Relationship between Parenting Styles and Temper Tantrums of Bahraini Children aged 24-48 months old at Primary Care, Kingdom of Bahrain

Background: Temper tantrums are episodic, unmodulated displays of intense emotional distress, often characterized by outbursts of anger, and may involve aggressive or destructive behaviour. These episodes can be effectively managed through the application of evidence-based parenting strategies that are tailored to a child’s individual needs and developmental stage. Objective: This study aimed to determine the relationship between parenting styles and the temper tantrums of children aged 2-4 years old at primary care in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Research Method: For this research a cross-sectional, descriptive study design was employed, and a non-probability convenience sampling method was utilized to recruit a sample of 400 participants, that included 8 health centres located in Bahrain (Muharraq, BBK Hidd, Jidhafs, Sitra, Hamad Kanoo, Yousef Abdulrahman Engineer, Mohammed Jassim Kanoo, and Sh. Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah HCs), for a duration of 3 months (May 2022 to July 2022). The analysis technique employed was the chi-square test, a statistical method that is used to examine the association between two categorical variables. Results: The findings of this study demonstrated that more than half of the participating children exhibited temper tantrums that lasted more than 30 minutes and showed that approximately less than one-third (31%) of the children experienced weekly or daily tantrums: however, half of the parents reported that moderate tantrums were exhibited by their youngsters. The most frequently reported tantrum behaviour was “crying”, followed by “screaming” or “shouting”. A child’s request for an item or activity was the most frequent cause, and most tantrums occurred when their parents denied this request. Children threw temper tantrums most frequently in their homes or cars. Parents’ most common strategy for stopping a child’s tantrums was speaking soothingly, with spanking being the least common. The results indicated that permissive parenting styles were associated with a higher frequency of temper tantrums than authoritative parenting styles. Conclusion: The results highlight significant aspects of tantrums, such as the duration, as children managed to maintain a tantrum episode for more than seven minutes on average. Tantrum behaviours, reasons, locations, context, and parents’ strategies to control tantrums were emphasized as significant for developing proper interventions. The findings highlight the importance of parental styles in the development of children and the need for further investigation in this area. Keywords: children aged 2-4 years old, parenting style, temper tantrum.