Eeek! Most of the time we have a happy loving good child but certain times someone takes that child and replaces her with a screaming mad flopping fish. And there's no warning. Fun times with my toddler! Its termed the terrible twos for a reason, I know. But I've also been told that threes and fours are worse!
We've been working to teach her to say "please" and "thank you." And she's good about that. She even says "bless you" when we sneeze. But now we're trying to teach her that she doesn't always get what she wants just because she says please.
We're starting to institute some discipline tactics. This may or may not have a correlation to the increase in tantrums. It seems like most of the time the threat of a time out is enough to make her change her behavior. But then we had to put her in timeout twice in succession yesterday to get her to bring her coat to Dada to put it away. She had just taken it off and thown it on the floor when we got home.
We don't have a ton of rules. The main one right now is just that she can't leave her toys or other objects on the floor in the kitchen or dining room, that she give her food to Mama or Dada when she's done eating instead of throwing it on the floor. The other issue we're dealing with is her efforts to delay bedtime. We've had to threaten to put her to bed without reading a book for the past two nights. The biggest problem though is the toys in the kitchen. We're leaving the gate open more often because she likes to hang in the kitchen with Mama, but its so hard to step over the toys!
Of course its hard to stay mad and institute the discipline when the happy loving good child comes back and showers us with kisses and hugs! She is a good kid. We just have to stick to our guns and take heart that eventually this stage will pass.
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