My husband and I have been in marriage counseling for 2 months and we’re trying to make it better. We have a three year old who is constantly acting out in negative ways and not following our instructions. We know it’s because of the stressful home environment. What can we do to make the home environment more positive when we don’t seem to agree on anything when it comes to parenting? We come from two very different cultures and constantly disagree on everything involving parenting-from the food she eats, to when she sleeps, what she learns. What can I do to help our daughter?

My pleasure! Thanks for your kind words!

My child also has these extreme, emotional meltdowns over small, inconsequential things. However, What I don’t understand is how long should a tantrum continue? My son, who is 4, will cry, scream, kick at his door, and will even pee his pants during one of his episodes. He can go on for at least 45 min. There is nothing we can do to stop it either. I have tried ignoring it. I have tried to talk to him about recognizing his feelings and understanding what he is going through, I have let him just cry on me…. nothing works. We are obviously doing something wrong but I am at a loss.

Hi Janet! I am so pleased I found your Facebook page. I have been reading you for almost 1,5 year now and you have helped me very much with putting another perspective to my 3,5 years old son’s behavior. He is very funny, strong opinionated and physically strong. We have engaged him, since he was too young, to everything we had to do or everything that was happening etc and he seems to understand everything in a very bright way.
Last year our home and all our belongings were completely burnt down during wildfires and we live at my sister’s home until we prepare our new home in 3-4 months. He was with me while leaving our old house right 5 minutes before the fire came and so, we explained to him that our house was damaged and we tried to keep stability ever after by doing our routines in just another place… He had a very easy transitioning to his new school since we moved far away from our old neighborhood.
The problem is that as he grows up he becomes more and more difficult to “handle”… We just returned from our summer holidays that were totally disaster as exhausting! He seems to have trouble to accept no as an answer and he has meltdowns that long toooo much! Every single daycare thing is a struggle: brushing his teeth, putting on his T-shirt, putting off his night diaper, the sunscreen etc The other thing is that he throws things because he gets angry when he is not allowed to do something and this is a behavior we cannot accept because it is dangerous and it is no good to destroy things,
We are on the edge of our nerves and he seems to know exactly what button to push! Me and my husband are not every time in the same side and we are very often both of us trying to solve a situation. I am not sure if this a normal toddler behavior that we should accept or we have failed in discipline and boundaries… I don’t know how to respond to all this “crazy” behavior because if I oppose to him there is too much tension and conflict and if I am loose I am afraid I show him that his behavior is allowed to continue, maybe I make projections(?). I am stuck between acceptance and setting boundaries. Do you have any advice???

I can relate to what you’ve wrote here. I have a hard time some nights with my 6 year old son. We too have had quite a few changes in our lives this last year or so. So there are nights that I will sleep in his room when he’s asked me to. But I too fight with myself about whether or not I should sleep in there or not. My thought is that he is only little once, and that I do not want to be a part of creating fears for him. If he’s in need of his mother’s security for a night or two, then so be it. But sometimes there are nights that I feel that he is just sticking to that sort of routine that we started. It can be confusing at times. I hope you find the way that works best for your family. Take care.