My 3-Year Old is Not Being Disobedient, He's Feeling

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that we were in Upstate New York visiting family a couple weeks ago. What you didn't see was the epic fit that Charlie threw on the morning we left. For five days, his routine was completely thrown out the window. He was in a new place, expected to sleep in a different bed, didn't nap, and we left him alone with his grandparents without telling him what we were doing on a few occasions (hindsight is 20/20). When Chuck tried to dress him and get him loaded into the car, he went nuts.

The whole scenario prompted Chuck and I to have a serious discussion on how to handle these types of toddler tantrums. We have different perspectives when it comes to parenting a lot of the time. It's something I never really anticipated, but is definitely not always easy to work through. However, after that conversation, we arrived at a unified conclusion. When Charlie, our sweet, hilarious, energetic toddler has these breakdowns- he's not purposefully being "bad." He's overwhelmed with emotion, and it's up to us to help guide him through it.

It prompted me to write why My 3-Year Old is Not Being Disobedient, He's Feeling over on Cincinnati Moms Blog. I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think, especially if you've parented toddlers before!