five specific tantrum behaviors that may be indicative of psychiatric illness.

Dr. Joan Luby, chief investigator for the study, stated that the purpose of the study was to identify depression and disruptive disorders in pre-school aged children. Dr. Luby said, "It's important to find age-specific ways to diagnose depression and other problems in young children because it can be difficult to get very young children to tell you about their feelings."

The following tantrum behaviors were observed by researchers as connected to depression and diagnosable disruptive disorders:

Aggression
Severe aggression toward a caregiver or violent destructive behavior toward an object or toy during a tantrum is a sign of concern for parents. The study linked these behaviors to disruptive disorder diagnosis.

Self-injury
Scratching themselves to the point of bleeding, head banging and biting themselves was only identified with depressive disorders. Researchers found that this behavior did not manifest in healthy children or those with ADHD or disruptive disorders.

The study concluded that self-injurious behavior manifesting at this young age is almost always associated with psychiatric diagnosis.

Multiple tantrums
Children having more than 5 tantrums per day on consecutive days were targeted as children with disruptive disorders. Additionally, children with more than 10-20 tantrums per month are advised to seek professional intervention.

Long tantrums
Healthy children displayed tantrums lasting an average

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