My husband and I sat down that night defeated. He poured us both a glass of wine and we looked at each other with exhausted eyes. This had become our nightly ritual. I drank more wine in the past week than I ever had before. We were in the thick of toddler tantrums with our two-and-a-half-year-old and also had a newborn.
It was rough. We were tired. We needed to figure out what to do.
We felt like time outs weren’t working. The sign, for me, was when our son was counting with me through his time out and laughing during them, too. I heard myself saying “no” like a broken record. This led to extreme frustration and ultimately drinking wine every night to decompress. I’m not a big drinker so this was really weighing on me.
I knew we needed to implement some strategies to motivate him to listen. But, what I didn’t have was time. Normal Chelsea would have done extensive research. Read every blog and book under the sun. Came up with a detailed plan and visuals, reward systems and sticker charts. But mom-of-two Chelsea didn’t have time for all that. I needed some quick advice and strategies to start like… now. I also needed something easy to sell my husband on.
I did what every curious Mom does. I Googled it.
After fine tuning my Google search words, since most results for toddler behavior were more focused around tots keeping their hands to themselves. I arrived at, “how to get your toddler to listen.”
Yes, tell me how to do that Google.
After all, listening was the main problem. If he could listen to what I’m telling him, we’d have so many less ‘no’s being thrown out there by me and my husband.
Here are the three articles I read to start my journey:
After reading those three blog posts, I felt like I had some applicable strategies. I also noticed that using the word “No” is minimal. “Well, this is going to take some getting used to,” I thought to myself.
I put the tips to practice the next morning. The results were amazing. When Jackson yelled from the next room that he wanted something, I quietly knelt down eye level with him, and in a calm, quiet voice told him, “Ok, let’s talk like this when we are inside so that we don’t wake up *insert name here*. We can yell when we are playing outside”.
All three articles had similar philosophies. Here are my takeaways:
Toddlers are emotional creatures and don’t have the self-regulation skills to stop, take a breath and respond calmly.
Toddlers will say “no” a million times when talking to you. However, if your response is “no” they will lose their sh*t.
You’re basically telling them “no”, but in a positive way (see above example), by adding in a time when they can yell/eat candy/play with that loud ass toy, because when they hear “no,” they think “never”.
It’s all about choices and letting them think they’re in control while working towards the ultimate goal, or what you want them to be doing.
Prime example. Bath time.
The past month or so, my son has been a nightmare at bathtime. He used to love taking baths, then he pooped in the tub one night and a certain someone (I’m not naming names), freaked out a bit. I think that scared him and now he screams bloody murder when we put him in the tub. He won’t sit down, he just screams and cries. Even if I tell him, ‘it’s okay’, and ‘I’m here’, or ‘if you feel like you’re going to poop in the tub, it’s okay’. I even bought those cool Bath Dropz so he could have fun colored water in the tub. Nothing worked.
I got him ready for the bath, told him we were just ‘rinsing him off’, and his usual antics started. But this time I said, ‘Do you want me to wash your arms or legs first? Do you want to pour the water on your legs? Okay, time to wash your hair, do you want to cover your eyes or do you want mama to?’ He was totally in control of how bathtime went- and guess what, he didn’t scream. He didn’t sit down and play with bath toys, but we got through a bath without the high pitched screams that probably scare our neighbors. Progress people.
All in all, this change in communicating with my toddler has taken some getting used to. He has had some good days and bad days. I have slipped a number of times and uttered “no” before even thinking. I don’t expect him to be perfect and the same goes for me and my husband. Now, if we sit down each night and pour a glass of wine, it’s because we like wine.
Kuddos to you for being open to new wys of positive parenting.