Terrible twos… and threes… and twenties – the tantrum years

Since I’m doing this in no particular order! Lets jump into the clichés. Terrible twos. Except… they lied!

1. FACT: 'Terrible two' starts the second your child turns one. Its true. Chew on that one for a bit! Your child barely enters his/her (the hell with that, we’re just going with ‘it’) second year, and it’s a terrible TWO-er. Why not? It’s in its second year right? See, got you on a technicality, the little schemer did!
2. FACT: There’s a lesser known but very real ‘terrible three’… actually that’s probably what pop culture calls terrible two, now that I think about it. Bl00dy h$ll, there I figured it out ;)! Oh and it sticks around for the teens and twenties… but that’s a whole other deal ;).

So essentially, prepare for your little spitfire to be an even bigger monster from its first birthday to its fourth. Groannnnnn.

Now, I have a hopped up, most-days-I-think-has-ADHD, almost two year old. So what do I do? Nothing. Consistently. That’s the trick. CON.SIS.TENT. Whatever you choose to do. The same reaction every time. Yes, you'll slip up and fall. And fail miserably every so often. And pay for it! But you get back up and try again like most of this child rearing business. This one is worth remembering though. Seriously.

I have friends who swear by time outs and naughty chairs/steps/corners. Some do the hugs and kisses. Some do the ‘distract’. Here’s the deal when you decide... At this stage (till past 2.5 in most cases) they have no real concept of consequence. There’s a school of thought that good habits, taught early, will stick. And maybe they do. I know with things like hitting, I get her to apologize to whoever she’s hit. But she has no friggin' clue what she’s doing!! Its mechanical. Maybe one day she’ll understand the concept and then the words and actions are already there so it all falls into place quicker. Who knows?! Worth a shot. I just know I had to try something with the hitting… its my limit. Because I’m a hitter by instinct and have to work really, really hard to control it. And the poor sod probably will get my genes on that so I’ll do my damndest to teach her it's f*cking wrong except in self defense. And sometimes even then.

So consistency… I say unto you. After trying many things in our house we consistently ignore bad behavior, when direct distraction doesn’t work. Because as they grow older the tiny terrorists get harder to distract! With ignoring she tries to get my attention a few times and then comes by and wants to know what’s keeping me so occupied… so ‘operation decoy distract’ takes effect :). And I’m a happy woman again. For 5 seconds. Till the next tantrum rolls around. *Sigh*