perma-scowl
Posted: October 22, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized 17 Comments »I have a birthmark on my forehead, red lines between my eyebrows that appear only when angry, crying or anxious. They have been starkly apparent for weeks, it seems to me.
The most important thing is that my aunt came through the surgery with flying colors and is recovering well. We have another day or two to wait for the pathology results before we know more about the cancer. I can't thank you enough for all the love and good wishes and prayers you have sent and it'd be great if they could keep coming!
As for me,
I am getting a cold or flu or something.
On the home-front, I feel like we have tumbled into the so-called Terrible Twos and I used to not believe in them. And any time you tell anyone that your two year old is horrible, they like to trump you with stories about how awful their three year old is so why bother complaining?
Most nights I feel like a terrible mother because I just don't know exactly what to do with him when he is in that unpleasant tantrum mode where nothing is right. It seems clear that this happens as he gets tired, and I think he is fighting off the same cold I am so he is probably tired all the time, but it's not so simple as plopping him in his crib. Because I am fairly certain that children need food to sustain life. And he is frequently so tantrum-ish with me that I would have to put him to bed at 5 pm without supper if I were to assume fatigue was the source of all evil.
I don't actually call dinner "supper." But somehow, when thinking about someone going without dinner, it always sounds better to say, "without supper" as though we are in the Depression era or something, don't you think?
So… help. I have maintained calm, though I am never sure that constant calm voice is the right approach (see THIS article for thoughts that often mirror mine). I have been consistent and made him repeat requests minus the screaming and including a "please." That works but certainly doesn't stop him from screaming the next request. I have held him with tight, calming hugs if he becomes a flailing, kicking beast, acknowledged his frustration and anger, and encouraged him to use words. I have been firm and loud and disciplinary if he pushes or pinches the dog (they are SO much like siblings – Lexie constantly trying to steal his food and Beck constantly annoyed with her no matter what she is doing). But I feel sort of… rageful and exhausted sometimes. We haven't used time outs in a while because Wes read some article and also because so much of it is just a tone thing. He is just… incredibly unpleasant when he is tired. Any Two Year Old Tips?
Please don't feel that you need to share your Extremely Unpleasant Three Year Old Stories, either. Wes does so often enough already inre: GMB.
Here are the things I am wrapped up in at work:
- Birthday Book Week fundraiser for the library involving much child-wrangling and administration of donation name plates and record-keeping
- Diversity Committee involving giant projects and surveys and which meets both as a Lower School entity and a whole school one
- Tech Committee, which involves more meetings as well as being available to anyone who wants help with something (most common request so far: how to sync iPhone with Google Calendar, which is the BEST way to use the Calendar on the iPhone (no wires to sync – syncing automatic – can see spouse's calendar at same time, etc, etc) – for more info go HERE)
- The aforementioned Peer Review (Ack. Ack.)
- The running of a library that serves 250 people
- The complete overhaul of almost all of my curriculum
- The constant exploration of how best to use new technology to serve my teaching and my library usage
- The mapping of my entire curriculum
- First round of report cards
- Mock Newbery Club
- Author Visit coming up
Oh. And applying to my own school for my own son. Holy crap. Every single day I look at him and try to imagine that Admissions "Interview" (really a playgroup) and think, "But he is just a BABY!" I sit in the faculty room and make mental notes about all the things I overhear from the PreK teachers. Latest: elastic waist pants so they don't have trouble getting them up and down, because many three year olds have accidents at school because they can't get their pants off, or get stuck in the bathroom or hallway because they can't get them back on! This seems eons away. Will he really be potty trained some day? He shows no interest at the moment other than an occasional agreement to help flush his poop when I transfer from diaper to toilet. Diaper changes are still the Number One Source of Tantrums.
Tips on potty training children who are showing no interest? Other than the one I know you are going to give me, which is "Don't try to potty train a child who is showing no interest."
Potty training, ugh. With #1 we decided to wait until he showed interest or wait until he had multiple dry spells each day. I’m convinced the first option (showing interest) would never have occured. So we started potty training at age 3. I know you don’t want stories of three, but it was definitely the emergence of The Will on his part (as well as the verbal ability to explain why not) and with #2 we’re going to start potty training much earlier in order to avoid the extreme resistance we faced. #1 is now 5 years old and still doesn’t bother with the potty about 10% of the time. His ped says that is actually very typical and boys just don’t pick up on social conditioning as early as girls. That kind of argues for not starting potty training until they’re 4+ though, doesn’t it, so you can take advantage of some peer pressure to help you out.
Two year old tips? This too shall pass… and bring on new positives and negatives. With tantrums we generally said that he’s allowed to feel those emotions, and we helped name them and would attempt to redirect, but that doesn’t always work and so we would also leave the room sometimes since we feel we don’t have to listen to every bit of the scream. Heartless? Perhaps, but we can still hear.
Thank you for that! I have to have at least mostly potty-trained for school next year, so I don’t think we can wait. Social conditioning infringing on biology, I suppose, though I must say I look forward to the end of diaper tantrums!
I think I read the same article Wes did. The one where time outs = removal of love, affection, and approval for bad behavior = children become people-pleasing robots who only succeed out of a desire to maintain that flow of affection that they believe they only deserve if they’re being perfect? That one? That article freaked. me. out. Because time outs are pretty much the only way to deal with Julia’s worst behavior. But, eventually, I came to peace with making my child an affection-starved robot. Which is not to say that you and Wes should come to that same sort of peace…
The only advice I have (and it’s not much, admittedly) is to make sure you keep him not-hungry, and give him as much sleep as possible. And if that means putting him to bed early, well, then, lots of toddlers have proven that they can live on air for a few days…
(feel free to completely ignore my advice. just know that you have my sympathy)
oh, also with the non-essential potty-training advice…
can you tell when he’s about to go either poop or pee? We started with Julia by putting her on the toilet before she was about to go, and then rewarding her mightily with praise when she did — even though she was going to go anyway and all we did was put her on the toilet before hand — this is how they train birds, by the way… wait until they’re just about to do something anyway, give the command right before it naturally happens, and then reward…
Anyway, that’s what we did with Julia and it got her very familiar with going on the potty and what it felt like inside her when it was time to go sit on the potty. Plus it was a no-pressure technique on everyone. Eventually she started asking to go on her own more and more.
But the thing that finally worked was when Julia’s good friend — and major competitor — started wearing big-girl underwear all the time. Julia could not STAND to be in diapers with her frienemy strutting around in underwear. Does Beck have any frienemies that can potty train at the same time as him?
Not sure if this will help, but both of my kids were complete assholes in the run-up to any major skill asquisition. This does not keep me from wanting to put them on craigslist when they’re being pains now, but with the eldest now six I am more confident that any given stage will be shorter than I anticipate/fear and that they won’t, for example, stay assholes for an entire year.
I can’t remember any solutions or strategies for the 2s. I do remember 2s being harder than they are at 3. It know what you mean about people complaining that 3 is worse than 2, but I personally have found the boys more delightful at 3 and less *consistently* difficult (and hey- they’re almost 4!!!). They’ve had their bumps at 3, but it passes. And of course, the seemingly never-ending series of tantrums you’re going through will pass too. Yes, you try to maintain your composure but letting a natural, yelling, angry response out once in a while is honest and sometimes effective, you know? Also, we have this whole thing at my school with certain kids whose arousal level is really over-the-top (kind of like a 2 yr old, come to think of it), where the only way to get through to them is to meet the arousal level back – not so much in an angry, attacking way, but in a loud, right-in-your-face way. “You need to STOP” and “Look at my face- does it look like a happy face?” I don’t know how much language Beck has or understands.
The only thing I can say about potty training is that you can have a little potty around just for fun (better than a potty seat, because it’s their own actual toilet – eventually he might use a potty seat, but the potty is better for capturing interest). Also, my kids loved the “Once Upon a Potty” DVD, much to my and P’s horror. And they went through a time at about 2 1/2 where they would go in a potty. Then they just decided not to. And then shortly after they turned 3, they began to again without many accidents. It will come, though sometimes it seems like it NEVER will and you’re going backwards and not forwards.
When can we get a drink? Email me.
You know our potty training went a lot like what Chicory described, where we would just stick him on when he looked ready to go anyway. He still has lots of accidents if I don’t remind him to go, so you could say he’s not “really” potty trained, but I trust he’ll get it fully eventually. It’s probably good enough for school.
2 is really hard. We are still deep, deep in it. It goes on for quite awhile. I think one just has to wade through it. I’ve had it with parenting theories. You are a psychologically astute and self-aware Mom, so I don’t think you’ll fuck him up too bad. Yelling is OK sometimes too. So is time out. Whatever works. Fuck it.
Love you.
I found the article of which Chic and Wes speak sorely lacking. But that’s just me.
Umm. Yeah. I have no potty training advice because Cakie pretty much trained himself, with help from daycare. Please don’t hit me.
What I really wanted to say is that I keep imagining myself geeking out with you and the kidlets in your Newbery Club. I wish I were one of your students.
P had no interest in potty training and pretty actively avoided it. When he was almost 4 I just made it my top priority to get him potty trained because I had had enough. The only thing that worked for him was consequences if he went in his pullup instead of the potty because rewarding and praising and charts with stickers and just putting him in real underwear and watching him like hawk for any sign of needing to go wasn’t doing anything but making me crazy. When he realized that he would get in trouble for not using the potty it took about a week to have him fully trained. He also didn’t like using a little potty and preferred the real deal. I love my son, but every age has sucked for different reasons and just typing that makes me feel like a huge asshole. Right now I’m dealing with 5 almost 6 and I’m pretty sure it is giving me an ulcer. I haven’t read that article and probably wont look it up because I already worry enough about screwing my child up more than I can handle, but P hates time outs with the intensity of a 1000 suns so who knows?
Kids are tough aren’t they? As for 2 (thank god we’re almost done that!) it sucked. The 3s are beginning to suck – although H isn’t officially 3 yet (4 more weeks) – she is definitely doing the 3s. The only thing that works with H currently is asking her calmly that when she is ready to be calm I will help her. I distance myself physically and let her go to town. She has to be calm before any physical contact. Often she timeouts herself (I rarely use them with the exception of hitting/biting/pushing her sister) on her chair which she finds calming I guess. Honestly H doesn’t “get” timeouts so we don’t use them.
As for potty training – can’t do it if they ain’t interested. Boys do it later than girls so you’d be looking at closer to 3. H grasped the pee part quickly but the poop part took 8 long torturous months. For pee (this was after she announced she was done with diapers!) I fed her full of sugar/sweet stuff and had her go to town with water. Every 10 minutes on the potty, then 15, then 20 (took about 3 days to get pee down pat) – her motivation was stickers. Oh yeah and you praise like crazy for anything in the potty – our doorman knew how many times H had gone for a while as she told everyone in sight about potty time. Also a quick trip for potty – 1 minute, sit down, read a potty book, off you go (hopefully the magic happens). As for poop that was longer. She’d hold it in until back in her pull-up in bed for a nap. We started taking the poop and flushing it in the potty and saying “This is where poop goes”. Also one night I caught her mid-poop grunt and rushed her to the potty and acted like she’d won the Nobel Prize for solving cancer, world hunger and the current economic disasters. I didn’t tell my other half what I’d done and he acted so surprised that she totally bought it. From then on – poop in the potty. We do leave a little potty in the bedroom with her in case she needs to get up at night or nap time.
My current problem is H is dropping her afternoon nap leaving her a wreck by 5pm. Always something isn’t it?
Here’s my advice:
Wine.
Chocolate.
And your to do list makes me want to weep with fatigue. Interestingly, it sounds an AWFUL lot like mine.
Hang in there.
Ditto on what the others said for potty training. Ender finds the toilet infinitely fascinating, so he got poop trained like a year ago because it’s easy to catch him doing a poo– he goes all red and cross eyed. His reward was praise, a square of toilet paper and getting to flush the toilet. Plus we (that is, I) sang lots of songs on the potty.
Pee training I decided I wasn’t going to make myself crazy over. I waited till he started telling me when he was peeing in his diaper, then got him some Superman and Star Wars underpants. Told him he had to pee in the potty from now on. He peed on the floor for 3 days and told me ‘Ender pee!’ each time. I abandoned the project for a few months than tried again and he had it in a couple of days. But now we’re apparently in phase 2, which is not peeing your pants when mommy isn’t there to take you pee. I’m getting sick of his school calling me, expecting me to spend an hour traipsing over there to bring new pants because he’s peed through 4 pairs already. You’d think this was the first time they’d experienced such a thing.
As for 2s, no advice. I suck at it. I’m not cut out for this shit. I love him to death but I can take about 2 hours of it at a time then I start acting as bad as him. The cuddling approach is the most effective for both of us though it does earn me a punch in the nose sometimes.
And timeouts aren’t punishment for him. They’re decompression for me. And sometimes revenge. I don’t care what the article says, a timeout is way better than what I’m ready to do to him otherwise.
my only potty training tip is take away his clothing from the waist down – cold turkey – and put a little potty chair in EVERY room that you set him on every 15-30min and if he happens to pee in it, REWARD him.
the whole naked child approach works best during summer. but it really does work
The part I don’t get is where people say to “put the child on every 15 min” but what about my child who won’t be “PUT” anywhere – he screams at any infringement on his constant personal liberty. And yet I am supposed to not insist or force. So. What do I do? I feel sure it is hopeless. Heh.
three really is more sucktastic than two, I’m afraid.
Malka is a LOT. And only now, as she approaches 4, can we say, after we get to two: “Malka, you have a choice. You can cooperate, and do X, or you can have a time out.” And she usually chooses to cooperate.
What has worked for us is the “1, 2, 3 magic” approach. AWESOME book – when we use all of the tools therein. You know, like NOT yelling or screaming at the kid.
It is SO not too early for time outs for him. IF that’s what you wish to do.
As for the potty – yeah, he’ll train in time.
Peer pressure on teh potty is what worked for Malka – “See, Natalie uses the potty, and your friends at school use the potty” – EVENTUALLY she used the damn potty. Kid STILL sleeps in pull ups.
Don’t sweat it. DO NOT put him on the potty every 15 minutes – just ask him if he wants to go every so often. At some point, he’ll say yes.
Yes. This. Elsie is totally into the potty but she MUST be in total control at all times and therefore refuses to do anything we suggest. I keep hearing all this stuff about “putting your child on the potty” and I just laugh. She’d go ballistic.
I suspect the key is going to be tricking her into thinking it is her own idea.