Less than a year ago I wrote one of those entries in which you open the doors of your house to tell a little about your day to day. I told you about my children, and especially about Guim, the little one of the three, to explain that strange moment when they are 2 or 3 years old when you don't want them to grow up and you want them to grow up. Well, Guim is already 4 years old, and I can't say that things are going much better.
Actually I don't worry too much, because it's the third time I've lived it (with the other two it happened the same), and based on repetition one realizes that the problem is self-limited in time. But hey, that does not mean that there are days when smoke comes out of your ears. And it is that after three children I can affirm without fear of being mistaken that three and four year olds behave like real 'psychological abusers'.
Because they are that age, that if they were 10 more they would probably be in a correctional facility, and if they were 20 more, with parents in a deep depression, crying, seeking help and praying for the police to separate them from their lives, despite loving him More than nothing in the world.
Why do I say that? Because I am going to talk to you about things that my children have done in that age and that, if we imagined them in a teenager, or in an adult, they would be to ask for a restraining order.
The clothes you wear don't work
You choose the clothes for that day after assessing that one thing hits the other, the temperature of the day and the possibility that at noon, in case it is hot, you can take off a garment to be more comfortable. But none of that has any logic for him, because he just wants the shirt that he can't wear because it's dirty, broken, small or washing.
If you are in the closet you will have no interest in it. He will only choose the one that is not there. And you tell him that it can't be, that it is dirty, and it doesn't matter: "you ride it as you can, or as you like, but you put that yes or yes on me."
On the other hand there is the issue of weather. We are in the same ones: he wants to wear water boots when you are at 30 degrees, and the day it rains the most you can wear the cloth slippers. And without socks. Yes, that he has put them on because he shows you that he knows what he wants, how and when, that he is older to make his own decisions, but that is not only not for that day, but also he puts them on his feet changed... Very old you, yes sir. Send noses.
He wants what his brother has
Is there anyone who at this point is able to deny the law of gravity? No, right? Well, look, it would seem more logical to find out that someone has managed to refute it than to meet someone whose young son does not madly want everything his older brother has. It is the so-called "ass I see, ass I want" law.
No matter what. It does not matter if it is an object that has been collecting dust at home for 427 days without repairing it and without the minimum desire to hold it for a few seconds; the moment the brother has it between his fingers, his attention will inevitably focus on it and he will get it with nails and teeth. First with a "I want it, give it to me" and then, if you don't get it for good, for bad.
This law is accompanied by another equally irrefutable: once a child achieves a desired object, the time it will take to release it is inversely proportional to the time it has taken to achieve it, within reach of the tantrum and the screams that have been generated at home by the brother as by the parents. That is, the more they bundle it, the less time they make use (of the shit) of the object.
And this second law is accompanied by another that affects our parents: the greater the mess, the greater the desire to throw the object out the window.
"In that cup, not in the other"
Continuing with the clothes, and for you to see that this behavior extends to other moments of life with them, the cup for milk will never be correct. "This one, which is plastic." "This one, which has no drawings." "This one, I don't like Doraemon." "I want the one from Gumball" ... that will be the one your brother has, or the one in the dishwasher.
In the end you will get it, you do not know how, and you will see that you have constantly passed the milk from one cup to the other, at the moment of taking the first drink, say: "I do not want more, it is cold". Or worse: "I didn't want milk".
"I don't take a shower now"
It is one of the most terrifying moments for parents. The moment of showering or bathing. There are those who have already chosen to shower them every 2-3 days, to avoid such an ordeal (and I say Calvary because of the nerves there are many parents who are getting bald). They don't want to shower. Impossible. You have to resort to games, cheating, stratagems, "we make me a troll and you save yourself when you enter the shower" and things like that, and although it often works, many others do not.
And he doesn't want to, and there are days that even by force, hey, because he is a bit of an abuser, but he doesn't stop being a crayfish and you can take him on volandas. And all so that later in the shower you start playing bubbles, being Spiderman and the following happens.
"Now I don't get out of the shower"
Come, I have already clarified, stop touching the soap, come on, that ... and does not want to leave. You try to rationalize the situation, try to understand it, but no. Children 3-4 years must be a superior species, or perhaps even do what they call "use 100% of brain capacity", and we do not reach their height. Because as much as we try to decipher their behaviors, we fail to approach the reason for what they do.
And you notice the dark circles fall ... from the eyes to the chin. That it is not necessary to look at yourself in the mirror: that notes that go down and down in parallel to your shoulders and your arms. Exhausted before such handling of your child, such superiority, such abuse. Such, that it has completely disoriented you and, in the end, at your absolute mercy.
"I don't eat it"
Moment of food. I eat the milk, but on the plate. That this dish is not, that is the other. That this glass not, that the other. That what you have done to me is disgusting and I don't want it. You do something else. It wasn't that either. What does he want from you? But it is the same! Already, but of yours, it seems that your plate is more cool.
You give it to him, yours… you will eat his own and what he has. In the end you always eat, so no problem. Two or three tablespoons and disappears. He doesn't want anymore. Why so much history?
And in the end, when there is no one left at the table and you have collected the leftovers and thrown away your own, because there was half a kilo of tomato, you suspect that some distemper and even a little of the water that has fallen while drinking, appears and you He says: And my food !? I love her! Poor you tell him in the garbage ... take the leftovers from the fridge, or if it is not possible, take some of the garbage without seeing you, what you see that has not come into contact with disgusting things, and will You plant it on the plate. Total, He won't eat it either! He is not hungry. It is torture for torture. It is to crush you psychologically so that you kneel before him. Nothing else.
"And mine?"
And you arrive one day with a book for the elder, which has been read the last one you bought. And he looks at you and tells you: what about mine? And you thinking (And yours what? If you have two hundred books inherited from your brothers!). And you look at him, and although you know that you don't go out alive, you say "I've only bought this one for him, because his is over and he wants to read a new one." Well, I want one!
Because you can't give to the elders if he doesn't receive something. Because the elders have to end up giving the little one everything that comes out in cereals, or in eggs, or whatever. He wants it and wants it now.
"And when is my birthday?"
That sees gifts and the same, where are yours. No, today is not your birthday. Well, when is it! And everything is a drama. The gifts, the happy children but he doesn't, blow the candles !! "Come on, wait, don't cut yet that he wants to blow it now." And someone says "But, if today is not his birthday ...", at which time you cast that look of yourself asylum seeker, with the tic in one eye, and whisper "Callaaaaaa. Let-that-blow-the-damn-sail-aaasssss ".
"Not that way!"
You go out and go to the same place as always. Then you decide to stop by a store for something, leaving a moment of the tour and tells you "Not that way!". Because he already knows the way and it is unfeasible to get out of it: it cannot be that every day you go through the same places and now suddenly, without warning or anything, I give you to change. "Throw where ever, dad, or throw me on the ground and I don't move from here."
"I wanted to hit the button!"
Leaving home with everyone, we go to the parking lot to take the car and even if we are very late: "Let no one touch the elevator button!". What does he want to give him, who now comes because he is doing I don't know how important at home with some stickers. We leave, but not when we say, but when he says. That we go down by elevator, but not when we say, but when he says. And sometimes there is no choice but to go down even if you have given another one, but there are days to be sent to the elevator to another floor so that it is definitely he who presses the button.
"You are a fucking!"
Yes it is. When he gets angry and runs out of arguments then he insults you with the last insult he has learned, or putting them all together: "You are a whore! Siripollas! I don't love you!" And so he takes away his love, because he knows that you love him when he says he loves you, and concludes that he will be very angry if he tells you otherwise. Pure abuse ... too bad it doesn't work for them.
"Well, I pee here"
Well, I pee here in the middle of the room, because I throw the milk on the table, because I throw the food on the floor, because I do what I know that will make you angry, or the first absurd thing that I can think of to punish you for ignoring me in the first second after calling you. "What's wrong with you, son?" "That I have called you and you don't come ... well look what I do." And you there running like a possessed person to avoid giving you more work than you already have, totally surrendered at your mercy, bent at your will, and thinking: "What an uncle ... how it returns me that these days I could not spend much time he "or" what uncle ... to see if it grows already ".
Patience, love and keep telling them what is right and what is not
And it is that many times the thing goes there, that as they do not know how to tell us how much they love us and how much they want us to love them and be for them, and notice that we are not enough, they demand it of us doing theirs. There is also a lot of age, of self-assertion, of starting to make decisions ... and sometimes there is also what we call "tell me dad, how far can I go".
So you know what it is: patience, because when they turn 5 there are few who remain so abusive; love, because just as they show you most of the day how much they love you, we must do the same (love never depends on their behavior); Y keep telling them what's right and what's not, it seems that we are really his absolute slaves, and the only way not to definitely become that is to continue explaining why nothing happens if you drink in another cup, why you can go with other clothes to the street, why boots of water are for water and why you don't like having to give it the mop to clean what you just stained with all your bad intentions.
Photos | Maggie Stephens, Greg Westfall, Joopey on Flickr
In Babies and more | The rebellion of the two years, what does it mean to "behave well"? Does it behave badly? Claims in disguise
