The Myth of the Terrible Twos

by Mizin P. Kawasaki, M.D.

Soon after a child’s first birthday, parents may suspect that he will become uncooperative, stubborn, and manipulative.  They expect their child to manifest incomprehensible conduct, and they may casually attribute the change in his behavior to the “terrible twos.”  

In a sense, it is easy to ascribe a young child’s unpleasant or undesirable behavior to “normal” human development.  In this way, parents do not need to feel truly responsible for their child’s behavior. 

Unfortunately, such a view of a child’s behavior is not benign.  As much as parents will argue that certain behavior is normal, they may also think that he is either trying to manipulate them or harbors bad intentions. 

Such a view of human development is unsound.  Consider the fact that there are families in which youngsters do not go through the “terrible twos.”  These young children do not demonstrate willfulness and a lack of cooperation.  The question that needs to be asked is the following:  why are some young children well disciplined whereas others are not? 

There are certainly many factors that determine how a child behaves, and the most important one is whether or not parents can communicate well with a young child, irrespective of the latter’s age.  As long as there is good communication, then there is little reason for a youngster to behave poorly.

When parents communicate well with their young children, the former are able to instill a natural form of discipline:  a child learns right from wrong, and he begins to discern the boundaries of acceptable behavior.  This learning process begins early in infancy and can occur only after a baby’s needs are satisfied. 

As an aside, it should be noted at this time that enforcing discipline through the use of threats, severe verbal scolding, or corporal punishment often achieves the opposite effect.  Young children who have been scolded and punished repeatedly tend to persist in misbehaving.  They may behave well in front of their parents in order to avoid punishment, or they may misbehave just to get their parents’ attention.  In the long run, corporal punishment does little to address young children’s fundamental needs.

Responsible parents will make sure that a child’s needs are satisfied so that the child does not need to experience stress unnecessarily.  Thus, a hungry baby will be nourished, a soiled diaper will be changed, and a lonely baby will be carried and cuddled.  If parents are to judge accurately the nature of a child’s behavior, then they must first understand a child’s needs.   

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Parents may be stumped by a child’s needs.  For example, a baby may still be unhappy after he is fed, has had his diaper changed, and is cuddled.  A toddler may remain distressed even though his parents are interested in his well-being.  Parents of young babies and toddlers may occasionally find it difficult to discern their children’s needs.

Interestingly, much of the confusion arises because of a failure to understand how much breastfeeding offers both young children and their parents.  Contrary to many parents’ understanding of breastfeeding, it is not merely a source of oral nourishment.  Breastfeeding provides a young child with the means to communicate with his mother, which is critical to encouraging the development of cooperation and understanding. 

Young children have numerous needs that may be fulfilled through breastfeeding.  A young child needs to be close to his mother, touch her breasts, and nurse at the breast.  Breastfeeding provides pleasurable satisfaction of these needs.

Neuroscientist Dr. Jim Prescott concluded after decades of research that young children must receive the stimulation of pleasurable activities in order to develop as healthy human beings.  [1]  Few members of the general public, however, are even aware of these basic human needs. 

In fact, if a two-year-old child were to go near his mother’s breast in public, either the child or his mother may be thought to be perverted or depraved.  Even though a young child needs the affection and intimacy of breastfeeding, such healthy needs are misunderstood. 

The basis of understanding young children’s behavior is to comprehend their healthy dependency, which includes the need for intimacy and touch.  If it is surprising that toddlers are dependent upon their mothers for fulfillment of their needs, then parents have not been listening to and watching their children closely enough. 

When a toddler is permitted to breastfeed and assure himself constantly of his mother’s whereabouts, then that child can fulfill his needs.  In contrast, a child may be rebuffed frequently by a busy mother or his mother may be unavailable.  As a result, he may be dissatisfied and seek attention by initiating undesirable behavior.  

There are innumerable situations in which a young child’s needs are not met.  Many mothers are busy working outside the home and are unavailable.  Other mothers are preoccupied:  they may be socializing with friends and neighbors or doing other activities that are unrelated to child care. 

As a consequence of receiving an insufficient amount of attention or delayed attention, a young child may learn that his needs are secondary and that his mother will pay attention to him only when he misbehaves.  He may learn that the only time he us noticed is when he misbehaves. 

Thus, a child may initiate unpleasant behavior, such as yelling, screaming, hitting or biting others, throwing things, breaking things, being rude, and crying excessively.  All of these activities are anti-social and express a child’s frustration. 

The child’s behaviors, however, do not arise spontaneously.  If anything, they reflect the anti-social behavior the child may have experienced.  Consider, for instance, a mother who rejects her two-year-old when he needs to be cuddled.  In such a situation, the child’s mother may not want to embrace him or be near him.  When a mother pushes her child away, she is demonstrating anti-social behavior.

For the majority of young children who experience the “terrible twos,” there is no joy in gaining the attention of angry parents.  At the same time, there may be some satisfaction, and in some cases, it may be perverted fulfillment.

For instance, whereas some parents may be unwilling to embrace and cuddle their young children, they may be ready to punish young children with spankings and beatings.  These parents may be more adept at meting out painful corporal punishment than they are at offering their young children pleasurable intimacy. 

Consequently, some young children may receive hurtful tactile stimulation instead of affectionate hugs.  Sadly, these children will experience painful tactile stimulation, and some of them may eventually enjoy receiving such harmful touch.  Evidently, any tactile stimulation and attention are preferable to none at all.

In Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, the anthropologist Ashley Montagu explores the correlation between spanking of the buttocks and stimulation of erotic sensations.  [2]  The sensory nerves for the buttocks and the sexual organs emerge from the same nervous plexus.  Thus, spanking will elicit sensations that are normally associated with pleasure; they are, however, painful and perhaps harmful.  It is possible that corporal punishment will distort youngsters’ perception of pleasure and satisfaction. 

Parents who use corporal punishment give their young children the wrong kind of attention and tactile stimulation.  This kind of interaction with young children will not lead to healthy human development because the emphasis on such child-rearing methods is punishment.  Such children may be incapable of experiencing a healthy and natural sense of joy.

In contrast to children who misbehave, there are many children who cooperate and behave well.  These youngsters have had their human needs recognized.  Ashley Montagu has described twenty-nine different human behavioral needs, which include the need to touch, love, explore, learn, satisfy curiosity, and much more.

In order to fulfill all these needs, a young child may behave in various ways.  These behaviors are not intended to evoke parental outrage; they may even simply be experimental behaviors.  Instead of harshly judging young children’s behavior, parents should consider their child’s behavior with compassion and interest.

Undoubtedly, parents will respond differently to a child’s misbehavior.  Some parents will respond quickly and indicate if a behavior is acceptable or not.  Others may be slow to respond. 

As a rule, when my children were young, I was usually prompt in responding to them.  In contrast, my sister was a bit slow.  Interestingly, when my nephew was four months old and visiting us with his family, my ten-year-old son would respond to the baby’s needs instantly.  He was there to comfort the baby after he heard the first little cry.  Meanwhile, my sister was only yards away but not as swift to respond to her baby’s needs.

Regardless of parents’ response time, the hope is that a baby’s needs are met with concern.  When this is the case, the likelihood of further crying diminishes.  Thus, my son’s prompt response to his cousin’s cries reassured the baby immediately that satisfaction of his needs was imminent.

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A young child has the potential to express both positive and negative attributes.  He is like all human beings:  he can be self-centered, selfish, and inconsiderate, but he can also be concerned, compassionate, and loving. 

How a young child manifests his potential is determined by what he learns from those who care for him.  If a young child is exposed to loving and kind persons, then he will probably be loving and kind. 

On the other hand, if he is exposed to meanness and cruelty, then his nature may develop aspects of similar meanness and cruelty.  In other words, a child’s behavior will be influenced strongly by the type of nurturing he receives early in life. 

Consider how difficult it would be for a loving and gentle two-year-old to survive in a consistently inconsiderate environment.  His kind spirit would most certainly be broken since there may be no one in his environment to encourage the development of a gentle character. 

Human beings, however, learn constantly, and favorable circumstances can change behavior.  For instance, an unsociable and miserable young child may become a loving and considerate youngster if he is given unconditional love.  This has been proven over and over again with innumerable cases of adoption, wherein a positive change in an environment enables a child to develop sociable behavior. 

Regardless of genetic background, a baby who is given the opportunity to develop in a loving and humane environment will probably develop his highest potential as a human being.  It should be the right of every child to receive nurturing that enables him to develop his potential as a healthy, socialized human being. 

To develop as a human being, a young child must learn the meaning of self-control, and a child can achieve this by observing his role models.  Intriguingly, a young child learns the most at a time when he cannot articulate his needs and thoughts clearly—during infancy and the toddler years. 

The paradox is that many parents have no idea how much the child is learning during the formative years.  In truth, many parents are inclined to believe that it is at school that a child will learn the most.

Parental failure to recognize a child’s ability to learn early in life is unfortunate, most especially when parents interact with their child inhumanely.  For some reason, parents may treat their children as they would never dare treat anyone else.  For the smallest wayward behavior, a parent may go into a tirade and scold a youngster to frighten him.  

It is doubtful that the parent who loses self-control with his or her child on a daily basis would treat a colleague or superior at work in a similar manner.  It is unclear, though, if parents understand how their own behavior affects that of their child. 

What does a child learn by being yelled at and scorned?  It is doubtful that a child will learn much, including the meaning of self-control when parents fail to demonstrate self-control.

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Many parents can no longer communicate with their young child, and it is simply because they do not spend enough time together.  With the advent of dual income families, few child-rearing experts have the courage to mention the importance of maternal care.

Ashley Montagu, however, did a great deal of research about human development, and he concluded that a child needs his mother’s constant presence for at least the first three years of life.  Ideally, the mother should be available to teach a young child the difference between right and wrong. 

When a two-year-old child does something that is unacceptable, the situation must be assessed patiently and thoroughly.  For example, a young child may drop a valuable family heirloom.  He may have been warned repeatedly not to touch it, but he does and breaks it.  Understandably, most parents would get upset over such an incident. 

Nevertheless, two things must be considered:  first, if the object was valuable, then why was it accessible to the child, and second, is it worthwhile to scold a young child over the loss of an object?  There are an infinite number of answers.  For those persons who are attached to objects, especially valuable ones, there is no doubt that the child was wrong and should have known better. 

On the other hand, those who understand the true impact of scolding a young child know that a broken object can be replaced.  In the meantime, it is difficult to take back harsh words and actions, and their impact may be long-lasting.  It is unfortunate that so much value is given to objects and so little attention is paid to young human beings. 

A young child may err as do all human beings.  Is that sufficient reason to scream at him or punish him?  What exactly does a child learn?   Does he learn that he is a vile young creature who will never be trusted again? 

Advocates of corporal punishment are not concerned with damaging their child’s psyche or well-being.  They will mete out punishment, be it a spanking or a beating.  Unbelievably, the majority of pediatricians still approve of spanking.

Ultimately, most misbehavior does not create much damage, yet parents tend to overreact when a young child is the culprit.  In the meantime, if a distinguished guest were to accidentally drop the same family heirloom, the parents would never consider spanking the guest or hitting him. 

In other words, parents often have little mercy for a young child.  They may tell the child that he is worthless, a klutz, a despicable creature, and so on.  They may disregard their child and assault him with angry criticism. 

It is disturbing that a parent who may be four times bigger than a young child may use invective and force to get across the point that he or she is upset.  Any healthy child will notice instantly from the smallest grimace on his parent’s face that he or she is upset.  There is absolutely no need for further scolding or physical punishment. 

When parents are willing to use corporal punishment to teach their child a lesson, they teach only that adults are cowardly and incapable of communicating as dignified human beings.  They teach a youngster that bullying is acceptable and that violence helps to solve dilemmas.  The end result is that the youngster loses a bit of self-respect and self-esteem.  Over time, the losses may be significant.

The child also gains a disturbed understanding of justice and truth:  he learns that terrorizing those weaker than oneself is acceptable behavior. 

Those parents who are willing to use corporal punishment in the name of disciplining their children are hypocrites.  Not one single parent who hits his or her child would ever want to receive the same treatment from any other human being. 

Spanking of the buttocks is an act of violence.  Despite claims that spanking of the buttocks is an acceptable form of discipline, it is nothing but barbarism disguised.  A parent who tries to teach his child self-control by using corporal punishment demonstrates a blatant lack of self-control. 

Ironically, a child misbehaves and acts in accordance with what he has learned from his parents and others in his environment.  Thus, a child who pushes another child may have seen or experienced the same kind of behavior.  For instance, his mother may have given his father an affectionate push when they were laughing or perhaps the child witnessed his parents arguing and pushing one another. 

Unfortunately for the child, most persons are uninterested in knowing where he learned to push.  Instead, he will be chastised immediately and called a “bad” boy.  The problem with such labeling is that a child is not truly bad, but he may become so if he is persistently called bad.

There is no reason at all to believe that a child may be born with evil tendencies.  If parents expect their child to behave badly, then he will.  A young child will behave as he is expected to behave.

For instance, my mother had a younger sister who was born at a time when many of members of her family were seriously ill during an epidemic of typhus.  Two of my mother’s siblings died:  they also happened to be the loveliest, kindest, and most talented of all my mother’s siblings. 

The family grieved over the loss of the children and, henceforth, attributed the misfortune of their deaths to the birth of this younger daughter.  My mother’s younger sister was thought to be an evil child who brought bad luck to the family.  It was inevitable that every move she made was scrutinized for its inherent evil nature.

Parents should trust in the goodness of their child.  They should also   never disregard their child because he cannot yet articulate his thoughts with words.  In a healthy family setting, a child learns the spoken language and wants to communicate. 

Parents must also remember that their love should be unconditional. A child needs to be loved and to know that his parents love him unconditionally.  Ashley Montagu has written often that every baby is organized to become a loving and cooperative creature.                               

The child’s need for love never ends.  He has been born to parents who are to care for and nurture him, and they should be available to love him regardless of what he does.  Indeed, if a child is truly loved in a humane manner, then there will be no action of his that can be truly egregious.  It is only an unloved child who is capable of acting in incomprehensibly inhumane ways. 

        ***

At around two years of age, most youngsters are capable of formulating their thoughts.  While some youngsters can articulate their thoughts verbally, most are not able to talk clearly at all.  As a result, the majority of youngsters may be frustrated by their inability to articulate their needs and thoughts.  Hence, the need for excellent communication between child and caregiver is a given.

Parents should have great sympathy because it is profoundly distressing for the young child who cannot communicate verbally.  When parents attempt to listen to their child, by reading his body language as well as hearing his words, they can better gauge what the child needs. 

This would certainly decrease the amount of frustration a child experiences.  For example, if a two-year-old child naps regularly at one o’clock in the afternoon, then parents should schedule their planned activities around that nap. 

Why subject a child to a prolonged lunch at a restaurant if parents know that he will become fussy and tired before his nap?  This is a matter of common sense.  In order to prevent one’s child from experiencing frustration, one must understand the child’s needs first.

The oppositional behavior to which parents refer when they mention the “terrible twos” is often misconstrued.  Oppositional behavior indicates that a child is capable of thinking on his own.  It is healthier for parents to allow their child to express himself. 

If parents believe that the child is not thinking or behaving correctly, then they ought to relay this to the child through dialogue.  The rational approach to any child who is acting against his parents’ will is to determine what exactly the child is trying to express. 

A child does not willfully act malicious unless he has learned to behave like this from his environment.  It is more likely that a child is exploring new behaviors, and it is up to the parents to indicate to him if they are wrong or unpleasant.

Parents often describe their kids as being either good or bad, but the latter word should be banned from households in which children are reared.  The reason is that the word bad is used far too often to criticize youngsters, and it is much too nonspecific and unhelpful. 

If a child drops a toy and breaks it, he may be called bad.  A young child who breaks a toy may be clumsy, as most two-year-olds are, but it has little to do with his being bad. 

There is no need to immediately judge a child’s behavior.  Besides, the body language of an angry parent is enough to induce fear in some sensitive children.  Children want to be loved, and they will make mistakes and learn to apologize or feel remorseful.

Some parents, however, want more than remorse or apologies.  They may use fear to teach their children lessons that they are supposed to remember for a lifetime.  What the children will only recall will be the innumerable times they were demoralized and stripped of their dignity.

Parents who make their children grovel for mercy exhibit behavior that places them far below most animal species.  These parents need to learn that such an attitude toward children reflects only their desire to exert authority over helpless youngsters who cannot defend themselves.  

It should be apparent to every parent that child-rearing can be accomplished in a gentle and caring way.  Just as parents have learned to respond aggressively to stressful situations, they can learn also to respond more humanely when they interact with their children. 

Children will respect their parents for their dignified behavior.  Naturally, parents are human beings.  Sometimes, parents experience fear spontaneously.  For example, a mother may lose sight of her young child in a store, and she may scold the child upon finding him. 

She may have been overcome by fear or she might have felt responsible for losing track of her child’s whereabouts.  The relief of finding the child may precipitate a tide of emotions that should express joy but instead may display anger and resentment.  

As much as the mother wants to take responsibility for her child’s temporary displacement, she may also blame him for leaving her side.  In other words, she does not want to take complete responsibility for the incident. 

The ability to take total responsibility for anything is very difficult, even for adults, but it is a sign of maturity when an individual can do so.  Parenting gives every parent the opportunity to mature and to learn to take full responsibility for their child’s behavior.

The myth of the “terrible twos” is promoted by parents who do not want to take full responsibility for their children’s behavior.  They cannot believe that they are responsible for a young child who will not listen to their orders.  They would rather attribute the child’s behavior to a stage of human development over which they have no control.   

When a child does not listen to his parents, however, it is absolutely clear that the parents are not listening to the child.  The mature adults are the ones who learn how to bridge this gulf by attempting to understand how they can help their child. 

There is really little difference between a two-year-old child and a thirty-year-old adult when one considers how much all human beings need to learn about being human.  If anything, the undefiled two-year-old is probably wiser than the thirty-year-old adult. 

It has been said that children are the great humanizers of humankind.  Unfortunately, many parents believe that they always know best.  This is the case even though many parents find themselves at a loss to deal with their children’s behavior.  Instead of making efforts to communicate better with their children, parents may use various methods to reward them for better behavior.           

The calculating nature of using incentives to reward acceptable behavior is very demeaning.  Most two-year-old children are content with what they have and will not seek out the gain of more material goods, unless they are taught to do so. 

Parents can be heard enticing their youngsters with the following typical line:  “If you behave, you can get a toy or some candy.”  This means that a young child may be exhausted and hungry, but he can get a reward if his parent can complete just one more errand at the mall.  It also means that a young child who is bored because his mother has been talking to a neighbor for an hour may get an extra cookie for a snack, if he waits another thirty minutes. 

The rewards are calculated not to give the child a benefit but to keep the child in a state so that he anticipates the receipt of the reward.  The prospect of a reward is supposed to keep a child’s cooperation in check.  As long as the child is good and well-behaved, he will receive his reward.

Parents like this system of rewards, and so do child experts.  They believe that children need incentives to behave properly.  One may presume that parents and child experts alike have been exposed to too many animal studies. 

Young children are not like dogs that are trained to salivate at the sight of food or the ring of a bell.  If young children are treated like animals that need rewards to behave, however, then they will respond in a similar fashion. 

The use of rewards as an incentive to encourage youngsters to cooperate avoids the most fundamental need of these children, which is the need for love.  The gain of toys and candy can hardly replace children’s profound need for love.  Certainly, toys and candy may be enjoyable gifts to receive, but they will never be able to replace the love that children need. 

When parents dole out gifts for good behavior, they are also withholding love for bad behavior.  They tell their children that they love them as long as they are good.  This means that parents will treat their young children as if they have two personalities:  one gets rewarded and loved, while the other gets punished and reviled. 

This approach to dealing with young children’s various behaviors will lead to great confusion.  The comparison of one aspect of a child’s self to another introduces an artificial and imaginary break in the child’s personality.  Such a dichotomy exists only in the way the child is treated and does not reflect his complete self. 

As mentioned earlier, healthy children have personalities that contain both positive and negative attributes.  It is impossible to expect only good behavior from children.  What can be expected is all types of behavior.  Cooperative behavior, however, arises only when parents are willing to recognize their children’s needs as well as their own.

A youngster who repeatedly acts contrary to his parents’ wishes has received neither sufficient care nor love.  It is difficult for a young child to the meaning of cooperative behavior when he does not receive the consistent care of a loving and available parent.  Long-distance parenting simply does not work.

Consider, for instance, a parent who witnesses her child’s behavior and calls out to him from afar that his behavior is not acceptable.  How can the child learn anything?   The mother’s intervention has to be direct and immediate in order to even alert the child to any wrongdoing.   

Moreover, a parent who is working outside the home cannot tell her youngster that he did something wrong at the park when the event occurred hours earlier.  During the crucial early years of life, as children absorb and learn so much from their immediate environment, the presence of a loving parent is absolutely essential. 

A parent must be available in order to provide the love and concern that every child needs to develop self-control, to learn right from wrong, and to become a cooperative human being.  To assert that all children will eventually become uncooperative and willful creatures is a parent’s way of acknowledging either apathy or perhaps laziness.  To acknowledge the inevitability of “the terrible twos” is to misconstrue the great and positive potential of young children’s development. 

This essay was written in 1998 and revised extensively on April 25, 2006.

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