Good book about understanding Toddlers?

And another day has gone by without a single tantrum or a tear - we have not had any this week. hmmm maybe they do grow out of it....

Julz, I have always been rather pro time out and not having physical contact when Lo is in the throes of a tantrum, bit after reading some more about "holding time" it just makes so much more sense in Liam's case - I have pretty much run out of ideas with him.

MB Floradix is a magnesium supplement. Magnesium aids with sleeping. And Floradix is the one thing that really worked with Ethan, but I remember that at the time a couple of other moms also tried it with less success.
You may want to first deal with her current illness. By the way Ara I have also written down the name of the homeopath, because my Ethan also has a persistent cough, probably related to allergies, because in the mornings he wakes up all clogged up.
Maryke I enjoyed reading your post. I have spanked Ethan a few times, but I try to avoid it. It hate doing it and it certainly leads to Ethan doing it right back, so I would try every thing else but that. I also do not like sending him to his room. Mostly these days I also use the reward system, but there are times when it also fails me.
Claire I think I will try holding him and see how that works out.

As for coffee Julz and MB can we do it in the day as it is easier for me to coordinate then after work

Claire I pretty much hold Dylan. He calms down way quicker.

Someone told me to send Dylan to his room or naughty corner. My therapist said that this might not be ideal because you are telling your already miserable child that you don't really want to be around him when he needs you the most. It is all about trust and if you hold them and love them when they are at their most vulnerable then they will trust you more later on.

While googling the whole OCD thing with Liam I came across a really nice concept - Holding time, as opposed to time out

www.primal-page.com/holding.htm

books.google.com/books/about/Holding_Time.html?id=ijJ3NQSj66wC

This one is actually on a site for adoptive families, but there are personal stories :
www.a4everfamily.org/index.php?option=co...ew&id=112&Itemid=104

It basically says that instead of locking your child up in a room, pick him up, hold him really tightly so he can't wriggle out and calmly talk him thru his tantrum.
He will probably go thru the anger, then the frustration of being pinned down, to resignation to quiet sobbing

As he relaxes, so you can relax your hold, but all the time telling him you love him and you want to help him deal with whatever it is that has upset him

I read someone's blog (sorry I can't find it now) where she said that she had bruises and her entire body was stiff the first few times she did it, but now her son comes to her and asks to be held cos he is confused / cross / scared

I have tried it with Liam once, and it took about an hour and a half, but it worked better than giving him a hiding or time out - I have a LOVELY bruse where he managed to bite me, but I am gonna persevere and see where it take us

Wow Maryke what a wonderful post!!!!!

I don't say I don't smack Dylan, but yes not out of anger. Well I must be honest and say that I have smacked out of anger but Dylan reacted really badly to it (obviously) so I step away now to calm down first.

I have also smacked as in a reflex smack. Like him creeping up on me and biting me just on my inner thigh. I got such a fright and it was so sore I slapped him straight away. I had no control over that. It was like smacking at an insect.

I love the title of that book. I keep on thinking that we have the wrong mindset when it comes to parenting. We shouldn't be placeing all the focus on our kids issues as they are normal, developmental facets of growing up. What we have to do is learn how to handle our kids.

I also agree that there is a huge difference between punishment which so often breaks their spirit and leaves them feeling put down and then there is dicipline which is just enforcing the boundaries.

How you choose to enforce the boundaries is up to the parent. I use reward systems with Dylan and it works really well with him now that I can negotiate with him. He is learning that for every action there is a reaction. The trick here is to really stick to your guns. If you say no spaceship if you don't pack your toys away and he doesn't then there can't be a spaceship. ( This is where he gets naked for his bath and then runs to the lounge. His dad or I then fly him to the bath like a spaceship. )

The book that I have read have given me tips as to how to handle the situation, but not what to do to change my child. By changing my ways, he has changed his.

And then yes they age by a few months and there are a whole lot of new issues to deal with and you feel like you have to start all over again.

Okay, read the whole thread. Yay me! Sorry for the essay!

I've read LOADS of parenting books - LOADS, yet I still frequently find myself stumped thinking "Well what the f*ck now, I don't know how to deal with this, THERE ISN'T A BOOK COVERING THIS FECKING TOPIC!!!!!"

And that's the thing. You can read all the books in the world, it will only give you hundreds of different options to try and if your tired, pms'ed annoyed - you can have as many options as there are on this planet but you are going to fall back on what you know to do (whether it works or not!)

I read a book recently called "How to behave so your children will too" I loved it! Yes it had discipline techniques etc and how to communicate with older kids but the title just summed it up.

You've heard me say it before. B goes bananas the moment I lose my cool. It's like she knows the moment my fuse is wearing thin and she goes "mommy I don't know what to do, you are scaring me, let me react the way you are reacting to me" (no she doesn't say that but I swear that's how her body responds. We feed off each other, we mirror each other.

I was born with ZERO patience and had a baby that tested my ZERO patience every second of the day. I swear (and I know it sounds terrible) in those first couple of months if I could push her back where she emerged from I would have.

Then I learned to stay calm and assertive after hearing that punishment is when you act out towards your child out of anger / fear / frustration etc and they learn nothing except how to scream louder than you, slap harder than you can and discipline on the other hand is when you teach your child the difference between right and wrong by correcting them in a calm way, showing them that we get what we want, finish quicker, life is more fun when we just stay calm.

Like MariB, I'm not a fan of spanking. To each their own and I don't judge (out loud, lets be honest here) According to the book I mentioned there are 3 types of spanking. 1) The I'm mad and bigger than you so I'm going to 'hurt' you because I'm hurt/upset/angry. 2) The reactive spank, smack me and my reaction without thinking about it is to smack back. 3) And lastly the I have been thinking about this, have considered all the options, I'm not angry, upset but see no other option in this particular situation than a swift smack to get you back in line.

As you can imagine option 1 and to a certain extent 2 is wrong. 1 is basically bullying. 2 isn't really teaching your child much else than you smack, I smack. 3 is the lesser of the evils (this is what the book said on the topic)

For me firstly: I have so far only come across 1 or two moments in time where I wasn't mad/upset/angry when I thought about just giving a spank, it did work those 1 or two times, but for all the other times it's just not an option.
Secondly: She hits me right back and cries until the point of puking. Even if she doesn't hit me right back, tomorrow when she gets angry she hits me and rightly so because that's exactly how I taught her just yesterday to vent her frustration. Because it's what I did. (Take out the smacking part of this whole thing and insert any other thing, screaming, stomping my feet, throwing my toys out the cot, I'll be getting as much of those as I can dish out)

But quickly back to the books. I asked my mother "why the F don't I know what to do in A,B,C situation when I've read all these books" She said what we all know, they didn't have books, they perhaps had a couple of good friends they could ask but rarely did. They as parents decided what was unacceptable and what wasn't and the children towed the line, no questions asked. I know for people coming from broken homes really don't have good examples of this, but I got a hiding once or twice, I was left to cry it out, you name it - I don't hate my parents. I have great respect for them, even more now.

Lastly: For those from 'broken' homes I always like to point something out. Lets say like MariB you might have come from a military style discipline background, swinging the pendulum 180 degrees because you never want to put your children through it might just have exactly the same effect that strict discipline had on you.

My brother in law for example has a useless father, lazy as ass, couldn't hold a job for all the money in the world, never spent time with his children etc, he as a result hates his father for putting their mother through raising 3 boys and working full time while daddy was out drinking. So when he became a father he swung the pendulum the other way, became a workaholic to provide for his family what his father never could, which takes so much of his energy that he doesn't have time to spend with his kids but tell them look how much I'm providing for you. Thing is, the result is going to be exactly the same in both cases.

Balance really is the key. In everything that you are doing wondering if it's the right thing, if it's balanced then it is.