Toddlers and younger children often react with outbursts and tantrums because they don’t know how to put overwhelming emotions into words and get their needs met in more productive ways. Most kids begin to grasp the skill of regulating their emotions by the time they reach the age of 5 or so, and the tantrums stop. Of course, some kids continue to have frequent, severe tantrums and meltdowns, even after they start school. Extreme or aggressive tantrums can have a number of causes — we’ll cover a few common ones below — but they’re fairly common with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).