What If It Works?

It Makes No Sense, But You Can't Argue With The Results

This post 'What If It Works?' is inspired by a harmless experiment I've been trying out this week with my son Tom, who is 21 months old. The results have been pretty amazing so far.

Tom has only just started walking, having spent most of the year wearing out his trousers by shuffling around on his knees.

Finally he started walking properly a few weeks ago, and now the four horsemen of the Apocaplypse would have a hard time stopping him!

With this new-found independence is the intensification of his tantrums, and recently I've been proclaiming "Oh, they go on for a 2 hours at least. It's such a nightmare blah blah blah..."

Does the phrase 'self-fulfilling prophecy' leap to mind at all?

It's very easy to get into a mental rut with toddler behaviour and if you are loudly protesting NO! How can my child's tantrums be a self-fulfilling prophecy? I would suggest that you try this little experiement that I've done.

First of all, decide how the situation would change if you could wave a magic wand and make it exactly how you want things to go.

For example, if your child has a big tantrum every time you try to get her into her pyjamas, imagine her laughing instead.

Now concentrate on that happening. Everytime you start fretting about the tantrums, run a film in your mind of her giggling while you get her dressed.

I did this with Tom going to nursery. I imagined him smiling as he went into the gate and not looking back at me as I left him.

The idea is to put yourself in the situation that you wish to create. You could even mention to someone how she really enjoyed getting dressed today. A white lie, completely harmless - but it helps create the reality in your mind.

What happened was that I noticed a definite change in Tom as I dropped him at nursery - he has started to winge a bit rather than scream. This is not a smooth black and white change - one day he did revert to his old ways - but things are definitrely improving.

I can't explain it. But it works! Try it yourself - you've got nothing to lose...