Does Your Toddler Listen to You?
Four tricks to preventing tantrums
1. To prevent tantrums and difficult behavior, it helps to have well-established routines and regular times for dressing, eating, tooth-brushing, toy pickup, TV watching, bed, etc. This helps reduce continual limit-testing.
2. Spend one-on-one time with your preschooler regularly doing something that's fun for both of you. He should know you're doing it just because you enjoy his company–and he'll be more likely to cooperate with you as a result of having had this special time with you.
3. The less sleep your toddler gets, the more difficult his behavior is likely to be. Preschoolers need enough sleep at regular times–about 12 hours for a three-year-old, 11.5 hours for a four-year-old, 11 hours for a five-year-old. Falling short by more than an hour is a problem. Insufficient sleep triggers defiant and moody behavior.
4. Toddlers also need about an hour a day of heart-pounding exercise (running after a soccer ball, biking, jumping, etc.). Sleep, exercise and regular meals and snacks are important habits that are essential when it comes to enabling kids to have better control over their emotions.
Preschoolers need special understanding and adapting your approach to fit their capabilities will help make family life happier and more satisfying. As children get closer to kindergarten age, they become more rational and logical and respond to reasoning more often. But preschoolers are delightful and amazing, so enjoy that age while it lasts!
Meet our expert:
Annye Rothenberg, Ph.D., has been a child/parent psychologist and a specialist in child rearing and development for more than 25 years. Her parenting psychology practice is in Emerald Hills, California. She is also on the adjunct faculty in pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Rothenberg was the founder/director of the Child Rearing parenting program in Palo Alto, California, and is the author of the award-winning book Mommy and Daddy Area Always Supposed to Say Yes ... Aren't They? For more information about her work, visit www.perfectingparentingpress.com.
