This is not a big answer to the big, important question being addressed. But it is a bit of sage advice I share with all parents who care to listen whose children are around two years of age,
“The Terrible Two’s” is not a fact, but a fiction created by parents who are not smart enough or lucky enough to realize what a Two Year Old’s ”Developmental Task” is and how to support their children constructively. Actually, I don’t say all of that—but that’s what wants to be expressed at this time!
A Two Year Old’s developmental task is to become a separate person, to establish independence, to develop an “I”-dentity! The easiest, fastest way for a toddler to express that is to JUST SAY “NO!”
If a parent is “big” on being “obeyed” and “punishing” a child who doesn’t obey, then some real damage can begin in the child’s life, to his or her psyche and self-esteem (feelings of lack of worth or “I’m bad”)—and sometimes alienations, resentments, and hatreds begin to develop. And horrendous “power struggles” can become a pattern.
If the parent is lucky or smart or has been teachable, they will support their child’s growth by supporting them, distracting them, giving them alternatives from which to choose, and just be creative and not punitive! If not, they can create power struggles and start negatives in the child and in their relationship with their child(ren).
The Two’s are Wonderful, the time when a little human being starts developing his or her separate identity! Isn’t that great?! We can appreciate that, celebrate that, and be supportive parents. I have two wonderful sons (48 and 28 now), never had to spank them, and I “spatted” each only once lightly with my hand. (I’m eighty now, and I can’t remember why I did that and whether or not I later thought it “justified.”)
Added note: My youngest, around age 12, “sassed and spoke disrespectfully” to his mother, my beautiful bride of 75 now, who has always been the best mother and joyed in him from the beginning. I’d forgotten this, but recently she told me: you grabbed him by the shoulders immediately and held him up against the wall (not violently). You looked him in the eyes, got his attention, and said, “Don’t ever speak disrespectfully to your Mother again.”
She said, “That was one of the best things you ever did with our son. It worked. He never spoke disrespectfully to me again.” I don’t think I even remember that happening. But letting children know there are standards of respect and ways we communicate worth and appreciation and regard is a good thing. And I think parents properly show and communicate respect, dignity, worth, and regard for their children, also. I invented the phrase, “Children should be seen and not hurt,” twenty years before I began seeing it stated in newspaper articles, magazines, etc.
My father spanked my brother and me with a belt. His father, after Dad’s mother died in childbirth, sired 6 half-brothers and 3 half-sisters, and “corralled,” corrected, and controlled them with a horse quirt. Dad hated that and ran away from home at 16 for good. He later thought “it might have been necessary.” I remember around 3rd grade “leaving our yard almost every day for a month” and getting belt “whippings” from Dad when he came home from work. When I was much younger (3 or 4), my Mother “switched me unmercifully” with small tree limb “switches” on my bare legs for “running away.” Then, they put a picket (sharp, pointed pickets!) fence around our yard. I never felt a need to do any of that, and I think my boys matured well and beautifully. I believe Maya Angelou was right: “When we learn better, we do better.”
Rev, J, Roland Cole, 6-25-17
