Reply to The toddler who just won't sit still, runs away & is generally hyper

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Reply to "The toddler who just won't sit still, runs away & is generally hyper"

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[quote=Anonymous]My oldest was like this as well. By sometime between 16 and 18 months, he would not sit in the stroller anymore to go to the grocery store or whatever. Trying to take him to a restaurant was a joke. He never sat still for "circle time" at day care and went to a birthday party just after he turned 2 where he didn't participate in anything the other kids were doing, including watching the little girl open her presents. It was definitely embarrassing but it was just his personality. We basically didn't take him places hardly at all until he was 2.5, when we started trying again little by little, like going to Target early in the morning when no one else was there. He is now 4, and things have gotten much better. He is good at restaurants now, though in stores he still has to be reminded many times not to get too far from us, and occasionally still has to be put in the cart. He is in preschool and seems to be doing great and participating appropriately in group activities, though he is doubtless still more active and energetic than many of the other children.

I wish I had a magic bullet for you, but you're probably just going to have to wait this out. We could have spent a lot of time fighting with him and punishing him for being who he is, but we decided the better part of valor was to work around it and not set him up for failure by taking him to places he was not ready to go to. One of us would stay home with him while the other ran errands during what I call the "blackout period." Of course, safety was still paramount, and if he, for example, ran off at the playground, we would go home.  For anything safety related we would go over the rules with him as we were going to whatever it was, and if he couldn't follow them then we would leave or he would have to be restrained in some way (stroller, cart, car seat). But beyond keeping him safe, we tried to let him express his natural activity level within reasonable boundaries.

My best piece of advice is: do not let people make you feel like your child's inborn temperament is your fault or caused by your parenting. It is not. But people will give you looks and/or make comments. They are full of shit and have no idea what they're talking about. Until you have a child like this you have no idea what it is like. We have a second DS and he is totally different, just has a more laid back personality. Soooooooo much easier to parent. After my older DS, #2 is like a vacation! Good luck and hang in there, it will get better, but not as quickly as you would like.[/quote]

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