My dd has recently hit the “disequilibrium” that we’ve all heard so much about. She is almost two-and-a-half, and she has been teaching me so much in the past few months.
I was talking to a friend on the phone, and she mentioned that this should be easy because I’ve already been through this with ds. In reality, I’ve never been through this. Ds has a completely different kind of personality and never had anything anywhere close to “terrible” twos. As a matter of fact, at this age he didn’t even say “no” yet. He still just said “Sure!”
I saw a few weeks ago that Crystal recommended Your Two-Year-Old as a good book for this age (go figure), so I picked it up from the library. The library version is really old – it was published in 1980 just days after I was born 
So there are some outdated aspects, like a discussion on whether or not to put a car seat in the front or back 
I’m assuming that those references have been removed in the latest version of the book. Then again, maybe they just changed the cover – I don’t know.
Back to my point though: despite the age of the book, its been a very nice read. It has really reminded me that everything that my dd is dealing with is totally normal and has given me a few new tools 
It has also given me a wonderful peek inside of the two-year-old brain and how it is developing and working. Its really been lovely
As for my problem though… Yesterday and today have been plagued with instances where she requests something, then I acknowledge her request, and then she gets upset even though we’re agreeing. She’s not mad, she’s obviously having a problem communicating, but I have been trying to figure out the best way to validate her feelings and let her know that she is heard. Today’s example was (her) “I’m hungry.” (me) “We’re going to go get something to eat right now.” “No! I’m hungry!” “I know, we’re going to go get some food.” “But I’m hungry!” ??? I ended up distracting her and she was SO happy when we stopped and ate. She kept thanking me for the meal. She really was hungry and really wanted food, but she was still upset. As I was pondering a good response to that today, I read this quote
…he doesn’t want to stay, but he doesn’t want to go ( and this, of course, is often the case when he isn’t in a bad mood) — some simple suggestion such as “But where are your shoes?” can shift his attention, with good results. Also, don’t give him more than once or two chances to make up his mind. If it becomes clear, and it often will, that he is not going to be satisfied with either of two alternatives, just pick him up and remove him from the scene, or otherwise terminate the situation. He may cry and scream, but this is preferable to continuing on and on with a fruitless, frustrating, and rather ridiculous, “Do you want to go home now?” “No.” “Do you want to stay?” “No.” If nothing pleases, so be it!
Yesterday the same thing happened with her shoes. She had her shoes on and was crying because she wanted to wear her shoes. I thought maybe she wanted them off, but then she was crying even harder. I put them on and she just kept crying and saying “I want my shoes on!” Its tricky. I’m telling you…
Distraction does seem to help a whole lot. I’m glad that I was able to get a little pat on the back today though. The book really helped
Leave a Reply