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3 ½-year-old Tantrums

Question: I just entered the world of Positive Discipline and I love it. I feel like I can be a really great mother—even more than I already am. I feel challenged with my 3 ½ year old! He is very specific about things. If he gets something in his mind, it must be that way, or he cries, sometimes until he falls asleep (up to an hour of crying)! For example, if I walk off the sidewalk to get somewhere faster, I get a tantrum. If I flush the toilet, not him–tantrum. If I get a spoon for breakfast–tantrum.

Question: My husband and I came to one of your seminars in February. One subject you didn’t touch was interrupting. Our 4 1/2 year old does it all the time. How can we stop it? It drives my husband and me crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the most important skills that both models mutual respect and allows children to develop their perceptions of personal capability is open-ended questioning. This Positive Discipline Tool, Curiosity Questions, also helps develop “social feeling” because the child feels respectfully included.

by Jane Nelsen and Kelly Gfroerer

Students feel belonging (connection) and significance (capable) when they have opportunities to contribute.

Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? —Jane Nelsen

Conferences are respectful when parents, teachers, and students are all included.

Question: Hi, I attended your session at the Adlerian Conference in Myrtle Beach. It was really great! I now have a 14-month-old son and recently bought your book Positive Discipline, The First Three Years as he began to really start to show his little personality and I realized wow, I need help! I finished it tonight but still have a question and really wanted your opinion about the issue of hitting. Our son, is a very happy toddler but lately when he gets angry he will hit me and my husband in the face.

Do you sometimes have the feeling that your students don’t hear a word you say? You are probably right—especially when a mistaken goal is involved.

Maya Angelou once shared, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Rudolf Dreikurs shared “Making mistakes is human. Regard your mistakes as inevitable instead of feeling guilty, and you’ll learn better." Dreikurs’ perspective is supported by current day research. For example, Carol Dweck has found that students who perceive mistakes as opportunities to learn are more successful compared to students who avoid difficult tasks for fear of making mistakes. Dweck points out that students who are taught to embrace mistakes as opportunities develop strategies that lead to greater academic and personal success.

3 ½-year-old Tantrums

Interrupting

Curiosity Questions Conversational

Contribution in the Classroom

Teaching Positive Time Out Helps Students Learn Tools for Self-Regulation

Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences

Toddlers and the Hitting Stage

Act Without Words for Teachers

Caring

4 Rs of Recovery From Mistakes

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