Lately Kwabena has been giving Kwasi a really hard time in the morning; doesn’t want to get dressed…doesn’t listen… throws tantrums… Normal toddler behavior, right? I seem to think so. What 2.5 year old do you know that is like a robot and has model behavior 24/7? None that I know of.
So now’s the question of how to address it, and other behavioral issues? For example, yesterday Kwabena was giving me a hard time because he didn’t want me to take my iPod to work (he wanted to keep watching Thomas & Friends on it, even though he had long since abandoned the iPod on the table…). He threw a fit–yelling and screaming, grabbing on to my leg as if he also didn’t want me to go. No matter how much talking I tried to do to him, he continued to cry and wail “iPod!!!!!”. By this time, I was already running late and needed to leave a.s.a.p. so that I didn’t miss the shuttle to work.
So I left, instead of staying and helping to work through the issue, instead of calming him down. The bad tone for the day had just been set. He continued to give Kwasi a hard time after I left and didn’t want to get dressed or put on his shoes. I can understand how frustrating it is for Kwasi to deal with this on a (what seems to be becoming) a daily basis.
Because the day started off crazy, Kwabena had a bad day at daycare. He peep on himself three times! This kid’s been potty trained for a while now, so peeing on himself three times in one day can only signify that he was mad/upset/sad….something. (Funny, though, because as soon as Kwabena came home from daycare he proudly announced to me that he had a ‘good day’ at Miss Marilyn’s. LOL)
The question is, how to address these types of issues? How to thwart the tantrums so that we start the day off right? Part of this, again, is normal toddler behavior. But even if it’s normal, we need to set some clear guidelines on how to deal with this behavior so that he doesn’t think he can just throw a fit whenever or wherever he wants to.
One strategy I have used is to give him a choice: for example, if he’s crying because he doesn’t want to get dress and he wants to watch Thomas instead, then I might say, “You have a choice; you can either get dressed and get to watch Thomas…..or….you can not get dressed and not watch Thomas. Which choice would you like to make?” Usually he chooses the right choice 🙂 But Miss Marilyn pointed out that when he throws a tantrum over something, getting to make a choice shouldn’t apply–that’s not appropriate behavior, and because you’re acting that way, you’ve not going to get to watch Thomas at all.
Does that sound too strict?
There’s something I like about giving a child the chance to make a choice, even when they are hooping and hollaring. To me, it gives them the independence to choose what happens to them. For example, if he really wants to watch Thomas, then–hey–ya gotta get dressed. If you choose not to get dressed, then you’re choosing to not watch Thomas. To me, sounds pretty powerful in having a child decide what the outcome is going to be, and that they have the power to choose their own behavior and outcome.
Last month we went to my nephew’s basketball game, and Kwabena threw a fit over some silly reason (which involved, in part, my iPod! Damn that iPod….. lol). I removed him from the gym area and after 10 minutes of crying and screaming, I took him to the car where I quietly and patiently sat with him while he continued his tantrum. I gave him a choice: Listen to Mommy while we’re in the game and go back inside and have fun watching the game and visiting with Nanny and cousin Camryn…..or…….stay in the car and be sad and not get to see Nanny and Camryn. Through tears, he chose to “listen to Mommy and have fun.” It took him a minute to completley stop crying, but that is that I got him to make a choice about his behavior and he decided he wanted to have fun instead of staying in the car crying and being sad.
I’m curious to try both strategies and see which works better: taking something away completely with bad behaviors…..or to give him a choice and let him determine how the situation is going to go. Hmmmm………
I guess part of parenting is just trying new things and seeing what works.
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