Looking at his sweet, angelic face; no one would believe that he can be such a handful. My younger son who just turned 3 is to put it plain and simple quite incorrigible. He would not share his toys. He harasses Siddharth a lot. He quarrels to sit, play with, do whatever Siddharth has chosen. If Siddharth does not give in, he beats him (like real hard). If I tell him to stay away or show him anger, he is least bothered. If I hit him, that is counterproductive because he would think that violence is an acceptable way of doing things. Sometimes, he just finds very stupid things to throw tantrums about. The other day I picked him up from school and my mil was also there. Incidentally, she opened the car door for him and he refused to get out of the car. I left him in the car but then he howled loudly and I brought him out within 2 minutes but he continued his loud howling for more than 15 minutes. He is so adamant that if I try to ignore him, he will continue to cry for upto half an hour by which time I would have to give in. Another day, he cried because I changed his clothes. I really don’t know how to deal with the whining and the loud crying and I feel so tempted to hit him to stop that bugging voice but I hold myself back. I – we both end up feeling frustrated.
Is this really a phase or am I doing something wrong? I would appreciate some pointers, help, advice — anything which might work. I have tried out time outs, not speaking with him, denying him TV but maybe because of his age, it does not register as a cause and effect thing.
We had my nephew, aged 5, in the house for a week. When he went against our wishes, he also threw a tantrum. We took him to his room and told him to stay there. Of course, he came back but everytime he came back, we brought him back. Actually I lost count the amount of times we brought him back to his room, in the end I put on my iPod and just hauled him back without a word.
In the end he calmed down and we had a little chat about throwing tantrums. I’m pretty sure he understood, I’ve read somewhere that kids understand “action-consequence” from the age of two or something like that (even if they cannot explain it themselves).
There’s lots of good online resources, search for ‘children tantrum’ or ‘discipline children’.
Big “but” here, I’m not a fulltime parent… but damn, your writing is so catchy I just have to reply 🙂
I had enjoyed..er..tolerated the same things during the time Siddharth was going through this phase and you would go away to your job(Healthscribe). Siddharth too did the same things like cry for 1/2 and hour for silly things. Look, now, how he has turned up. It is a phase. It will pass.
But with Gautam I don’t know how long phases last. Becuase by his age Siddharth was a bit different too.
@Bart – I guess I will have to be more persistent to ensure he understands. Just repeat it n times till the message gets through. I did go through a lot of online stuff but sometimes the implementation does seem difficult. Thanks for your suggestion and compliment. Your comments are always welcome and valuable.
@Gurdev – did not know that Sid did this whining routine, guess amnesia happens :). He was not this ill-behaved that I remember for sure.