Laws of Energy

My son Robin is already a bit older than 2 years, so you can already notice he is entering the famous “Terrible Two” Stage. As every human being he has good and bad days, some days with more tantrums than others.

Every now and then I face a challenge of keeping my cool, and he of course runs to his papa since he seems to be the one that understands his wishes best. Papa Raju has a tendency to use natural sciences in every day life so his practical advice for tantrum situations is the following:

Treat every wish as a wave of energy. Energy can’t be destroyed with a “No – you can’t have that!“ or “No – You can't do that!” Energy can only be transformed into a different kind of energy. So if you go ahead with "No" – it will be transformed most likely into the typical toddler’s anger. Therefore in order to avoid, biting, shouting, pinching and what not, best bet you have is to keep calm and redirect the attention to something else or actually give your toddler what he wants and let him realize why it is bad for him.

Just one example: Robin is crazy about wiping with mops, cloths or wet wipes. However, I try to restrain him from the wet wipes with chemical and the other day he turned the house upside down because I didn’t give it to him. Raju pitched in and explained him calmly that his stomach would ache if he touches this and puts hands in mouth. Still he was crying and wanted the packet very much. After a few minutes of explanations, Raju gave it to him and he took it in the other room and never opened it. But his wish was respected and he was ok now.

I have always known that you have to approach a child with an equal respect as an adult. But there is nobody that does it better than his papa, so I am happy and thankful for his daily lessons of patience.