Need help!!
For the last 6 months my 3 year old son has really got into trains. We got him the Thomas Trackmaster set and he loved it! For his birthday people bought more trains and more track to expand his set.
6 months on he plays it every minute he is awake. It's the first thing he says when he gets up and it hard to pull him away from it for lunch or other activities! He plays with it until he goes to bed.
To add to this he occasionally watches YouTube videos on my phone of Thomas and he then goes on to watch videos of other children's trackmaster tracks (he finds them himself with the drop down below the current video)
For the last few weeks it's been getting worse and he won't let me limit his play. He screams and gets angry and upset. His tantrums have escalated and he gets angry a lot. And he is also miserable ALL DAY!!!!!
We've just had 40 minutes of him screaming and kicking around the floor because it's bed time and he refuses to stop playing with it. I so want to put it all in the loft and say that his cousins have borrowed it to play with for a while and take him out for the day. But I know that will lead to him being very upset and I just don't know how he will react.
Do you think he could be addicted/obsessed with it and should I take it away from him for a couple of days or am I over reacting and it's only his favourite toy? And do you think this obsession has anything to do with his increasing tantrums and miserable behaviour?
Any advice would be very greatly appreciated!
xx
Replies
Hi,
I get what you mean. My son is 3 years and is also obsessed with thomas the train ( also I am a train manager in real life ). He also watches the clips on youtube and was getting very frustrated when I turn off the ipad. So I decided to limit his Thomas the train viewing to half an hour a day (always the same time, like for instance after dinner) The first days it's really tough. I told him if he kept whining about it, he wouldn't see him at all.
But when you say he can't watch it, you must really put your foot down. I know it is difficult, it's not easy being the bad guy. After 1 week he got the point and now he knows. He doesn't make a fuss about it anymore.
It is true that if you are obsessed with something too much (a videogame, a show) you get agitated thus you get tantrums.
Hang in there and keep us posted
Oh and I read he also is obsessed with actually playing it aswell. Give him a choice. Half an hour of play or half an hour of youtube vids
Help
my toddler has been going to nursery for 7 weeks now 2.5 hrs mon wed fri. She is beyond clingy. She starts crying 7 am saying that she doesnt want to go to nursery and continues crying once she arrives at nursery.
i have tried everything. A watch for her to look at, a photo of me, now we are taking her everyday for 1.5 hours so she gets in a routine but nothing is working.
she has no problems with the teacher or students but her crying and whining is diving me mad. Please help!!