The Differences Between Parenting Difficult Toddlers Versus Troubled Kids

When a couple has a new child, it is certainly a joyous occasion.  It is also a tremendous lifelong commitment.  It starts with the basic necessities of food, shelter, cuddling and clean diapers.  It seems like hard word, but you quickly discover how easy the infant stage is compared to the terrible twos and threes.  During the toddler years, parents often deal with the stresses of screaming kids, temper tantrums, and irrational demands. 

Beyond the toddler years, until about the age of 6, children learn to communicate quite well but still don't have a full sense of responsibility or logical understanding.  Beyond the age of 6, children become quite capable of appreciating their responsibilities.  At this point, logic and reasoning can be used with greater success by most parents.  But for some parents, their children become defiant, abusive, or obnoxious.

So what is a parent to do in order to deal with these various problems?  How do parents arm themselves with the right education and skill set?  Here are some basic recommendations.

First - the toddler years are ripe for setting up a loving and nurturing family environment while simultaneously instilling a sense of responsibility for bad behavior.  During these years it is absolutely critical to teach your children that they are unconditionally loved.  it is also important to deal with bad behavior effectively.  This means picking appropriate consequences (such as "time outs"), and enforcing these consequences without judgement or emotion.  Parents need to enforce realistic punishment at the time of the bad behavior, or else the toddler won't understand the connection between the behavior and the consequences. 

Parents can also learn influential language skills when their children are quite young, with a goal of learning how to influence the mood and behavior of the children.  Language skills, for the purpose of influence, are often taught to sales professionals, marketers, and those who do professional presentations.  There is absolutely no reason why these same skills can't be used on young children to covertly direct their behavior and actions in a way that makes your life easier.  The key starting point for using these influence skills on children is to "enter your child's world".  Always begin a dialogue by letting your child know that you understand what they are saying or asking for.

Beyond the age of 6, tools of influence may not be enough for the really tough cases of disobedient children.  I believe that many child behavior issues are the result of kids not understanding how to solve their own problems.  This belief was instilled in my by listening to the teachings of James Lehman, MSW.  Once children learn to solve their problems, the bad behavior disappears.  Therefore, as a parent, it is important to keep in mind that one of your most important jobs is to teach your children how to solve their own problems.  Kids can't be permitted to punch holes in the wall because they are depressed about something.  They need to deal with the problem while still being held accountable to certain behavior standards.