“Terrible Two” or “Wonderful Two”? Discovering an important phase of growth

Those of you who frequent other mothers, personally or on the numerous spaces dedicated to parenting on the Net, will most likely have heard of the famous and dreaded “Terrible twos” or “Terrible twos”, if you prefer.

“A more cheerful creature than him had never been seen. Everything she saw around him interested and joyfully enlivened him. He exhilarated the threads of rain outside the window, as if they were confetti and multicolored streamers. And if, as happens, the sunlight, reaching the ceiling indirectly, brought the morning movement of the street, reflected in the shadows, he would fall in love with it without getting tired of it: as if he were watching an extraordinary show by Chinese jugglers that was put on especially for him . One would have said, indeed, by his laughter, by the continual illumination of his little face, that he did not see things confined within their usual aspects; but what multiple images of other infinitely varying things. Otherwise it was inexplicable why the miserable, monotonous scene that the house offered him every day,”.

It would be a period ranging from 18 months to 3 years and the parents who go through this delicate phase of growth report stories with many common denominators such as sudden mood swings , fits of anger and tears , sudden stubbornness , strong and urgent desire for independence and so on.

Even the writer, to be honest, is part of the group of mothers with a child in that age range and is in it with both shoes. Personally, before my son went through this phase, I had taken the stories about the famous “Terrible Twos” lightly, it seemed strange to me that such a sweet newborn could suddenly become so stubborn.

Obviously it should be specified that the intensity and the ways in which the child goes through this moment vary from character to character, but a lot also depends on us, on our ability not only to manage situations, but to go further and understand what the message that the child is trying in his own way to send us at that moment.

Sometimes the most common mistake is to declassify the child’s attempts to assert his will as ” whims “. In a nutshell, everything that doesn’t go according to our plans, to all or most of the behaviors that disregard our expectations we often unfairly label “whim”.

Certainly it is not easy from one day to the next, because this is how it happens, observing your child, seeing him “changed” and wondering where that calm and smiling newborn has gone : the good news is that it is a phase and as such it is a transitional state of growth. Certainly for parents, needless to deny it, it is a rather tiring passage.

But in detail what are the attitudes that can make us understand that the child has entered the “Terrible Twos”?

1) NO! NO! NO!

At some point you will probably notice that most of the activities you proposed to the child and which used to “go (more or less) smoothly” now don’t go so smoothly anymore.

To begin with, the child wants to go it alone and wants to do it his way: he will ask you to experiment, to touch. He will always want to be more of a protagonist and less of a spectator. He will be curious to observe objects, to touch them, to open and close. Never like right now must home safety be a top priority .

But the sore point comes now. When you try to stop him from doing something that would endanger his safety or you try to take an object from his hands, he will oppose it with every fiber of his soul.

Desperate crying, screaming and tantrums that culminate in throwing objects can become more frequent episodes than you might think.

The pediatrician Massimo Bernardi in the book “ Il Nuovo Bambino ” defines these moments as “ crises of behaviour ” which manifest themselves “ by saying no to everything and with resistance to the bitter end, against everything and everyone, one would say on a biased basis.

After eighteen months but especially between the ages of two and three, the child seems to be in opposition to the whole world . He always contradicts everyone, even himself. He says he wants to do something, but if you invite him he immediately and flatly refuses . He rages against anyone who dares to intervene in his affairs. He plants terrible scenes for any trifle; any attempt to influence him to act in a certain way stirs up apocalyptic storms of anger. One has the clear sensation that he rejects every suggestion, every indication, every proposal on principle; and that always on principle, he intends to do everything in his own way, being very careful, however, that this way does not go along with the wishes of others . And that’s how things really are.In this period the child is so committed to asserting himself, his personality, his will and his independence that he looks at others as disturbers against whom it is necessary in any case to put in place the most strenuous and fierce resistance, whatever what they say or do ”.

2) Search for independence

Do you remember when changing the diaper, bath time or baby food were moments of laughter, cuddles and sharing?

Now in many cases, this might seem like a distant and faded memory. Now the child refuses more and more to feel “managed” and guided in any situation.

For example, if he’s engaged in something that catches his attention and he doesn’t want to be changed or to eat, or he was playing in the park and it’s time to go home, rest assured that he won’t send you to say: he seems to want to state at all times that his opinion now carries a different weight and he will see to it that it is taken into consideration. Before thinking of making him do something, now he must be consulted. 

3) Sudden mood swings and crying

During this stage of growth, children make a new and important discovery: emotions in all their nuances .

It may happen that something that the parent pays little attention to is enough to trigger very intense reactions. The little ones are not yet able to manage emotions and have yet to learn how to “modulate” them: for this reason, in the eyes of the adult, certain reactions can be “excessive”, especially if it is the first time the child behaves in that way. In reality, obviously our scale of values, importance and priorities is not his, so it can happen to underestimate in good faith how much something is important to him at that moment.

4) Anger and aggressive attitudes

On anger Bernardi gives an example of a fairly common situation: “ The child wants a balloon. The mother tries to explain to him that it is not possible to have it because there is no one around there who sells it, the child declares that she wants it anyway and the mother does not know which way to turn. The child explodes into a stormy fit of fury with bloodcurdling screams: it is a sequence which usually terrifies the parents but which simply means that the child tries to strengthen his own personality by dominating the environment, without realizing that certain realities do not they can be modified by the human will ” .

So how to manage these sudden anger crises? The pediatrician has a very clear opinion on this: “ One of the most common errors in this field is wanting to think about everything, wanting to convince the child to do something because it is reasonable to do it , explaining to him that the doctor should be treated with respectful affection because it passes the bua, drowning the child in explanations, pampering, flattery. Here two observations are necessary: ​​not everything that is reasonable for us is also reasonable for him, indeed usually it is not at all; according to the child he is not stupid and he realizes very well that certain forms of courtship by the adult hide a machination intended to make him accept something that he would not accept. The reaction of the little one will therefore be a categorical and systematic refusal.

A second type of politics that can start the child on the path of resistance and rebellion is that of rigidity, iron discipline, order imposed through inflexible rules . If the child is continually told no to everything, if he is buried under torrents of prohibitions, impositions, obstacles to his activities, he will be able to defend himself by refusing everything en bloc and out of habit.

In conclusion , the lack of reasonableness is just as wrong as too much reasonableness : the child does not understand, rightly, either one or the other. For him to accept it, the world must be reasonable and logical to him. It is not enough that it is for us ”.

It is not easy to always remain calm and serene and often even a parent can feel tired, disheartened and overwhelmed by whole days spent trying to “mediate”. However, we know well that we are their guide through the world and as a guide we have the hard task of remaining balanced and serene.

Empathy, listening, attention, patience and mediation skills are the key ingredients to be able to manage these situations because now more than ever our child needs this.

Observed from another point of view, this is a wonderful and exciting phase: that little life that a few months earlier we held in our arms all day long, that we reassured, nourished, pampered and loved madly, now feels ready to explore the world, he has acquired the right self-confidence to contradict us, he feels ready for his little big explorations. His certainty, his resourcefulness, his love for life which translates into curiosity towards all things is partly thanks to us. Anger is nothing but the frustration of not being able to explore the world again as he wishes, like that of a little Ulysses who feels his wings clipped. And rightly so.

I’m here too…

What if the child himself describes how he feels? An English text by an unknown author is circulating on the web in which a 2-year-old boy is given a voice.

Reading it helps to understand what his experience is, what thoughts cross the mind and heart of a child who only tries to tell mom and dad: “I’m here too!”.