Every so often when my daughter gets into her terrible twos mode, she changes from a sweet thing into a screaming monster. Not pleasant to watch.
There is an obvious power play when it happens, she tries to assert control over her little world - such as wanting to snack before dinner.
Once every few weeks she gets these goodie bags from playschool from a birthday boy or girl. It blew my mind when we received the first goodie bags, because it was filled with all the junk you can think of that people should not be eating, let alone little children. Anyway, she tries to dig into the goodie bag before dinner and I have to trick her to take it away from her. This is the first hurdle. And then I take the bag into the kitchen, empties 3/4 of the contents into the bin and we are left with almost nothing. But I replace the contents with healthier snacks such as raisins or soyjoy or something similar and tell her that she will get it back after dinner. The 2nd hurdle comes of course when she is not going to stand by and watch her goodie bag sitting on the kitchen counter, so the screaming begins. I ignore her for the most part because I tell her that screaming children do not get any attention from me. She does this for a good 15- 20 minutes until she realises that she needs to speak properly before I pay her any attention. Interestingly, when (if) she does speak properly and I repeat myself that she will get her goodie bag after dinner, she says ok! and then gets on with playing her toys.
I can see her obvious struggle when she bangs the table or throws her toys around just to make her point. It must be a frustrating little world in her tiny head. But I am a firm believer in setting good examples so that eventually she will struggle no more and will grow out of this phase becoming more balanced as a little person.
It is definitely a growing and learning process for me too because it is tempting to just choose the easier path.
She is turning three next month, so out goes the terrible twos, and perhaps in come the terrific threes? :-)
I can wish can't I?