Positive Relationships: Behaviour - All too much?

Two-year-olds are often labelled as 'terrible twos' who need 'taming'. They are stereotyped as egocentric people who flit from one thing to another wreaking havoc in their wake, are arbitrarily defiant and bite and have tantrums. So, their behaviour is often termed 'challenging', and parents and practitioners alike veer between digging in their heels in a determined effort to be in control or throwing in the towel and giving up.

Two-year-olds experience their feelings with great intensity, which often prompts passionate expressions of excitement, sadness, anger or joy that easily overpower their self-control and lead to impulsive behaviours and emotional collapses.

To understand what gives rise to these behaviours, we have to consider that two-year-olds are frequently meeting new, challenging and often hard-to-understand experiences that are outside their control, particularly when they start attending an early years setting for the first time. If we compare the number of new situations that two-year-olds encounter regularly with our own, we can appreciate that such an ever-changing, out-of-my-control life will inevitably lead to mood and behaviour swings.