The author takes her son on weekly outings.
Courtesy of Autumn Gavora
After having my son, I heard the horror stories of the "terrible twos." I'd stare down at my newborn and think there was absolutely no way this little bundle of rolls could one day be anything like my friends were describing. I kept that mindset as we rolled straight through his second birthday, and his behavior remained unchanged.I thought I won the golden ticket. My toddler was fantastic; no meltdowns in sight. Like any naive first-time parent, I was so wrong. My son turns 3 in August, and he started having tantrums recently. However, after asking him what was going on, I figured out a reason for the behavior — and something that helped.My son had a hard time when I went back to workI've had the incredible pleasure of being home with my son for the majority of his life. Then, when I returned to the office full-time last October, I slowly began to notice changes. His grandpa watched him while I was at work, and we started to notice he wasn't listening to either of us as well; his moods also had taken a dip.Coming home every day and seeing him upset broke me as a mom. In January, I decided to quit my job and return home full time to be with him. Since I've returned home, I've noticed that even though I'm here and we're spending a lot more time together again, his moods sour. He'd refuse to stop throwing toys and would have tantrums when he wouldn't listen to anything I asked him to do. But the usual things we'd do to quell this behavior — like time-outs and incentives for good behavior — also weren't working.A lightbulb moment went off when I sat down and asked him what was wrong. His answer was "I miss you" or, worse, "I want to see you." I didn't understand why he was saying this when I was literally right there. The same behaviors kept happening, and he kept giving the same answers; when I truly thought about it, I realized that even though I was physically right there, I mentally wasn't. My son was next to me, but I was focusing on cleaning, reading, or doing other things I thought were important, when he was the most important thing.
