Their Brain Is Under Construction

The prefrontal cortex — important for impulse control, logical thinking, and emotional regulation — is one of the last brain regions to mature, with development continuing into adulthood. In toddlers, those skills are still early and fragile.

When a child screams, they are not being manipulative. They are experiencing an emotion that is too big for their current brain to process. Their amygdala fires a threat signal, but the prefrontal cortex that should modulate that signal is still under construction. The tantrum is the overflow.