Henry started throwing real temper tantrums today. Lying on the floor, scream-crying, and kicking his feet.
Ugh.
He's got this idea lately that any toy he touches is HIS. For the whole night. He can set the toy down and ignore it for 5 minutes, but then as soon as one of the girls goes to play with it, he gets super upset and tries to snatch it back. We don't allow that. There's no toy private property in our house. Once it's been abandoned, it's up for grabs.
Henry has been fine with this concept for months. But now the "terrible twos" have finally hit, I guess. Temper tantrum time. So we just ignore him. Let him throw his fit. Don't acknowledge it or try to comfort him. We don't let him throw himself on us, either, which he tries to do by grabbing at our legs or falling into our laps. We just set him to the side and don't interact with him until he's done. Once he calms down, he can have all of the hugs and comfort he can stand. But he will NOT be rewarded in any way for his crying, flailing, drooling temper tantrum. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to cry. It's not okay to act like a lunatic.
It's stressful just watching it, though. Listening to it. Fortunately the girls seem completely unfazed. I wish that their little brains were processing the situation and thinking, "Henry gets no response for his bad behavior. I might as well never even try to act out that way." I know that in truth their little brains are saying, "As soon as I get just a little bit more coordinated, I'm going to give that a try."
Terrible twos! What about terrible ones? haha. Andy and a few of his friends have already begun this lovely form of expressing frustration. It comes in fits and spurts (literally) but the ignoring thing works wonders.
ReplyDeleteyes! Elise throws little temper tantrums. mostly she flops backwards, arches her back, cries out in frustration, and maybe kicks both feet up and down together a few times. they don't last very long.
ReplyDeletewait until Andy turns two. a whole new world of temper tantruming will open up before your very eyes. with Henry, my brain goes from "goddammit!" to "this has gone on for so long that its becoming absurdly humorous" back to "goddammit!" and then to "i'm so used to this noise that i almost don't notice it." by which point, he's hopefully done.