Q&A: Why is my 22-month-old screaming all of a sudden?

The second year of life—the real "terrible twos"—bring an explosion of development, but often periods of intense frustration as well. It is possible that the screaming episodes come from a toddler who wants to do and communicate more than he can. In which case, as the development comes, both in language and physical skills, the frustration will settle down.

In the meantime, your best strategy is to model better behavior, by using the words he needs to express what he's feeling, and to ignore the tantrum. The priciple is that any behavior that gets your attention in any way (negative or positive) will be reinforced. Yes, ignoring him will make him more frustrated at first, but eventually he will learn that the screaming doesn't get him what he wants.

You don't need to be right there experiencing it, either. You can pick him up and place him in a safe, quiet place, and take a few minute "time-out" for yourself. Usually, the unwanted behavior stops, or lessens, in a few weeks.

Although children do vary in when and how they gain language skills, most toddlers, by their second birthdays, have vocabularies of 50 words and are beginning to combine them in short phrases. This doesn't necessarily mean that your son may have a delay, but if the language doesn't come at a steady pace or if his screaming isn't responding to your efforts, I would recommend a thorough developmental evaluation around his second birthday.