From Tantrums to Talking
A Tantrum & Emotional Regulation Program for Parents of 1-5 year olds
You Didn’t Picture Your Home Looking Like this…
You’re trying to answer a simple question, finish a thought, or load the dishwasher — and your child is already climbing, pulling things down, asking for the next activity, melting down when something ends, or screaming at the word no.
You give warnings.
You set timers.
You try “one more minute” and “okay, last time.”
Sometimes it works.
But many days, it doesn’t.
Leaving the park after 15 minutes?
Turning off a screen?
Saying “no, that’s not safe”?
Asking them to wait?
You can feel the tension rising in their body and in yours.
You’re watching it build and thinking, “Here we go again.”
Underneath that, there’s the heavier layer you don’t always say out loud:
“He can’t handle the word no.”
“She needs constant stimulation; she can’t play on his own.”
“I’m worried about his speech and his behavior and his attention.”
“I feel overstimulated all day long.”
“I want to help him cope; I just don’t know how.”
“He sometimes head bangs or throws himself down and I don’t know how to stop it.”
You love your child.
You are trying your absolute best.
And still, you often end the day feeling: overstimulated, helpless, emotionally exhausted, and judged.
If that’s where you are, you are exactly who I built this for.
What if the behavior isn’t the problem but the signal?
In sessions, parents will look at me and say some version of:
“He understands his emotions. I just don’t think he knows how to cope with them.”
“He needs constant stimulation.”
“We’ve baby-proofed everything and he still finds a way to make it unsafe.”
“I feel helpless. I can’t figure out what he wants, and it takes an emotional toll.”
“The judgment from family about how we handle behavior is a lot.”
None of this points to you being a bad parent
It points to this:
Your child’s foundation is working so hard to keep up.
Under every “too big” reaction, there are systems doing their best:
their sensory system (how their body interprets movement, emotion, tone, environment)
their emotional system (how quickly they get overwhelmed, how long they stay there)
their communication (how easily they can tell you what they want or don’t want)
their movement needs (their drive to climb, run, hang, pull, crash)
their ability to shift (from favorite activity to leaving, from play to bath, from home to car)
When one or more of these are wobbly, you see it on the surface as:
intense tantrums
constant “what’s next?”
very little independent play
“clingy and wild” at the same time
hard transitions
difficulty with “no”
unsafe behavior
The Tantrums to Talking Program is not about forcing those behaviors to stop.
It’s about understanding what they’re telling us — and then strengthening the systems underneath so your child can actually cope, communicate, and manage the world they’re in, for now and the long-term.
Meet your Instructor
I’m Laura Burnham, M.A., CCC-SLP, TSSLD a licensed pediatric speech-language pathologist who has spent nearly a decade working with 1–5 year olds.
I own and run my private practice with my team in New York City.
I have sat on living room floors with hundreds of toddlers and their parents for nearly a decade.
I’ve watched the same patterns repeat again and again across families.
I’m not a “parent coach” pulling ideas from a book.
I’m a clinician who understands:
early emotional development
communication delays
sensory needs and movement patterns
how all of that shows up as “behavior”
And I also understand that you are a parent who is well-educated, paying for good care, using all of the parenting tips, and still lying awake at night wondering:
“Is this just who my child is or is there something I’m missing?”
“What if this keeps going like this for the next year?”
Inside this program, you’re not getting talked down to.
You’re not being shamed.
You’re not being told, “Just be calm,” while your nervous system is screaming.
You’re getting a partner who can read your child with you, explain what’s happening in plain language, and give you specific, doable techniques — without taking on a second full-time job.
Inside The Tantrums to Talking Program:
Pillar 1: Decode & Redirect Tantrum Cycles
In this pillar, you’ll learn to see the meltdown coming by understanding the sensory, emotional, movement, transitional, and comprehension patterns that lead up to it. We look at your child’s nervous system like a map: what overstimulates them, what shuts them down, what sparks frustration, and what breaks connection. Once you understand these micro-cues, you’ll know exactly when and how to step so that you can slow things down before your little one goes over the edge. You’ll be using a proactive rather than reactive approach with tantrums – redirecting early and using techniques that keep both of you out of panic mode. This is where parents finally say, “Oh… now it makes sense.”
Pillar 2: Grow Your Child’s Coping Muscles
Coping with big emotions is absolutely a skill little ones can build with the right techniques and strategies. The key is having a trusted adult to anchor them but here’s the tricky part – anchoring looks different for every child. In this pillar, we use a combination of regulation, sensory-rich movement, music, rhythm, and emotional developmental to help your child build the internal capacity to handle big emotions so that they can move through big feelings without collapsing, exploding, or shutting down. We grow the brain pathways that build regulation skills from the inside out. You’ll learn how to help your child organize their body through movement, sensory input, emotion, and understanding their unique anchoring needs. These are the coping muscles they’ll use for life — and we start with supporting their nervous system so that their brain and body is fully supported during these high-emotion moments.
Pillar 3: Yes-Based Limits That Avoids Power Struggles
Children ages 1–5 don’t experience boundaries and limits the same way adults do — their brains literally don’t yet have the skills for logic, impulse control, or delayed gratification. That’s why traditional discipline models feel like constant battles. In this pillar, you’ll learn how to set limits from a developmental lens so they actually land with your child. Here, you’ll learn how to set limits and boundaries in a way that actually matches your child’s age and developmental stage. You’ll practice saying “yes” to what your child wants (connection, play, exploration) while still saying “no” to behaviors that aren’t safe or workable .Limits start to feel less like war and more like guidance. Comfortable, attainable, easy-going, for both you and your child.
Pillar 4: Strengthen Trust, Independence & Cooperative Play
Your child learns best through play — and when play is structured in the right way, it becomes the most powerful tool for building the skills you want to see in your everyday. In this pillar, we create a personalized, daily 20-minute play routine using simple, targeted techniques that strengthen your child’s trust, attention, independence, frustration tolerance, cooperation, and social-emotional skills. This short, predictable ritual becomes the “practice space” so that these skills spill over into your everday — in transitions, during routines, during tough moments, and you’ll start to read and respond to each others cues in your everyday, not just during your play ritual.
Pillar 5: Developmental Clarity (Ages 1–5)
One of the heaviest questions parents carry is: “Is this normal… or is something wrong?” In this pillar, we remove the guesswork by giving you clear, compassionate developmental insight across ages 1–5 — what’s typical, what’s within range, what’s a skill gap that can be strengthened. We look at emotional regulation, play, communication, sensory needs, and behavior from a developmental lens so you understand why your child does what they do. And most importantly, we give you concrete next steps so you know exactly what to support at home, when to seek additional help, and when you can finally exhale because your child is on track. This clarity transforms parenting anxiety into parenting confidence.
