We are making progress.  A week without a tantrum is fantastic. 

We are even making some progress with potty training.  If he goes potty 3 times in one day, he gets to play a video game on his computer.  If he goes 5 times in one day, he gets to watch his tv show after dinner.

He ALMOST had one last night after dinner.  He was insisting on watching his tv show, but he hadn't gone potty the 5th time yet.  I almost fell into my usual pattern of threats, but I just told him that he needed to go potty or he would not watch his show then walked away from him and let him go downstairs instead of stay in his room.  We did not interact for 10 minutes.  Then I went downstairs and asked him if he was now ready to go on the potty so he could watch his tv show.

Today – just 30 minutes ago – he almost had another one, and today was the first day I used a timer for his time out.  He was being rude, rude, rude, but instead of getting angry right away, I just told him calmly what was going to happen.  He tested, I followed through.  He tested again, I followed through again.  We had an interruption because dad came home in the middle of the time out.  I reset that timer 3 times, and then he finally got it.  He was excited when the timer beeped and he was able to come down to greet daddy.

Raising Your Spirited Child has given me insight into why he does what he does.

Setting Limits (How to Raise Responsible, Independent Children by Providing Reasonable Boundaries) by Robert MacKenzie has given me clear guidelines on how to deal with him.  It is the same principals as "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk" but it is much more direct (written by a man).  He also addresses my current parenting style and why it has not been working for me.

I'm re-energized on this parenting thing.  I just hope I can keep it up.  Interestingly, many books say that children often have the most developmental advances at the year and half year mark.  Of course my kids are 18 months apart, which means they will always hit these stages at roughly the same time.  So it's not my imagination that it seems to all hit at once!

Oops gotta go…Zander and Zevan hit each other!