I thought we'd avoided the 'terrible twos,' but I was wrong. A weekly fun-day helps.

After having my son, I heard the horror stories of the “terrible twos.” I’d stare down at my newborn and think there was absolutely no way this little bundle of rolls could one day be anything like my friends were describing. I kept that mindset as we rolled straight through his second birthday, and his behavior remained unchanged.

I thought I won the golden ticket. My toddler was fantastic; no meltdowns in sight. Like any naive first-time parentI was so wrong. My son turns 3 in August, and he started having tantrums recently. However, after asking him what was going on, I figured out a reason for the behavior — and something that helped.

My son had a hard time when I went back to work

I’ve had the incredible pleasure of being home with my son for the majority of his life. Then, when I returned to the office full-time last October, I slowly began to notice changes. His grandpa watched him while I was at work, and we started to notice he wasn’t listening to either of us as well; his moods also had taken a dip.

Coming home every day and seeing him upset broke me as a mom. In January, I decided to quit my job and return home full time to be with him. Since I’ve returned home, I’ve noticed that even though I’m here and we’re spending a lot more time together again, his moods sour. He’d refuse to stop throwing toys and would have tantrums when he wouldn’t listen to anything I asked him to do. But the usual things we’d do to quell this behavior — like time-outs and incentives for good behavior — also weren’t working.

A lightbulb moment went off when I sat down and asked him what was wrong. His answer was “I miss you” or, worse, “I want to see you.” I didn’t understand why he was saying this when I was literally right there. The same behaviors kept happening, and he kept giving the same answers; when I truly thought about it, I realized that even though I was physically right there, I mentally wasn’t. My son was next to me, but I was focusing on cleaning, reading, or doing other things I thought were important, when he was the most important thing.

I wanted to be more present with him, so we started having a weekly ‘fun-day’

This realization led to a non-negotiable once-a-week “fun-day.” I hated feeling like I was doing my son a disservice by not being present, so I wanted to fix it. I created an activity jar, filled with folded-up pieces of paper with special places on them.

My son gets to pick from the jar, and one day a week, we do a fun activity together that gets us off our screens and focusing on each other. The change in my son was almost immediate. The joyful little boy was back. There were fewer tantrums, he was listening again, and he was visibly happy.

Over the last few months, we have spent days at the Georgia Aquarium learning about his favorite species, like sting rays, sharks, and the brilliant red-and-orange octopus that reminds him of The Octonauts. We rode on a trolley at the Atlanta Zoo and learned about big silverback gorillas.

His favorite thing to do is pack a lunch, have a picnic at a park, and then explore by hunting for unique rocks, learning about the different trees, and seeing how many different animals we can find. We’ve also been painters at an art studio, engineers like his dad at the Atlanta Children’s Museum, and we got to be firefighters for a day at the firehouse.

He still has meltdowns, but things have improved

Like any toddler, he still has his meltdowns. I’ve learned over the months to give him more grace, as simple things are new things to him. I’ve realized I tend to forget that he is experiencing everything for the first time. We are both learning and growing together every day, and I am beyond happy to spend my days with him.

This time together has shown me to take a step back for him and to soak it all in. Rarely do I hear him say, “I want to see you” as the reason for a meltdown anymore. It’s more “I’m hungry” or a rebuttal against me telling him he can’t do or have something, which we are working on. With summer quickly approaching, I cannot wait to bring him to more places to explore and meet new friends. So far, the terrible twos aren’t as terrible as I thought they would be once we figured out that our fun-days are the key to success.