The Terrible Twos Got Nothing On The Fucking Fours
by Cookie
Whatever anyone tells you about the “terrible twos” is nothing. I don’t know how it got such a bad name. Sure. This is the age where a kid learns to throw a temper tantrum, but they’re still kinda a baby, right? It’s not really that big of a deal. We just put Buddy in a 30 second time out and try not to laugh at his pouty little face.
So says the mom of an almost four year old. Yes. We are entering the affectionately named “Fucking Fours.” And the “Terrible Twos” ain’t got nothing on those.
It’s like it happened overnight. All of a sudden, the fits are monumental. Instantaneous. Ridiculous. Loud. Frequent.
There is door slamming and tears and screaming. It’s like a tiny teenager is stuck in there but can’t get out. And it is very very angry that It has to wait to go to the park until Its brother wakes up from his nap.
The the little brother wakes up and goes to the mini-Hulk-teenager thing and tries to comfort it and promptly gets hit in the head. And then I get mad, because he didn’t fucking do anything, and now both of them are screaming.
So, although I am not opposed to spanking…..I use it occasionally and feel like a parent has to have this in their arsenal, I did spank her then. The official rule is “we don’t hit each other in this house” but in this case and eye for an eye felt appropriate. I asked her how she felt about being spanked, and she said it hurt her. So I asked her if she thought it hurt Buddy when she hit him? I asked her if she thought that he was crying because she hurt him and he didn’t like it either.
I don’t know if it worked. She seemed to get the point at the time, but seriously, yesterday was bullshit.
Everything is a struggle. Eat your breakfast. Take off your pajamas. Put on your shoes. Stop jumping on the bed. Don’t strangle your brother.
In fact. Strangle me. I will gladly volunteer as long as you finish the job. Because if today is another day like yesterday, I’m looking at a slow, painful death or maybe a stroke.
Why are little people so psychotic sometimes. OMG. Is she psychotic? Or just almost four?
Please pass the tequila.
At the risk of having you feel like I’m telling you what to do rather than just commiserate (and I can, believe me), a suggestion? Planned ignoring. She’s at the age where she can understand it and if you catch the behaviour while it’s fairly new, the process won’t take as long to work. It’s something I learned whilst taking a parenting course in Applied Behaviour Analysis for my Autistic son… it took about two weeks to work for him, but the results were phenomenal. It not only curbed the behaviours, I ended up with a child who was more than happy to help me get him ready to go to school in the morning… my other son. Planned ignoring works on anyone, not just Autistics. The best part? No time-outs. When kids get older time-outs often don’t work.
Here’s a pdf that explains it. http://cecp.air.org/familybriefs/docs/PlannedIgnoring.pdf
In the meantime, here’s the tequila. Best of luck my dear.
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This is great, and really helpful. Thank you so much!!!!
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Phew! No problem at all. I believe it’s a technique every human being should know – I even use it on my mother sometimes. haha!
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Do you use the one,two,three method? This saved my life as well as my kids’. I hardly ever had to count to three! Oh, and girls are more psychotic and dramatic – at least mine was! Mine are 21 and 19, you will survive as long as you keep the tequila nearby,
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Totally use it. Sometimes she just doesn’t care.
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haha I have an almost 4 year old and it is the same shit at our house these days. I’ve read the term Threenager somewhere and that about sums it up. The moods! The drama! Fuck me. The 2s were a breeze in comparison.
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Totally. I can’t even take the tantrums of my two year old seriously. They are delightfully cute in comparison to the “What the hell just happened?” fits the older one throws.
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