Ok... so here is the deal. I feel like we have done a pretty darn good job with the whole parenting thing. Emma has always been such a sweet, good girl! She is independent, yes, and a little stubborn... but for the most part she has been a joy!
Until recently. Recently Emma has gone from being a sweetie one minute to being a complete and total brat. I know, how could I call this adorable little angel a brat?
Oh boy, I can. So here is the area where I need advice. It seems whenever it is tantrum throwing time, any of the many tactics I have tried don't phase her.
I have tried to reason, that has been the most useless of all tactics
I have tried ignoring her (this one I only use in the car, at home or if she is stuck in a shopping cart... and I proceed to finish my shopping ASAP) If we are at home, a quick trip to her bed and she calms down. In the car not so much. Today for instance, we were at Best Buy and she was playing with one of those little handheld games that happened to have a Dora game on it. I let her stand there and play with it FOREVER, even though I wanted to go look at the pretty cameras, I was patient and let her play while Nathan bought and packed away our new dishwasher (yay!) It was time to go, and I told her to say bye to the toy. NO WAY. She cried and yelled and tried to hold onto the toy with all her might. It ended with me dragging her out of the store, screaming, Then Nathan and I had to hold her down and strap her in her car seat. She screamed the whole drive home. She didn't want anything we offered, not even bribes of "stop crying and you can watch Dora". So we ended up ignoring her for the last 15 minutes of the trip, and she didn't care; she cried and screamed anyway.
We have tried making deals, like tonight she wanted candy so I told her to take one more bite of her hot dog, which up until that point she was loving. The second I said it she wanted nothing but the stupid piece of candy, and we ended up with another fit on our hands, luckily this one was at home.
The occasional swat on the butt in public tends to make her cry, but in a "I want you to hold me now" sort of way and she stops as soon as I hold her; that only goes bad if I can't hold her the rest of the time we are wherever we are.
Like I said, at home, if she can go lay in her bed with her binky and blanket she calms down, even if it takes awhile, she has no problem hanging out in her bed.
It seems like the problem is getting worse as time goes on, more time is being spent on her crying and me making her do horrible things like get in her car seat, eat food and turn off the TV. More and more time at home she is spending in her bed like a sullen teenager.
So here is where I need the help moms and dads... is this REALLY how the rest of her twos and threes are going to be? Is there anything I am not trying that I should? Is my daughter going to turn into a whiny little brat that I will seriously consider selling to a nice family with more patience than I have?
