Parents of Schoolgoers  Discussion Forum

My little girl is 19 months old and very very active and happy and naughty kid. I have just put her in playgroup( school) but she is bcum very clingy and cries like hell she is also teething but still she has developed huge anger may be she thinks i am not listening to her anymore and trying different ways i am very worried as she hit me in front other parents she was very angry i was embarrassed but its ok i think i was wrong in bringing her up i listened to her every little thing and now she is not ready change. actually i was working while i had my first baby girl and with this second one i did not want her to be away from me. as i was when i was working when i had 1st child. i gave by younger one every thing that was missed by my elder dauhter but the fact is that my elder one is very matured and younger one very very aggressive and with lots of tantrums she always wants whatever she asks for and i fnot given there is huge tamasha. Is this all ok with just 19months kids i am cluless and very depresed i dont know how to handle she does not even understand what i am trying to tell her or do. Pl. help if anyone can.
Pete replied. Hi Sheetal,

Firstly let me tell you what you are going through is natural and its part of the kids growing process. You do not have a problem or what you are going through is not at all a problem. Its what happens to all kids and their parent at that age. My daughter is 4 years now and I know how the transition happens.

1. Play group problem, crying and clingy - if you are not working, then check with the school if you can spend sometime in the school. You don' t have to do anything, just sit in one corner for someday to give your child an assurance you are there. Keep telling your kid how interesting school is and what all she can do etc..most of the things she wont even understand, but it will definitly rhyme in her head and make her school going fun. Also give her a big hug when you drop her and keep telling her to play well etc..I am positive this will work. We left our daughter in a day care when she was 11 months. My wife used to be with her for 2 hours every day until a month and then she was on her own. And till today she has not cried to go to school. However going on Mondays and after long holidays is a little fussy with her, but this on giving a big hug vanishes. Also its good to see how the school is behaving with the kids, sometime that also would be one reason the kids don' t like school. There was this one daycare which my daughter hated. She could recognize the road to that school( she was your daughter' s age then 19 months) and used to start crying. She was there for a month and everyday this was going on, so we changed her.

2. Anger - Sheetal , your kid is still a baby. She has her own ways to communicate. My daughter used to throw things, if its not happening her way. She says \" its not working\" . This is again because of the age. So be patience with her and explain to her even if she doesn' t understand what you say. As you keep repeating she will learn it one day. If you ask me until when should I keep telling her, I would say until the day she understands.

3. Beating you in front of parents - You really need a kick on your butt to even feel embarrassed when your daughter hit you in front of others. Your daughter is a baby and they do all these even worse things due to the age. Any parents who have kids understand this. So don' t be embarrassed.

4. Tantrums - Here you need to be a FIRM mother. Never ever give up to a tantrum. Kids are smart and they throw tantrums to get attention or if they want anything. Like lying on the floor and crying in shops etc. You should not give up even once, ignore the kid if they are throwing tantrums for the wrong reason. When they learn that you are ignoring their tantrum, they will stop it. Off course it will take some time. So until then be patience and FIRM.

Kids need to learn that they need to work to get things in life. The first example is an infant crying for Milk. You need to let the kid cry for sometime before you give her. If you feed the kids without her asking for it, its a first lesson for the kid to get things without any effort. Why is it advised to feed the baby BM and not bottles. To drink BM they need to work a lot, like sucking and pulling on the other hand the bottle feed had big holes which will send the milk to the child' s moth without any effort.

How do kids learn?

1. Through sight ( habits )
2. Through feel ( words )
3. Through their sense
4. Important through experience.

I see a lot of parents complain abut habits. This is because their own parents do not follow the same. If Daddy and Mommy can' t wake up at 6 am, how can you expect your child to wake up at 6? If Daddy and Mommy does not wish everyone GOOD MORNING How can the child be taught to wish people? If Daddy and Mommy do not make their bed when they get up, how do you expect the child to learn to make their be tidy?

We need to show, speak, teach our child until they learn to do. Believe me it took us more than 6 months to teach our daughter to say , please and thank you. You wont believe the grasping capacity of the kids, no mater how small they are. They pick up things fast than what we think. You will be surprise that one morning you kid will start behaving the way you want them them. At least this happened with me.

Sheetal, the idea is not to get panicked or worried on the child behavior. Do not compare kids with one another. Let the child grow naturally they way they want and not the way you want. However parents need to guide them to shape up their life. Most of the times the parents want their children to grow they way they want and not the child wants. This even happen during shopping, the toys, the food etc.. are sometimes picked because the parents liked them or missed them tduring their childhood.

Don' t WORRY Sheetal, it will not take you anywhere. Remember this 10/90 theory.

10 % of our life is made of things that happen that we do not have any control on. ( eg. a flight delay,, a traffic jam, kids breaking things by accident etc..

90 % of our life is made of how we react to the 10 % of what happened to us.

Make sure you you don' t say a lot of NO to your kids. Let them be free. But when you say NO it should be a real NO.

Cheers !

Pete