Q: My daughter is 2 1/2 and is really starting to test me. For the last two days, she’s been dropping things on the floor and then crying, “I can’t pick it up!” When I come to help, assuming that the toy is somewhere she can’t reach, there it is at her feet. But she refuses to pick it up and has a fit if I don’t do it for her. Help!
A: Toddlers start testing every little thing at a very young age. And at 2 1/2, I’m sorry to report, it’s only going to get worse.
This is the age when we as parents really need to stick to our guns. Toddlers are like self-indulgent elephants. They only care about what they want, when they want it, and if you give in once to an unreasonable demand, they remember. It’ll take 1,000 subsequent “no’s” to the same request before they give up trying.
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If you’re lucky.
And if they get their way with one thing, you better believe they will try to with every other thing they can think of.
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So what do we need to do to not be played by our little angels?
We need to have clearly defined rules and meaningful punishments (to them) for breaking the rules.
We need to make sure our children understand the rules.
Then we must follow through consistently. That means every time, no matter how tired we are, or where we are, or if we need to get in the car and leave NOW.
I find that I am more likely to give in in the evening when I am tired myself and it’s just easier. Or if we’re out in public and I can’t deal with my son making a scene.
My son went through a phase where he liked to screech. Loud and high-pitched enough that it made my ears ring. I think it started innocently enough, just a little experiment with his voice. But he was doing it more and more often and it was becoming less and less cute.
At first I just told him to stop. Then I started taking something away. That got his attention. Usually it was his beloved, threadbare Teddy. I’d give him a warning, “If you scream again, I’ll take Teddy away.” And then when he did, Teddy would sit on top of the tall bookshelf for a while. If he wasn’t holding Teddy, whatever he was playing with at the moment would do.
It took less than a week to break the habit. For a couple of days, the screech would morph right into “I want Teddy!” It reminded me of a Bassett hound we dog sat for once. Thurman had a howling problem so he had a citronella collar we could put on that would spray if he howled. Sometimes the poor dog would forget and then cut himself off mid-howl when he realized his fatal error.
We eat out often, probably more than we should, and recently my son has decided he prefers to sit “on the booth” and not in a high chair.
To say he sits is using the term very loosely. I spend most of the time repeating, “You need to sit with your bottom on the seat. Bottom on the seat. Where is your bottom? You need to sit with your bottom on the seat.”
Then the threat comes out—“If you can’t sit with your bottom on the seat nicely, then you’ll have to sit in the high chair where you can sit nicely.” Now that I have followed through with that a few times, it really gets his attention. Sometimes we have the hostess leave the high chair next to our table as a gentle reminder.
But the main point is, the threat of the high chair didn’t really work until I actually followed through with it.
The other day we had a 45-minute “let’s see who blinks first” stare down. Toddlers clearly don’t have the same sense of time that we do and he seemed happy to lie on the floor wailing for me to pick him up indefinitely. It felt like hours to me and he almost won. But he finally gave in and got up to come to me for a hug.
This is one of the really hard parts of parenting, making our kids temporarily unhappy for their own long-term good.
But hang in there, it’ll work out. And if you see a kid screaming his fool head off in a high chair in Friendly’s, it’s probably mine.
