Dethrone Your Toddler

Check out this great article from the Staten Island Advance. The writer argues that most of the chaos in a household happens when children - not parents - rule the roost.

If you're a parent of a toddler, this situation will sound all too familiar: It's 5:30 p.m., you're just about finished preparing dinner and your toddler is screaming at the top of his lungs, refusing to wait for his dessert. He wants his ice cream right now and is intent on acting out until he gets his way.

Based on his past behavior, you know he won't eat his dinner if he fills up on dessert, therefore you repeatedly explain to him that he will have to wait.

Your words, as usual, fall on deaf ears, and despite your best efforts to reason with him in a gentle manner -- which requires every last bit of patience you can muster -- his tantrums escalate rather than dissipate.

Continued...