London - Halloween horror has come early to the Candy household in the form of a small devil wearing Barbie trainers and a messy “Elsa-from-Frozen” plait.
She strides about hurling belongings around in a menacing fashion, high on secretly consumed chocolate biscuits, fuelled by her newly acquired toddler rage. Mabel has entered the terrible twos a year late and it’s like living with a miniature Gordon Ramsay.
“Get those Raymonds out of my cereal,” she bellowed this morning, pushing the bowl across the table in a fury (I think she means raisins).
“I’m not going to bed/wearing socks/brushing my teeth,” she yells on repeat. “I do not choose this,” she says sternly every time I disagree with a request.
“But wait,” I hear you exclaim, “isn’t she number four? Why haven’t you got a grip on the tantruming tiara-wearer? Surely after 12 years of parenting you should be able to quash this pint-sized rebellion? Honestly, you’re amateurs.”
But these late-onset tantrums caught us by surprise. We’re still trying to figure it out.
Believe me, I’m drawn to parenting help books like Cheryl Fernandez-Versini is drawn to talentless, tone-deaf songstresses on X Factor, but I doubt anything Tanya Byron, Supernanny or Gina Ford recommends will work for us.
One minute Mabel was adorable, spirited but reasonable, and we thought we’d swerved the terrible twos. The next she’d become a furious, illogical nightmare trying to bite heads off toys (not always her own) and causing havoc in the supermarket (note to staff: laughing encourages her). Her behaviour is so unpredictable I suspect it is part of a sophisticated family plot to send me over the edge and put Dad, the disciplinary pushover, in charge.
“Where’s Mom?” Mr C will ask when he arrives home from work one day.
“Oh, she went mad and we had her committed,” the fearsome foursome will say as they tuck into chocolates for tea.
But just as I’m pondering why we can’t cure these mini meltdowns, I remember: there is no cure. Gracie-in-the-middle used to bite my knees in the throes of her toddler rage. The eldest would lie face down on the pavement refusing to move. And my son would kick the fridge in fury.
Mabel, three-and-a-half, is positively volcanic with her temper, making us look like beginner parents wrestling a brat whose discovery of the power of the word “no” suddenly caught us off-guard.
We could throw the full force of our tiny tearaway experiences at the problem, but what’s the point? Perhaps we could try “time out on the naughty step” (you’re not supposed to call it that now: behaviour is naughty, children are not, but who has time to explain?).
Then there’s the cold shoulder (some experts reckon ignoring the behaviour is a cure-all) or there’s “lovebombing”, a school of thought that the rage is a sign of the child’s fear of its increasing independence - a cry for help, so you’re supposed to hug them close as they thrash around, to make them feel secure.
Over to Mr C for that because Mabel is as strong as a sumo wrestler and twice as stubborn.
That’s all Plan A. In reality, experience has taught me to revert to Plan B: grin and bear it.
If I’ve learnt one thing, it’s that as soon as you get used to something, it changes. The phases of childhood can be as unpredictable and frustrating as the behaviour.
You think they’ll last for ever (especially the first sleepless months) but before you know it the little fellas develop something more challenging to throw at you.
Domestic life becomes an emotional It’s A Knockout, with obstacle after obstacle, none of which you have ever encountered before. The only thing I know for certain is no matter how illogical the situation seems to you, the toddler is always in the right (like doctors’ receptionists and school secretaries) and that you must never ask: “Can I help you?” That’s asking for trouble. Cover your knees and run for the hills. - Daily Mail
Lorraine Candy is editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.