The Happiest Toddler on the Block

Chances are if you have a toddler in your house you're quite familiar with tantrums. Bless their little hearts-they're only trying to assert their independence but, geez, those tantrums can age even the most even-tempered parent within minutes. One of the best resources we were given was a DVD called, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block," by Dr. Harvey Karp, M.D.

The video features Dr. Karp interacting with real people-his patients-having common struggles of coping with defiant, stubborn toddlers. He presents ideas in a gentle, loving and caring way to help parents realize that in order to help their children, they need to take a respectful and calm approach rather than a physical one. The following are some of the terrific treasures offered in this video:

Three Main Points:

Before a parent can even think of trying one of the techniques offered by Dr. Karp, he says there are three things they must learn first:

The "Fast Food Rule": In an interesting analogy, he asks parents to imagine what happens when they go to order food at a fast-food restaurant. The service person never just takes our order and asks for our money; she always repeats our order back to us to let us know she "gets" what we said (our agenda) then she asks for our money (her agenda). This rule states when our toddlers are in the throws of a tantrum (or about to start up), we need to let them know we understand what they're upset about before we can get them to listen to us. After all, wouldn't you be more willing to listen to someone when they're being calm and showing they understand rather than a person who's just yelling "no" expecting us to follow along?

Your Toddler Is A Caveman: By "caveman" Karp refers to the prehistoric way toddlers behave: they grunt and point to communicate, they wipe their noses on their arms and display their emotions in extremes. He's trying to say if we see our toddlers as little cavemen, instead of little adults, we'd have better luck in getting through to them.