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so moms of pesky toddlers (or those that used to be)
My child has suddenly decided to be the most dramatic person in the history of the universe. Every damn little thing results in sobbing crying melt downs. I took his shoes off yesterday, and he cried for 15 minutes. He couldn't get the top off a tupperware bowl and sobbed. I wouldn't give him gummies for breakfast, and the people four houses down probably heard the crying. It's just stupid stuff like that.
I generally just acknowledge that I know he's upset and try to redirect. "You can't do XYZ, but we can do this" or "I'm sorry that didn't work. Can you ask for help instead of screaming?" He's pretty stubborn about not being distracted when he's "so mad" so I've just been letting him sob on the floor after telling him to come find me when he's done.
Please, please, please tell me this will be a short phase and not something I'm going to have to deal with for years. I've never been so happy to see the daycare as I was this morning. He cried for 20 minutes in the car because he took his shoe off and couldn't figure out how to get it back on.
Re: so moms of pesky toddlers (or those that used to be)
Mucho likes purple nails and purple cupcakes
We have just started dealing with flashes of temper over NOTHING in the last week.
Yesterday when he got up from his nap we were playing in his room, and I opened the closet to put his shoes away. For some reason he thought I was going to pull a new car out of the dresser, and when I didn't he melted down. Who knows where this notion of a new car came from. Sobs and tears for a good ten minutes.
Fast forward to this morning, I opened the closet to get his clothes and he had the exact same meltdown about some mythical new car in the dresser. I told Fran I'm not opening his closet again.
yes, or foot stomping paired with dramatic throwing of self on floor.
He will also push all his food off his dinner tray or throw down all his toys off a shelf.
He is my child.
But, he had one week that was super super bad and I just ignored every little thing and I guess that worked.
It's all about communication and independence at this point. it's a hard age for them so I try to be patient but damn.
Yeah...sorry to tell you it ebbs and flows. Ignoring it seems to work best. Owen has quite the temper. It sucks.
I will say that I have three different strategies for reacting to his temper. I try to redirect if we are in public or in a situation that it's easiest. But, I do the ignore a lot at home.The third thing is that if I feel the temper is a frustration about being unable to communicate a message, I try to determine what it is and then model that message for him so that it does not come up again. This has been effective for us.
Well, we had those early days of the meltdowns due to issues with communication.
I think we are now at the "I must have control or I will burst your eardrums with my maniacal screaming."
I had to pick him up and carry him in a cradle hold while he screamed at me because he didn't want to hold my hand while crossing the street.
This morning, I asked my H to help him get dressed because we were running late and I had to do something else. He screamed because he wanted me to do it.
We usually ignore/walk away/put in timeout. But, in the case of the handholding, I felt like I had no choice but to grab him like wild animal.
Fun stuff.
my kid falls to her knees in the middle of, say, the aisle at target* and sobs like someone just shot a puppy in front of her face. because i do something horrible like tell her she isn't allowed to pick up a jug of bleach.
i usually crouch down, go eye to eye and tell her that i see she's upset, and when she's ready to be a big girl, i'll be over there. then i walk away and pretend to do other stuff. (obviously if she's blocking traffic, i move her first). i don't even try to solve the problem or figure out why she's upset in the moment, since it seemed to me that all that did was amp her up.
the sobbing usually stops right away, followed by "i hate you and i didn't ask to be born why are you ruining my life" glances and thumb sucking for 2-3 minutes. then she'll decide to be happy and come over with a huge smile on her face.
when that doesn't work or we're not in a place where i can give her room and a chance to calm herself down, i use my quiet creepy mom voice and tell her right in her ear that if she doesn't stop by the time i count to three, i'm putting her in time out. we've done several time outs in the car lately.
so, for us, a combo of ignoring and time out has been best. so far. she's only 27 months. she's going to screw us in a new fashion somehow, some way, soon.
*please note, i do try not to be an ahole permitting my kid to act like a jackass banshee in public whenever possible. so far, she doesn't amp up the volume too much, it's more the flailing and drama.
Sounds like its time to wear him. He needs more love than you are showing him. Clearly this is a lack of appropriate parenting.
HA! Jo went through many phases like this. TUrning to jello and flopping backwards with a dramatic wail and sobbing over NONSENSE was typical for a month at a time. Then it would get better and then it would hit you again. It seemed to come in waves and then virtually disappear.
She still has moments of nonsensical crying when you least expect it though. And dramatic statements like "I'm going to go through the television and live with Dora and Diego and never love you again." That's hilarious.
My favorite is when he asks for something specific and then doesn't want it.
We had this word for word interaction yesterday.
Ethan: ::standing by the computer:: Baba? mama, Baba?
me: Would you like to listen to music?
Ethan: Yeah, Baba.
me: Do you want Baba O'Riley?
Ethan: Yeah ::ecstatic clapping and jumping around::
I turn it on. He dances for .5 seconds then "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and the wailing commences.
Whatever, kid. Quite being a jerk.
The thing that really gets me lately is the whining. However, I can't help but laugh at him when he says, "But but but..." when he wants something I won't give him. Good argument kid. I'm a jerk parent.
What is is with their ability to go slack?. It's like a cat when you are trying to push it off something you are reading. He just slides through my hands like one of those tube toys that I used to play with as a kid.
And yeah, he asks for something but when I give it to him says no. This is especially frustrating with food because he throws it on the floor. Or he will take and eat an apple that he asked for and then chew spit it out his mouth.
at our house, we call that the "vietnam war protestor."
you crazy asians.
For less then ten cents a day, you can feed a hungry child.
stop bragging about your early achiever!
never, ever, ever give in. ever. i had a showdown with Lila at the grocery store over getting into a cart. other people take their kids home in situations like that, so as to spare the other shoppers or employees the pain in their eardrums. Not me. Fucky'all. i spend thousands here a year, if i want to use the opportunity to teach my child that it's my way or the highway in your front lobby your damned right i will.
We were there for somewhere between 20-35 minutes (time becomes an illusion during these meltdowns) but that child did get in that cart and sobbed for another 20 minutes. it has never been a problem again. i also give time outs in the grocery store and in the car.
oh yeah, and if things get thrown they get removed for the day.
I also remove things that are thrown (except for balls (unless balls have been thrown with the intent to harm)).
Will has gone through periods like this. When he was younger I think it was just a stage he went through when he didn't have a big enough vocabulary to express his feelings. He used to hold his hand in front of him and shout, "Don't say some words at me!" any time he was frustrated and needed to be left alone. (Which was kind of hilarious, actually, but we tried to never let him know that.) When he was 21 or 22 months or something he went through a phase where he'd get angry and throw himself against a wall or the ground and then legitimately cry because he'd hurt his head. That was awful.
Now it seems to be more dictated by how much Lorne is working. And he says things like, "Mom, you're making me very angry at you," and I tell him, "That's fine, go in your room until you're feeling less angry." Most of the time that works okay. When it doesn't I lift him up and set him in his room.
Well....I guess I will be the cheese that perhaps stands alone here, but in the last months I've tried something new and it seems to work way better than anything I ever tried in the past (ignoring, a stand off, battle of wills, threats, etc).
When he gets like this (assuming there isn't some obvious thing that he needs that I have overlooked - hungry, exhausted, sick, etc), I stop, I see it from his little kid perspective (a lot of things seem dumb to us but hey in their little person world it's a big fuccking deal!) and show some sympathy/empathy. I decide what the outcome is (time for bath, no more tv, etc etc) and stick to it. I'm kind but firm about it - I mean, I'm gonna get my way, I don't need to be an a-hole about it.
Almost always I ask him if he wants a "nuggle" and he does (even if it seems like he's "mad" at me). We hug and I don't really say anything. Almost always things ease up here. If they don't, I tell him that I will be nearby ready for another hug and some big breaths whenever he is ready.
I am leaving a lot of details out I suppose, but the above is a general idea of how things play out. For situations that aren't major meltdowns but more just whiny defiance - I set the "problem" up and have him solve it. I try to anticipate issues or potential struggles and address it ahead of time (grocery store and walking vs cart is a good example, or tearing him away from focused play for something he won't necessarily enjoy but has to do). We make "deals" and shake on them.
I try to see in any given situation what he can learn and then help him truly learn that. I don't try to bear down on him like a speeding bullet train anymore.
My priorities: 1) limit his action, 2) set the expectation and stick to it, 3) show empathy, 4) protect my relationship with him. I realized one day I didn't want to create a little person who just blindly obeys and definitely not one who is my adversary. What I was doing before was creating that kind of relationship. And to boot, it didn't work!
::shrug:: This works and everybody's a lot happier.
I like that way of thinking about it Fitty. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to be more like that. It's hard sometimes to think of things in kid terms.
I think giving warnings of when things are coming has definitely helped us - X more minutes until bedtime, X more times down the slide before we need to leave the park, etc. When he knows things are coming transition time isn't jarring.
But a lot of times, at the end of the day, when I get the, "I'm angry at you," and the hand in my face, sometimes I need to remove him or myself from the situation before I scream at him. I'm really even-tempered most of the time, but it's amazing how well he knows how to push my buttons. But I suppose the button-pushing is telling me, "Hey, I'm pushing your buttons because I need something from you."
They're both such good little kids, really, and I always feel like such an *** when they do get to me and I become Screamy McYellypants. So maybe I just need to stop for a minute and try the Fitty method next time I feel myself getting really upset. God, I make it sound like I lose my shiit daily. I don't. But your point in #4 and not creating a blind obeyer or an adversary kind of hit on some fears I have. You know?
Today's ramble is sponsored by flu, now with fever!
Oh yeah and let's be clear I don't always get it right - ha! And that gives me a chance to apologize and ask for a "do-over" because, well, down the road I'd like him to be that way in relationships. No one is perfect and I would rather he learn to regroup and start over than to dig in his heels and square off with the other person.
I try not to overplay that card.
ETA: And yeah one of the hardest things is just not taking things personally and composing myself at times I feel like I might go apeshiit - they don't have the biggest range ever of ways to express how they're feeling or what's upsetting them so sometimes I see if I can navigate through it for him.
If Matt's doing stuff that is flat out not acceptable ways of expressing upset - I'll stop him, tell him "if you're feeling like blah blah, I can't let you do a or b, but x, y and z might make you feel better." I feel like - how's he going to figure out what to do when he's feeling angry, impatient, frustrated, etc unless I teach him and give him a chance to practice it.
I think I need to print this thread and save it for a couple of years from now. I fear that dealing with bratty 7 yr olds who try to tell me no and resist the simplest direction for the sake of doing whatever the hell they feel like will leave me with not patience for that crap when I get home. Hopefully years of practicing the look and the quiet "knock that crap off" whisper with my class will translate well into motherhood.
I wanted to applaud 2 women in BRU the other day who were dealing with a double meltdown of a baby/toddler and a kid who was probably 4-5 and didn't lose their shiit. Well at least not as far as I could see/hear anyway. I understand that the little one might not be able to cope with whatever the problem was but the older kid definitely looked old enough to understand that acting like that wasn't going to get him his way. They parked the cart in the middle of the store, each picked up a kid and carried them out, kicking and screaming "NONONONONONO!"
I would agree for sure that your approach at four is different than at three which is different than at two. I will say though that I wish I would have tried the age appropriate version of this a year ago or two years ago for that matter. Especially a year ago though during his brief honey badger phase. Ha! Looking back I think it would have been more effective and way less frustrating for me and for him.