Terrible Twos - A Myth

Two years ago my husband and I were invited to dinner by a family, whose daughter I roomed with in college. Her oldest sister, with her family was also invited. We happened to arrive at the same time. We helped our children out of the car and made our way to the house. The other couple struggled with their four month old’s car seat but soon joined us, car seat in hand. Their two year old stayed behind by the car calling for her mom and dad. Both seemed irritated at her request to be carried into grandma’s house. They assured her that she can walk the short distance. She got louder, screaming to be picked up. The parents got louder too. They told her she had to walk or stay outside. The little girl went into a tantrum - the parents just rolled their eyes expressing the “here we go again” routine. They made their way into the house with their daughter screaming outside. They were right - she could have walked up to the house. She later did after she calmed down.

Why do I remember years after this experience? Besides being a wife, a mother, teacher to our four home schooled children, and co-owner of a business, I also work with family and individual counseling. I mainly work with the family constellation after Bert Hellinger and Andreas Roelz, which looks at the family dynamic in all its aspects. We expose the forces working on family members from past and present along with how they influence the behavior. I often have children set up their families to help parents understand their children better. This usually leads to a deeper level of trust between parents and child because some of the undesirable behavior has a real origin and more often than not, that origin does not start with the child.

A family has a dynamic and members in it feel well and happy if there is a proper balance within the dynamic. If parents aren’t able to keep a balance, the children will pick up on it and often act out on the imbalance they feel but can’t describe. I’ve found toddlers are in the toughest spot. They are still emotionally so connected with their parents, especially their moms, feel with them and for them, but yet don’t have the verbal ability to express themselves. Their acting out is mostly completely misinterpreted and punished. Toddlers are trying to make sense of something that is beyond their ability to understand but the punishment nevertheless is real. A child will try to restore the balance in the family dynamic as they can feel their equilibrium slanted but without maturity and verbal skills, their best explanation ends in a tantrum.

I know this young couple, leaving their daughter behind by their car, didn’t mean to cause her harm, didn’t think they did, probably thought they are helping her to “get over it” and grow out of this “phase.” In reality they left a deep wound on this little girl’s soul. What this toddler was really expressing, after watching her parent’s smiling over her little brother and spending time getting him and his lifeless contraption called a car seat,  out of the car was, “do you love me and care for me as you do with my little brother?” She could feel the shift in the family dynamic after her little brother was born and was acting out of fear for being left behind emotionally. She was asking them; “Will you carry me in the house like you carry him?” It wouldn’t have hurt either of the parents to run back with open arms, scoop her up in their arms, cuddling her for a second and telling her; “of course I’ll take you, you are too cute to be left by the car,” or something like it. It would have helped her catch her balance and have a place in the new family dynamic and the fear would have turned into being validated as being loving and worth the extra effort to make her feel loved and welcomed, needed and wanted.

After watching this couple interact with their children a bit longer I could tell the parents weren’t in harmony, there was something restless in their family dynamic. I watched in agony feeling the little girls pain as she repeatedly, by actions and not words, was told where her place in the family was and it wasn’t in a loving family circle. Because of her cry for help, also called tantrum, she was emotionally excluded from the circle of attention.

PhD. Chuck Spezzano in his book “If it hurts it isn’t love” said “The more severe the undesirable behavior - the louder the cry for help. When we find unlovable behavior in our partner, family, or work situation, it is crucial to realize that these behaviors are really a call for love. Our willingness to support people through what may be the worst time of their life allows them to progress, to keep moving and growing, letting them know that even though we do not approve of or like their behavior, we value who they are, who they are truly becoming. This is a great test of someone who loves. It is the great calling of Leadership- someone who is willing to move through their own discomfort and respond to people who are using unlovable behavior in their call for help.” (Spezzano 152)

A parent is the adult and although the child should feel safe in their love even when acting up, parents show the discomfort that comes from being embarrassed at the child’s behavior. The shift in the family dynamic being out of balance, which can be felt but not seen immediately, makes everybody uneasy and the toddler gets the blame for acting out on it. A toddlers cry for help really is a cry because they have no other means of expressing themselves verbally.

I am part of a large family with six living siblings, all married with numerous children. All of us work with the family constellation refined by psychologist Andreas Roelz from Germany, where I am from. You can imagine all the two year olds we have seen and experienced but yet nobody ever called them the so well known misleading phrase, the “terrible twos.” Alone using this phrase invites the attitude of parent’s needing to expect something terrible, something awful, uncontrollable fits, tantrums. Parents will expect it and therefore basically invite their children to act out. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about children’s second year in life, as if they turn into someone else after being meek and mild as babies. The problem, as I discussed earlier, is that they are becoming more independent but yet are still emotionally connected to the parents, especially the mom. They can’t explain that they feel completely out of balance so they act out of balance - crying - for help, screaming - to be heard, kicking - to be rescued. Only to be told by the parents actions - “when you are done with your tantrum you can come join us again - a separation rather than a loving rescue. Often solitary confinement is imposed on them for acting out of balance, validating the fear that prompted the undesirable behavior in the first place.

Dr Thomas Gordon in his book, P.E.T. Parent Effectiveness Training,- The Tested New Way To Raise Responsible Children,  explains how anger is always a second emotion. He explains it from the parent’s point of view but it is just as valid from a child’s perspective. “I am convinced now that anger is something generated solely by the parent after he has experienced an earlier feeling. The parent manufactures the anger as a consequence of experiencing a primary feeling. Here is how it works: I am driving along on a freeway and another driver cuts in front of me precariously close to my right front fender. My primary feeling is fear, his behavior scared me. As a consequence of his scaring me and some seconds later, I honk my horn and “act angry,’ perhaps even shouting something like “You sonuvabitch, why don’t you learn how to drive,” a message that no one could deny is a pure” you-message.” The function of acting angry is to punish the other driver or to make him feel guilty for scaring me so that he does not do it again.” (Gordon 126)

A primary emotion sets of the secondary emotion of anger. When a child feels out of control, unloved, unfairly treated, abandoned, jealous, needy, out of balance - all very real feelings to an adult, even more intense for a two year old, it triggers anger as a second response. An adult often doesn’t know how to deal with these kind of emotions and acts on the anger rather than the first, the real emotion and starts blaming others. A child will act on the anger as well with no verbal ability to even figure out the first emotion and real problem at hand but in turn gets blamed.

In my experience, undesirable behavior can often be traced back to a shift in the family dynamic. I am an expert wrapper, having used German woven wrap baby carriers for decades, which is largely known in the wrapping world.  I often get inquiries from customers wanting to learn another tying way because their child doesn’t like being carried anymore. More often than not these customers have already received tips from others in the same kind of business, which haven’t solved the problem.  The parents and other dealers automatically assume the child’s changed behavior in pushing away has something to do with the way the woven wrap is tied. I always dig a bit deeper into the family dynamic to see where the real shift is as a child usually doesn’t just quit wanting to be carried after enjoying it for a couple of years. Standing and wanting to stand on their own two feet is something that gradually happens, not overnight. A shift in the family dynamic, which is essentially a shift in the energy around the family members, is felt by a toddler along with the unspoken actions of a parent, which always tell children more than the words we use. So far all children pushing away have returned to wanting to be carried and wanting to be close after the shift in the family dynamic was exposed. I still hep with different tying ways to make sure the wrap is used correctly having decades of experience, but find working on the family dynamic essential to restoring balance at the child’s age appropriate stage.

A look at the family dynamic is very interesting and educating if done by a professional, however, to get an idea of your family dynamic, you can use simple tools you most likely have readily available at home. Professionals like to start setting up your family of origin (that would include your mom and dad and all siblings. (Not grandparents, aunts and uncles unless they have had a tragic experience or died early). Use items that will help you determine which way the family member is looking. Lego Duplo blocks, small dolls, and other things will work. Set up every family member as to where you feel they stand in relation to the family members in your family of origin. When you are done take a moment to study the set up.

Some questions you might want to ask yourself:
Does this look like a family?
Are the family members looking at each other or somewhere else?
Anybody “excluded” from the family by standing on the outside somewhere?
What can I change to make it more of a family?
Is someone missing? Someone you might not have thought about? (i.e. a baby who died after birth, an aborted child, or an aunt/uncle, divorced first husband of grandma, somebody never talked about - you get the idea.)

After you experience with your family of origin, set up your immediate family. That is your spouse and children. If either one of you had a serious relationship before getting married, set that person up as well. Take a moment to study the picture.  Questions you could ask yourself:

Does it look like a family?
What are my spouse and I looking at?
What or whom are the children looking at? If nothing is there, think about what it might be.
What can I change to make it more of a family?

Is anybody missing? Does the family feel complete?

Is someone excluded by standing on the outside, or being the only one looking away from the rest?

Don’t try to logically explain where you, along with the other family members, should stand. Just follow your feeling and set your family up as you “feel” appropriate. Then take a good look. Most likely it will be an eye opening experience and you can see that perhaps one, who should be part of the family really isn’t, or everybody is looking at something but not at each other, and so on. I have seen many two year olds in family constellations being set up looking to a former boy/girl friend of a parent or an aunt/uncle that wasn’t talked about in the family. When a child focuses more on someone “outside” the visible family, they do act out because they realize the family is out of balance, someone is missing who would like to be included or someone extra who should not be part of the close family.   To include someone you don’t need to have them move in with you, simply give them a place in your family, hang up a picture, talk about them, honor them for being part of your family.

To let someone go out of the family system, like a former significant other, take the opportunity to let them go with love. Just remember that you had something good going back then but it is time to leave them. This brings all your attention to your immediate family and will bring balance to everybody in it. Emotionally hanging on to someone who you shared a relationship with is like trying to stop a flowing river. It throws you or someone in your family off balance as you fight against the unstoppable flow.  

The family constellation is a wonderful way to take a quick look at the dynamic in the family. It helps us to realize where some of the undesirable behavior of a toddler might stem from and it gives you a place to start pondering and working on, in order to restore balance in your family system and regain your meek and mild baby again. I’ve seen it work many times and hope you will be able to have an eye opening experience with this as you and hopefully your children will set up the family together.


Beate Frome lives in Northern Utah with her husband Kurt and their four home schooled children. She is part owner of Childrensneeds.com, and designs babywearing clothing.  She’s been working with the family constellation for a decade.
http://www.childrensneeds.com

Contact Beate via email


Work Cited
DR. Gordon, Thomas. P.E.T. Parent Effectiveness Training - The Tested New Way To Raise Responsible Children.     New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1975.

Ph.D. Spezzano, Chuck. If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love and 365 other principles to heal and transform your relationships.   New York: Marlowe& Company, 1998.