Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 2 year old Driving me Bonkers!

I disagree with the idea of distracting children from bad behavior during these various cycles where behavior often becomes intense. To me, this is a critical learning stage and must be seen as an opportunity.

Sure, I agree two year olds can't understand complex behaviors, but they are capable of learning basic behaviors. This is often the time when a child first experiments with heights, falls and realizes there is a consequence. Don't let them experience this from a small height and they may just walk off a cliff one day.

I know the parents of a girl who at 18 years of age on her first day outside the safe community she grew up in walked right in front of a car without looking. Maybe I am wrong, but I think these early cycles of intense behavior are there for a reason. They begin early when the consequences are of less risk, so we learn safe behavior before we are big enough for the consequences to be severe.

The girl I mentioned was intelligent academically. This is why I don't believe academic teaching is a replacement for behavioral teaching. Unfortunately, no one will ever know how far she would have gone academically.

This prob. doesn't help the OP--b/c my dd4 sounds like her child--but with dd10, a bag of smarties and constant positive reinforcement for a few days stopped the running away in parking lots problem.

Yes to what Jamie is saying-- I see it as an opportunity to teach executive function; age-appropriately, of course, and understanding that impulsivity is NORMAL at this age...

so I didn't call this "time out" and I didn't call it a "naughty spot"-- frankly, I didn't give it a cute name at all.

I simply placed DD there (or told her to go there), "until you have control of yourself again," which was always at my discretion. I didn't tend to use a timer, since IMO that turns this from discipline into punishment.

Sometimes "I'm still too angry right now because of what you did" was reason enough for an extra few minutes of reflection for her. I definitely learned early not to hide my emotional responses to her. That was a sure ticket to escalation, because she NEEDED to know that her behavior frightened/irritated/embarrassed us when it was inappropriate or dangerous.



Some of this probably depends upon temperment, however. My DD was very socially oriented, but she was never as physically brazen/impulsive as the OP's child. Then again, I think she may have been responding to our obvious emotional responses to that kind of behavior. I also intervened physically when I had to get her to stop something and listen to me. A single swat or tap on the shoulder was a signal to her that whatever she was in the middle of was WAY out of bounds, and that it often meant DANGER.

We let her see when she did something that frightened us, and then we explained WHY it was frightening. I wouldn't recommend that for most toddlers, since my experience suggests that most of them don't have the cognitive capacity for that kind of cause-and-effect reasoning, but DD certainly seemed to.

Agreed. Agreed. Couldn't agree more. Learned it from the nurtured heart approach. Not only do I practice my reaction proactively I have began to train ds how he should react and we practice proactively when there's not a problem. The most useful technique TNH teaches. I think cognitive behavior therapy teaches it also. Learn how to react. Teach your kids how to react- not just by modeling. By role-playing. Teach them an appropriate kid reaction just as much as you prepare your own appropriate parent reaction. Like another poster said all this is only good for the next few years. Everything changes. Tip: it's not being FAKE to learn how to present yourself. Somehow that's true.

Age 2 is rough on the parents. I remember my DD trying to dart across a packed parking lot and my quick reflexes of grabbing hold of her. It was also the first time I was really scared for her and made it clear (emotionally and with words). She really understood that her mommy was upset and why I was so upset. She never did it again and always waited patiently by the van until I took her hand. She would also make comments about how dangerous it would be for her to run out in the street or parking lot.

Also, as far as attitude, we were headed in the same direction and something clicked inside of me about why. DD was ready to take on more responsibilities and because we were still treating her like a baby she was lashing out at us. Once we recognized this and gave her more to do her attitude changed. This isn't to say we didn't have some outbursts here and there but I also made a point of explaining in detail why it wasn't acceptable. I know experts claim children at this age aren't ready and can't grasp the whys of the issue but I found that my DD absolutely could. By treating her with respect and talking to her in a more mature way and by providing options for her to choose instead of what she was wanting that caused the tantrum; she was more willing to accept what was right and wrong.

I whole heartedly agree with this. DD has a lot of separation anxiety and for once we were able to use that to our advantage. We explained to her if she runs away from us in a parking lot or at a grocery store or where ever that someone could take her away from us. She was really calm about it, asked a few questions and then never tried to run away like that again (the final straw was at the airport a couple of months ago when she ran down the corridor leading to the airplane BEFORE boarding had started!!).

We try to explain things to her as clearly and directly as possible. If she doesn't brush her teeth the germs are going to "eat" her teeth, if she doesn't take a bath her butt will stinky (ok, she mostly thinks this is funny), if she doesn't put away her toys they can get broken etc. It's not a perfect system but it has helped significantly.

ETA: I missed your comment about bedtime at first but I'm just wondering if you have a consistent routine? DD was horrible to get to bed for the first 2 years of her life but we've fallen into a strict routine now that has helped. We also sing her to sleep every night (the trick was finding the right song that puts her to sleep) and now she falls to sleep relatively quickly every night.

Thanks all of you for your info. and advice. I reserved the book Grinity and some of you recommended, from the library.

I think the number one reason for his behavior is an attention need, and i know that need is more in tense with gifted children. I homeschool the older 2 and so often he is left out. I spent a good amount of time doing different activites with him today, involving him in cooking and cleaning. He was much better today. Only had 1 real issue all day that i can think of, dumped the baby powder out all over for Dad.
I bet the biggest thing i can do to improve behavior is to find more activites for us to do together , and involve him more spend time, that and make sure he gets enough sleep.
Also the behavior didn't start till after DS 3mo was born. So that's gotta show it's and attention thing.
I still need to check out the links. I'm a super busy Momma. Took me so many time today to try to read through all your great posts.

And with four kids to raise- you go super-Mamma! You deserve supportive advice. Speaking of super-Mamma, Grinnity has also let us in on an e-mail service by flylady dot com, which sends many too many e-mails daily to your in-box but you don't have to read them all, just takes a few seconds to delete on your busy days. She sells cleaning products and teaches a rhythm to "blessing your family with a clean house" but she's super inspirational in teaching a different way of doing it so that you're never a martyr. That's been so key. You don't want to be a martyr. Nobody likes a martyr. She'll teach you how not to be. I don't think anybody showed me how not to be and it's been quite useful.

Thanks
I love fly lady. Haven't done it lately, but do on and off. Need to get going with it again, it would help me.