Everyone always talks about the “Terrible Twos” and how your sweet little baby suddenly becomes the source of all angst in your home the moment they hit two. What more and more parents are realizing, however, is that those twos really aren’t that terrible, when compared to what happens to your child at three…
You get a Threenager.
This term may sound like a hilarious little nickname made by a parent who has forgotten how cranky a two-year-old can be, but if that’s what you think, the joke’s on you. I can tell you, thanks to firsthand experience twice now of having both a teen and a threenager, that the two ages are remarkably similar. Here are 6 signs that your sweet child has gone the way of the Threenager:
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So. Many. Feelings
Now that your kid understands emotions a little bit more, you’d better believe they’re going to feel them more, as well. The number of times I’ve told my son to stop chewing on his dinosaur toy, only for him to start crying and tell me I “made him feel sad” has gone through the roof.
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Stubbornness
Sorry, you didn’t think you were going to get out the door quickly, did you? Silly Mom, don’t you dare try to rush your kid by putting their rain jacket on for them! Nope, you get to watch them struggle for a solid 4 minutes before they finally succeed and you can walk to the car.
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Sleep is an issue
With a teenager, they want to stay up late and sleep all day. With a threenager, they want to stay up late and not sleep all day. Good luck with naptime. You’re damned if you do, because they stay up even later, and you’re damned if you don’t, because they turn into little monsters from being overtired.
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Negotiation becomes an art form
For some reason, teenagers and threenagers are equally accomplished in getting their way, either through manipulation or straight up negotiating. Either way, you lose, sucker.
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Wanting All The Things
If you have the unfortunate task of taking your teen or your threenager shopping with you, I’m sorry. Both will leave you flat broke, due to their talent at number 4.
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Wanting to wear All The Things
It’s about this time that kids become aware of fashion, and start to develop favourite outfits. Or, they want to wear all of their outfits each day. That either leaves you needing to wash the same pair of “cozy pants” every single night because you are a mean mommy if you didn’t make them clean for the next day, or it leaves you plowing through several outfits a day because they can’t decide which they like better. Fun!
That’s not to say having a threenager is all bad, either. Yes, there are way more feelings, but that’s because they can communicate so much better than before. They understand more, which means you get to share more of the world with them and watch as they gobble up all of that knowledge voraciously. They are as much a source of joy as they are a source of frustration. And they are all yours.
