Dr Tanya Byron: Help, my Toddler Is out of Control
My toddler son gets plenty of attention, so why does he hit, pinch and have dreadful tantrums?
I never thought I’d have to ask for help with child-rearing. I have two children: a girl, 41/2, and a boy, 2. My daughter is lovely and perfectly normal; she can be naughty, but is manageable. It is my son who is out of control.
I am a full-time mum with a full-time nanny, living in London. My nanny and I make a good team. I attend the children while she cooks, and vice versa. I spend a lot of time with the children. When I am away from them it is for two to three hours to go to the gym, salon and shopping. The problem is that my son hits everyone who comes near him, pulls their hair or pinches them, totally unprovoked. On holiday two weeks ago there was “a scene” everywhere: on the plane, at the airport, on the beach, in a café. He screamed and had full-blown tantrums when he didn’t get his way. He bit my daughter, scratched me and head-butted my nose. Today when we were out he hit other children. I gave him warnings on three occasions, on the last of which he threw sand into a three-year-old girl’s face. I took him out of the playground, which is when he had so bad a tantrum that three people tried to help me. I could not sit him in the buggy. He head-butted and hit me. At last he calmed down and I walked him home in tears.
My husband and I want to find out what has gone wrong - this problem has come as a shock. Having a full-time nanny means neither she nor I needs to deal with him full time. The children are not dragged out shopping with me or have to wait for me to finish chores. They are always in their comfort environments and attended all the time. Is this the problem?
Diane
Your letter points to several issues that I think are at the root of our overblown parenting culture. You clearly place the needs of your children at the forefront of everything you do, and by doing so you feel that your children will be settled and comfortable and so without any behavioural problems. Your son’s behaviour seems to have shocked you excessively and your way of describing it as “out of control” is an interesting clue as to what might be going on.
First, I feel a need to advocate for your son. While I agree (and know from experience with my own son when he was little) that such repetitive, aggressive behaviour is undesirable and at times embarrassing, it is not abnormal. Your son is behaving like a toddler, particularly a male toddler, and is acting out at a key point in his development. His behaviour is therefore not out of control, it is out of your control - and this is a big difference. At 2 your son is starting a process of individuation, ie, recognising himself as a separate being, with needs and wants and a will of his own. For some toddlers this is marked by an extreme form of challenge to their closest relationships - it is an emotional transition from dependent baby to assertive and independent toddler. In the main, little girls, especially first-borns (who are cognitively and socially more advanced), cotton on quickly that they do best in relationships by being sweet and compliant (though later-born girls can be more assertive). For all toddlers, however, the fact that their frontal cortex is not fully wired up and running efficiently means that they lack the skills of impulse control and self-management. So if I’m 2 and you are playing in my sandpit area, I’ll pick up sand and throw it in your face. While this is not desirable, it is within the “normal” range of toddler behaviour.
Reduced frontal cortex functioning also means that little ones lack the capacity to understand and process verbal explanations and cannot use that information to evaluate how they are behaving. So while you were warning him about his tantrums, he wasn’t taking this in enough to think “crikey, Mum’s not pleased, better pull my socks up”. Actually, the reverse was occurring. Every time he behaved aggressively you rushed over and he got your attention. Parents who spend a lot of time discussing their child’s behaviour with them are actively reinforcing it and making it more likely to happen. With children under 3, actions speak louder than words, and these actions should match what has occurred. If children are aggressive, they get no warning, just an immediate consequence - which, in your recent case, would have been swiftly putting him into the buggy, strapping him in, issuing a firm “No throwing sand; no hitting”, then turning him so he faced away from the playground and leaving him to wail. After three minutes you should have turned him round, repeated your stern words and told him simply and clearly that if hitting recurred, he would be back in the buggy. Ensure that he gets your big attention only for playing nicely, so he learns to differentiate between behaviour that gets positive attention and that which doesn’t.
If you use this time-out procedure at home, put him in his room for the same amount of time - again, swiftly, sternly and with little attention. His crying will be heart-rending but it is frustration and rage. You must appear clearly in control - if you cry, he will feel anxious and his behaviour will escalate.
I’d like to touch on another issue in your letter: the amount of overall attention your children get. I am intrigued that you have a full-time nanny, given that you are a full-time mother. I apologise if this sounds judgmental, but in describing yourself and the nanny as a team you have set up a situation in which the children’s lives are run for their total comfort. Most siblings must learn to tolerate the frustration of not having the full-time attention of an adult. Many kids must amuse themselves while dinner is being cooked or parents are dealing with household chores. They don’t have a “team” managing them, and so must fit into the running of the family by becoming team players themselves.
I know that families, especially more affluent ones, will do all they can to ensure that their children want for nothing. This, I think, is a big mistake and leads to unsatisfied, demanding children who expect always to be the centre of everything and will, when frustrated, lash out. This extends to the culture of “helicopter parenting”, whereby many children have lives that run from one activity, social event or academic setting to another. These children are never bored, nor have time on their hands to develop an identity separate to the one that their parents desire which, for many, revolve around getting into the “right” schools and being the “best”.
This may sound rather arrogant coming from me, a woman who has been very visible in this culture of parenting as well as being a mother of two. As a clinician, I believe that it is important to enable families to understand their child’s behaviour and in extreme cases get help via services, books, articles or even TV programmes (as long as they are run by those with relevant child-development training). But as this parenting culture has grown, it has blurred the boundary about which child behaviours need professional help and which need a strong and firm parental approach. Indeed, many of the parents I meet in my clinics are overwhelmed by what they “should do” and so feel anxious and powerless in the face of their children’s ultimately normal behaviour.
As a parent, I know that I can over-organise, too. I had a sobering moment the other day when, as I was putting together a schedule for my kids, my 13-year-old daughter suggested that I “chill out” and let her and her brother have a day at home “hanging out”. Nothing makes parents feel more stupid than when their child utters words of wisdom that cut through their neuroses.
Source: Times Online, UK
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article4653770.ece
