The Terrible Twos Have Begun - Tips?

No matter what you chose to use, you just have to be consistant. Just remember - everything is just a phase. You will be thru it in no time.

With that being said, my 3 year old is a whiner, screamer, crier. What has been working with him is that we give him the option of stopping or he has to go to his room to finish his tantrum. He normally chooses to stay where we are, but then we just pick him up and "help" him to his room. He will stay in there until he is calm and then will come down and say "I'm happy now."

In public, we will warn him several times, then tell him he will be going to the car with one parent while the other finishes shopping. At the car we buckle him in the car seat while screaming and shut the doors and stand outside until he calms down.

first of all, you have to stop being so embarrased and deal with your son. if you feel embarrassed, your son picks up on that, and uses it to his advantage. he can sense that you are uncomfortable, and that makes it worse. im telling you, walk out of the store.

a lot of times tantrums are for real reasons. hungry, tired, frustrated with an activity, bored, too many noises,

putting him in a time out works. you say putting him in his room and shutting the door works - do it. :D i did it with my son. what he needed was to be alone for a while. i would give him a little while, soon he would knock on his door, and want to come out, i would sit right outside his door, give him a hug, and say "all done tantrum?" and then ask him to tell M. sorry for the tantrum. if he did it again, he would go back in again. if its within an hour of normal nap time, he would go to nap after too many of the tantrums. give a drink, give a snack. see if that helps.

always remain calm and collected, even if you are not. taking deep breaths help. if he can see and feel that you are in control, he will be more calm. tantrums arent something kids enjoy, they scare themselves with their own lack of control over their emotions. if you can have control over yours during the tantrum, they can feel safe with you in control. dont yell back, dont be loud and angry. just be quiet and calm. the quieter you talk, the quieter he will have to be to hear you. sometimes that works sometimes it doesnt.

the telling him to be a nice boy doesnt work cuz he has no concept of nice vs not nice... what it means, and what that includes. its a pretty broad term for him to try to understand. perhaps saying that this is a time to be quiet or more quiet would work better. time to use a whisper voice would be better. i use the phrase "talk to M." a LOT. that way instead of throwing a spazz, my son stops and talks to me. helps me a lot.

it might feel disrespectful, but that is not the reason your son is doing this. also, anticipating and calling this "terrible twos" is not a great idea. i dont like the terrible twos idea! they are not that terrible! they are just trying to figure out where they stand in the world. if they are in control of mom and dad are. they are starting to make themselves their own little individuals. thats MORE than ok. we cant expect it to go smoothly, they dont have the inner control to do that, and something else pretty important to think about : kids do not have inner speech until age 8!! this means that they cant say something in their heads about something. the example would be if you are on the phone, they are going to interrupt you if they need something because they cant tell themselves "moms on the phone now i need to wait until shes done" - its not possible. they cant tell themselves those things. so any time you have an issue with a child, remember that they cant tell themselves things in their heads. this also rules out the idea that kids "hatch plots" in their heads to make you mad, or embarrassed, or anything. they just have needs, and its our job to teach them how to control themselves and express those needs appropriatly, hence i use "talk to M."

anyway, good luck. dont expect any child to be perfect, and do a lot of guiding and leading. you son just needs time to figure out how to better express his feelings. :D theres nothing wrong with that, just show him a different way to do it. again, putting him in his room alone is a great idea. even in bed if its that time of day. :D also, think about molars coming in... it might be that. they HURT! my son was teething molars the same time i was teething wisdom teeth! not fun. i had a lot of sympathy for him during that time. :D

Some of it may also be trying out his voice. My son had tantrums early and also liked to try out his voice. Sounds like your son is persistent, like mine. Key is to stick to a plan and it takes LOTS of repetition. When most kids would give up my son will try at least 10 more times :)

In public I give a warning and then pick him up and leave if needed. I've had him screaming on the floor because I wouldn't let him ride the escalator without holding my hand. I just scooped him up and left - hasn't happened again.

I think you have had some good suggestions thus far, and that is probably about all you can do! Just keep it up! Time outs work sometimes, ONE swat on the bottom, letting them cool off in their own space, avoiding going out during times they may be hungry or tired, staying calm and in control, giving them choices or options to make their own decisions, Ericka I. gave some good advice...all things to try!

I would say start a rewards/sticker chart and use that as an incentive, but I think he is too young to understand that. Worked GREAT with my son, but he was older when I started it.

My son wasn't a screamer, but he could throw some good crying tantrums. I always tell people I thought it was hard from 18 months to almost 4 years with him! He is 6 now and WONDERFUL! It will get better, just hang in there!

One thing that we do with our son who is now 2 1/2 is say excuse me, we don't yell at mommy or daddy or anyone else. And if he is asking a question we just keep repeating that until he asks correctly. We may urge him along with how do you ask nicely. That works about 50% or more. That is the only suggestion I have for now. Good luck!

This is awesome; www.loveandlogic.com - if you can find a class in your area, take it. :)

Oh boy, feeling your pain here, we are in the same boat. My guy is 2.5 and the tantrums are getting less and less although, after a few warnings, we have had to remove him from stores from time to time. I give him a few chances, "if you can't calm down we will have to leave the store" and usually it works but not always.

Most if it for him is testing boundaries but I have also been paying better attention to whether he's hungry or not. Lately he's been just famished all of the time and he's busting out of his clothes like the Hulk, I swear. Growth spurt, plus his brain being on fire with all the new things to learn makes for a very emotional toddler in my house.

At home, if he's just not going to give up we do the time out thing in his room and it helps every time. We just explain that he needs to spend time in his room to calm down, cuddle with his blanket, and regroup. I also encourage him to do an indoor scream if he feels like he needs to yell (silent scream), which he finds funny or let him scream into a pillow.

Good luck!

Hi Amy,

I was told that tantrums happen for one of several reasons and this could also include why your child screams, he is frustrated in some way of his situation: tired, hungry, thirsty, or bored. I don't know what suggestions or directions he's protesting so it's hard to give more detailed suggestions, but you could try offering him choices. For instance, my daughter will sometimes throw herself on the floor and cry because I say no to another popsicle or she's asking for chocolate and I'm making lunch. I will walk over and calmly give her the option to sit in her chair while lunch is being made or she can go play in the living room. She ended up throwing her own option at me which was to pick her up.

I think the reason why the bed thing has been working is because he is being removed from the situation and is able to calm down so maybe if you don't want the bed being associated with the punnishment, it can just be his room so he can calm down. Let him know that when he calms down that you will be willing to discuss what is happening here.

Your son is trying to learn to communicate his wants and needs and is getting frustrated because he can't do so effectively. My daughter is going to be 3 and while they have gone down for the most part some days are worse than others. It's all helping your little one communicate what they are feeling and finding out what works best for that little one.

One thing I'm trying to do more is getting her to sit on my lap and then try to calm her down with my voice and then help her express herself. Is she tired? Is she hungry? Does she not feel enough attention from me? Yesterday, she told me she was upset because she feels she is not able to express herself and I told her that it was okay to cry, but it's not okay to throw herself or kick me (which happens when she is sitting in her chair and I in mine) in the process. Then I hugged her and rocked her for a bit and she was okay.

I also let her get a break from me today by dropping her off at my mom and dad's so she could get some one on one time with them, be exposed to new and different toys, and have a blast there. I'm a single working mom so she is away from me 50 hours a week at the sitters so sometimes I feel guilty about doing this, but not after today! She didn't want to come home at first! She didn't want me going home either though without her so I just stayed a little longer then put in my request again that it was time to go and she was ready too. We went to the store and did some brief shopping and no tantrum. Instead near the end when she asked me to pick her up, she let me know that she was tired so I told her that we would be going home.

So I definitely think asking your child questions and when you find out what makes him tick letting him know by saying, "you are tired" or "hungry" or "eat" even. My daughter never says she's hungry. She's use to me asking if she wants to eat so now she says "eat". I thought that was a simpler word to start out with and then we can work to hungry. But helping your child to verbalize what he's feeling and what is frustrating him will help reduce those tantrums. At least that has been my experience.

The other thing I think helps is I give her choices once in awhile. I would let her pick from two different movies or two different outfits. Now she has names for her movies like, "I want to watch the cow or the monkey" so she can verbalize if she wants to listen to a particular movie. I say listen because she really doesn't sit and watch anything. She plays with her back towards the TV, but a lot of the stuff I have is educational so it's helped her learn her body parts (mom and I filled in the gaps so that she knows more than the video covers), farm animals, items in the house, and now I have ones for colors, counting to 10, and the Alphabet.

When she protests about an outfit I plan to dress her in, I make up two and let her pick which one she wants to wear and that resolves that issue. It's very hard work so I generally take a couple of breaths and then speak calmly to my daughter. If I can't keep my composure because I'm tired or sick, then I let her know that I need to walk away for a bit and we'll be back when we've both calmed down. she will be in one room and I in the other. Eventually, she will calm down and play or she will come find me. When she does, we talk about what happened and I try to find out what made her tick.

So I guess Amy as you work through these issues, look at this as an opportunity to show your son how to express himself and communicate appropriately, but here is the hard part, with the example he should follow which is in a calm voice. I think that is the hard part is addressing the child in a calm voice when we want to have our own little tantrum. Good luck and I hope I helped some. I'm still figuring this all out myself as I do quite well with my daughter except in public, but getting better since receiving some more tips which I'm going to try out one tomorrow. I think I'm going to let my daughter carry her purse with some things in there so she can feel more like momma when she's shopping and when she gets tired of putting stuff in the cart, she has something to entertain herself with.

If my daughter still acts up, we are going to go to the restrooms to calm down. I'm just going to try different things until something works and one mom said she has two different kids and a different strategy for each of them so that's why this response is kind of lengthy. There is no one right way to deal with this.

Angie

My son will be 3 in 2 months and he went thru a sceaming phase also. I think he was just doing it for the extra attention. I would just enforce everytime that we need to use our inside voices, it didn't always work that well when he was 2, but now I only need to say it once and he understands. But it did work somewhat whe he was 2. I figured its just a phase and he too will outgrow this, and he did. I would just keep doing what your doing and it will work out, otherwise talk to your doctor and they may have some helpfull suggestions for you. As another person said, he is just trying to express himself and he isn't able to get us to understand like he wants to and I also think they are finding their voice and like the sound of it. Good luck and I hope it gets better for you.

What you're doing is pretty much exactly what we do for our 2 year old. My 3 year old NEVER acted the way my 2 year old does so it's very hard for me to deal with. The 2 year old is a screamer and it drives me batty. I'm constantly saying no screaming to him and if he doesn't stop then he goes in his room to get his screaming out on his own.