I remember when I was pregnant seeing kids in movies go into these full blown tantrums and thinking oh that will never be my child. Or the children in the grocery store who screams at the top of their lungs and thinking the same. If only I could go back in time to that sweet sweet naive Leah and laugh because she obviously didn’t know just how strong willed (and stubborn)her precious baby girl would be.
After camp this past summer we started the inevitable time out chair. Hannah had just a little too much freedom and well in a sense needed to be reminded who was boss. (Even though we all know pretty much toddlers are the boss of the house lol) thankfully it worked! She would be bad, sit in the time out chair, say sorry and problem was fixed she didn’t do it again. As she started to get older she knew and would walk herself over to the chair herself flip out and be good to go. We of course had to adapt to situations since everywhere we go there isn’t a timeout chair but, she learned quickly she can be put in timeout no matter where we are.
She has been time out free for what felt like days! That is until the start of this week. For some reason I feel like her little butt is glued to that chair! Why? Full blown temper tantrums. Yes the ones where the kid throws him or herself to the ground and flail their body around. Those tantrums that I just stand there and think “how the heck does that make you feel better” “what exactly does that accomplish.” I honestly think there’s that specific kind of temper tantrum button in her brain and when she’s old enough it gets pushed (yes I’ve seen the movie inside out) because unless Mickey is doing something I don’t know about I have no idea how she learned this.
Currently it’s 8:10 and she’s already thrown one temper tantrum that resulted in time out. I know this is a stage and she is just seeing how far she can get. Even though this particular stage is so frustrating my biggest thing is to not let her see me get frustrated. It’s happened before and the results helped no one. But I’ve found if I stay calm, get down to her level and we talk it helps a ton and she realizes quickly how ridiculous whatever she was throwing a fit over is. The terrible twos are rough but I know I’ll miss how tiny she is so I’ll take it all in now because in a blink of an eye she will be older and we will laugh at all of this.
So if anyone knows where to get an I’m a permanent member of the timeout club shirt let me know! I think she will get a lot of use out of it in the months to come. And another thing. Sometimes you just have to laugh at what resulted in a temper tantrum (usually involves jake not giving hannah a hug back)
the picture is from Hannahs very first Timeout.