My 2 1/2 son behavior issue

[mommy316]

Hi, I have a 2 year old son; my son is very sweet most of the times however, I have a very hard time with him. He will not listen to me at all and when things don't go his way he starts to scream and throw himself on the floor, I try to ignore this but with all the screaming from him I strat to scream back and sometimes spank him. Just today I went to a store with him and this very nice lady gave him a toy to play while I had to fill out some paperwork, well the toy broke and this made him so mad that he started screaming and even started to throw the toy at other people, I didn't know what to do, of course I was very upset. I tried to calm him down and explained to him that this was not necessary but he kept crying and screaming and even yelling at the rest of the people in the store. I have a very hard time to get him to listen to me, when I ask him to pick up his toys or do something else he ignores me and I get so frustated that I start yelling at him or even spanking him. I tried the time out thing but this does not seem to work, with his father everything is fine because he listes to him but with me is another story. It has come to a point where I don't even go out in public with him because is very hard for him to listen to me. I'me very concerned of his behavior, I'm not sure if this is normal since he is my only child. He also started preescholl about 4 months ago and he's like that in school, he is very hard child to deal with and I honestly do not know what to do. Please give me some type of advise and let me know if this is normal, I find myself crying sometimes so desperately because I do not know how to deal with this. Please help!!!!

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Your son's behavior does not really sound outside what would be considered normal for the age. You are permitting yourself to become overly emotional and desperate in your efforts to intervene. Yelling will only exacerbate the situation; it's a sign of your frustration. It will not help. Spanking will also not help. If you read this Forum on a regular basis, you will know that I always recommend an approach detailed in Lynn Clark's book SOS Help for Parents. Why do I recommend it so often? Because it is practical straightforward, clear and useful. And it works. You will solve your problem if you follow the regimen to a 'T'.

[jdtm]

There have been some excellent posts on the Child Behavior Forum (especially 12/31/07 titled "pulling child from preschool").  Another post was "Just Typical Tantrums?" which was dated 01/03/08.  I think your problem is very similar to these two mothers.  Hope this helps -