Welcome to the 'Terrible Two's'.  Your little boy sounds very normal to me.  Having 5 children of my own (the oldest 4 having gone through or currently going through) I have seen it all at this stage.

The aggression is just him being frustrated over things that aren't working for him, which he will take out on you, as you are the primary care giver.

As my partner and I are still together (though I have my days where I wish I could push him out the door ! lol), the behaviour of ours is dished out to both of us, equally (equal contribution to raising them, equal tantrum behaviours to deal with! lol).

Realistically, there is no quick fix to the problem.  A child of 2 is not going to understand reasoning and will make a fool out of you every time (a childs abilitiy to reason isn't apparent until they are about 8 years old).  Ignoring the behaviour is probably the best way to go, or even distraction therapy (that is, you walk away, start involving yourself in an activity your son could join in with, and make it sound like fun- he will come to investigate, the tantrum forgotten).

I wish I could say it gets better, but it doesn't.  Even our almost 5 and 6 year olds are still going through the same, though it is more áppropriate'to their ages! lol.  Just hang in there, and as the behaviours change, you will need to find new ways of coping.

Oh, SingleMama, you are not doing anything wrong!  And his changing behaviour probably has nothing to do with his Dad not being around - if Dad hasn't been in the picture since the birth, then your baby probably hasn't even thought about him.  So chances aer he is NOT using that against you in any way.

Welcome to the Terrible Twos!!  Not all kids experience the TTs but the majority do.  You "baby' is now learning to assert himself, and if he doesn't communicate adequatelyw ith speech yet, he is learning that throwing himelf into an instant tantie gets attention.

You just have to stay patient and ride it out, unfortunately.  BUT there are some things you can do to help get your message across.

firstly, behavioural professionals generally don't recommend using the bedroom as a time out or punishment zone.  the bedroom should always be your childs' santuary, where he can go and feel happy - not where he is placed every time he does something wrong.  Using the bedroom as a punishment zone may seem him associate this with heightened anxiety and may lead to sleeping problems. 

At two, even though their speech is not that developed, they DO have a fairly good understanding of most of what you say to them.  My advice is to use a method I wrote about a few months ago.  See my advice article An Effective Method of Discipline for Chrildren.  Believe me, this works, but you will not get instant results.  I have sued this over the years with kids of all ages, from 2-10 and it works really well for about 95% of them.

The key to behaviour modification with any child, of any age, is CONSISTENCY AND REPETITION.  Don't  try one method for a few days, then switch to another if it doesn't immediately work.  This (a) confuses the child and (b) makes them feel you have given up because they beat you!  So your chances of the next method being successful are usually lowered.

Give it a try and please feel free to let me know how it goes!  All the best.  Sharon

There is absolutely NOTHING you are doing wrong as a mother, this tantrum behaviour is unfortunately normal and we have all experienced our little angels turn into little devils. I found for me the best thing that worked was putting them in thier bedrooms closing the door and ignoring them until it had passed, at first this was hard because i was scared they would hurt themselves or destroy thier room but they soon figured out if they broke something it was not replaced!! They also hated the door being closed so the length and severity of the tantrums soon began to shorten because they soon figured out that the behaviour was not getting them what they wanted and they needed to use the words that they had  at the time.

Good luck and it will pass.

Unfortunately tantrums and common for this age. My son started tantrums at about 11 months and it was awful between 18 months to 2 years old and it started getting better from 2 - 2 1/2. He is now almost 4, and while he is still a handful, it's a different kind then he was younger.  I also have 19 month old twins and they are just starting with the outbursts.

Tantrums are common when they don't get their way. They are learning independence and that they can do things on their own without without help. The best you can do is to give him tools to help him deal with frustrations. The tools/help you give him will not improve the situation now, but it will help pave the road for you a year from now.

When my son became frustrated because a toy wouldn't do something he wanted, I talked him through it. I told him that perhaps it's time to try somethign another way, and then I go to him and show him. I don't automatically run to him when he cries, I usually talk to him. And when the tantrum is bad enough that we couldn't hear each other, I used to tell him that we cannot talk when he is screaming and that we will resume talking when he stopped. I then walk away from him and go about my business. Kids at this age will stop within a few minutes when they don't think anyone is watching them.    You can also start talking about feeling words, like sad, angry, happy, scared, etc. I used to also say, "I know that's frustrating when you can't make it do something, perhaps when you get frustrated you can call me and ask for help?"   Like I said, this is not going to sink in now or months from now, but when it does, it will make your life much easier.

Good luck to you!