Golden Rules?

Rules are put in place for a good reason.  However, making rules for a toddler in which boundaries and guidelines are supposed to have meaning, really makes no sense to our little toddler, because in reality, its takes time and lots of patience before he can actually get it, but rules are essentially for his own protection and safety, as well as to encourage positive learning and development overall.  Levi understands to a point that there are rules and he can to some extend give in to it, but simple instructions, such as, “do not touch”, “do not bite”, “do not hit”, the “two” minutes wait, bath time, no running in the house.  He understands the term “be nice”, it is not always significant to him, but it works, well…, some of the times.

As Levi’s parents, sometime rules are a challenge just trying to hold them down, but consistency seems to slowly mold some good manners into his little head.  We have also learned to encourage him in things he can do, rather than regularly saying to him the things he cannot do, part of the package is changing around our nicely decorated home environment, like our furniture to accommodate his tireless little adventures, as well as removing likely sharp objects out of his reach – parenting, it changes a person’s world around them!     

Creating rules for our 34-month old toddler, while necessary, the expected results are not always a reality of how it is visualized, as he pushed boundaries and yes, those temper tantrums and oh, the ever present piercing screams when he cannot have his way or receive the objects of his desire; while it’s not fun dealing with all the "tempo" a toddler can dish out, one benefit gained is where it appears that he has become a pretty good singer for exercising his vocals at those penetrating heights. 

 

Nevertheless, he eventually calms down and realizes that he would not have his way “in the moment”.  As his parents, the lessons learn from having him as our toddler is, there are really no hard and fast rules to deal with his tantrums as he is also trying to understand and figure out what is going on in his own little world around him, such as, what he likes and do not like and what makes him happy and that which satisfies him!  I guess when his comfort zone is under pressure, he will react, it’s his way of growing up.