This just in, on Yahoo news: Parenting lessons don't stop toddler tantrums: study.

Uh. Yeah? No kidding? Tantrum-throwing is pretty much inevitable in toddlers, and far more the result of the kid's temperament (an easy-going kid won't throw as many; also, a kid with weak communication skills will probably throw more) than the parent's skills. The purpose of discipline techniques is not to have a toddler, a one or two-year-old child, who does not throw tantrums. That would be a ridiculous goal. The purpose is to encourage an increasing amount of civilized behavior as the child gets older, and a parent should realize that this is a long-term goal that may not truly bear fruit for a number of years. Tantrums are still really not that big a deal at three and four -- they're annoying, and behavior you want to work on curtailing, but they don't indicate that your child is going to grow up to become Charles Manson. Kiera behaves extremely well for her teachers, but threw a tantrum this morning because when she demanded that I go upstairs to get her scissors, I told her to do it herself. I have enough perspective to know that this really isn't a big deal. Usually when she has a fit, the thing she wants is something perfectly reasonable, it's just that I didn't understand her request correctly and she falls apart in frustration. At that point, even if I know what she wants, she has to calm down and ask for it nicely before she'll get it, and if she screams persistently I stick her in her room until she settles down a little. Most kids gradually get a longer fuse and better communication skills so I expect the problem will resolve, provided that I don't reinforce the tantrums in a way that teaches her that screaming will get her what she wants.

That's actually true for a ton of behavioral problems. The kid will grow out of it; the parents' job is to not encourage it in a way that it becomes a a habit that the kid finds rewarding.

Everyone has heard stories about children who have learned that a screaming tantrum will get them what they want, and thus resort to it more and more often. I don't actually know any of these kids -- all the parents I know are really acutely aware of the idea that you should reinforce the behavior you like, and not the behavior that drives you up a tree. Even with most of these kids, the tantrums will eventually resolve because at some point tantrums become unacceptable to other children, and there's nothing like peer pressure to break a bad habit.

The article goes on to say that (a) severe behavioral problems affect 1 in 7 kids between 4 and 17 and (b) they're potentially a big deal. The study compared behavior in two groups over an 18 month period -- one set of parents got special counseling and education on how to discipline children and what realistic expectations were at this age, while the other did not, and the behavior of the children was examined, though the article doesn't say whether this was done via researcher observation or by having the mothers fill out questionnaires.

Since there was no difference in the behavior of the two groups, the researchers have concluded that parent education is a waste of time and money.

Now, it's entirely possible that their parent-training program was a waste of time and money. Especially as most parents are well aware that you aren't supposed to reward a tantrum -- I mean, good grief, I knew that back when I was twelve.

But really. You study toddlers for 18 months and then draw sweeping conclusions about the worth of parent education for preventing long-term behavioral problems? Can I just note for the record that both of my kids got dramatically worse at three -- presumably when this study was drawing its conclusions about whether the parent education had helped? I try not to say bad things about the social sciences as a class, because my father is a Political Scientist. But this is the kind of research that gives social science a bad name.

(Oh, and as a late tantrum-thrower myself -- I think it was peer pressure that finally got me to quit, sometime well into grade school -- I would also question the implicit assumption that tantrums are a good indicator for long-term behavior problems.)

(Oh, and one other thing. I love how they only studied the mothers here, rather than enrolling the families. Because God knows it's not like fathers have any influence at all.)

I know people who insist that there is no such thing as too many books. They're usually talking about children's books -- they don't think they can EVER have too many children's books.

These people have bigger houses than I have.

Molly and Kiera have a six-shelf-high, 28" wide bookcase in their room. It is deep enough that children's novels can be double-stacked. It is completely full, which is a problem because there are books belonging to Molly strewed all over the house, and I would like them to be put away when she's done reading them. (And this is with 2/3rd or 3/4ths of the picture books stored in baskets -- paperback picture books get swallowed up when stored on a shelf.) There is nowhere in the room to put a second bookcase, since they also have to have their beds, their dressers, and at least some of their toys in the room. (They also store some toys in the living room and wherever else they think they can get away with strewing them, and their craft materials are stored in the dining room.)

At some point a whole lot of the books got yanked off the shelves and then put back in no particular order, so nothing's even grouped. I pulled down a whole bunch of her books and now I'm utterly overwhelmed and uncertain of how to proceed. In the row behind the other books on top, there are a whole lot of books that are excellent but not really intended for a seven-year-old, like Johnny Tremain and The Yearling. Which I remember mostly as the book that clued me in to the fact that if they say it's a coming-of-age novel, the pet is going to die horribly by the end -- I'm not sure why I kept it, but I did. Come to think of it, maybe I should ditch that one. It's not like it's exactly hard to track it down at the library, should she decide she wants to read it. Same goes for Johnny Tremain. But on the other hand, the Girls of St. Clare series, which I got a huge kick out of in a "wow, this is such a different world, I wonder if boarding schools are really like this?" kind of way, is impossible to find in the U.S. I have to hold on to that one for her, even though she has no particular interest in it yet...

She'll be home from school in a half hour and I need to think of some way to get her to help me with this. She's unwilling to actually get rid of books, because she wants to pass them along to Kiera when Kiera is old enough to read them, but I'm thinking I might be able to talk her into boxing up the ones she's not going to read again herself, with the promise that we can bring them out again when the picture books get retired. I am going to inform her that I cannot possibly buy her any new books until some space is cleared out for them; that may be an adequate motivator. We could also box up the Johnny Tremain type stuff where she might like it someday, but that day is probably at least a few years off.

I wish I had a bigger house, but the truth is this would only delay the problem; Molly is a book-hoarder, even worse than I am.

ETA: The reason I'm organizing Molly's books is because my goal is to get the downstairs cleaned up. A significant contribution to the disorder downstairs is all the stuff the kids leave lying around: art projects (piles and PILES AND PILES of art projects), finished schoolwork, toys, books, clothes, etc., etc., etc. Some of it is lying out downstairs because there's nowhere to put it upstairs. If I clean out the room enough that there's space for stuff, this may give me enough breathing room downstairs that I feel like I can actually get some of the clutter under control.

It drives me crazy, but I'm as much a part of the problem as anyone else in the house, honestly, which is not all that comforting since at least I'd have the solace of righteous indignation if it were all everyone else's mess.