There is no such thing as "the terrible twos"?

[maybemaybeII]

Not a TAAT but there is an active thread about how parenting a toddler is hard and many parents leave their child in the cot and just walk out for 5minutes to get a breather because they can't cope.

I have two toddlers of different ages, very close age gap, but have never yelled at them or put them in "time out", or felt the need to walk away from them because they're misbehaving and driving me crazy. They've never drawn on the walls, or poured a packet of flour on the flour, or gone in to my makeup bag and destroyed my lipstick.. all the stuff you see on Instagram from time to time with a caption "toddlers are dicks/arseholes".

I'm not a perfect mum, my toddlers are currently watching Hey Duggee and about to have pain au chocolat's for breakfast (!!), and yes it is absolutely exhausting having a toddler, but AIBU to think some of the blame with badly behaved toddlers does in fact lie with the parent and "terrible twos" in bullshit? Getting my tin hat on!

I kinda agree with you a bit on your OP on stuff like drawing on walls and pulling stuff like flour out of cupboards.
Mine don’t draw on the walls because all the pens are out of reach and get put away after we draw and craft.
I don’t let them in the kitchen cupboards either.

But the rest of what you said is an embarrassing brag really.
Every child is different, as a parent we can only do so much, we are not fully responsible for our child’s personality.

I realise I sound a little defensive! I love my kids of course, but more so I'm just genuinely shocked, when information about child development norms are so readily available these days, that people are surprised or judgemental about small kids doing small kid things.

I do know someone who took a picture of their sofa after their four year old had smeared an entire giant tub of sudocrem all over it, and I have to admit my first thought was my god, how long must he have been alone for in order to get the entire contents of the tub over the entire sofa

I also think about that 😅 @CloudyVanilla

😅

Mine don’t draw on the walls because all the pens are out of reach and get put away after we draw and craft.
I always thought mine were out of reach, but dd still find them. They also worked out how to open the door safety lock things by the age of 3 and they both were climbers . My DS would pull a box behind him to climb onto things before he was one year old. He was a houdini and managed to climb over a stairgate into the garage, climb on a pushchair and grab the string of the up and over garage door and got out into the street, when he was 2.

I can't imagine you spouting that view to people in real life. If you have if love to hear what reaction you got.

Taking a 5 min breather because kids are hard work doesn't make you a bad parent. I really hope you aren't a health visitor because you lack compassion and ooze smugness.

Not sure it’s anything to do with parenting, as my sis had two extremes. DNephew is so laid back that his terrible twos went almost unnoticed. Enter Dniece, 3 years later. She had such bad tantrums that she used to walk up to strangers and smack or kick them.

@CloudyVanilla, not long at all! My daughter did that with the contents of a bottle of sun cream. She was 2, my son was a baby and I'd taken him along the hall to the bathroom to change a dreadful nappy. I was out of the room for five minutes and when I got back the sofa was covered in cream. It was never the same again.

Completely understandable @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g! However, the smearability of sun cream is way more than the smearability of sudocrem, he would have had to individually scoop out each handful, can you imagine

I also thought our craft supplies were out of reach; my DD did a lovely oil pastel painting on the wall when I was heavily pregnant with my second and thought she was napping soundly in the next room

We kept that for a few weeks because it was very good actually

@AfterTheStorm123 yes, loads of messy play in the water tray or dry rice in the tuff tray, painting and drawing (they have an art easel), lots of reading, building blocks and construction toys too. We've just been out to the park for 2.5hrs walking the dog and running around so they're definitely not sedate. But it was a good observation to make just in case.

@CloudyVanilla that is probably more my point and I didn't word it very well in my OP. I'm surprised children are drawing on walls when mine are rarely out of my sight.

By the way I never said my kids never had tantrums. They absolutely do! But I don't yell at them for it or get exasperated by it, that's just small children expressing themselves as they lack the communication skills. As for being "arseholes" or naughty or misbehaving or hitting me or biting other children? No, none of that.

A huge amount of how children behave is how they are patented. I see calm, educated friends who have good routines for their children and don't scream and shout at them who gave have calm children in return. The parents that shout, feed their kids junk and everything is chaotic have loud chaotic children.

Also a lot of the time, the loud shout chaotic people were patented like that and their friends patent like that so all they know is children that shout, run around and play up and do they think that is normal or think it is their child's fault.

One of the best pieces of parenting advice I ever got was 'remember, whether they are good or bad it is just a phase'.

*parent not patent

Well done, you have earnt your boasting badge.

I have a 2 and 4 year old, my eldest was FERAL at 2! He was like demon...went through a biting stage, had mega tantrums, it was horrific! I had a newborn too..,

I'm a teacher and some kids are just hard work no matter how fabulous their parents are!

FWIW my 4 year old is now very polite and gentle.

My 2 year old is an absolute angel... I am far from
smug..

I rmemember being smug about DS1's eating habits. He ate everything. And because I am an adventurous cook i assumed this was because of me and 'exposure'.

Then he turned 3.

Turns out that this is very much a developmental phase also.....

anyway, he's 11 now and just now able to branch out. My true bit of excitement in 2019 was when he got semi addicted to Wahaca's guacamole with all that lemon and coriander and raw onion. Happy days.

Here you go.

Threenager stage hasn't begun yet.Dont be too smug!!

@Duchessofealing weve passed the fucking fours and the fuckme fives and now into the scary sixes

My 2 year old was a delight.

The threenager though.

There is a lot of autism in my family. The kids with autism tend to be little horrors when they're little but the most laidback teenagers when they go through puberty. However, the normal ones in my family do it the other way around. In many ways it can be slightly less concerning to have a tantrumming toddler than a tantrumming runaway teenager who might have some wrong friends. Theres less control options to keep them safe.

@Isthisfinallyit "the normal ones" ?

My eldest has suspected ASD, he is not "abnormal".

However, the normal ones in my family do it the other way around

I believe the term you’re looking for is neurotypical. Rather than the horrendous “normal”.

Meh, Autistic me and my two Autistic DC refer to NT people as 'the normals'.

I won't be wasting a hand wring on that one.