Preschoolers with Big Emotions

You were ready for the baby phase.

Before you brought your baby home, you prepared meticulously. You bought all the necessary (and not so necessary but oh so cute) things that your friends and family suggested, read all the books, and went to baby classes.

Sleepless nights, endless crying, and all the diapers weren’t too big of a surprise for you – although the amount might have been “a bit” overwhelming.

But you hoped this exhausting phase would end, and things would get better.

Now you are surprised by how naïve you were.

The toddler phase swept you off your feet.

Every day feels like an endless power struggle, and you are not winning.

There is no way to reason with a toddler having a tantrum in the middle of a grocery store. And you haven’t figured out how to prevent this from happening.

Life feels like a rollercoaster. One moment, everyone is happy and playing cheerfully together, and the next moment, your toddler is screaming at the top of their lungs, all because you did or said something that wasn’t part of their “script.”

Parenting is exhausting, but this feels like a whole new level of hard.

You are not the parent you wanted to be.

Yelling, nagging, belittling, and bribing have become part of your repertoire. It’s such a contrast from how you imagined yourself raising your kids. You feel helpless and hopeless like you cannot handle your children.

Sometimes, you wonder if you are “damaging” your kids, hurting their self-esteem and emotional development.

During another “battle,” you find yourself pausing and noticing that it all seems too familiar. That battle is a flashback to your childhood that you swore not to repeat.

You realize that you have some stuff to work through, and you need help.

It doesn’t have to be this hard.

Toddlers will have their emotions and irrational responses, but you can learn how to react in a helpful way that makes the tantrums shorter and easier to address.

Learning how to prevent most of these tantrums from happening is essential. It is possible to gain the power necessary to take charge.

Each family needs a leader (preferably someone 18+) who feels confident and in control. But you need skills for this, and you can learn them in therapy. Furthermore, therapy helps you address the patterns you learned from your childhood and change them.

I would be honored to help you be the parent you always wanted to be so that you could enjoy family life again.

You can do this!