Help! Terrible Twos and Nephew
May. 6th, 2009 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geekmama Three generations of my family live in one house together - grandmother, mother and me - but my nephew also lives with us as well as my partner. The nephew will be two in August and we're entering the terrible two stage. I've googled to try and help find ways of dealing with this because I spend a lot of time caring for my nephew myself but the google machine isn't telling me anything I don't already know - have a routine schedule and stick to it, use time outs effectively (ours in a special chair with the tv turned off in the living room and one minute per year of age) and ignore temper tantrums. We do all of these things but it doesn't seem to be helping.
Examples of what nephew does:
Is there anything I can do to help with the situation besides what I'm already doing, especially with the last point about my partner?
Examples of what nephew does:
- Hits and kicks members of the family but normally not in connection with not getting his way
- Screams when he doesn't get his way but doesn't throw himself into full on temper tantrum
- Full on temper tantrum (only happened once so far)
- Hits my grandmother's knee that she just had knee replacement surgery on in what I feel is a deliberate manner and laughs when she cries
- When put into time out he will ignore me or my grandmother and get up to go play (or throw things at whoever is closest, kick people.. ) but when my partner puts him into time out he'll stay
- I will catch hold of the offending hand or foot, reiterate that we do not kick or hit people and tell him that if it happens again he'll go into time out with a prompt and immediate time out if he hits or kicks when I let go of him.
- Put two fingers over his mouth (without blocking his nose for breathing) and tell him that we do not scream and that if he wants something he must ask for it, including a please and thank you.
- Walk away without a backward glance but try to make sure someone can see him out of the corner of their eye so we can make sure he doesn't hurt himself
- Immediate time out and then apology to grandma followed by an explanation of why we can't touch grandma's knee right now.
- Worry that this is setting a bad example for him and that he's learning that it's okay to ignore grandma and myself as my partner seems to have the authority instead of us.
Is there anything I can do to help with the situation besides what I'm already doing, especially with the last point about my partner?
naughtyThings my 2 year old daughter Amethyst has done lately, many of which that make me laugh:
- I just caught her hugging Sherman, the clean washing pile. I'd separated it into different piles (mine, hers, linens), and she was hugging my clothes.
- She keeps trying to pull body parts off. Ears, hair, cheeks, tongue, feet. So far, they're all stuck.
- When Dora finishes, she makes me get up to do the "We did it!" dance with her. I refuse to move my hips and knees like Dora does, because I like them being IN their sockets.
- She's now very insistent that she washes her hands after I go to the toilet. This is usually because she follows me in there, and it's very cute.
- She loves horsey rides, and will get them from whatever she can. She especially likes using my flatmate's BIG My Little Pony (it's about 40cm tall).
- Everything is yellow. Or pink. We're working on colours and shapes, and she usually says something is yellow. But she did recognise brown the other day!
- She gets very involved in her books. One shape book has shape-people, and the square-person was stuck in the washing basket, and she always says "ON NO!!" when she sees him stuck there. Poor square-person.
- She gets very excited when she sees a plane go by. ZOOOOM.
- She can count to three! Well, she can say "One, two, three." This is often followed by "Jump, Harry!" (from Harry and his bucket full of dinosaurs), which makes it even cuter.
- Her new fuzzy feety pyjamas have these raised rubbery pink spots on the feet for grip, and they make squishy noises when she walks. VERY cute.
- She loves to blow her nose. She'll get a tissue or wipe, bunch it up and put it up to her nose and then will "blow" it, by making a very good nose blowing sound through her mouth.
- She flounced this morning! She wanted something, but refused to tell me what, and she got very cranky with me. She crossed her arms and spun around so her back was to me, as she cried. Turns out, she wanted me to dance with her to the "Active Kids" song on Nick Jr. I hate those guys.
And lots more, of course. This kid cracks me up several times a day. Even on my shitty days, she makes me laugh. I really appreciate that.
How are your kids doing?kids
- I just caught her hugging Sherman, the clean washing pile. I'd separated it into different piles (mine, hers, linens), and she was hugging my clothes.
- She keeps trying to pull body parts off. Ears, hair, cheeks, tongue, feet. So far, they're all stuck.
- When Dora finishes, she makes me get up to do the "We did it!" dance with her. I refuse to move my hips and knees like Dora does, because I like them being IN their sockets.
- She's now very insistent that she washes her hands after I go to the toilet. This is usually because she follows me in there, and it's very cute.
- She loves horsey rides, and will get them from whatever she can. She especially likes using my flatmate's BIG My Little Pony (it's about 40cm tall).
- Everything is yellow. Or pink. We're working on colours and shapes, and she usually says something is yellow. But she did recognise brown the other day!
- She gets very involved in her books. One shape book has shape-people, and the square-person was stuck in the washing basket, and she always says "ON NO!!" when she sees him stuck there. Poor square-person.
- She gets very excited when she sees a plane go by. ZOOOOM.
- She can count to three! Well, she can say "One, two, three." This is often followed by "Jump, Harry!" (from Harry and his bucket full of dinosaurs), which makes it even cuter.
- Her new fuzzy feety pyjamas have these raised rubbery pink spots on the feet for grip, and they make squishy noises when she walks. VERY cute.
- She loves to blow her nose. She'll get a tissue or wipe, bunch it up and put it up to her nose and then will "blow" it, by making a very good nose blowing sound through her mouth.
- She flounced this morning! She wanted something, but refused to tell me what, and she got very cranky with me. She crossed her arms and spun around so her back was to me, as she cried. Turns out, she wanted me to dance with her to the "Active Kids" song on Nick Jr. I hate those guys.
And lots more, of course. This kid cracks me up several times a day. Even on my shitty days, she makes me laugh. I really appreciate that.
How are your kids doing?kids
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Discussion and debates are encouraged, but a mod will step in if things get out of hand.
Parenting isn't easy, so it's best to go into it knowing there is always more to learn.
parenting!The aim we have for this community is to be a place of support, advice, and commiseration. Feel free to ask any questions you have related to parenting, whether that's opinions on the best product, recommendations for books, help on how to parent as a team, or to bring up topics for debate.
It's important to remember that there are many ways to parent, and to parent well. How you do it may work wonderfully for you, but not so well for others. Harassing, trolling, and attacking other users for their different parenting styles is not acceptable, and it is possible to disagree with someone's choices without putting them down for it.
Discussion and debates are encouraged, but a mod will step in if things get out of hand.
Parenting isn't easy, so it's best to go into it knowing there is always more to learn.