Lily K

You can only be a good mother if you’re not at the end of your rope. Ask for a spa day?!

It’s nice to have a day, and my daughter’s babysitter organized an extremely cute hand-painted picture frame with a picture of her and me. I cried! Unfortunately that puts into greater relief the fact that my husband doesn’t plan anything, typically. (I’m “the planner” – one year he was even like “I thought you’d plan something” – but I draw the line at taking on the burden of planning my own celebration…!) I’m leaving space for tomorrow to be different, and I even gave my daughter (age 3) instructions this time (:o), but I’m keeping expectations low. Two days ago she said “You’re the best mama in the whole world!” unprompted. Every day is my day, good and bad.

(I didn’t tell her the no default consequence part!)

I second a lot of the comments below and have used similar strategies (connected consequences, picking battles, limiting damage, removing myself from the situation) mostly successfully with my now-three year old (whoa feels so old!). What I think I could potentially add to the discussion? is my “general theory of consequences.” It goes something like this:

tl;dr: 1) pick only enforceable/winnable battles, 2) pick consequences you’d actually like to implement, 3) give yourself a time-delayed out if it has to be done, 4) make your kid feel sorry for you! 4b) consider stepping in to abate the tantrum…

1) Don’t pick a battle you can’t win. Winning means that your child’s non-compliance has an enforceable consequence within your domain of control. As frustrating as some behavior might be, there are certain things you *cannot* force your child do, for example eat (barring the foie gras technique, which I think we can agree should be out!), stop crying, or sleep. So: You have to nap (Not ideal), but You have to stay in your crib with the lights off for 45 minutes (Yes – at least until your toddler can climb out and turn on the lights herself…!). This can mean dealing with some pretty unpleasant behavior in the short term that you have no ability to enforce against, but I find the gain in credibility worth the pain. (My husband does Not think about this in advance and has a much harder time with our toddler…)

2) Pick consequences that you would enjoy or prefer to enforce rather than consequences that take work for you; the ideal consequence is a default or non-action on your part. My toddler doesn’t eat enough (whole other story), so unfortunately, I can’t do the ‘withdraw food as consequence’ shtick. Then I won’t want to enforce the consequence. Telling her she has to clean it up herself before we do something fun worked better. However, if I don’t actually feel like going to the park but my toddler does, I’m happy to say We’re not going to the park until you (put your pants on/pick up your toys/stop whining). If I *do* want to go to music class, I tell her I’m going and she runs to join me or I tell her she’s getting strapped in the stroller rather than riding on my shoulders. Rather than getting my still-splashing-after-I-gave-her-three-warnings kid out of the bath, I just open the drain. Soon enough, she’s getting chilly and wants out herself. Less work for me!

3) Give yourself a time-delayed out if something has to be done. The best consequences are immediate, but that’s not always practical. If my daughter won’t clean up her toys but grandpa’s coming over and going to banana-peel on a magnatile, I tell her I’ll clean them up, but then she can’t play with them for two days or something like that. (Otherwise, I’d leave them out until she wants me to play something else with her, at which point I won’t until she cleans up.)

4) Show your feelings and cultivate empathy! For hitting and the like, the real reason we don’t do them (obvs) is because we care about other people. While this is most effective on better developed frontal cortices, it works with my toddler. From an early age, I showed her I was happy when she did what I asked and sad when she ignored or hurt me. Now most of the time all I have to do is say “That makes Mama sad!”, and she’ll say (literal quote from today) “I don’t want you to be sad! I’m sorry, Mama!” (I got a hug, too <3 ). And then I gave her a cuddle and she did what I asked.

4b. Perhaps more controversial? Consider stepping in to abate the tantrum. Nobody’s having fun if a child is wailing. Even if *I* can’t understand why the fact that she can’t take her scooter is a drama of existential stakes, she’s really upset (if not as performatively as perhaps her tantrum suggests). I don’t want her to be upset, and I want her to know that I *care* that she’s upset (see empathy above). When my toddler is screaming on the floor (very rare now! it does get easier!), I go over to her, put her on my lap, and tell her I love her. In the next breath, I tell her I’m not going to change my mind, and why (waayy too many stairs en route; no good default consequence because *I* end up carrying the scooter when I can’t force her to carry or ride it). Cuddling her helps her calm down faster and get to a point where we can talk and “reason” together; maybe we’ll even come up with a compromise. (Scooter time in the hallway for five minutes? or at the park after we get back?) Of course, it’s important that her tantrum NOT result in me changing my mind (battle, once engaged, must be won, even if after the fact it was a stupid one…) so that it doesn’t teach her that whining works. But I’m totally ok with teaching her that expressing her feelings Does work, even when they’re too overwhelming for her to manage with her words, and I’m confident that as she matures, her self-expression will, too.