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!

You must be just great.

So what are you trying to get out of this thread OP? People to say yes you are marvellous and because my toddler found I pen I had missed while I went to the toilet and scribbled on the wall you are much better than me?

I just don’t understand what you are trying to get out of this apart from putting others down?

As people have explained you described normal toddler behaviour, and who hasn’t after a bad nights sleep, or a stressful day at work needed just a minute to breath before dealing with a toddler having a tantrum because their toy car is the wrong colour or something equally ridiculous . Let’s be honest dealing with a toddler mid tantrum never words anyway .

Has the OP come back recently to defend herself against the jellus haterz?

Slow clap. Well done you. Your DC sound a bit boring to be honest. My nearly 2 year old is super into biting and tells me to 'go-way' if she doesn't like what I'm doing. I accidentally missed a crayon that had rolled under the table and the very moment I went to put the kettle on she drew all over the wall but do you know what? Who cares? That's normal. It cleaned off. She's exploring her boundaries and thats ok. If you're toddler isnt having tantrums or getting into adventures then you're missing out and so are they. They should be asserting their independence, they should be having a meltdown because they asked for a banana and then you've given them....a banana but in that split second they decided they wanted a orange or whatever. Dd is very independent and verbal so she wants to do things her own way and I encourage that. I consider it leadership skills rather than the terrible 2s although she might need to sort out the biting for the future employment market.

Dd1 never went through the terrible 2s or 3s. She has only tantrimed a handful of times

Dd2 started the terrible 2s at 9 months and is still going strong at 17 months

Jane Jeffer is my new hero for that pic!

My kids were perfect at 2. And 3

Then they hit 4 and oh my god did I know it!!!!! My perfect child turned into something out of this world!

Good for you. Not all children are the same.

My 5 year old has additional needs so was bloody hard work as a toddler and yes I did and still do have to walk away from time to time

I found the obnoxious ones the worse!!

My DS sailed through being a toddler with very rare tantrums and being relatively biddable. He then hit puberty and turned into the Hulk, with huge anger problems that have haunted him ever since. 95% of the time he is delightful, charming, well mannered and helpful, but when he's in a snit it is awful to witness - it is mainly internalised and he punches walls or throws things at walls. He is never physically intimidating but his distress is written all over his face. I would have rather had a 2 year old tantrumming than a 20 year old so self loathing.

One of my absolute favourite memories of my DS is him covered in flour when he was about 20 months.
I had had PND and my DM had died a few weeks earlier. Life could not have felt more shit I had a toddler and a preschooler. We had done baking but I hadn't completely tidied it away. Left the room for some reason and came back to find flour everywhere. But I actually didn't care.
And it made me laugh for the first time in weeks.
It was flour, it was safe, it would clear up, no one was hurt.
He was an absolute demon and much more annoying and destructive on many other occasions!

You'll get there op. They'll just be a bit later. It's nothing you're doing better than others.

🙄

@maybemaybeII

They are 2.5yrs and 16m
I have an 18 month age gap, at those ages they were bliss. I was often found replying on this board "it will get easier! " because at that age, it was easy.

Another 18 months diwn the line and yes, not so much. Much much harder work.

People are different, children are different, external factors and pressures are different .

I didn't experience and terrible two's. It wa delayed til 3 and 4.

I don't comment on many posts preferring to lurk but starting a thread off the back of someone having a shit time is spectacularly unkind.
All kids are different, my son is much harder work now at 5 than he ever was at 2.
Its a firm "smug off" from me.

I strongly suggest you hide the smug and read up on child development!

I've not only raised one of my own (who was a delight at 2 but a bloody nightmare from about 3.5 to nearly 5!)

I've also been caring for other babies and toddlers from the age of 13, have 2 younger siblings and umpteen younger cousins. I've probably cared for over 50 in my time perhaps as many as 100 - whats your child care experience aside from your own?

All children are individuals yes, but human development is fairly predictable in an approximate way.

It's actually a cause for concern if a child DOESN'T rebel/push for independence. I've a few friends with children with certain learning disabilities who would have LOVED if their child had been a "terrible 2er" But because of their health didn't go through that stage or went through it at a MUCH older and hard to manage (physically) age.

It's a part of NORMAL development to strive for independence, autonomy at certain stages of a child's development.

And yes another factor you may want to consider is SOME children without learning disabilities also seem to "store up" their "mischief" for later stages.

I've known several parents who had it relatively easy during the toddler stage...only for those children to REALLY Strike out in the teen years.

In addition, not all parents have the resources to cope either, you've no idea what else people might be dealing with.

Try and have some empathy and compassion and understanding and maybe acknowledge that you're not perfect...just lucky!

Because most of life is just that...luck!!

I'm deeply suspicious of anyone with supposedly healthy children who are ALWAYS well behaved. IF It's true it can actually be an indicator of other worrying issues.

A child should feel comfortable and safe to let rip on occasion, if they don't that's also of concern.

They are 2.5yrs and 16m ahh so dc 2 hasn't even reached this stage yet and even dc 1 is barely into it! Don't count your chickens op!

I apparently rarely tantrummed and not until almost 4, bro had his moments but apparently he calmed fairly quickly with hugs, always a cuddle person (which earned my mum withering looks from people like you if she did this in public because she was "rewarding" bad behaviour but she wasn't she was calming him down - he'd then be told off for the tantrum but the busy bodies weren't around for that!)...

My sis the dc3? Fucking nightmare from 1.5 years to now! And she's in her 40's! And frankly it's one reason why I'm NC with her - a 38 year old woman shouting and stamping her feet in the street because she was given the wrong coffee is shameful!

And yes I would say we were patented fairly similarly in terms of discipline at that stage.

So you'd prefer to just yell at them all day everyday instead of letting them have 30min of telly? that you even briefly thought these were the only 2 options SHOWS how inexperienced and ill informed you are.

There are a multitude of other options. 30 mins of telly EVERY DAY or even most days is hardly prize parenting either.

I was LUCKY to have a child that was never particularly enamoured with anything screen based (she's music mad though) and who (due to a disability) doesn't like most "junk" food...

But she still had her moments!

A lazy parent will choose the easy option most/every day of placating the child/doing anything for a peaceful life. This may work short term but long term is very poor parenting.

Btw my dd is now 19, has a good full time job, has applied for uni (she took some time out of education due to issues around her disability, which also got her a bit down) and just this week found out she has a place starting next year, has her own place that she loves and has good friends she does lots with when they're not working (can be a bit tricky as most work shifts), not just the usual clubbing (though she does that too) but they go to concerts, plays (one is an aspiring director who's just started working for a local company backstage), quiz nights, camping...

My children are adults - you have a long road ahead and TV & carbs will not solve every problem. Good luck - you'll need it.

Totally agree with this! I've actually found the last couple years/current stage the hardest as once they're adults/nearly adults there's very little you can do with them! It's SO hard after many years of "active" parenting to have to learn to step back and just hope/pray you've done a good job!!

"I'm surprised children are drawing on walls when mine are rarely out of my sight.”

I actually encouraged it when he has shown me what he did proudly. Some of the writings and drawings were so good, I felt sad when I had to paint over it few years later.( after taking photo of it.)

Oh boy. I think this might actually be more eye roll inducing than the OP.

You are basing all this purely on just your two children OP. My eldest never had one tantrum and has always been so easy going, he was easy at age 2 and is still easy now at 8. But his 3 younger siblings? Completely different story! However I agree that people’s perceptions are a factor and I don’t like the way some people talk about or treat toddlers.

My two were easy at 2. One was a horror at 4, the other at 6. Then they were both the easiest teens you could think of. This is down to exactly one thing: blind chance. On a population level, two is an age when a lot of small children go through a stage of very fast development that can make them challenging to be around. That is quite simply how it is.

Hope that helps, OP.

@Duchessofealing 😂

@GrumpyHoonMain my ds must be a genius then

What fresh hell is this, someone's just shit on a moonbeam and came out perfect!

@hulahooper2

We all get the ‘terrible’ at some age , maybe yours are waiting till they are teenagers !

With two daughters we never experienced the ‘terrible’ anythings. So sorry about that.

Call me all the names you like.

If you’re feeling inferior because you DID experience something, there’s nowt anyone, except you, can do about that.

This thread is similar to someone mentioning they’ve had ‘a hard day’ and their listener then saying: “Oh, and of course I HAVEN’T had a hard day!”

You all sound like great fun.

When you think about the massive spectrum of human life, surely some DC will have tantrums, be awful teenagers and others will be easy going and not remotely hard work all their lives. There is always such a wide variety in behaviour just as there is in educational attainment. So some DC will be easy and others will be difficult to manage from time to time and others will be very difficult more or less from being born.