Taming the Beast - How I'm Learning to Live With a Two-Year-Old Again

A few weeks ago, I blogged about taking T's aya (binky) away from him and how easy it was.

Scratch all that, would you?

After taking it away from him, his sweet little personality changed almost overnight. I had awakened the beast. There was no turning back. Ugh!!! Run for your LIVES!!!

I think we went for a couple of weeks aya-less, and then T found one somewhere in the house. Z, who doesn't live with the beast during the day, was relentless; but okay, you got it, I caved. I was hoping to send the beast back to where he came from with the granting of a magical aya, but oh no, this was not to be. The beast remained, and now, I had caved, AND I got the distinct joy of living with this creature everyday. Gotta love those double blessings.

Now, mind you, he's not a living terror. He's still the sweet little boy I once knew; I can still see him in there, but he is quite a bit more active and harder to contain. The word, "No" has emerged as a staple in his vocabulary. This just does not fly in my world. I have strong feelings about children and respect, but I think this can be taught in loving ways. I feel that as it is shown to them, they will learn to return it. Mind you, I'm working on all of this, and this is just me writing down what I'm thinking as I go along.

Today I decided, would be the end of the beast. I have taken command again, and he will not continue the habits he's started to display if I can do anything to help it. I kind of feel like Annie Sullivan when she started out with Helen Keller. Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but there is a point of comparison for you.

Here's how things are playing out so far this afternoon. At this point, T has just enough ablities to be dangerous. I started to take his shirt off him as he had spilled yogurt down his front at lunch but stopped myself knowing that that is something he could totally handle himself. What's the famous adage? "Never do for a child what that child can do for himself."

I showed him the yogurt and said, "Oops. Look at this. What do you think about this?" His response was, "Ewww." I asked him what he thought he should do about it. He started to take his shirt off. I had to help him a wee bit as he got it caught trying to take his arms out. Once we got it off, he took it upstairs to the laundry room. I didn't have to say a thing. The beast knew proper protocol; there was a glimmer of hope!

Once he got into his room, as we were heading for naptime, he started to pull his pants down. They were at about mid-thigh when he started to undo his diaper. I said, "Oh, okay, you want a diaper change? Please go grab me a diaper." He stood there and stared at me. I said, "Oh, you're going to go potty?" He worked to get the pants off the rest of the way and headed for the bathroom.

After a few moments, I realized that he was too short to get himself up on the toilet, so I hurried to the bathroom to prevent any further damage he might add to that done in moments of my absence. As I walked in, he was standing there holding the flusher down with one hand and grabbing bits of toilet paper to throw in with the other. I asked him to please stop flushing, but he seemed to be concerned that the newly added piece of paper wasn't going down, so he continued to hold onto the flusher. I finally walked over, realizing I was being ignored (does he not trust me?) and took his hand off the flusher, telling him that I would take care of it later.

We walked back to the bedroom.

After a story, which he chose; and a song, which he also chose; he was finally down for his nap, and I realized that he just has to know that I'm ultimately in charge. That's the bottom line. He can have choices in my kingdom, but he is merely the court jester, not the king or even the chief bull-goose looney (that would be his father--don't worry, I'm not insulting him here, it is merely the position he has chosen for himself), those roles are taken; we will take care of him; his needs will be met; we can be trusted; but, baby, get ready to do what it takes to exist under my regime. Ooo, "regime," not a good word. Thesaurus.com offered me "dynasty" I like that one.

So, in a nutshell, here are the rules I've created for myself:

1. I'm the mom and am the ruling body in my house. I have to remember this.


2. I should be respected as such, but I must also be the example of how to show respect.


3. "Never do for the child what he can do for himself." Let him have as much control as he can handle.


4. I should give my child only the choices that I can live with. Those choices should be both advantageous for him--not a good choice and a bad one to manipulate him.


5. I must be an active participant. I can't sit back and allow him to build bad habits and reinforce them for himself daily. I've got to be up and doing.


6. I have responsibility to teach him appropriate actions and words and undo the bad habits by teaching correct ones.


7. At first, changing these habits might be painful for him, but that's exactly how I feel when I learn that the way I've been doing things is wrong, and my will is changed. Sometimes it seems that the more painful the consequence, and the more pleasant the right way, the less likely he will be to repeat the bad habit and adopt the good. So, let him make the bad choice, let him feel the result and then teach him the better way. (Unfortunately this is where I failed to begin with. I should have retained the aya and just started at #1 on this list. It was just that I had forgotten that I was in charge. Remember, I was the one who had unleashed the beast. The beast had taken charge and was ruling my life. I now need to show him that I am the benevolent dictator [to some degree at least for awhile until he can be trusted to live within the house rules], who can be trusted and will love him no matter what).


8. Love on him a lot every chance I get.

Okay, there are my rules for myself. Would you like to add more? How do you deal, or have you dealt, with troubling toddlers?