Raise your hand if you have an unruly, irrational toddler. Keep it raised if two minutes from now they turn into the sweetest little angel. Ahh, the terrible twos. But actually in our case the “terrible twos” started when our son, Tate, was 21-months. Please tell me that because we got an early start on the tantrums that they won’t last for as many years as everyone says (I’ll just keeping telling myself that). When we entered the tantrum-era we also had just brought a newborn baby home from the hospital; “stressful” is putting it lightly. All of the sudden our sweet little toddler just couldn’t control his emotions and didn’t yet have the words to express himself. That led to screaming fits with him sprawled all over the floor and in those moments there was nothing we could say or do to calm him down.
I was still adjusting to life with two kids, and I was desperate to learn how to handle Tate’s newfound outbursts. I came across a picture of a behavior chart that looked like a stoplight at Pre-K Busy Bees and thought it was worth a shot! I created my own version (free download below) and I’m happy to report we’ve had quite a bit of success with it. Obviously it isn’t a miracle worker, two-year-olds are still going to throw their tantrums, but it really is a great visual for him to see how he is acting.
I started by printing out the stoplight on 11×17 cardstock paper. Then trimmed it out with a scissors and used a command strip to hang it on his bedroom door.
Next I printed a picture of his head, cut it out, and used another command strip to attach it to a clothes pin.
The clothes pin can easily be moved to different circles for corresponding moods.
Like any other effective behavior chart, you need to sit down and explain to your child what it is and how it works. The nice thing about this stoplight is that there are no words on it, so a young child will understand the visual of the happy or sad face. No matter what happened the day before always start every morning with their face on green…it’s a new day and you want them to have a fresh start! And make sure to give them a lot of praise when they are on the green, especially when they make their way from red all the way back to green; they are learning how to adjust their moods and by praising them they start to realize how much better it feels to be on the green. We reward Tate with one extra book before bed if he generally had a good day and ended the day on green.
Check out the free printable, and let me know if you have luck implementing this behavior chart!