Cover Image: Jilly's Terrible Temper Tantrums​

Jilly's Terrible Temper Tantrums​

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Member Reviews

A good book for parents to teach how to handle the their child’s tantrum and a good book for children to learn what triggers are and what to do when they are angry.

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read to my daughter but she did not like it much. To be fair, she's picky. I didn't think it was bad, I just may have overestimated how much she would enjoy it.

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This is a great book to help parents understand the smart love approach. It deals with helping children understand their emotions when they are overwhelmed or upset. I would recommend it for home reading.

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Jilly is a happy kangaroo until frustrated or unable to get what she wants. At that time, she has a terrible temper tantrum, screaming and stomping her feet. Throughout it all, her parents provide love and support.

This is a children's book aimed at the preschool to about kindergarten age. The pictures are colorful and easy for children of that age to follow, and it's easy for them to relate to the frustrations that Jilly goes through. It might be a good way to talk about the reasons why kids have tantrums and start to teach them how to calm down. Martha Heineman Pieper is a psychotherapist, and developed the Smart Love principles; it's outlined at the end of the book for adults to read and learn more about. Rather than punish the kids that have tantrums, in this model parents will lovingly understand the child and help them through it without making them feel badly about their own emotions. Toddlers and very young kids don't know how to handle emotions, after all, and adults have to teach them how. This book may help frustrated parents and kids understand how to move past tantrums and get on with the fun parts of family life.

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Good illustrations. It has many instances where Jilly, the kangaroo throws temper tantrums and what her parents do

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Dealing with disobedience and tantrums in young children can be very frustrating for parents. Having a plan to help children understand limits, expectations, and appropriate responses is crucial to maintain a good parent/child relationship. Jilly's parents teach her these values in this cute children's book. Although I may not agree with all the aspects of this parenting style, I think this is a fun and adorable way to teach parents and kids the author's philosophy.

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Book was fantastic. My daughter was throwing tantrums and you could see the little light bulb go off in her head as we read it. Now when she starts to act bad I remind her of the book and it helps give her an idea about how to act.

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This was an enjoyable book to read with my children. The reading flowed well and allowed for easy dramatic changes in voice and tone. I think the lesson was clear. As a parent I found myself thinking that I am never as calm as the parents in the story. Made me think a little.

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Love reading this to my granddaughter! She enjoys taunting Jilly about getting i trouble.

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So I saw the title of this book and thought you know what I want to give it a try. My four year old likes to throw tantrums every now and then, just maybe when she saw how someone else acted and how they outgrew them she will as well.
First my daughter did not enjoy the book, I tried to engage her with questions asking if she thought the way Jilly acted was correct but she just kept saying this book is boring.
Second I felt as though the message this book came across with is when your child acts up you can still give them what they want as long as you tell them you love them, and ask for cuddles and hugs. This didn't sit well with me though I am sure other parents do the smart love and do not scold their child and that is fine with me to each their own.
Third the way Jilly spoke about her friend because she didn't want to play the same game was a big no-no in my book. Even A knew that was not nice to say and looked at me with big eyes and mentioned it.
I did like the idea of how Jilly towards the end knew that instead of acting out she asked for her parents and they came to help her. The illustrations were very good and did portray the story in the way it was going.

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A darling book that helps young children make a connection to tantrums. These are tough points in young kids lives and this book made valid fun points for these readers.

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The illustrations in this book were cute, but the story was not great. I just don't feel like it's relatable to children.

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In a story that is more likely to teach the adults than it is the children, a little kangaroo named Jilly learns self-regulation with the help of her parents. Parents will learn kind and appropriate ways to hold boundaries for their chidlren while helping them emotionally regulate. This story has little to offer children, but if he reader plays up the tantrums, (scream no no no! etc) they will probably enjoy it, and learning that tantrums are a thing that come and go can be valuable. Most helpfully, there is a little note in the back to help parents understand the strategies Jillly's parents use to help her learn to regulate her own emotions.

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Sorry, not a fan. The stories are short & quick & too easily solved. Plus, giving in to the bratty child at every turn is NOT teaching them that "they are loved & not to act up", you are feeding into it. My opinion, I'm sure others will feel differently.

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I loved this book! My 2 year old is in the "terrible twos" stage right now, and this book was so great to read to her. She probably doesn't fully grasp the message but I was explaining to her what was going on. The illustrations were really great and those were a huge hit for my daughter too.

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A sweet and beautifully illustrated book about a young kangaroo learning to deal with big emotions.

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This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a confusing effort for me because it appears as though it's a children's book when it really isn't at all. Instead, it's aimed at adults, but it's written like it's for children. It makes me think the author didn't quite known how to approach this topic from a children's perspective and ended-up stuck somewhere in the middle. In some ways it felt like an advertising flyer for the author's textbook on raising children with Smart Love® - and yes, the two words are indeed a registered trademark! I found it particularly odd that someone, particularly a charitable organization, should seek to register smart love as a trade mark.

That said, I don't disagree with the approach championed here, but I have to say that it takes the patience of Job to do that kind of thing when a child is as far gone down the Tantrum Trail as the one depicted here is. Of course it's never too late to try, but I doubt such a child would be brought around in three or four easy lessons as is shown here!

So overall I can't rate this a worthy read, much less as a children's book. It's too muddled, and too simplistic for adults, and as far as entertaining children, it's not really a story. It just a parade of exemplars of how parents should relate to a troublesome child in various circumstances - more like a checklist than a story.

I have to report a problem with this in Bluefire Reader, which is the app I normally use to read ARCs on the iPad. Bluefire Reader typically does a sterling job with illustrated books, but here, it failed completely. The images were broken up, speech balloons were blank, and the text was all over the place, and so enlarged it was illegible. I was about to ditch the book as unreadable when I decided out of curiosity to look at it on the smartphone I have, and there, it was quite legible, so again out of curiosity, I downloaded the epub version to look at on my desktop in Adobe Digital Editions, and it was perfectly fine there, too, so if you're planning on buying this, don't expect to read it in Bluefire reader. You'll need some other app for once!

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Jilly likes to play and have fun. She also has temper tantrums every now and then.

Getting to see many scenarios that she was in to learn lessons about how to deal with things we don't want or we don't like is a very good situation to be in so that others children and adults can learn the importance of temper tantrum behavior being able to be led to a positive situation based on this unique and loving approach to parenting.

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Jilly's Terrible Temper Tantrums​ and How She Outgrew Them​
by Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D.​
Smart Love Press, LLC​
May 2017

The message of Dr. Pieper's recent release is clear:  Parents dealing with tantrums should help children understand that seeking help and a hug is far superior to the misery of a temper tantrum.

What is different about this book 
The didactic picture book may be an effective way to help parents, and to help children, understand an alternative way to deal with emotional outbursts.

The calm and gentle support that Jilly's parents provide in this story is surely a good thing.  I wonder, however, at what point we begin to teach children that being happy is not always the highest goal.

What I'll do now that I've read this book 
The illustrations by Gershman support the tale and somewhat extend the story.  But overall this picture book lacks the magic that great literature provides.

This title will serve as a tool for parents, one I'll keep in my toolkit for recommending read-alouds that support and inform parenting skills. 

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Jolly has temper tantrums and learns to ask for help instead. This book is a very cute way to get the point across to young children.

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