My daughter is 20 months. Beginning earlier this summer we went from the smiling, happy as you can get, freindly baby to a smiling, happy as you can get, freindly baby who won't sit down and likes to run. She used to sit in shopping carts all day if she had to, now forget about it. She wants to help and as of recently she thinks it is funny to hide from me. She will try to hide under a rack of clothes at a store. I am extremely paranoid about these things, so I am all over her and I am not worried about losing her, but I get extremely tired of dealing with this behavior. I swear I correct it about 20 times in a store alone. She will laugh because she thinks she is funny or she will get made and rip my hair out or collapse on the floor. I am so tired everyone......Tonight we had a Christmas party at our Karate studio where my husband takes karate. There are a lot of kids there playing and adults as well. My daughter likes to have fun and she is always able to run when we take her there. Tonight, she would run around all of the tables like the other kids, but I can't let her out of my sight and so I spend my entire time weaving around tables chasing her and she will not let me pick her up or point her in another direction without a melt down. When I can finally distract her, by playing ball with her in a corner then I am focused on that so I wonder why I even bother going??? At the time I was playing ball with her, my husband was called up to recieve an award and I never heard his name being call or saw him accept the award. The room became silent and they were looking for me and my daughter who were sitting on the floor in our dresses so we could come up and take a picture with my husband. I picked up her and of course she is bucking and trying to throw a fit. Nice. I left immediately afterwards without my husband. I cried in the car before I drove home because I feel like I am missing out on a piece of life in a way and I am tired of this non-stop behavior. She is a good girl, she helps, she is nice, she talks a lot to everyone and learns fast, but I assume this is normal spirited toddler behavior? She is testing her independance? She doesn't understand rules fully? (sigh) I am a stay at home mom and I am the only one dealing with my daughter. My husband knows, but he doesn't really understand what this is like, what I deal with, how exhausting it truly is. I have been set on one child before I even had my daughter, and I would be devastated if I had another, especially now I know what it is like. Raising kids is too much sometimes. Maybe it is me, maybe I don't have the patience or the personality for little ones? I don't know.....just venting here, I am tired and I am sitting at home in my sweatpants now while my husband is in a suit and is still at the event enjoying himself. I tell myself that someday she won't be a toddler anymore and this will pass. Can anyone relate?

I am sad, angry, tired, exasperated, embarrassed......

i do understand your pain! my first and i had a very similar relationship, and i realized, after i was pregnant with my second, the HUGE mistake i was making with her was that my expectations were just way too low! at 20 months, your daughter does have the capability of understanding simple rules, such as "this is the time to sit quietly" or "this is the time to be strapped in." i really had to be firm with my daughter, and just let her have her meltdowns and not give in to the screaming. most people do understand that young children have meltdowns....

you can start by cracking down at home and start disciplining for even small infractions. timeouts are very effective if done right. if you tell her to do something and she doesn't do it, give her a warning and then if she still doesn't do it, give her a timeout. in a store, if you need to let her walk, do it, but is she doesn't follow the rules, she gets one warning and then she goes in the stroller/shopping cart strapped in and STAYS there the rest of that outing.

children NEED boundaries and they need their parents to set them. your daughter doesn't need you to be her best friend. she is going to have plenty of friends as she grows up, but you are the only mommy she is going to have and you are the one who is responsible to teach her self control, self discipline, and self respect.

as far as the scene at the christmas party.... it's happened to me on so many occasions! most people understand that children have meltdowns and they're not going to look down on you for your daugher having a meltdown, but they will lose respect for you if that meltdown gets your daughter what she wants! if it were me, i'd have told her to calm down or i'd leave her in the corner (or wherever we happened to be standing).... if she didn't calm down, i'd have left her freaking out in the corner, and joined my husband for the picture with a lovely smile on my face.... and i probably would have made a joke that my daughter was angry because she thought she should have gotten the award.... then i'd excuse myself, grab my daughter and take her out to the bathroom and in the privacy of the bathroom i would have given her to the count of three to calm down and if she didn't, i'd have swatted her bottom and counted again.... i think i swatted her once the first time we ever went to the bathroom, after that, just the threat of going to the bathroom was enough to calm her down. that method works with putting her in timeout instead of swatting (i have friends who don't believe in swatting but like the method), but it takes a lot longer, plus the whole public bathroom germ thing..... ew!

as long as you are firm and follow through with your discipline EVERY TIME (no matter how you choose to discipline), you can get your daughter under control. mine is four now, and she is so much better behaved and i actually LOVE taking her out in public now! now i'm starting to crack down on my two year old.... it's a little harder because she has some serious ANGER ISSUES!!!!! wish me luck!!!

great post MCR:)

Thanks for the advice.

She is okay at home, I don't have to correct her very often at all. She helps me a lot and is pleasant and cooperative. It is mainly when we got out somewhere that she gets bonkers. I correct her constantly because she needs to know that I am in control and the mother and not her.

After reading your post I believe my problem lies with taking even further action to let her know I am serious such as just leaving the store too. I never get tired and let her keep doing what she is doing, but after I correct her she will stop and just begin again in a couple of minutes.

What would you do if you hair was getting pulled/ripped out like when? How would you react? I tend to correct her in a very firm, raised voice that she does not pull my hair, it hurts mommy and is not nice.

I am not the type of parent that lets a child walk all over them or wants to be her freind, I want to raise my daughter in a corrcect old fashioned kind of way. So I hope I can correct her running when we are not home soon.

my two year old was probably around 18-20 months when she went through a hair pulling phase. at first i thought it was an accident, but then i realized she was doing it to get a reaction (i too would tell her in a firm raised voice no that hurts mommy) and she usually thought it was just funny. and she did it every day, a few times a day! and she pulled my 4 year old's hair too! so i pulled her hair back one day (not ripping her hair out hard, but hard enough to show her it hurts) and she acted like i had just gravely injured her and she just cried and screamed and carried on.... but she has only pulled my hair once or twice since then (and got her hair pulled back for it) and she has reached for my 4 year old's hair on several occasions but only pulled her hair once or twice too.... the other times, she seemed to think twice about it and pulled her hand back without touching the 4 year old's hair.

oh, if she's got her hand IN your hair and won't let go, squeeze her firmly in the center of her wrist (palm side - don't know technical terms, sorry!) and it'll force her to loosen her grip (just make sure your fingernails don't dig into her skin!).

lol, I do squeeze her palm if her hand is really in there. I pulled her hair once or twice. She cried one time. It is embarrasing when she does it in a store.