Few words strike as much fear into parents' hearts as the term 'tantrum'.

Just hearing it conjures images of desperate mums and dads, pleading with, or trying to discipline, a small child who has turned into a screaming banshee.

Throughout the history of parenting, we have remained stubbornly attached to the word. But what if I told you, it's time to scrap the term 'tantrum' completely?

No, this isn't the latest gentle-parenting "nonsense". As the author of the new book, What's my Baby Thinking?, I argue there are important reasons we need to give it up, for the wellbeing of our kids.

The word tantrum has long been linked to ideas of "naughtiness", manipulation, or parental failure. Yet the ultimate parenting irony is that it's precisely our own fear of them that makes them bigger and last longer when they strike.

Now that science has allowed us to see inside children's brains, the evidence tells a very different story.

A tantrum happens when a child's brain and nervous system detects stress or overwhelm and shifts into flight-or-flight mode.

It might start with sensory overload, frustration, the threat of being separated from you at the school gates, hunger pangs, or tiredness.

Whatever the stimulus, inside their bodies, the primal part of their brain kicks, telling them they are in danger. This triggers the nervous system to flood their bodies with stress hormones like cortisol.

But to us embarrassed and stressed parents looking on at the flailing and screaming, all we see is 'unacceptable behaviour' which must stop NOW.

The idea that children use tantrums to control is long out-of-date. On the contrary, tantrums are triggered by their total loss of control. They're physiological storms, not conscious decisions.

Your child's body is saying: "I feel unsafe" or "this is too much".

Yet because the word 'tantrum' triggers our own deepest parenting fears - of losing control over our kids and being judged for being 'weak', we then become less able to respond well.

Our own stress hormones overrides our empathy too. Our only wish is to make it stop.

Instead, panicked parents often default to turning it into a battle of wills, by shouting or trying to discipline their child out of it.

But you can't frighten a child into calming down. Shouting and issuing ultimatums only escalates your child's stress, which has set off your child's tantrum in the first place. Now the people they love also feel 'unsafe'.

What if, the next time our child has a tantrum, we ask: "What's happening in my child's nervous system?" instead of "Why are they being so difficult?"

What if we offered our steady, soothing presence - whether it's touch or simple repetitive phrases like "I'm here" - to help them settle again?

This is a critical life-long lesson in parenting, because as any parent of a teenager knows, tantrums persist long past the so-called 'Terrible Twos'.

Most adults who struggle to regulate anger were never shown how to do it by caregivers in childhood.

Repeatedly offering to meet these storms by offering our warm support teaches children early the lesson that emotions aren't dangerous.

Offering a hug and holding them close at moments like these also allow them to feel our slower heartbeat and breathing rate. Science shows that this soothing effect is contagious.

After getting a bad rep throughout parenting, I am even going to suggest we go as far as welcoming tantrums.

It's time to accept them as lessons in exactly what children need to learn: that when feelings rise and fall, they can cope with them, and that they are still loved even when they are struggling with them.

By all means, don't feel you have to seek them out. Continue to do what you can to avoid causing your child distress and avoid letting them be hungry, overwhelmed or exhausted.

You will never be able to prevent them all. And crucially, even if you could, you wouldn't want to.

Yes, it's hard in the moment. A puce-faced child kicking and screaming, especially in public, will trigger your stress response.

Until, that is, you stop seeing it as a threat to you. Instead, notice what's happening in your own body and soothe yourself with deep breaths.

As a Gestalt psychotherapist in training, I lean towards using terms which describe what's happening in your child's body, without shaming them.

For example, you and your child could decide to call them 'big feelings moments', 'feelings fireworks' or 'feelings volcanos' to send the message that when feelings explode, they settle again.

This way, your child will learn the lifelong lesson that strong emotions are nothing to be afraid of - either for them or for you.