Scientifically derived formula for children’s tantrum

A scientist at the British University of Nottingham Trent, economist and statistician James Hind, has compiled an exact formula by which one can calculate the probability and time of a child’s tantrum during a long car trip. Writes about it The Guardian. According to the scientist, the main cause of hysteria is boredom. In addition, children are exhausted by too long trips and hunger. The formula looks very simple and takes into account the above factors: T=70+0.5E+15F−10S.

T is the time in minutes after which a child may have a tantrum. Based on a study of data from 2,000 parents, Dr. Hind found that a tantrum in a child begins, on average, 70 minutes after the start of the trip. The likelihood of a tantrum is reduced if the child is entertained: every 10 minutes of entertainment (E) push back the onset of the tantrum by 5 minutes. If the child is fed (F), the tantrum is postponed for another 15 minutes, if you feed it twice – for half an hour. However, having siblings in the car (S) brings the moment of tantrum closer by 10 minutes. Accordingly, if you went on a long journey, you have one child in your car, you fed him twice and entertained him for a total of 1 hour, then he will begin to become hysterical in about 2 hours and 10 minutes. Or maybe by that time you will have reached your destination and there will be no hysteria at all.

The study also showed that the average child would ask, “When are we arriving?” 32 minutes after the start of the trip and a total of about 4 times per trip.

Alena Miklashevskaya