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Help!!!!! My 2y/o is out of control....

Renee - posted on 03/08/2011 ( 1 mom has responded )

5

7

So I'm not sure if my 2y/o is out of control or if maybe he thinks he has all of the control and I have none! I have a very busy 2y/o son who always strives on attention. He will do just about anything to get it. The last week he is refusing to stay in his bed during nap time and at bedtime. I do the same routine with him when I'm home and my soon to be hubby does the same the day's I'm at work. Lately, when he knows it's time for me to leave the room and for him to stay in his bed, he refuses to stay in. I have been trying the parenting with love and logic approach which I think is great in theory and worked great for my older son when he was younger, but my little guy isn't having any of it. I have tried giving him choices such as "you can choose to sleep in your bed or on the couch or you can choose to sleep with your door open if you're not gonna cry or the door shut". If he doesn't choose I choose for him. He flips out screaming. He will scream for hours and hours. Today he screamed for 3 hours during nap time and never napped and then and cried for 3 more hours tonight before passing out on the recliner. This has been a common theme all week and I'm overtired and stressed! Any advice?

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Medic - posted on 03/08/2011

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I too take from the love and logic ideas. With my son I don't give the wide differing options. Like for example for bed: you may choose to go to sleep in your bed like a big boy and I will turn your moon on, or you can choose to sleep on the floor and I will not turn your moon on. You can choose to make good choices or choose bad choices and then you choose the concequince. Off the bat CHOOSING to not do what is told is CHOOSING a concequince. Personally he can sceam all night long and I can sleep through it. Mine is 4 now so he has kind of caught on. When he was 2 we went threw kind of the same thing except from the get go we implemented a plan. For nap time: He has the choice to sleep or to "read" in his bed, it is 45 min atleast, and he recieved a sticker for every 5 min he stayed in bed. After 20 stickers he could "buy" a privelage or a matchbox car. At night he would get the stickers for every 5 min he stayed in there until he was asleep. After a few days we moved it up to 10 min then 15 min then 30 min and it just phased out after that and we used the stickers to tackle another behavior we wanted changed. My friend uses 30 min of morning cartoons if her son goes to bed without a fight and she explains it to him like this: You can choose to go to bed like a big boy in your bed and you will get to watch your morning show, or you can choose to fight it and not get morning cartoons.
I don't know if any of this helps but I am not advocating bribery. The social worker for my neice explained to me bribery is saying after the bad behavior starts if you stop I will give you this. Rewards are positive and as long as they are set up before the behavior happens are easy tangible goals for kids to work for.

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