How To Handle the Terrible Twos
- March 3, 2014
- by Melissa Lawrence
Hi everybody. Hope your day is going great! Answering a question from a YouTube viewer today Crystal Overbaugh: “How do you handle the terrible twos?” Crystal, as I explain in today’s video, my joke about 2 year old tantrums is that they become 3 year old tantrums, and then 4 year old tantrums, and so on, right up until college. A lot to look forward to right? Ha ha!
Seriously, this is a classic phrase that describes when a toddler starts having tantrums and fits. And when this first happened to me, it was so shocking. All of a sudden, my easy going child would be laying down on the floor and kicking and screaming and I was like “What are you doing? Acting? Is this SNL?”
As I explain in today’s video, the terrible twos is a term that was coined to describe toddler tantrums back in the 1950’s. This was likely due to so many families at the time trying to live up to a picture perfect image, and when children stopped behaving like compliant babies, moms did not know what to do!
What experts say is really happening is that the child has gotten more mobile and is testing limits, so we parents have to say “NO” a lot. Meanwhile, children lack the language to articulate their feelings, which is frustrating for them so they tend to scream and have fits and tantrums. The question for us is what can we do?
In today’s video, I describe what I’ve learned and what’s worked for me. To start, praise the good behavior. Second, wait out the fits and don’t react. For more details and tips, watch. Oh, and please weigh in. How do you handle it when your kid starts to act like a crazy person?
Thanks for watching!
xo Melissa
Comments
Ally Mathews
Our 18month old daughter has just recently started to “act out” or throw tantrums, literally! she will put her head on the floor ith her little butt in the air and scream and cry big crocodile tears until she’s distracted by someone or something else and forgets why she was upset lol a lot of it has to do with the fact that se can’t say what she is wanting most of the time and gets upset about it. hard not to laugh at home and hard not to cry with her in public hahaha