Whew, I am STRUGGLING y’all! My son turned two in April, and it truly feels like the toddler tantrums all of a sudden were much more fierce and much more frequent!
I feel like I have tried all the things: counting with him, calm-down corner, naming his feelings — but man, is it hard! I am trying to be empathetic towards his feelings, and be there for connection instead of escalating with him. We all know an escalated parent cannot calm an escalated child!
An additional problem we have encountered recently is his newest phase: hitting and biting. Now, he won’t hit or bite ANYONE except for my husband and me. We know this is because we are his comfort, and he feels like he can express himself with us, but it is still extremely difficult to keep calm in those situations.
I was nearing my breaking point with the whole thing and didn’t know what to do. I was scrolling through TikTok, and a video about The Observant Mom website popped up . . .
On this site, you type in your child’s due date and she gives you what developmental milestone they are in! Turns out, my guy is in Toddler Milestone Five: Persistence and Insistence. Yay, lucky me! Just kidding (I know it’s a phase and will soon pass)!
Learning the Approach My Child Needs
Digging deeper into Toddler Milestone Five, the first thing that caught my eye was in this stage they are more likely to BITE.
“Okay,” I thought, “So it is completely normal.” My greatest concerns are how can I quickly get this behavior to stop, and how can I keep my cool while doing it. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a toddler come up and chomp down on your thigh, but it isn’t the easiest to not react and remain completely calm!
At the end of each milestone, the Observant Mom shares articles for those who are surviving in that stage and those who are thriving. I can confidently say we are merely surviving. So I checked out her article A Congruent Response, not a Gentle One. I am sure everyone is familiar with the term gentle parenting, and that is truly what I strive to be. Sometimes I feel like that term is thrown around, but gentle parenting isn’t actually gentle!
The Observant Mom discusses in the article how we need to have a congruent response to each situation with our toddlers. Yeah, I know, another parenting buzzword — but it truly makes so much sense!
She uses a fantastic example of when our kids are jumping/playing on the couch and we want them to get down because we know they can get hurt. The congruent response would be to grab them and put them down — not ask them over and over and over to get down. We don’t offer a choice (like in “gentle parenting”) but gently place their body down on the ground.
I have started implementing this approach with our toddler tantrums, and it has truly been helpful for my own state of mind! Instead of asking 1000x to stop hitting, I show him once what he can hit and remove myself from his hitting range.
All of this to say, in the wake of toddler tantrums we are all learning and growing together. Sometimes as moms, we are going to lose our cool, and sometimes we are going to have the most perfect parenting response! We are all doing our best with the resources and knowledge we have available to us. Be kind to yourself as you and your child grow together. You got this, Mama!
