Does my toddler sound spoilt & advice on how to deal with this?

[spoilt4advice]

I have a 2.5 year old and I genuinely believe his behaviour is really spoilt and goes beyond a normal toddler tantrum.

We go to the park and when he screams "it's mine!" if another child is on a ride.

If a parcel arrives he will automatically assume it's for him and will go mad unless he opens it first.
Today he threw his toys at the wall and wouldn't stop screaming until the box was opened.

When he saw next door neighbours toddler boy with a pram he wanted one and wanted to take his.
I ordered him one next day delivery as that night all he moaned about was "my pram. I want pram".

If anyone dares moves it touches his toy he will have a tantrum.

For example in the garden he has a bubble blowing machine and I turned it off.

He had a massive tantrum and he actually went and turned it back on and then turned it back off as if to prove a point "its mine".

I really try my best with him as he is extremely hard work and demanding.

To be honest I literally count down the hours until he goes to bed some days as his behaviour is just too much.

Most days are battles with him and he is very whiney and I feel bed a I feel as if I am always eithe saying "no" or telling him off.

He also spits at me and hits me.

He will start spitting at me if I start eating food despite him having his food.

Currently looking at nursery for him for when I go back to work and for some respite and time away from him.

I take him out once a day.
He has garden toys.
A balance bike.

I try and keep him active and do fun activities with him.

TIA x

It’s common for toddlers and pre-schoolers to want what other people have.

Saying that, you are making this worse with your actions by buying stuff just because he demands it. For example ordering the buggy and buying stuff in the shops when he demands, encourages him to do that to get his way in future. You might have the money to buy everything and desire to bend to his will but if he does that at nursery or school then his peers won’t accept it. This is the age where he should be starting to crack his emotional regulation. I’m not saying that other 3 year olds have sorted that milestone but he’s going to have problems with his peers if he isn’t able to deal better with difficult emotions like jealousy and disappointment. Do you really think that teachers at nursery and school are going to do what he wants if he kicks off?

Help him with his emotions. Put words on his feelings and encourage other ways to deal with things. You can turn this around but it needs you and your h to focus on the end goal. He’s had years of you and him indulging this and it will take time to get out of the habit.

I brought him a helicopter and a new Play Doh set over last week and I notice his behaviour has defo gotten worse.

With how hot it has been and being indoors more I just didn't want him to get bored and keep him entertained.

Toddlers don't need tons and tons of stuff. If anything too many toys can be overwhelming. And buying 90% of what he wants is teaching him that he just has to make a fuss and he gets what he wants. Which is only going to lead to more bad behaviour in the future because you've set up an incentive to do it. Repeat my friend's mantra of 'I will not give in to toddler tantrums.'

As a child I knew that I wouldn't generally get the chocolate bar at the corner shop/ice cream etc. I might ask, but I'd be told off if I whinged. So (generally!) didn't. And it made it all the more of a treat when I did. If you always get what you want nothing is special. And the toy helicopter or whatever soon gets forgotten.

Does this not give you the massive ick?

I don’t think I could be with my DH if he had no ambition for my child to achieve anything when they got older. I don’t care how rich I am, that would really do it for me.

I couldn’t agree more with this.
Every time a child shows bad or challenging behaviour people always assume they must be ND.
It’s fucking cruel to those of us who have ND children and who have taught them not to be brats.
My ND daughter was an angel until she hit puberty -because I didn’t give into demands, she knew that ‘no’ meant no.
I genuinely could weep .
Not every child is ND just like not every parent is a bad parent raising a disrespectful bratty child.

Jesus, I knew this will come up... why are people in this country so obsessed with this? What happened to different temperaments and characters? Why does everybody have to be ND if they are simply feisty or introverted?

This is an excellent post! Thanks for sharing.

you Absolutely need to get him into nursery / preschool as well. Although I would suggest he’s going to find the sharing very difficult… should have started him months ago.

blimey what a horrible child you are now responsible for. and you want to send him to nursery so he can be horrible to even more people?
only you can sort this out and the sooner the better. actions must have consequences all you do is reward his bad behaviour. he kicks off because he wants something so you buy it for him. are you prepared to do this for another 18 years? you are a parent and you both need to start parenting.

stop giving in. if he kicks and spits whilst you are eating move away from him, leave him on his own. have a naughty step, a sticker reward chart. children dont just behave well by osmosis, they are taught how to do it by their parents because basically thats your job.

Being 3 is often called being a threenager the same way that terrible twos is a well known phase.

I agree that the suggestion of ND is very unreasonable when there’s lots of hints in OP’s post why parenting is an issue.

We are human beings and sometimes life throws big feelings at us. You can’t stop the world from making your son have feelings like anger, jealousy and disappointment but you can help him deal with them. The longer you don’t say no, the harder it will be to reverse the negative effects that are coming your way.

I think YABU because you said 'If a parcel arrives he will automatically assume it's for him and will go mad unless he opens it first.
Today he threw his toys at the wall and wouldn't stop screaming until the box was opened.'

To me, this reads as 'he continued his bad behaviour until I gave in, and let him do what he wanted, again.

Also the buying him whatever he's wanted? Doesn't help. It's still you 'giving in' to his bad behaviour.

He continues with the bad behaviour, because it works. It gets him what he wants?

The only way to stop him holding you to ransome with horrible behaviour is to stop rewarding it?

It doesn't matter whether he has any neurodiversity or not with regards to how to stop the behaviour, because the solution is exactly the same?

Bad behaviour does not ever get him what it is he wants.

He wants to open your parcel, 'No, that parcel is mine, it's not for you' and take it out of sight. he does not get to open it.

He wants another child's toy, 'That's a nice toy. Maybe you could get that for Xmas/Birthday, but that's little Sarah's toy.' You do not immediately run and buy him the same toy.

He wants to play on something at the park, 'That little boy is having his turn on the slide. No, it isn't your slide, but you can line up and have a turn too if you do it nicely.' If he doesn't wait for his turn, screams etc, he goes straight home.

He spits at you when you try to eat, 'I won't sit at the table and eat with you if you spit.' You move away from the table and do not sit down again with him.

Every single time his bad behaviour is addressed, but not rewarded. He will get the message eventually that screaming/hitting/spitting etc is useless.

Just remember, that every time you give in to him to try to stop the behaviour, you're simply proving to him that it works...

I haven’t RTFT but from my experience 99% of parenting is saying no and establishing boundaries.

What you do right now is a typical example of classical conditioning. Your toddler screams and tantrums, you give him what he wants, next time he screams and tantrums some more because it makes things appear. So you are reinforcing and supporting the behaviour that you find unpleasant.

More importantly, your DC gets a life lesson that money and things can buy happiness. If this is something you want to teach your child it’s fine, but it’s worth being aware of the message you are sending him.

Or even, in this case, poorly parented.

This is brilliant advice

And even if there was neurodivergence at play, this type of parenting would not be helping that child at all
Children who are neurodivergent also need boundaries, of which there are none here

When mine were younger and they saw something they wanted in a shop I always said, let me take a picture we can add it to your birthday/ Christmas list. This seemed to help as it wasn't a no but equally they understood that they couldn't just have things every time we went shopping. 9/10 those things didn't even make the list as they were forgotten about 5 minutes later!

Thank you to all those posting, really appreciate it.

So this morning and afternoon:

He was playing with play dough, I only got out 2 tubs and he went and got more. I asked him once to put the tubs back and he shook his head and said "no".

I immediately removed them from him and put them back.
Began crying and threw himself to the floor.
I began signing and after about 6 minutes he stopped.

He asked me to read one book to him and whilst I was doing it he went and got another and demanded I read that one too him instead.
I sat and folded my arms and told him I would stop reading unless we finished the book I was reading to him.
Tantrum for 5 minutes and then stopped when I just sat there.

After dinner he wanted to go to his play room instead of going to this bedroom for his nap.
I told him no and again he threw himself on the floor and began screaming.

I began singing and ignored him and he held my hand as he walked to his bedroom.

Before he woke up this morning I hid the majority of his toys but the only thing he has is the V Tech ice cream cart and I am thinking of putting that one away too.

The book is arriving tomorrow.

I want to knock all of this on the head before nursery .

Well done OP x

You have to stop giving him the things about which he’s having a tantrum eg, the parcel and the pram. You’re rewarding him.

What you are describing in your update OP is common and normal things toddlers have tantrums about. It’s unfortunately just the reality of having a toddler, you need infinite patience as often the things they tantrum about are so silly and insignificant.

Well done for facing up to the difficult moments today. I hope you can see now that he can have a tantrum and the world doesn’t end. It passes after a few minutes and they’re often not even bothered at the end of it about the thing they had a tantrum about in the first place. This is why it’s so important not to give in to them, it makes your life incredibly difficult in the long term constantly trying to give your child everything they want all the time. It’s just not realistic or sustainable and makes a very unhappy child as they can’t cope when things don’t go their way.

Well done OP it sounds like you have really grasped the nettle. Good luck to you and keep going, it feels relentless sometimes but worth it. I hope your partner is onboard as well.

Well done OP on your update! It’s not easy but it does get easier!! You’ll also make your little boy happier in the long term, you’re doing great and he will thank you for this when he’s older!

You are both literally teaching him how to get what he wants with bad behaviour, and you are re enforcing this daily. He won’t stop it- why would he? You are teaching it to him. This is 100% a you and DH issue and you are creating a horrible child and probably nasty man in the process.

if you and DH don’t sort it out big time, you will have a horrid time parenting him until you are dead. You will have to pick up the pieces of his bad behaviour for ever.

Keep going! You have made a great start.

Your husband sounds unhinged, OP @spoilt4advice