Help with My 2 Year Old Screamer!!

look into LOVE & LOGIC...we started doing this with our two year old and it works great. There are materials online and there are classes during the year...email me if you want the list...I have it in an excel file. It is a great parenting strategy for birth to adult...wonderful and really works. For now, just start with the Uh, Oh song....

"Uh, oh...need a little room time...sooooo sad. Throw a little fit and call me when you are sweet." sing this...reduces the anger response. No warnings...she starts to scream, you can say..."would you like to stay with mommy or do you need room time?" If she continues....sing the song and take her to her room. Right now we shut our child's door, but we are working on giving her a choice if she wants the door open or shut (if she chooses open and comes out, then you put her back and shut the door). Once she is calm, ask if she is ready for her timer...if so, set timer for couple of minutes and when it dings....be happy to see her and continue with whatever you were doing. Don't rehash the offense...she knows what she did, so let it be. Give hugs kisses and make it fun to be with mommy. Don't worry about her playing while in her room...the point is to stop the behavior...let her play. She will get it. It works wonderfully. We do this in public, everywhere...all we usually have to say now is "Uh, oh" and she corrects herself. IF she does not, we start the rest of the song...no explanation or lecturing. "save your words for happy times" is a motto from L&L. This is so brief, but it is an awesome program that takes care of the parent and makes your child grow to be responsible adults. Good luck...let me know if you have other questions or want that file of classes.

K.

Our daughter tried that at two as well. She only did it a few times. We just looked surprised and said "ouch that hurts my ears" and left the room. That put an end to it pretty quick since she'd much rather we stay and play with her. Good luck!

I'd be a bit leary of using her bedroom as a "time out" place. She might look at her bedroom as a place for punishment. Personally I want my daughter to want to go to her room at bedtime so I don't want her bedroom associated with anything negative. (Just my two cents - I may be wrong here).

I agree about not using her bedroom for timeout. Choose a place that isn't hers. We use a formal dining room chair pulled away from the table.

This is not advice from experience because we haven't had to deal with this yet so take it for what it's worth. During happy times, have you tried practicing different voices? Like whispering and calling it an inside quiet voice and screaming and calling it an outside fun voice? Once she can identify with the different levels of her voice and call them by name you can use that during the "bad behavior" times when you need her to change her voice level. She may not realize that when you say to stop screaming you are referring to her voice level. Just a thought...

This was the suggestion given to me...don't worry...I am ready for all the Mama's to kick me off the message board for this one...Get a spray bottle of water. When she screams, give her 1 squirt in the face. I bet it won't take very many squirts and she will quit.