For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 19, 2011

Ah, the terrible twos – a stage that children usually outgrow by the time they reach 25!

The definition of a teenager: Take the Terrible Twos, multiply by eight, and add a driver’s license.

Elly knows from experience. She didn’t that when she was Elizabeth’s age.

had that same problem with a 3 year old on my bus yesterday. she got on real quiet and nice but when she got to the back where most of the passenger were, she cut loose for the whole trip. when i got to her mom’s stop she shut up and quietly walked off the bus.

That’s called “The Law of the Soggy Potato Chip.”

And the Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance goes to… Lizzy!!

Spanking Time…

One of mine tried that in a supermarket. I let her finish, then asked her if she was done and we went about our business. Never happened again.

Hi Neighbours!

Lizzie is very dramatic and terrible two!

Had 27 mo twin boys (great grandsons) visiting this week. Have fairly good vocabulary Mom understands, and used it at decibels normally heard at an air show. Still have one room of the house to put back in order-not because of their behavior, but I had moved everything to a six foot level.

Oh my, neither my brother nor I ever would have gotten away with that.

My mom and dad were the kindest, most loving parents I could ever hope for, BUT there was no tantrum pulling allowed!

After an initial tantrum attempt and a subsequent trip outside for an open handed slap or two on our respective behinds, we realized this wasn’t working to our benefit. It didn’t matter what was going on or where we were or who was around, that was the order of the day and the way we knew it was going to go.

Besides, later we had to endure the worst part, mom telling us how disappointed she was in us for our bad behavior, how she wanted to be proud of us and how we deeply hurt her and embarressed her and dad by our misbehavior. This accompanied by tears clouding her eyes as she spoke.

The worst thing we could think of was, “Mom and Dad are going to be really disappointed in me if I do this” (whatever was being contemplated that we knew we shouldn’t be doing).

We were blessed with great parents and were very close to them throughout their lives. God!! I miss them!

My daughter tried that once in a grocery store. She had seen another kid get candy that way, so she decided to try the same. I picked her up, put my hand over her mouth, and carried her out to the car. Never had the problem again.

My youngest daughter was so funny in the stores….she would scream real loud than give a real belly laugh…I guess she use to like the looks on the peoples faces when they looked at her…it was really very funny!

FishStix- do you have kids?

I used a stop watch to cure a lot of bad behavior. I simply started the watch when the behavior started. When they were done I stopped the watch.

They owed me double that amount of time in chores. It was amazing how fast arguments were settled if both kids had to do chores for twice the time they argued.

Sometimes I have assigned push ups, 5 at a time, until the desired behavior occurred. One boy got up to 100 before he decided to pick up his toys. Then usually just mention of push ups would quickly cure the behavior.

Just think, Anne … this will be you in a couple of years!

If you have the ability to hold your childs attention and reason, you can win, if not, a warm butt will suffice.

One of the multitude of reasons I have not birthed any children. If I were her mother, I’d pick up the dolls and chunk ‘em in the trash.

Both adults should stand up, walk away and ignore her