Young children who have limited language and cannot easily express their frustration in other ways, sometimes do so by breath holding. This is very alarming for the parents. The child may be crying and then stop suddenly, turn an unusual blue-grey colour, and flop back. This lasts only a few seconds but results in parental panic.
Children do and will grow out of this and as it becomes less effective it is used less. Limits must still be set and maintained but, recognising a child's frustration, and distracting them before they have the opportunity to hold their breath and scare the adult can be very effective.
Children do and will grow out of this and as it becomes less effective it is used less. Limits must still be set and maintained but, recognising a child's frustration, and distracting them before they have the opportunity to hold their breath and scare the adult can be very effective.
This behaviour occurs in about 5% of infants and toddlers up to about age 5 -- children aged 1-3 are particularly at risk . This behaviour is usually associated with a need for attention, to express emotion or, in rare cases, to indicate an underlying medical condition. Breath holding is recognised as attention seeking behaviour which occurs when a child is extremely upset and has not learned other, more socially appropriate ways to express themselves.
Shock or surprise can also induce breath holding in very young children, exacerbated by, or as a result of accompanying crying or hyperventilating. However, most breath holding spells do not last longer than a few seconds. As soon as the child passes out, the respiratory centre in the brain kicks in and breathing returns to normal.
Breath holding can be associated with medical conditions such as seizure disorders, anemia or, rarely, cardiac disorders, and parents may want to rule out these conditions after their child's first breath holding event. At this stage children are rapidly evolving beings and medical problems can be expressed at this time.
Without a solid underlying problem resulting in breath holding, there is little treatment available. Children grow out of behavioural problems such as breath holding as they learn to express themselves in more sophisticated ways. If the breath holding is purely behavioural and parents fail to respond to these events with attention, the behaviour ceases.
When you give children lots of positive attention in other ways, it decreases the amount of time the child can use to obtain attention in a negative way. If the child is in a safe place and not going to fall off a table or chair, then you really just have to ignore it.
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