Thursday, August 12, 2010

Parenting (an almost) 3 year old

Making cookies with mommy in his "baking dress."
Making playdough with grandma Kay.

This cutie pie has been trying my patience recently.  He is almost 3 and acting like it.  He is full of opinions and spends a large portion of the day challenging me.  It is exhausting.   It can be about anything -- small and large.  I really don't know what to do about it. I have put a large portion of his toys in time out, him in time out, given him extra room time, offered rewards for cooperation, given him 2 choices to avoid conflict/give him a sense of control, and actually swatted his butt once or twice.  I would prefer to avoid the latter and would admit that is not something I want to incorporate into our discipline routinely.  He does get a warning beforehand and discussion afterward but it is still not something I feel good about.

I am hoping this challenging behavior is short lived.  In between the not-so-nice-episodes he is still my sweet, tender-hearted boy.   I am hoping to see more of that boy soon.

Other parents of 3+ year old kids -- how long did this phase last and what did you do to correct the not-so-nice behavior?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

at work we have all been trained with the "positive discipline" books/philosophy and i've found it useful in classroom situations. most of my coworkers are parents and they all really like it at home, too, from what i hear. a lot of it goes exactly counter to what one has learned from one's own upbringing, but makes total sense from a social-emotional standpoint. i recommend! :) liz

Our family said...

Alright -- I ordered the book for preschoolers. Always open to learning more. I did find the Parenting with Love and Logic book helpful but his behavior is still frustrating at times!