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Toddler triggers: What sets them off
Extract taken from New Toddler Taming, by Dr Christopher Green
'Oh why me?' you moan, your head in your hands, as junior puts on yet another Oscar-winning performance for the supermarket crowd. 'I've given him a tonne of love and still he insists on embarrassing me with these painful performances.'
As a tired parent, it becomes easy to believe that your little loved one is out to punish you in every way possible. But it's not like that. In reality he is just an interesting little person with absolutely no sense, being triggered by life in a way that most parents either don't see or can't understand.
Almost all behaviour stems from only a handful of these triggers. If you can spot them and understand their likely outcome, it can help you stay on top of 90 per cent of the behaviour that follows.
When we parents are having a bad day, our toddlers' repertoire of behaviour may seem extensive but in fact almost every performance comes from very predictable origins.
Attention seeking
Just like pop stars, politicians and other adult exhibitionists, toddlers need to be the centre of attention all the time. This is a demand that many parents find hard to understand. Why do toddlers have to behave so badly to get attention when they are getting masses of it already? It may not seem very sensible to you, but for the toddler it makes perfect sense.
Toddlers are attention addicts, and this is one addiction that we don't want to cure. In fact, cutting off their supply pretty much guarantees bad behaviour, and the emotional wellbeing of all involved suffers.
If you ignore toddlers they will hijack your attention. With attention-seeking, the toddler is trying to tell you: 'Hey, watch me!' He isn't greedy, he just wants to be noticed.
This is by far the most unrecognised but powerful trigger of toddler behaviour problems. I can't emphasise this enough: if parents were to understand only two things about toddlers - that they have little sense and that they need copious amounts of attention - the game would be won.
Jealousy and competition
At around two years, little children are not richly endowed with the values of sharing and seeing another person's point of view. They like to be the star of the show no matter what and when they are dispossessed of this role they can get mighty upset. A few toddlers are pretty laid back and humanitarian in their attitudes but most are downright possessive and resent intruders on their patch.
Jealousy and competition are major triggers of toddler behaviour that cause problems for parents and often arise from some quite predictable situations.
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