The Wesley I used to know and love has been replaced by a whiny, angry, (almost) two year old. Where did my sweet little laid back baby boy go? I've gotta say I didn't expect this. It just came up like a wave and now I'm left with a kid I don't understand. He'll go from happy to screaming mad in a quarter of a second flat, all because he dropped a rock or I gave him the wrong book or he isn't able to wear his favorite pajamas, you get the idea. There is no consoling this new found child. A hug from Mom used to make tears go away, now it brings on new tears and louder wailing. Oh terrible two's why do I already have to deal with you when my kid is not even two yet? WHY!?
4 comments:
A word to the wise, start your discipline policy now. Don't wait until he's older to start really putting your foot down. The terrible twos get their name from their new exploration of boundaries. If you firmly set the boundaries and give choices, then he'll learn where you're willing to bend and when he's crossed too far. "Would you like your green pants or your blue ones?" Just keep repeating the choices until he chooses one. If he melts down, tell him, "I see you need my help choosing and I choose ______ for you. Maybe next time you'll be able to make the choice on your own." It sounds wordy and 'too much' for a 2 year old, but getting the verbage down now will set him up for success down to road when little skittle is experimenting on her own and Wesley will be old hat at choices. You'll be amazed how much she'll model her behavior on his.
Good luck sis'!!
PS-I have some great reading material on preschoolers and behavior and helping parents deal with all the new changes that happen in a short amount of time. One of them in particular was outstanding and I've recommended it for years to my parents at school. Let me know and I'll let you have it. Very easy read.
Thanks for the info Betz. We currently do the choices thing for everything. "What do you want for breakfast, a bagel or scrambled egg?" "What t-shirt do you want to wear, your choo choo shirt or your jeep shirt?" He has no problems with that, in fact he really gets into deciding on things for himself. We're having issues when he simply melts down for no apparent reason. Tonight we were out feeding horses, which he likes doing usually, and right in the middle he drops his handful of hay and just starts angry crying. No reason for it. It's baffling and exhausting. I'll have to borrow your reading material next time I see you.
Well, after I wrote that, I started looking for it. I think I loaned it out years ago and never got it back. So, I"m ordering a new copy from Amazon. It should be here in a week or so. It's called SOS Help for Parents written by Dr Lynn Clark. Excellent, excellent, excellent! I can not say enough good things about this book. Very easy to read and examples that are real life. Plus, cute cartoon drawing to illustrate. It was a "textbook" for one of my inter-term classes at KSU. Best class all 4 years.
PS-do you think he was tired in the horse pen? Extra sunny/hot?
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