I’ll bet you 20 bucks and a bottle of wine every parent has experienced the phrase, “Congratulations, you’re now out of the terrible twos!” uttered to them by a well-meaning friend at their child’s third birthday.

It’s such a stereotypical saying that we’ve come to accept - the age of two is terrible and if we can get through that one year without being committed, then we’re in the clear and it’s relatively smooth sailing into preschool age childhood from there.

WRONG. What many parents find is when their child hits three, that’s when the real showdown begins and what was already there is simply turned up to 11.

Endless tantrums and moods prevail, boundaries are tested and open defiance begins, over-tiredness ensues following the death of nap time, food becomes ever more selective to things that are the colour white or yellow, and potty training continues... Welcome to the tedious threes. Now they are mostly mobile with the emotional instability of a teenager – threenagers!

On many parenting forums, desperate and exhausted parents ask advice on improving the behaviour of their three-year-olds. The expectation that their child is now ‘easier’ and more independent is dashed and hopelessness takes over.

We start using words like ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘easy’ or ‘difficult’. And when the meltdown in Kmart ensues, it’s at this age parents can feel the most alone and judged on their ability to handle their own child. Guilt and shame overtakes the mind and the idea of the ‘bad parent’ enters the scene.

This is a time full of turbulence, but there is hope if we start reframing the way we think and understand why it’s happening. Once there is understanding, strategies follow.

Let’s start with the basics – developmentally, what’s your child going through?

At three, children move from toddlerhood to childhood. If they are already toilet training, it’s in this year they will most likely master the art. They are more able-bodied and confident in walking, running, getting dressed with some help, and doing basic tasks like feeding themselves, drinking from a cup and putting their shoes on. They will start to bath themselves, and will try to take on more chores and activities independently – regardless of whether they need help and can keep up or not.

They will likely show you they don’t need day naps anymore, even though their energy levels may tell you otherwise. At this point, they need at least 10-13 hours sleep per night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Making sure kids get sleep may help minimise the tantrums, but that’s not the whole picture just yet.

Three-year-olds will begin to talk in clear, basic sentences and you’ll find you can have a simple conversation back and forward. But they are not linguists yet. According to Better Health Victoria, they only have approximately 1,200 words on average in their vocabulary.

But perhaps the biggest milestone is their emotional development. Three-year-olds are developing the full gamut of emotions and have a lot coursing through their heads. Just read Alicia F. Lieberman’s book The Emotional Life Of The Toddler. Through a play-by-play of following a toddler for a day, Alicia shows parents just how much of an emotional roller coaster their child is on. It’s huge! And they are starting to become aware that other people have emotions too, as well as how they affect your emotions and push your buttons.

These little people will try and test the boundaries in a big way, as they figure out who they are, become more self or socially aware, and learn how to express themselves.

Here’s the complete picture: they are more independent than they were, but they cannot keep up at times. They can talk, but they don’t have all the 20-35,000 words on average that adults have to express themselves. They have a lot of emotion, but are not socially aware or have reasoning skills yet and don’t have a lot of impulse control.

Hello tantrums, moods and meltdowns!

What can we do to minimise the exhaustion and tantrums, and maximise confidence and clear boundaries to survive going forward?

Childhood educator, expert, author, creator of the Unruffled podcast and mum, Janet Lansbury, has a unique approach to parenting in these years.

Let’s look at it as a three-step process. Janet believes respectful care (seeing your child as a human being who deserves respectful conduct and their feelings acknowledged), keeping calm and being an effective leader (a parent who creates boundaries and confidently put them in action) are the keys to having a happier life in the threes.

1. Respectful Care

The number one principle of parenting Janet believes is that no kids are ‘bad’ kids – as is evidenced in her popular book, No Bad Kids.

What we perceive as ‘acting out’ (meltdowns, tantrums or defiance) she says is normal three-year-old expression in the absence of proper language skills and impulse control – unlike hitting, biting or pushing, which are limit-pushing aggressive behaviours.

“When kids don’t know how they feel, are over-tired or feel a lot of emotions at once, they vent to people they trust via tantrums, often to people who they are supposed to love,” Janet says in her Unruffled podcast.

And in No Bad Kids, she says: “Our attitude toward limit-pushing behaviour is everything, and our perspective is what defines our attitude. Testing, limit-pushing, defiance and resistance are healthy signs that our toddlers are developing independence and autonomy.”

She believes that when these emotions or behaviours emerge, we need to detach our egos or the sense of responsibility we feel for our child’s behaviour and simply let them vent – while acknowledging their feelings in a respectful way.

“I wouldn’t see this as behaviour that you would need to nip in the bud or even try to control in any way. If it becomes pushing you, hitting you, biting or something damaging then, yes, I would stop it there. But the feelings, the crankiness, the yelling, all of this is just her stuff. It’s not something that we as parents are responsible for, required to fix or do anything about. The best thing we can do is, as I’ve said before, roll out the red carpet and let her fall apart,” Janet continues in her podcast.

“It’s always hardest to remember to acknowledge a child in the heat of a difficult moment, but if a child can hear anything during a temper tantrum, it reassures him to hear our recognition of his point-of-view. ‘You wanted an ice cream cone and I said no. It’s upsetting not to get what you want.’ When a toddler feels understood, he senses the empathy behind our limits and corrections.”

By letting go, being respectful and not escalating the situation or feeling like you need to fix everything, Janet says ultimately it’ll be less tiring for you.

“Yes, it’s exhausting if we’re trying to battle it or fix it or prop it up or dam it up. It’s going to be exhausting. Don’t buy into that role. Don’t put that on your job description. Let it go, give it up,” she explains.

2. The Power Of Calm

When your child melts down, Janet advises to keep calm, don’t let their behaviour get to you and don’t give their actions power.

“So, one of the reasons my podcast is called Unruffled,” she says, “is that I like to stress the importance of not giving power to unwanted behaviour, and that’s especially important when it’s behaviour that we don’t have power to stop or insist on.

“The only power we have is our ability to rise above it, take it in stride. Now, this definitely gets easier with practise.”

Janet says it’s important to keep in mind that your child isn’t a bad little human and you as a parent are not failing.

“There’s nothing that we’re going to get here that we can’t handle. It’s really important that we give children the overall impression that we’ve got this. We’re not going to let it get to us. We’re not going to let a scream throw us for a loop. If we see it as normal, if we understand that giving it a reaction gives it power, we can do this. It’s kind of fun and confidence-building once you get the hang of it and you see the results – that they can try all kinds of things and you’re not going to let it get to you.

“It’s even more important to trust and to let it go, and to under-react. I guess you could say this is all under the heading of the balance of power that our child feels. Children [need to] feel that we are very comfortable in our power and we don’t allow our children’s behaviour have power with us.”

3. Be The Leader Your Child Needs

The last thing Janet acknowledges is that children will often test the boundaries of their parent’s leadership, so defined boundaries, routine and follow-through are so important for building a strong, lifelong leadership role. Proper leadership will help your child to thrive, feel safe and be comfortable – helping to reduce tantrums. Likewise, sketchy leadership will create confusion, instability and mixed feelings.

“Imagine driving over a bridge in the dark,” says Janet in No Bad Kids. “If the bridge has no railings, we will drive across it slowly and tentatively. But if we see railings on either side of us, we can drive over the bridge with ease and confidence. This is how a young child feels in regard to limits in his environment.”

She continues in her podcast: “When behaviour unravels, it typically means that we have an exhausted, wound-up child with some feelings he needs to express and the parent is not being clear enough about limits, because he or she doesn’t want an upset child. Then the child usually continues testing in a variety of situations until he feels the security of the parent’s leadership.

“Being clear means confidently asserting: “I need to make dinner now. I hear how much you want to keep playing. I was enjoying that, too. I’m hoping we’ll have time to play a bit more before bedtime.

“We’re ideally going to expect this kind of behaviour. It’s all positive stuff, testing my independence, testing my will, testing my leaders.”

While this may all seem too good to be true and easier said than done, Janet does assure readers and listeners it gets easier with practise and can even be empowering for parents. There is light at the end of this dark tunnel, as your children grow emotionally and socially out of this phase.

Does it get easier? Maybe. Or maybe you’ll get a whole new set of challenges. Either way, you got this, parent!

We’d love to hear your techniques for coping with your little threenager - comment below.

You can find out more about Janet Lansbury, her books and podcast by visiting her website.

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