Hi,
We felt ds (now 4) was unusually intense at 2. We read 123 Magic and while I can see how well it would work for some kids, for us it wasn't the right approach. We found "Raising your spirited child" more helpful for our particular kid.
At the beginning of 123 magic it says something like see a counselor before using with kids that have excessive separation anxiety or who are self-punitive (the latter for DS, who at that age would give himself time outs).
What really helped DS the most was for me to sit there and tell him to say in words what seemed to me to be so obvious it shouldn't need saying. While he sobbed I would say "Say, "I'm SO upset"." and he would say that (unintelligibly) and then then I would say "yes you do seem very upset". And then I would guess and I would say, "Say "I'm mad, I wanted to go to ...". And he would say that. And I would say, "sounds like you are mad at me". Then I'd say, "Say, "It's not fair!". And so on. Sort of manually making a conversation between him and me. Over time that (plus just getting older and having more words come to him to say) seemed to shorten his upset times and encourage him to use words rather than less easy to deal with behaviors.
These days I use a lot of other things too, including time outs or ignoring him when he's completely immature, but at 2 those kind of things didn't seem to work at all. At 2, for DS, it was all about needing to communicate and being too upset or ignorant of how to go about it, recognize his emotions in the moment, etc.
Polly
