Struggling with a two year old and learning all the time

My son is 20 months going on 5 years. He wants to be like his big sister! and more so.

His sister never really left my side at that age and aways listened to me. My son is discovering boundary's...and running Dave and I down.

I often sit down with the Sears books to see if I can find some helpful information....was I looking in the right place? I don't know but nothing seemed to make me feel any better.

I've always struggled with down feelings but I really hit the bottom a few days ago...on top of my demanding son my daughter was waking at night which was really odd for her and needing to go to the bathroom...this is nearly sorted out again.

Playcentre has become a bit of a nightmare....I feel like writing something about it....along the lines of "How the government killed Playcentre and made it into another Daycare". I've been reading so much about children and education it makes me laugh how we parents are classic examples...Don't push people into doing work other wise they will resent it.

Wow are we all very resentful or what!

So here I was sitting trying to find some information when I gave up...Read a few little lines from Jon Kabat Zinn then picked up John Holts book "Teach your Own"

"I visited two other friends, and their

delightful fifteen-month-old boy. Around dinner time, in the little kitchen-dining

room, I took out my cello and began to play. The baby was fascinated, as I hoped

he would be. He stopped what he was doing and came crawling across the floor

toward the cello at top speed. His parents looked a bit nervous, but I said, "Don't

worry, I'll defend the cello, I won't let him hurt it." He came to the cello, pulled

himself up to a standing position, and began to touch and pluck at the strings,

below the bridge. At the same time, keeping the bow (which he might have been

able to damage) out of his reach, I plucked the cello strings above the bridge, which

made nice sounds. Now and then I could see that he was being overcome with a

wave of excitement, and that he wanted to bang on the cello, as little babies like to

bang on things. But when his hands began to make these impulsive gestures, I

would catch them, like the paw of the pup, and slow them down, saying softly,

"Gently, gently, easy, easy, be nice to the cello." When his motions grew smaller

and calmer I would take my hands away. For a while he would caress the wood and

pluck at the strings. Then he would begin to get excited again. But as soon as he

did I would catch and slow down his hands again, saying as before, "Gently, gently,

nice and easy." After a while he would crawl away, while I talked with his parents.

Then I would play some more, and he would come crawling over for more looking

and touching. I might have to say, "Gently, gently," once or twice, but hardly more

than that. Most of the time this tiny boy, still just a baby, was as gentle and careful

with the cello as I was. And all this in only one evening, the first time he had ever

seen such a strange and fascinating object.

Louise Andrieshyn, a parent in Manitoba, says about this: You've made an

excellent point about the difference between "No" the angry signal and "No" the

meaningful word. ... There is a third kind of "No," perhaps the most common of all,

neither an angry explosion nor a meaningful word--the no, no, no that goes on all

day with some parents. This constant hassling is simply a running, ineffective

banter. The parents don't even mean it; there's no anger or even much reprimand in

their voices... our cultural expectation is that kids are bad, always getting into

trouble, and parents must be dictators controlling their kids (in the name of

"protection").

How to cope with these 3 kinds of "No" is much more difficult, though, than you

make it sound.

You're saying, if we can become aware of how we use "No" we can change our

use of it. And I agree with you in two cases. First, as parents, we can simply SHUT

UP! if we can sit back and listen to ourselves, we can hear how much negative

harassment we throw at our kids. If a parent would seriously and objectively listen

to what he says (through his child's ears), he would be appalled and could probably

with some effort change that kind of "No."

I think here of Lisey (then 3) who was pouring herself a glass of milk yesterday.

She had gotten it from the fridge, opened it, poured from a fat 2-qt. carton a very

small juice-glass of milk, had drunk it, then had gotten a paper towel and was

wiping up the milk spilt on the table. There was more milk spilt than the towel

could absorb so as she wiped now, the milk was being pushed off the table onto the

door.

I walked in at this point and started with the running "No, No" commentary in a

whiny voice: "Ooooh no, Lisey, you should have asked someone to pour you a

glass of milk--no, don't wipe it up, it's going on the floor, now stop, don't do it, I'11

do it, it's bad enough on the table--look, now you've got it on the floor--you're

making more work for me."

Happily at this point I was struck by a rare beam of sanity and it said to me, "Oh,

quit being such a bitch, Lisey has just poured her first glass of milk all by herself

and you're ruining the whole thing for her."

And suddenly I looked and saw a very little girl trying very hard to grow up--

trying to wipe up herself the mess she had made getting herself a drink of milk.

And I said, "Lisey, I think Sparkle (dog) would like this extra milk."

Lisey stopped and looked at me. I had finally said something of meaning. All the

negative harassment up till then she had been trying to ignore.

I said, "If you get Sparkle's dish we can put the milk in it."

She got it and we did.

AND immediately she began an animated chatter about how Sparkle would like

this milk and how she had poured them both a drink of milk, etc. Until then, she

had barely said one word. In fact, if I had pushed her far enough--"OK, Lisey, get

out of the kitchen while I clean up your mess"-she would have probably ended up

crying (over spilt milk!).

But the happy ending here did not require too much effort on my part because I

wasn't very emotionally involved. My mind could still be objective about the

situation to the extent of being able to control and change it."

I reflected on this for a while...and decided I was making my own life more difficult by saying no...they really want to help and do it on their own...so why stop them? Some times they make a mess but so do i some times.

Its the emotions which get me...I can still hear in my own childhood the no's and the fear...its just the way that many children are treated I'm not alone.

The chapter after this is Testing Adults... again I reflected in this and how my daughter some times acts towards me. I asked her a few times yesterday what she was up too...pushing my buttons...she did stop and think a few times and so did I....I didn't get angry.

The next chapter....

"OKAY?"

When adults want children to do something--put on coats, take a nap, etc.-they

often say, "Let's put on our coats, okay?" or "It's time to take our naps now, okay?"

That "Okay?" is a bad thing to say. Our lives with children would go better if we

could learn to give up this way of talking.

The trouble with this "Okay?" is that it suggests to the children that we are

giving them a choice when we really are not. Whatever people may think about

how many choices we should give children, children should at least be able to

know at any moment whether they have a choice or not. If we too often seem to be

offering choices when we really aren't, children may soon feel that they never have

any. They will resent this, and resent even more our not saying clearly what we

mean. By giving what we intend as a command and then saying "Okay?" we invite

resistance and rebellion. In fact, the only way children can find out whether or not

we are offering a real choice is to refuse to do what we ask. It is their way of

saying, "Do you really mean it?"

Many adults feel that in saying "Okay?" they are only being courteous. But this

is a misunderstanding of courtesy. It is perfectly possible to be firm and courteous

while making clear to someone that you are not offering a choice but telling them

what you want to happen or is going to happen. When I visit friends, I expect to fit

myself into their life and routines, and count on them to tell me what they are. So

they say, "We get up at seven o'clock," or "We are going to have dinner at sixthirty," or "This afternoon we're going to this place to do such and such." They are

not asking me whether I approve of these plans, just letting me know that they are

the plans. But they are perfectly polite about this.

Some friends of mine have a No Smoking rule in their house. They are in earnest

about this. Inside their front door is a sign saying "Thank You For Not Smoking."

But every now and then a guest misses the sign, or takes it as a plea and not a

command, and starts to light up. My friends gently but firmly inform their friend

and guest that if he or she wants to smoke, the porch is the place to do it, but not in

the house. No one argues, no one is offended. Few adults seem to be able to talk to

children in this way. In the Public Garden, or airports, or other places where adults

and children gather, I hear hundreds of people telling their children to do things.

Most of them begin with "Okay?", pleading and cajoling. If this doesn't work, they

soon begin to threaten and shout. They can't seem to give a firm request without

getting angry first. Then the child is genuinely confused and resentful, doesn't

understand why the adults are angry, or what he has done to deserve the shouts and

threats. If a child really resists doing what you want, it may help to say, "I know

you don't want to do what I am telling you to do, and I'm sorry that you don't, and

sorry that you're angry, but I really mean for you to do it." It doesn't by any means

solve all problems, and it may not even stop the child from being angry. But at least

it makes clear where things stand. And of course, at such times we must not get

angry at the children for being angry with us. We may have a right (as well as the

power) to make children obey, but not to demand that they pretend to like it.

TANTRUMS

People who write about tantrums seldom give any strong sense that the anger of

two-year-olds is about anything. One might easily get the impression that these

little children are swept by gusts of irrational "aggression" and rage as the coasts of

Florida are from time to time swept by hurricanes. Instead, I would insist that much

of the seemingly irrational and excessive anger of little children-"tantrums'' ;s in

fact not only caused by things that happen to them or that are said and done to

them, but that these things would make us angry if they happened or were said and

done to us. Even in the kindest and most loving families two-year- olds must be

reminded a hundred times a day, perhaps by the words and acts of their parents,

perhaps by events, by Nature herself, that they are small, weak, ignorant, clumsy,

foolish, ignorant, untrustworthy, troublesome, destructive, dirty, smelly, even

disgusting. They don 't like it! Neither would I. Neither would you.

On this subject, the mother of J, the little boy whom I described playing with my

cello, wrote about his tantrums and how they were both learning how to avoid

them.

J is great. No naps now which means he is super go-power all day with a huge

collapse about 7:30. Me has his room all to himself now, and he really likes to hang

out in there alone for an hour and a half most days, driving trucks around mostly.

I've never seen a kid more into organizing things. He plays with dominoes and calls

them either adobes, for building houses, or bales of hay, and has them stacked,

lined up, or otherwise arranged in some perfect order; same with the trucks; he'll

scream and yell, as per your theory of two-year-old behavior, if you snatch him up

from a group of trucks and carry him off to lunch. But if you give him a couple of

minutes to park them all in a straight line then he'll come willingly. Your theory

(treat them like big people) works out over and over again; brush past him, leave

him behind in the snow when you're hustling up to feed the goats and you get a

black and blue screaming pass out tantrum. Treat them "Big" and things roll along.

Only hang-up is the occasional times you have to take advantage of your superior

size and pull a power play. The trick is to learn to avoid the situations that once in a

while make that a necessity, like not getting in a rush, and not letting them get so

tired they break down completely-like letting dinner be late.

One thing he gets mad about is being left behind by anybody. However, we just

went on a trip.... I was quite nervous about leaving him with friends as he had been

doing his falling down pass out tantrums for our benefit all week whenever anyone

went to town without him (in spite of having the other parent on hand). But he just

waved Bye-Bye and went in the house and had a really good four days. As his

father said, obviously he would only bother to pull the tantrum bit for us. He was

very calm and very full of new games and words when we got him back, and I

know he made progress on all fronts as a result of being away from us and with

other interesting people.

... Later we were to go on a long trip down the river so we left him with some

friends, but decided at the last minute our boats weren't sufficient to carry us and

our gear on that rugged and remote a trip, so we picked up J and just went camping

on the river, taking our boat and going on short hops along stretches of the river

where the road was. Again he was super and loved being with grownups who ate

with their fingers and mushed all their food up in one cup just like him. His father

wanted him to go in the boat so he put him in a life jacket then tied a rope between

them. J hated that and had all kinds of misgivings as water sloshed into the boat

and he got wet and cold, but he didn't complain. Amazingly he just sat there and

looked pissed off for about two hours. I think he was so glad to be included that he

bore with the misery.

Susan Fitch applies this same sensible and respectful attitude to the often

difficult issue of bedtime:

My husband and I have always been concerned with having "our" time so our

son, Jesse's (4) bedtime was very important to us. Although he was very

cooperative, Jesse did not enjoy the limited time he had with his father between his

arrival and bedtime. This left everyone frustrated and unhappy.

One evening while I was reading GWS it occurred to me that he was perfectly

capable of going to bed when he was tired. The next day we talked about being

tired, how much sleep he needed, when to go to bed in order to wake up in time for

playgroup, and about our need to talk with one another and have quiet times. The

tension evaporated with his father, and he immediately assumed responsibility for

getting undressed and brushing his teeth. Because of just this one letting go, our

time alone and together follows a natural pattern that seems to satisfy everyone..

I can't help noting that no cultures in the world that I have ever heard of make

such a fuss about children's bedtimes, and no cultures have so many adults who

find it so hard either to go to sleep or wake up. Could these social facts be

connected? I strongly suspect they are."

These words really helped in so many areas which I am having issues with today. I need to let go more...I need to breath more....I need to sleep more too as this really has a big effect on my behavior. I need to be open to just letting my children life their own life.

I need to work on the okays as I do feel my son is not hearing that I mean it. Even in the short 24hrs since reading this and modifying my behavior I have noticed a BIG difference...oh we are not all angels but getting there ;-)