Life moves in slow motion with toddlers but we can't always get on their schedule. Sometimes you'll be able to allow that extra few minutes for him to try things his way. You know this is important for building his skills and his confidence. However, you can't always wait for him. On those times that you must curtail his efforts, he will be frustrated, disappointed and angry. You'd feel the same way if someone tried to stop you from doing something you really wanted to do. So allow him to be upset. The way toddlers show their upset is by having a tantrum. For now, you can just ignore the tantrum part of the equation - in six months or so you may be able to help your youngster express upset in words. Meanwhile, you can offer him emotional coaching (see Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice for a detailed explanation of this technique.) Emotional coaching involves acknowledging your child's feelings and just accepting them. In this case it might sound like this, "I know you're upset. You want to do this yourself and Mommy is in a rush right now and can't let you. This is so frustrating." Even if he doesn't know all these words yet, you will be helping him to build a "feeling word" vocabulary. By calming accepting his distress you are showing him that his anger is not the end of the world and it is not scaring you. Your calm energy will help him calm down sooner as well. It also sends the message, "Sometimes we're not happy and that is O.K. Everything doesn't have to go our way all the time. We can survive that." Instead of needing him to have only one emotion (content), you are allowing him to have the full range of human feelings and ultimately, that permission helps him to become emotionally intelligent. All this good comes from one little fit of hysteria - amazing, isn't it?  Sarah Chana