Ohh the two's are here! Part one

The TWO"S are here! I remember thinking when my children were one how I loved that age, then I started thinking the two's are coming. I never had an older mom to go to for advice. I was the oldest of my friends having babies. So now here it is baby number 3 she is now 7 and I have learned a lot during this last one. The past few months most of the moms coming to me for advice was how to understand the "two's" age.  Every child is different, so this may not pertain to every child. Here is how my "two's" started. 

My two year old loved to get into my purse to see if there was gum. She loved gum, and lip gloss. She is my girly girly out of all of them. She knows that getting into mommies purse was a NO. I caught her in it one morning and I told her she was disobeying the rules and not respecting my things, because she didn't ask. Well she didn't like that very much. I picked up my purse and put it in my room, what I walked out to is every mothers nightmare! There she was sitting on the arm of the red micro fiber new couch with a Sharpie in hand. I looked at the arm of my couch and well lets just say it had marks all over it. She looked at me and smiled, not the smile like "I want you to be proud of me," but the smile that was hahah mom I got you back. All I could do was try to breathe at this point. Norwex, the Enviro Cloth which would have taken it off was not around then in the US so that wasn't an option. Most of us want to just yell and scream at them, that is our first reaction to do this. This is what we need to change as parents. I picked her up and put her in her room and looked at her eye to eye and told her how VERY disappointed I was with her for again not respecting things in the house. What I am getting at is we are so quick to yell and not really take time out talking to our children. At this age you have a very short window to have them understand and not have their attention go else where. Sit down and explain why you are sad for what they have done, what does the word respect mean. We so many times talk to our children at this age like babies. Talk to them using adult words. I then told her she needed to sit in her room, and when she was ready to say sorry she could come out. I have always done that with all three of my children. I tried the time out for their age, the corner, it never worked. This has been the one thing that has worked. 

For homework day one with the twos, instead of yelling at your child, talk with them letting them know how sad you are and disappointed you are. Letting them come out of their rooms when they are ready. If you feel they are not ready to come out let them know that. Let me know how it goes.