Handling "time to go" drama

[trillian11]

My 28-mo ds is crrazy with the drama these days. I know 2.5 is supposed to be one of those "disequilibrium" times, but how should I be handling the tantrums? For the most part, I can deal with tantrums at home, but I'm having a hard time with times when we're out, particularly when they're thrown because he doesn't want to leave and it's time to go.

For example, my mom and I took him to the pool today, first time he'd been swimming in forever, and he was having a blast. I gave him 15 and 5 minute warnings etc... and he just screamed and cried and refused to get out of the pool. He ran away from me (scary at a pool), wouldn't come to me when I stopped going to him, no amount of talking etc worked and I couldn't figure out any other option besides physically hauling him to our blanket while he kicked and screamed and cried and eventually wearing him on my back in the Ergo back to our car. The whole time I'm telling him, "Dude, I can't let you run at the pool, it's time to go, and you could really hurt yourself, it scares me etc".

Thank god my mom was there to handle baby bro. Is he too young to understand or implement when rational later "If you want to come back another day, like I do, I need to know you're going to be cool when it's time to go. It's ok to be disappointed and upset that we need to leave, but I still need you to help me out and get ready to leave when it's time anyway." I don't know. It's just so hard right now. He's awesome and so much fun, but so much of the time lately it's "No, I won't, I don't WANT to, etc..." when I try really hard to engineer a good time for him. At bad moments it makes me not want to go through the effort.

Basically...I get that he's not going to want to stop doing fun stuff, and I expect him to not like it and pitch a bit of a fit. How un-gentle is hauling him off when other things fail?

[KempsMama]

I'm in the same boat. Watching for some suggestions.

[dogretro]

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/unschoo...ansitions.html

A few things about the pool specifically: Make sure all of your stuff is gathered and packed so that when you get your son, you can leave immediately after drying him off. Everything is packed, Grammy is playing w/ the baby, & you and ds are in the pool. Tell him that you are going to swim a little more and then leave and get ice cream (or fries, or watch SpongeBob, or eat a piece of candy in the car, etc. Something really good.). Swim for a few more minutes, then out of the pool. Quickly dry yourselves a bit & then pop him into the Ergo. Grab stuff and walk out, reminding him that you are going to go and get ice cream. "Bye bye, pool! See you later, pool!" Wave at the pool. Oh, we had so much fun at the pool! We will come back again and have fun another day! Now it is time to go and get ice cream, yay! If he screams and cries, Oh, it is so sad to have to leave the pool We will come back again. Bye bye, pool! And then you enjoy your ice cream. The end.

Look, you know he is going to pitch a fit, so there is no point in trying to avoid it. Make the transition from the pool to the car as swift as possible. How does he refuse to get out of the pool? He is two, you pick him up and lift him out. If you think he is going to bolt, which is safety issue at the pool, you do not give him the opportunity. The promise of something else that is pleasurable after swimming helps to lessen the pain of having to leave & you give him that thing no matter how he behaves upon leaving. I have found that doing things swiftly without allowing myself to get pulled into the drama & then enjoying a piece of candy keeps me in a better mood even if my kid is screaming and flailing.

[treegardner]

I'm interested in what others have to say too. DS is only just 2, and most of the time is really good, but when he has made up his mind about something, he can be very stubborn.

[ssh]

One thing that helped when my DD was going through that 'tantrum everytime we leave somewhere fun' phase was to have ice water and a snack for her to have in her car seat. We have a couple of insulated bags to keep stuff cold. She would usually stop the tantrum as soon as she got her snack. I also noticed that if an activity lasted over 2 hours she got less upset about leaving.

I also agree with leaving quickly. Just picking him and going is a good idea.

[mamazee]

Sometimes toddlers are going to have tantrums, and there's no way to avoid it. You did one thing that can sometimes help, by giving him warnings to ease the transition. I've also found that focusing on what is coming next instead of what is ending can help, as in just wording it "We have to go home now" instead of "we have to leave the pool now." And then of course empathizing can help, or at least help him in processing his tantrum. "You didn't want to leave yet. I wish we could just hang out at the pool all day too." Nothing works all the time, and tantrums are a normal part of development, so he will have them sometimes, and i agree with a PP that it's best to have absolutely everything else ready in those cases so you can focus on him and getting him somewhere safe (not really safe to have a tantrum at the side of a pool) instead of packing when you reach that point.

[nd_deadhead]

I don't think minutes mean anything to toddlers. Instead of saying "We're leaving the playground in 5 minutes", I'd say "You can go down the slide 5 more times, then we're going to leave". I made the number big enough so they felt like they still had some play time left, and we got to practice counting at the same time!

I'm not sure how I'd do it at the pool - swim to me x times? Dunk your head? Whatever seems most fun at the moment.

The key - as others have said - is to follow through with your decision to leave. You don't want to tantrum to gain him extra pool time, or you will create a monster. Pretty soon he'll figure out that Go Now means Go Now, and he won't make a huge fuss.

I'm open to negotiation - but before the tantrum, not after. In my example, if my sons politely said "10 more times?" I'd agree to it - but I wouldn't add 5 more after we'd finished 5.

[crowcaw]

Warnings backfired with my twins at that age. Telling them we're leaving in a bit, whether time or after x, usually set up resistance. I would pack up everything and then walk to them with a snack in my hands and say it's time to get home and here is something for the car/stroller. Worked really well.

[monkey's mom]

We had lots of problems with this when my oldest was little. He still struggles with transitions, but when he was a toddler, it was *rough.*

Lots of good suggestions already. A few other ideas that worked for us were:

Role-playing--we would talk about what it was going to look like when we left the place (before we got there--usually in the car before going in). Sometimes having a "secret code word" was helpful/fun. But we would just go over, "When it's time to go, we're going to put on shoes/jackets, say goodbye, walk to the car, etc." If we started to get off course from that I could just refer back to, "Baby, remember how we practiced it?"

Finish Up--The five minute warnings didn't really work for us until later, but something that has always been useful is to suggest, "OK, bud, we have to go soon, so finish up what you're working on/doing and we'll head out." It gave him enough autonomy over the transition to make it go smoother. When he was really little, we would sign, "One more and alllll done," and that was very useful for a kid who didn't quite get time.

Taking something with--For a while it was really helpful to be able to take a "piece" of wherever we were with us. Some little momento or borrowed toy made leaving so much easier. My mom friends all just knew we'd offer up a match box car or doll or some little thing that would be returned at the next visit, but would make exiting 100x easier. Not sure what that might be from the pool, but maybe you could do a little jar with pool water or a pinecone or flyer of pool events?

Next time--Sometimes talking about what we'd like to do the next time we were back or even when we'd come back would help.

And from Playful Parenting, the whole "fulfilling the wish in fantasy" sometimes worked. We'd talk about what would happen if we stayed at the place forever. So we'd talk about staying at the pool until everyone went home and then ask, would you sleep on a kickboard in the pool or on a lounge? Would you have to clean the pool in the morning for the lifeguards? Unlock the doors? Maybe they'd PAY you to live here forever and work at the pool! Stuff like that. Eventually, we might be giggling going, "Oh my gosh, let's get OUT of here!"

[trillian11]

Thanks everybody! At least I don't feel like such an utter failure for having to haul him out in the Ergo now because I really had tried a number of the ways many of you suggested. Role playing, number of times more, "fulfillment in fantasy" have worked great in other situations, so maybe pool attempt #2 will go better. And if all else fails, having some Bunny fruit snacks in my Ergo pocket would probably help too! I'm enjoying the http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/unschoo...ansitions.html link too...

[One_Girl]

Sometimes warnings helped my dd and sometimes they didn't. In situations where I was almost certain they wouldn't help I got very close to her and told her it was time to go now while I was holding her hand. I still gave her the warnings about leaving soon, but I didn't tell her the specific time until I was close enough to not have to chase her around.

[friskykitty]

We are regular pool goers here. I have a 2.5 year old and we used to have this issue. What I have found to be helpful:
Have everything ready to go before getting him out.
Make the exit as fast as possible.
Tell him what we are going to go do next.
The other thing, instead of warning with the words "we are leaving in 5 minutes" I tell him "When we hear the whistle we get to go .... (fill in the blank with something desirable)" The whistle gets blown every hour at :45 mark and again at :00 it's the 15 minute adult swim. So I structure our departure to be at that time because I am not the one blowing the whistle and he seems to accept that it's just time to go then. We have had no tantruming since I started this. The thing I tell him when we are leaving is "Oh we have to go see Buzz Lightyear." It's his favorite toy right now and we leave it in his carseat while we swim. This helps too.