The Terrible Threes

Life with my middle child is pretty tricky at the moment. There seems to be an awful lot going on inside this little chap and it's difficult to understand it and know how to help him. A is bearing much of the brunt of it - some days every time he walks into the same room as T he comes out crying about 10 seconds later. T is definitely making everything just a bit more effort than it needs to be. This evening the other two are happily tucking into seconds of their tea and T is busy going through the cutlery pot seeing which forks and spoons will fit in the top of his water bottle. 

These phases creep up on me. We'll be bumping along fine and then I'm realise that I've spent the last few days nagging incessantly and am back to doing quite a lot of shouting. I have to take myself to one side and psych myself up for some decent parenting! This used to happen with my eldest but he has definitely calmed down in the last year. Don't get me wrong, he still has his shouty moments and I think this half term is going to be a long tiring slog up to Christmas. But generally he is on a much more even keel these days and T has taken over as the child who is making me concentrate. 

I really struggle with the nagging. When we're in a phase like this I often realise that the last ten things I've said to him have all been grumpy and negative. I still think the best piece of parenting advice I've heard is to say less. I definitely don't have enough patience or brain power to think of lots of positive things to say when T is grumbling and whining so just saying nothing is often the best approach. I have to remind myself that even if I point out all the annoying and unreasonable things he is doing, he's not going to change his behaviour overnight so it's best not to point them all out but pick my battles. 

I don't like doing bribes or threats to try to encourage some more pleasant behaviour. It's not our usual approach and I try very hard not to make threats that I end up rowing back on. It doesn't help that the only thing T really cares about at the moment is watching television. I'm not very keen on giving it special status by threatening to take it away, and it also shoots me in the foot because often parking him in front of the TV for 20 minutes is the only way to get him to stop following me round the house!

So I'm trying to get through it with a lot of love, noticing and commenting on all the positive things (because he is still a lovely chap underneath) and remaining calm. We did have a much better day on Friday so I tried to sit him down at the end of the day to let him know and say thank you but he just looked really embarrassed and wriggled until I let him go again!