Charlotte has her behavioral assessment on Monday afternoon and then her occupational assessment on Feb 4th. Chris no longer stays with her at the center during therapy, but she has always been a little angel during therapy. In fact the therapists weren’t sure she really needed a behavioral assessment since they hadn’t witnessed any concerning behavior.
Charlotte throws tantrums more times than I can count in a day. I feel like we get one good day a month with her, and maybe a couple hours a day that are tantrum free. The other times she is in a terrible mood and throws a lot of tantrums. She is unable to be consoled, redirected, or calmed down during the tantrums. They go on for 15-20 min and we’ve seen them last for over an hour straight. It’s incredibly frustrating, exhausting, and stressful.
The tantrums are over a variety of things, but most often are because she doesn’t get her way. Now we know that tantrums at 2 are completely normal and add in the fact that she is frustrated because she can’t talk, but these tantrums seem extreme to us. The yelling, screaming, crying, hitting herself, flinging herself, hitting us, and hitting Cooper or the dog for 20 min is a lot of energy for something as simple as wanting to eat off the red plate instead of the blue plate.
An example: Last night at dinner we asked her to stay seated in her chair several times. We are trying to make sure she understands what we are saying so we spend at least 5 minutes saying it in different ways. We warned her that we would move her chair back from the table if she didn’t sit down.
She didn’t stay seated (testing her boundaries) so we moved her chair back about a foot from the table. This started a tantrum and no matter what we did she wouldn’t stop. She cried and threw herself all over for the entire dinner, through getting her dressed for bed (we skipped a bath thinking she was overtired), and through attempting a calming bedtime routine. Her tantrum lasted an hour and half. A tantrum at dinner if she doesn’t get her way is a common occurrence 5 out of 7 nights a week. They usually last for the 30 minutes it takes to eat. I dread eating dinner now.
Today her therapists finally saw what we mean about the tantrums. Charlotte didn’t want to put the toys away she was playing with before she tried to get a new toy out (that’s the rule at therapy) and she threw a tantrum that lasted for 20 minutes. Chris said he came back and she had a red face, matted down hair (from sweating), and big alligator tears. The therapist mentioned the tantrum and said that it was a good idea we were getting an assessment on Monday. The length of the tantrum, the reason for the tantrum, and more extreme behavior makes her tantrums a little over the top for a typical 2 yr old.
I’m still hoping that this is typical 2 yr old behavior and that she has a fiery personality. I just don’t want anything else to be ‘wrong’. I really want this behavior: 
More often than this behavior 
(I know this blog is only a glimpse into our lives and some people might think that we need to discipline her more or less. We have tried so many methods with her (except hitting or spanking, which we will never do) and nothing seems to be helping. It’s important to us to be consistent with boundaries, but at the same time some battles aren’t worth the effort. I mean do I really want to get into a battle for control about the color of her dinner plate??
We’ve done negative consequences (like timeout for 2 min) and it only makes it worse. We’ve found that positive discipline works the best: giving her choices, responding with empathy, offering her praise for positive behavior, giving her a safe place to calm down when she gets upset, giving her time-ins (snuggles when we notice she’s about to have a melt down), and asking her to calm down and tell us what is wrong or to use her words. We make sure she gets plenty of food, liquids, and sleep since we know being low on any of those things just makes it worse. Sometimes these things can make the tantrum last half as long, but other times it has no effect. If you have other ideas, we are open to them!)
3 comments:
No ideas here, just hoping the assessment goes well!
Salina,
Brianna has had similar issues. We talked about it with a therapist. You have to remember that both Brianna and Charlotte were "abandoned" at similar ages. Brianna was ripped away from her birth parents at 9 mos old, the only parents she had ever known. Charlotte lost the family who had loved and cared for her at 8 mos. We cannot know exactly what kind of unconcious memory they carry with them, or how that messes with their sense of security and control. Brianna's has gotten much better with every few passing months. For her, it also elevated at 2 when she was at that age where they try to take control of themselves and their surroundings. Brianna also suffers from a huge fear of being abandoned, she is Overly concerned about everything I do and where I go. Again it is much better than it use to be, but it still flares up on occasion. Be patient with her, I can relate to the frustration, but try to remember She suffered a lot of loss before she was even a year old. Four mommies in less than a year (Angel, Debbie from the recieving home, Michele and you.) I PROMISE from experience it WILL get better, once she truly realizes your her mommy FOREVER, even if it is subconcious on her part.
So my husband is out of town for over a week (in Japan for work) and I have the two kids to myself. Without going into details, it's been a character-building experience for me. I wanted to write a quick note to say that I don't know how Chris does it. Handling two kids on a daily basis, and if one of them melts down as often as you say Charlotte does... Tell that man that he's incredible.
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