# How do I handle my two year old's indecisiveness?



## GracesMama (Oct 24, 2006)

Suddenly my two year old DD has turned into a prepubescent teen who doesn't know what she wants, and I'm going crazy dealing with it.

Here are a few examples:

This morning it was time to brush her teeth. She said she wanted to do it downstairs, so down we went. Then she stopped on a stair and said she wanted to sit down to brush her teeth. When I started to brush her teeth, she said no, she wanted to go downstairs, so we started going downstairs, and then the whole cycle started over again. Finally, I just walked away and told her I would brush her teeth when she was ready and went about my own business. She started crying hysterically begging me to brush her teeth.

One more example. As we were leaving, she decided she wanted to bring her plastic pumpkin along. Fine, no problem. She left it on the step and started to climb into her carseat, so I grabbed it for her. No, she wanted to get it herself. So, I let her get it herself, but instead she started crying saying she wanted me to get it.

What the heck's going on? How do I handle this using GD?


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## neverdoingitagain (Mar 30, 2005)

Ah, this is the typical reaction of a 3 year old. I'm assuming your dd is close to 3? 2 1/2 even?
Its normal, and aggravating. For me, I found that sometimes it works well for getting what I want







: I found that simply saying "ok, honey, we won't do X" help alot. If it gets too much of a cycle, I ask my dd to try it herself. Patience is the key, a sense of humor and the knowledge that it does pass.
I don't know that was much help, but you aren't alone. 3 is a







: age. Its so much fun, but the indecisiveness is just crazy.
Terrible twos...







:







they got nothing on the indecisive 3's


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## GracesMama (Oct 24, 2006)

Oh no, I guess I'm reallly in for it because DD just turned two in August! She's nowhere close to 3... yikes!!! Thanks for the input.


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## neverdoingitagain (Mar 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *GracesMama* 
Oh no, I guess I'm reallly in for it because DD just turned two in August! She's nowhere close to 3... yikes!!! Thanks for the input.

In that case, you may be over it sooner than later








There were a few threads around here about dealing with 3 year olds, pretty informative, kept me sane! I'll see if I can find them for you







:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=710980


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## neverdoingitagain (Mar 30, 2005)

Ok that wasn't it, but if you look in the resources and GD archives, you'll find some great articles.
also
http://www.naturalchild.org/articles..._children.html
might help


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## mezzaluna (Jun 8, 2004)

we've been getting this since about 2.5. we know it's really bad when he asks for something he knows we don't have... like do you want the blue plate or yellow plate? i want the red plate. we don't *have* a red plate... it's always the red plate









i've come to the realization that i give too many choices to DS. i know it's supposed to be this lovely discipline tool to give them small choices they can handle to let them have practice making decisions... but especially when DS is tired or hungry he just gets "squirrelly" that's my word for it anyway... wants this... no, wants that... take this away... no wait, want it back... so i try more to give him choice and control when it's authentically needed, and not go around using it as a tool to engage his cooperation, because it so often backfires. things go a lot more smoothly when we have a routine way we do things that we don't have to negotiate _every single time_.


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## BonMaman (Sep 25, 2005)

I posted with a similar conundrum not too long ago and got some very helpful replies: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=765735


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