How to control my terrible two year old

I have a girl who turned two this past August and all I have to say is God bless the internet! Learning to control my terrible two-year-old son became a bit of an obsession for my wife and me. I came to understand that once a young child learns what the words “NOT” and “WANT” mean, tantrums will soon follow. Before I had a child of my own, I was one of those bystanders who just wanted the father to shut the brat up when a public tantrum occurred. I figured with the ultimate vastness of the web there had to be some answers to my questions about controlling the terrible twos.

Fortunately there is a lot of good information on the web and I will share a couple of things we learned and tell you who has the best information available on this subject. Remember that there are a million different things that can trigger a tantrum with a toddler and no two are the same. Here are a couple of things we did that seemed to make a significant difference in my terrible two-year-old’s tantrum control.

• Give your toddler the opportunity to make simple choices for daily activities. This is especially helpful when you are faced with forcing your child to do an activity that he or she may not like. Instead of making my daughter go straight to bed, we would grab two different pairs of pajamas and ask her which pair she would like to wear to sleep. Some toddlers don’t like bath time and you can offer them different bath toys to choose from. Giving my daughter this little bit of independence with ordinary options really seemed to make a difference to us.
• Allow transition time before switching activities with your toddler. If you’re at the park and your toddler is having fun, let him know it’s time to go in ten minutes. This will allow your child to deal with the upcoming change without being caught off guard. I found a post online that took this idea even further and it was a great idea. Buy a kitchen timer or some kind of cheap alarm clock and after letting your child know the cut-off time, set the timer to go off. When it rings, it means it’s time to go. That was a great help to us!