While chasing my spark plug around, I met a woman at the shower named Julie. I let it slip that I was frustrated because I have a hard time getting Ari to stay away from dangerous activities. Whenever I take him away from a situation where he could injure himself, he screams.
Julie has an 8 year old. She remembered the 2's vividly. She had this to say:
"What you have to do, is make it fun. If you're insisting that he do what you want him to do, he's going to resist. Make it fun!"
With this simple statement, I realized that I was approaching my child in a way that wasn't working. I was telling him: Do this! Because I said so. Instead of insisting, I could find ways to laugh at the situation, and make it fun.
Totally unrelated to this blog post: NOW I've bought Daria! :-D
ReplyDeleteLol good advice, but its hard to deal with toddlers all the time. I often try to do that as a sort of distraction, but when you are exasperated its really tough to be fun. But it does help in some situations, especially because less yelling is good. Its so hard though!!
ReplyDeleteJack, yay! I think it's a pretty cool series!
ReplyDeleteCordy- No doubt. It's hard to deal with toddlers all the time. Sometimes you feel like you're going to go crazy. Toddlers can be so moody! I find the more frustrated I get, the worse off it is for Ari.
Good suggestions to live by! I will reference these later on! Thank you :0)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julie and Jess. In your youth, when I had the energy, I tried distraction. It did cut down on the yelling.
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