Help - Louisville,KY

I think all children are terrors for mom. LOL My six year old son can whine and complain all day for me. I worried how he would do at school. His teacher tells me she can depend on him to set a good example for the other kids. I can't believe she is talking about my son. I love him dearly but he can drive me nuts. I guess I am just happy that my children behave in public and with other adults. I am a stay at home mom too and I think they just get tried of listening to us. Talking calmly and trying not to loose your cool with your son is the best thing you can do. Remember he is in the middle of the terrible twos. It will get better!!!

It's not you. He's just two and a half so you are forced to be on him all the time. At this age it's hard to keep them out of stuff!

I find that it helps when I say things like "We don't hit" or "we shouldn't chase the dog it scares him." Not sure why this works. Maybe because it makes her feel a little less singled out.

When you have no patience left time out is normally a good one. It's hard at times...for me at least. My daughter will cry her face off until she realizes that I am ignoring her. Then she will either lay down in her bed and take a nap or she will just calm down and I'll go get her out of her room.

I know it sounds primative to lock 'em up in their room but it works...especially when they don't have any toys or books in there to play with.

Other than that all you can do is breathe deep and wait for him to grow out of this "terror phase."

I think that everyone goes through this. I felt at one point like all I did was say "stop it" "no" "don't touch that", to my kids too. The one mom had the right idea about doing good, constructive things with the kids. You're supposed to have twice as many positive things than negatives. If you find that you're disciplining a lot, try putting out some play dough, art supplies, or reading a few books to the kids. Also, choose your battles with him. If he's getting into a lot of things, try to let go that he didn't pick up a couple of his toys, or whatever may be similarly not as important as other actions that need attention. I totally agree with the love and logic book. I love it. It's about giving a child choices. It's a really neat book.

When my daughter was 2 1/2 was when my twins were born. It wasn't long after that I started noticing her acting up. Being mean to the babies, getting into things and so on. There would be times that I would start feeling like all I got done was getting on to her about everything. It would get so frustrating and I got to thinking that is was hopeless. I just couldn't get through to her. That is when I would take a step back and re-evaluate myself. Most of the time when it got to this was when I was extra busy with the twins or a project around the house. If the twins were teething, or sick, or if I was trying to deep clean the house or something that took more than just a day or two to get done, then she would start to act up more. So, the next day or even that same day but enough that she didn't get the impression that by acting up she was going to get my attention, then I would plan special things to do with just her (the family got a lot of homemade cards that year). Usually, during the twins nap times, or they would go to a grandparents so I could just have one on one time with her, and after a couple days of giving her that singled-out one on one time she would start acting out a lot less. I agree with the other posters that it is very much the age, but I really did notice a big difference when I would do this.

All kids are worse at home. You want it to be that way! BUT, read the book Parenting with Love and Logic. It is fabulous! It changed my parenting for ever and it works. Even with kids as young as two you can start making them understand.

Good luck.

maybe get a job if you can afford child care for two children. that would give you a mommy break and all of you might be a little less tense and appreciate your time together a little more. plus he's probably a bit jealous over the baby - i have a brother two years older than me and he was pretty awful to me :) also, make sure you give them enough of the right kind of attention. perhaps that's easy for me to say since i'm a single mama of only one child. but maybe you can get down on the floor and play games with them, color, whatever. try to get him interested in having fun with his little sis instead of being mean to her. hope this helps. oh, one more thing... at least if he is well-behaved everywhere else, you know you're doing something right :)