DS is just past 2 years and the last month or so has been absolute ... you know. Some specific examples:
Dinner. Occasionally he'll eat. More likely he'll throw the food. We take away the food. He cries and screams. Or he'll put food in his water glass. We take away the glass and/or give him a sippy cup. He cries and screams. If he's just acting out of control we take him out of his chair. The thought being, fine, let him go play or whatever. But 95% of the time he then tries to climb on me or daddy while we're trying to eat. Then cries and screams when we don't let him.
Throwing (in addition to the above). He throws things all the time, happy or angry. He gets a warning - if you throw your toys mommy puts them away. Doesn't matter, he throws again & I put them out of reach. He cries and screams. I was also putting them out of reach if he wouldn't put them away but I've stopped doing that. It seems like the more things we take away the more possessive he's becoming. But what's a different consequence?
Hitting/kicking. This is a BIG issue right now. Again, sometimes when he's happy, occasionally when he's angry. When he does it to me all interaction comes to a halt and I walk away from him, saying I don't like to be with people who hit or some such. Sometimes he'll say 'sorry mama' after 5 minutes or so, sometimes not. An even bigger issue - he's hitting the cat and dogs. For this we encourage gentle touch. Occasionally it works for about 1 minute, most of the time I have to forceably move him away from the pet. I don't really think my dogs will bite him, but ... they're dogs and he's hitting them. The cat is tiny and old and he's scaring the poor thing.
The rest is the usual description of the terrible twos. Angry about everything, wanting everything, not wanting to do anything I need him to do. I'm trying to give choices (the red shirt or the green shirt? no, no) and letting him do things (do you want to brush your teeth? no) but most of the time I find myself wishing I could ship him off to finishing school. I don't want to be around him
This is so not what I expected.
Dinner. Occasionally he'll eat. More likely he'll throw the food. We take away the food. He cries and screams. Or he'll put food in his water glass. We take away the glass and/or give him a sippy cup. He cries and screams. If he's just acting out of control we take him out of his chair. The thought being, fine, let him go play or whatever. But 95% of the time he then tries to climb on me or daddy while we're trying to eat. Then cries and screams when we don't let him.
Throwing (in addition to the above). He throws things all the time, happy or angry. He gets a warning - if you throw your toys mommy puts them away. Doesn't matter, he throws again & I put them out of reach. He cries and screams. I was also putting them out of reach if he wouldn't put them away but I've stopped doing that. It seems like the more things we take away the more possessive he's becoming. But what's a different consequence?
Hitting/kicking. This is a BIG issue right now. Again, sometimes when he's happy, occasionally when he's angry. When he does it to me all interaction comes to a halt and I walk away from him, saying I don't like to be with people who hit or some such. Sometimes he'll say 'sorry mama' after 5 minutes or so, sometimes not. An even bigger issue - he's hitting the cat and dogs. For this we encourage gentle touch. Occasionally it works for about 1 minute, most of the time I have to forceably move him away from the pet. I don't really think my dogs will bite him, but ... they're dogs and he's hitting them. The cat is tiny and old and he's scaring the poor thing.
The rest is the usual description of the terrible twos. Angry about everything, wanting everything, not wanting to do anything I need him to do. I'm trying to give choices (the red shirt or the green shirt? no, no) and letting him do things (do you want to brush your teeth? no) but most of the time I find myself wishing I could ship him off to finishing school. I don't want to be around him