Three’s the charm. That’s what they always say, right? Unless it’s referring to the three-year-old, a.k .a., ‘The Threenager.’
I remember hearing about the ‘Terrible Twos’ before I had my son and thinking, “That sounds like a nightmare!” Then, my son turned two, and I cautiously awaited the stage of biting, throwing, tantrums, etc., that everyone had warned of. When my son was two and a half, I thought, “Wow, could we have somehow been blessed to miss the terrible twos?”
Yes and no.
At about two years and ten months, my delightful Prince Charming of a son skipped the Terrible Twos and turned right into the beastly Threenager.
“Shhhh! Mommy, don’t say that!”
“That’s disgusting!”
“I don’t like it, not one little bit!”
These and a few other not-so-pleasant phrases soon became part of his everyday dialogue with me. Add in the three-times-a-week fight to not nap, along with the boycott against eating pretty much anything besides chicken nuggets and blueberry-banana smoothies, and you are beginning to get an idea of what life has become.
At first, I decided to take a stand against everything. “I’ll show him who’s boss,” I thought. Go ahead and laugh, you more experienced parents. Don’t worry; I’m a quick learner. One day, while exercising and listening to my playlist, the following lyrics stood out:
I thought things couldn’t get much worse but guess what they did….
this time it’s goodbye trouble
I feel the light at the end of this tunnel
I get stronger with every step
come hell, come high water
you push on me I’m gonna push back harder
got a whole lot more than little bit me left.
That was when I decided to regroup and devise a new plan to survive the Threenager stage. This led to me developing some new mantras for our family.
- As long as the food plan is reasonably healthy over a 24-hour period, that’s good enough.
- He can sleep with a toy, as long as it’s only one, and it’s not dangerous because sleep is gold.
- Learning from natural consequences, such as falling when he runs ahead, will make him more resilient.
- Less is more, as in less debating, more modeling the behavior you want goes much farther.
- When all else fails, play a song and have a dance party.
As my daughter is about to turn 2, everyone is now worrying me about the 3s. Unlike you, we hit the tantrums and terrible-two behavior a few months ago, and now I’m wondering if I’ll be able to keep my sanity through both the 2s and 3s 🙂 I’ll be looking at your tips often. And if you hear about a woman going mad in Bethel, know that it’s probably me.
Don’t worry Allison…I’ll be here when you need someone to bang heads with.
Hopeful if your’s started early, it will end early.