Seeking Mothers Who Have Delt with Children with Short Fuses.

My 2 year old daughter does the same thing! Please let me know if anyone gives techniques that work. I also find that it happens around the same time each day, around 5-6 pm. It's very frustrating!

Hi D. -

I have three special needs boys and they all have nasty tempers when they don't get what they want. All I do is take them to their room and firmly let them know that when they are done being upset they can come out and talk to me calmly. It took a few times of taking them back to their room if they wern't quite calmed down enough but they finally got the message and now stay in their room until they are ready to apologize and tell me why they are really upset. Be consistent and things will get better - Good luck - S.

I have a 2 1/2 year old boy and a 6 month girl... I read "The Wonder of Boys" by Michael Gurian. It gave me a lot of insight about my son and how his father relates to him. (my husband is a stay at home dad). I went out and bought "The Wonder of Girls", too... thought it might me just as helpful with my relationship with my new daughter. Don't know yet. There is also one by the same author about husbands...

Good Luck, stay strong, PEACE
P.

Hi D.,
What worked for me is I would say in a quiet voice, "Momma can't understand you when your... Screaming, yelling, fussing, ect. so when your ready to talk to me about why your upset I will be right over there" I would typically leave them where ever they were as long as it was safe and then I would go to the kitchen and chop carrots as loud as I could and as long as they were safe I would ignore everything. With my son it took about three fits and he was done. My daughter is a little stronger willed but they are subsiding.
When they calm down and then come to talk I make a huge deal out of helping them so the reinforcement comes from talking to me.
N.

hi D. i have a three year old daughter and she is the same way. all she does is scream and cry if she dont get what she wants. i found a way that helps them if u put a X like with tape on ur kitchen floor or somewhere in your house and when she acts up tell her that she has to sit there for two and a half mins since that is how old she is. and that the time out starts when she is quiet. and then after she has sat there tell her that she needs to apologize to u and get her to tell u what she did wrong. and make her give you hugs and kisses afterwards. it helped me so good luck

My 4 year old still does this. I do the time outs in her room and they work well to calm her down, so I definatly recamend that. Its a good way to deal with the problem with out loosing controll yourself. My child is usually more angry with herself than any one else. If she cant accomplish a task like getting a toy to do something she wants she gets mad and throws a tantrum. I have her take a "break" and then come back after she has calmed down. Its not so much that I dont give her what she wants any more, (Ok she just proved me wrong, because i told that she has to wait her turn to play her ABC game.) She is a little perfectionist and just gets angry when she cant do something just right, and I bet the teachers and I will have our hands full when she starts school in the fall. My point is that although the time outs work well for dealing it, with some children it is part of their personality. My oldest daughter is different, she is more likly to cry and get sad and want hugs and cuddles to feel better, than get angry,scream and throw things. Every child is different.

Hi D.,
I have twin girls and the tantrums they threw were crazy, and didn't come under control until I followed some advice from a book I lent a friend, "discipline for strong willed children" I cant remember the author. there we a couple of rules,
1. say something only once (really hard for me)
2. When the crying starts state the consequences and follow through. even if it means taking her to the same spot over and over.
The girls would cry and scream, I would originally try to explain to them why they couldn't have what they wanted, they would lay on the kitchen floor and cry and scream, it wasn't until I would leave them alone in the kitchen or where ever the girls were screaming did they stop. When they started following me the rule was they had to go to their room until they felt better. (In the beginning I had to walk them there over and over and pray the whole time take deep breaths to not get upset, stay calm, and remember it was for their good and my sanity. Eventually they would stay there and when they came out I would reward them with a sticker.
3. I stopped buying everything they wanted.
4. started a reward system, their time out lasted as long as they were screaming. Not the minutes of matching their age. They were to young to get that, so I started to reward the positive behavior.
It worked only with consistency, good luck.

Hi D.,

Try "123 Magic." It's a book and also a video. I recently went to a Parenting Conference and learned about it that way (after it was recommended to me by moms on Mamasource!). It really is magic - I swear.

It's a really simple concept - you don't over-explain things to your child, you simply give them three warnings before telling them to "take five." An example: She's crying because she wants candy. You tell her, "No candy. I am making your lunch." She starts to cry, so you just say, "That's one," and show her the number one with your finger. Give her five seconds to knock it off. Then tell her, "That's two," again, showing her the number two with your finger (some kids need a visual). Count to five again, and if she hasn't stopped, say, "That's three. Take five." Put her in time out. Once out of time-out, don't say anything like, "Now, you're going to be a good girl," or "You need to listen from now on." The punishment is over, so you don't talk about it anymore. My son was really receptive to this after a few days, and now he corrects himself on "one" or "two."

Now, if she does something like whack her brother, you skip one and two and just say, "that's three. Take five." Dangerous or violent acts like that don't need three opportunities to be repeated :)

Seriously - give this a try. You'll see a difference!! Let me know if I can offer anymore help.

Good Luck,
A.

Two year olds are notorious for having short fuses. Up until now, everything they've done has been met with rave reviews from the whole family. All of a sudden, people don't think it's funny any more when you throw your peas...

After raising seven 2 yr. olds, the most important thing I learned was NOT to explain. They need a secure environment where someone bigger and stronger and wiser keeps things in control. When too many choices are allowed they really do get nervous, whiney, and weepy.

BE THE MOM!!! If two year olds (or 3's or 4's or 5's) could navigate this world on their own, they wouldn't NEED a Mom and Dad. They need you to be in control so their world isn't so scary. Stay calm, speak softly, give lots of hugs. Don't negociate. You can't reason with a baby.

The most frustrating thing for a two year old is that they can't express themselves very well, so it comes out in crying or screaming. When the tantrum has quieted down, you can begin to talk with her. One way to help her is to give her words to use: "Are you MAD?" Wait for a response, then confirm the feeling: "I get MAD too. Let's hug until you are HAPPY again." Encourage her efforts to express her feelings verbally rather than physically. Give her time - it takes 18 years to raise a child!

And just FYI - teenagers are just larger two year olds!

I know this wont be the response you want to hear, but if she is throwing a fit because she is not getting what she wants you have no choice, but to completely ignore her and let her know that when she stops the fit you will talk to her about her wants. You will learn great patience. My son who is 12 now used to do that. You cannot respond when they are out of control. I know it is hard to stay calm when they are completely out of control. Best of luck!!!!

B.

Hi, my daughter is only 19 months and she has the same temper, on top of being extremely strong willed. I've discovered the best thing to do (as long as she's not hurting herself) is to ignore her. Obviously, if you're out in public this isn't an option, but my MIL said my husband was the same way when he was a child. She said the only thing that worked out in public was to immedietly leave and go home. There were several times she had to take a full cart to the customer service desk, apologize and get the kids in the car. I've found with my daughter, at home anyway, the best thing is to ignore the tantrum. Once she realized that she wasn't going to get attention, let alone what she wanted, she calmed right down. I guess from her point of view no attention is worse than negative attention!!

Hi, What worked best for me at that age is to calmly walk over to him/her and pick her up and place her on her bed, turn around and leave closing the door after me. The first few times I did it, I calmly explained that I didn't want to hear the crying and she could come out when she was done. It took a few times putting her back in her bed and shutting the door before she got the point, but it worked well. Soon, when she wanted to start throwing a fit, she knew to run to her room and cry there because she would end up there anyways. If we were in public, I'd just abandon my cart or whatever else I was doing and leave. Soon, she realized that we'd end up at home if it didn't stop. It takes a little bit of work, but it pays off in the end. We always talked about it when the fit was over too, reassuring her that I love her, but that her behavior was not acceptable. Reasoning with them during a tanrum at that age doesn't work, I found. Hang in there, 2 is a hard age, they still haven't realized that the world doesn't revolve around them. Hang tough and God bless your hard work!

I have 2 boys ages 27 and soon to be 14. I went through this with them only for a short time. I broke my first one from this by walking away from him when he would scream. I would simply say "when you are done screaming let me know" then I would ignore him. My second one however was not as simple. I would have to be CONSISTANT with him. I would set him in his little red chair and tell him not to move for 3 minutes. Believe me he MOVED! I would march him right back to the chair set him down & go to his eye level and tell him in a firm voice he was to set there and not move for 3 minutes. I would set the timer beside him so he would know when he could get up. But I would tell him why he was setting there "because he was screaming" I would not go into detail about it. Children that age have a short attention span. They understand 1 sentence and thats it. After months of this he got the point. I now have 2 very respectable young men! In the end Consistancy pays off.

My son was the same way...and still is at times. I have him go to his room until he calms down. He has lots of puzzles, balls, legos, and other "quiet" type games. I make sure to let him know it's NOT a punishment, but I can't talk to him when he's that upset. I tell him to go until he calms down adn then he can come out. I don't even close the door, he usually does that himself. He's almost 5 now, and we still have to do this, but he's more able to control himself. He will usually go to his room on his own, sometimes even tell me he's going and we'll talk when he's calmer.

When I found I was getting really frustrated, I would tell him that if he was going to act like that (screaming/tantruming) that it was fine, but I didn't want to see it and to go to his room til he was done. Maybe not the most productive way to word it, but the effect was the same.

Good luck, it's very hard to deal with these behaviors. Esp when you have a very sensitive child!

Find a safe place for her, and tell her that she's welcome to come out when she's ready to be happy! Say it with a smile, too!

Hi D.!!

My youngest son (now 11 years old) was one of those tempermental two year olds. Come to think of it, my oldest son (now 17 years old) had his moments too ... LOL. The focus of the temper tantrum is attention. I learned that very quickly with my boys. This age group is just learning that they are autonomous human beings, and they're going to engage adults in battles of wills whenever the fancy takes them.

When my boys started down the road of temper flare ups, I would simply walk away from them and go to another room. My oldest is mildly autistic, so his tantrums were often born of frustration over communication problems (that he has long since outgrown), so this tactic didn't work so well with him. However, with my youngest, who is very determined and very tempermental, it worked very well. Rather than getting angry with him and yelling at him or putting him in time out, I would say, "Mommy needs a time out because she's getting upset right now." Then I would go to my room and partially shut the door. Within minutes, he would calm down and come in to see if I was feeling better. This takes some time to get to this point, but it really did work for us.

To this day, if the either of the boys decide they're going to be tempermental, for whatever reason (it comes back when they hit puberty), I simply tell them that it's not the right time, and I walk out on what could become a big argument. Sooner or later everyone calms down and life goes on.

Hope this helps!!

K.

Wow my son was a screamer too all the time and then Yo Gabba Gabba had this great show on with the topic of "move" and then there was this song and it goes "Nice and easy nice and slow its nice to be quiet and listen you know lets be quiet and listen nice and easy lets be quiet." After seeing this every time my son started yelling even when he was playing I would sing this song and he would instantly stop (mind you I believe he stops because he thinks I am crazy singing this song with my horrible voice) but either way it helped and significantly reduced the screaming and now I tell him no screaming in the house and if he wants to scream to go in his room because nobody wants to hear that nonsense and all the screaming and yelling in the world is not going to get him whatever it is he wants. Hope I was of some help. Good luck and let us know what happens

As the proud strong willed Mom of two strong willed children, I think yo have a very powerful, strong willed child. She is seeking and the way it looks getting your attention. If she is safe, don't pay attention to the screaming and tell her when she can tell you in a big girl voice what is wrong or what she wants, you'll listen. Be the parent and don't let her get ANYTHING from the benefit of a tantrum. If you do, it will only get worse. This is typical for a 2 1/2 year old, but if you don't work throug this it won't be fun at 3.

with your kids being only 1 year apart and you're working on a good series, how much time are you able to give to her? My daughter was nearly perfect until her brother came along. I will do time out or send her to her room. However, I have found that when I make the time to give her one on one time, she's so much better. Schedule special days for just the two of you, or when you put your youngest down for a nap, make that a special time for the two of you. It does need to be nipped in the bud though. If you don't, it could get out of control.

I have a 3yr old daughter who loves to cry. She has a hearing lose which they say is the reason she does. Time outs only work for so long and mine would be in a time out most of the day. If you figure it out let me know. Thank you ....J.