rivka

It is hard not to clash with a two-year-old a dozen times a day. They're stubborn. They can't bear to be rushed. They pick random and unreasonable things to develop incredibly strong opinions about, and dig in their heels with a vengeance. They're volatile. And it's usually over such trivia.

I'm empathetic about the big stuff - scraped knees, being left at nursery school, being promised something we later discover we can't deliver. The things that make sense to an adult mind. But I confess that it can be hard for me to seriously respect Alex's feelings when she's throwing a tantrum over not being able to climb into the carseat by herself, or being given the wrong color cup, or not getting "a sticky band-aid RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW" for a barely perceptible, bloodless scratch... you know, the stuff that really puts the meat in the "terrible twos" concept.

I've been unsuccessfully trying to approach these battles by reasoning with her. She seems so smart and verbal that you'd think it would help (all the parents out there are laughing at me right now), but it doesn't penetrate her intense emotions. It's not my style to just always lay down the law and refuse to brook any arguments from her. Neither is it my style to anxiously bend over backward making sure that she gets her way in everything.

So lately I've been experimenting with another way - as much as possible, sidestepping battles for control by introducing an element of play or humor or fantasy. Here's how it worked this morning.

Alex is so excited about using the potty that after peeing in the potty she often wants to sit down and do it again immediately. We usually let her try, but it's a real roadblock when we're trying to get out of the house and she insists on waiting and waiting for a second pee to come. This morning, after she peed in the potty, I told her "Now it's time to get dressed for nursery school."

"No, I don't want to go to nursery school. I want to pee in the potty AGAIN!"

"You just peed. You can pee again at nursery school, in the Winnie-the-Pooh potty," I suggested.

"No, I want to pee in THIS potty."

She started to get upset. This is the point at which I would normally try to reason with her - explaining that usually once you pee, the pee is used up and you have to wait a while to pee again. Or I might try to distract her and get her excited about the fun things she'll be able to do at school. But today I tried something different.

"*I* want to pee in a chimpanzee potty, high up in a tree," I told her.

She laughed. "No, we are not going to the zoo!"

"We're not? But I want to pee in a GIRAFFE potty that's very very tall."

"No, we are not going to the zoo! We are going to nursery school."

"Nursery school? But I want to pee in a BOOK potty that's all made of books."

"No, we are not going to the bookstore! We have to go to nursery school!"

"Ohhh, nursery school! Let's get dressed - you can't go to nursery school with a bare bottom!"

At this point, she was laughing and happy, and willingly came to get her diaper and clothes on. It's a small thing, but I am really pleased with how using fantasy drained the tension out of the situation for both of us.