You know, my kid was great at 2⌠now 3 was pretty tough, but she was never a violent kid, overall. Iâll let you know about the teen years in about a decade. 
Years ago I watched a Nature of Things on aggression in children in which one researcher said that if an adult acted they way a two-year-old does, they would beat five to six people to death a day.
This is one thing that makes stunted mental development cases so scary. Someone with a grown body but the mental capacity of a 3 year old is dangerous. The way nerve cells develop means small children arenât really capable of moderating their force either, it tends to be either nothing or all of the strength when they do something.
Also, this study is hardly a surprise to me. Little kids are terribly violent, itâs just human nature. Thatâs why you need good parenting to teach them how to control their impulses and function as a member of society.
I used to work in a science museum with an early childhood play area. It was setup for kids 0 to 5 and had all sorts of tactile puzzle-play things that are associated with early childhood âscienceâ education. The scariest attendees of all were the two year olds, who had the insane tendency to ârun and sweepâ which is the act of running up to a table full of stuff (that other kids are probably playing with), sweep it all of the table in one motion, and then run away. They would also be most likely to try to kill the fish, kill the giant cockroaches, or kill each other.
Really watching them it is clear that two year olds are sociopaths in the traditional sense of the word - they donât take other peopleâs feelings or situations into account when making their choices, which usually results in really crazy acts of violence and craziness. It is that dangerous sort of amoral.
The explanation I got from the early-childhood education experts I worked with was that there is a gap period in two developmental cycles that occurs in the 2-ish age range. Infants start out essentially unaware that there are other people who have feelings that differ from their own, no real sense of self. By 3, their brain changes and they start assigning independence to others, and have a true sense of self vs. others, which is a key component of any empathy. Problem is, there is a gap between the time that they become fully mobile, and the development of any empathic abilities, leading to this truly insane seeming behavior. Youâd probably act the same way if you couldnât identify others as independent entities (witness normal humans behavior in games like GTA).
Fortunately two year olds are tiny and you can grab them and put a leash on them and no one will think twice about it.
Itâs been a rule of thumb in my family for decades now that the twos arenât terrible at all compared to the threes. Donât know why that should be, and I donât necessarily know if weâre talking actual violence here, but when it comes to obstreperousness, temper tantrums, and pure contrariness, the two-year-olds are sweet little angels compared to the damnable three-year-olds.
My youngest is now four. Luckily for us, he was much, much more open to compromise than his sister ever was.
Little kids are terribly violent, itâs just human nature.
Nature, nurture, tomayto, tomahto.
In our family, we even have a name for it: âthe Traumatic Threes.â
24-36 months wasnât bad with either of my daughters. For us, the toughest part was the two months before speech got established. Each darling knew what she wanted, but would get terribly frustrated when she couldnât express it. Those were some ugly moments.
The key trick my family has used for these ages: âYou donât negotiate with a two-year old.â
There is no âreasoningâ with a being in that state of nature. Instead, wherever possible, give them choices and respect their decision within that domain.
Thatâs my experience as well: 2 brought a bit of boundaries-testing, fair enough; but when my daughter hit 3, it was like someone switched her overnight with a very angry/weepy drunk. There was this solid wall of drama and everything seemed to suddenly be regressing big time (eating habits, potty, sleep, disciplineâŚ).
I was never worried about the âteenage yearsâ but the 3s have had me reconsider that position. Iâve got a little bit of the fear now.
Hint: theyâre not goodâŚ
I have no idea if itâs true, but âcommon wisdomâ has it that the kids who are difficult as 2-5 year olds are easy teenagers, while the easy pre-schoolers become hellish teenagers.
I suggest you adopt this as your mantra, âThis is gonna make the teen years soooo much easierâ 8)
Sigh⌠I was hoping that wouldnât be true. 
Yup. Three. I remember one particular incident where my daughter was bright purple and, I swear, actually levitating on a pillar of fury, Linda Blair-style.
It gets better. Mineâs eighteen now. Sheâs gone out to get drunk and play pool.
When my first child was two, he was a perfect little angel. We saw other peopleâs terrible two-year-olds and smiled smugly, knowing that either he was just better than other children, or even more likely, we were just better parents.
Then right about the time he turned three⌠omiquadrifuckingod. We couldnât leave him alone for a minute; lasted about a year and suddenly he was normal again.
Then my daughter had her terrible twos⌠for about five years. For a while we wondered if any of us would survive. Sheâs a smart, considerate and caring teenager now, though.
Since then Iâve been doing a lot of observation, and Iâve come to these conclusions:
- kids mature at different ages and in differing ways.
- at some point most kids will fiercely test the restrictions that physics, law and society have placed on them, which is hard on their parents and usually happens between ages two and four and often lasts around a year and a half.
- some kids are by nature easier to raise than others. They just are.
Thatâs all pretty old chestnuttery, but it contains the only things I have found to be universally true about raising children. Everything else seems to vary depending both on the child and the environment the child is conceived and raised in.
I hope so. The pre-teen snark and eye rolling is already killing me.
You fix that one by deciding itâs extremely amusing.
Also works on temper tantrums.
Oh, that hasnât stopped. Sheâs just fucked off out for a bitâŚ
We had a name for it too, after the terrible twos come the fucked threes.
Yours is probably more appropriate.
I donât agree.
It really varies by kid, and parenting doesnât seem to have a huge impact on this.
Basically, pay close attention to what peer group your kid adopts 6-8th grade â that pretty much tells you what kind of teen years you will be facing. I know kids who were such delights during their teens years that their parents missed the good company when the kids went away to college. I know other kids, sometimes from the same families, that everyone (kid included) just wanted out of the house.
Itâs a mystery â enjoy the ride.
If at all possible, try to mold the environment from which that 6-8th grade peer group will be chosen. That is, you canât pick their friends â they will most certainly do that for themselves â but ( hopefully) you can influence the group from which they will draw their friends. You have to do that before they hit high school, and understand that you have only limited influence here.
