Yes, she may struggle from the separation from her biomom, but that should not be causing the tantrums you see. You are correct that it is the *terrible twos* behavior in general.
Potty training often regresses once the new baby is born, btw. Punishing her for this is not going to be helpful.
You haven't tried it all, btw. You need to catch her being good and reward that rather than punishing in the moment.
Here is a long post about positive parenting. It was created by a large group of parents who were interested in parenting.
Please think in terms of positive discipline instead of punishment.
You may want to read "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
Another good book is "How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too" by Sal Severe.
Another one is "Playful Parenting" by Lawrence J. Cohen
Positive Parenting and Teaching
The idea of these methods is to be proactive and not reactive, to empower the child to control his own behavior rather than to control his behavior yourself, to see the child's individual needs and abilities rather than to use some general techniques to adapt these things to particular situations using the basic principle of respect for the child's feelings and human rights.
Part of this is simply a change in the way you speak to your child and in the attitude that you show toward him when you *really* look at him and listen to him carefully.
Mostly, this boils down to LISTEN to your child and RESPECT her unique needs and feelings.
First, model the behavior you want your child to emulate. Children learn what they live. Teach by example, not words. If you want your child to eat his vegetables, eat them yourself and don’t keep the food you wish him to avoid in the house for yourself and others in the family. When you do use words, encourage him with specifics when he does something good. I see you ate all your broccoli is better than you are a good eater or you are a good boy. General praise is not as effective as simply noticing what he did.
Second, always try to look for the underlying cause of the behavior and address that so that the need is actually met in acceptable ways. Assume your child is *good* even when her behavior doesn't meet your standards. Accept her feelings and show that you understand. Allow her to talk about them. Listen to her and respect her feelings and she will learn to respect the feelings of others.
Third, state your rules and requests in positive ways, not negative ones - Please walk is always more effective than don't run. Have the least number of rules possible. Don't micromanage your child's life. Make your point with humor. It helps to make some things that must be done a silly game instead of being serious. "Can you pick up the toys with your feet?" might be a way to get a child to have fun cleaning up. Remember the Whistle While You Work philosophy. Do things together instead of having her work alone. Rules should apply to all members of the household and should be for safety and for the sake of kindness to one another. Keep the number of "nos" to a minimum.
Fourth, explain on the child's level exactly what you want done again in positive terms - state what he can do, not what he can't do. Get down on the child's level and look at him when you explain. You may want to touch his arm to get his attention or to create a nonverbal signal that works to calm him down.
Fifth, redirect a child who is doing something that you dislike to something he *can* do now instead of what he is doing. Give the child choices between many things that are acceptable to you and she won't have to find something that is unacceptable so that she can have control. Whenever possible, let the child decide on what he should do even if the choice she makes is different from what you think is the *best* one. Children learn from making choices.
Sixth, give your child warnings of transitions so that they become easier to manage. Children need time to *finish* what they are doing. Persistence in doing a task is a virtue and should be encouraged. So try to allow them to finish what they start even when it is *just* a game.
Seventh, allow for down time when your emotions or the child's are out of control. This is not isolation, but it is a way to get anger under control. It is used non-punitively to allow both the adult and child to regain control of their emotions. Let the child control the amount of time she tays in a *time-out* like this. . Give her the control and she may put himself in *time-out* when she feels she needs it without your having to initiate this at all. Use it yourself too if your own emotions fly out of control. It's a great way to calm *yourself* down. Teach her to count to 10, to think before she reacts, by using these techniques yourself. Use breathing to breathe out the anger too.
(Sidebar on teaching breathing here: When your child is calm teach him how to breathe out his anger. There are breathing games that you can play that work really well with toddlers and preschoolers and after you teach him how, you can remind him to breathe when he begins to tantrum.
These are breathing exercises we used with preschool classes:
Ballooning
When you balloon, you breathe in (deeply) and as you breath in you start with your arms at your sides and raise them up parallell to your shoulders and up over your head. Then you blow it all out, make it exaggerated like a balloon spewing out all the air. The kids really like it and it really lowers tension.
Draining
When you drain, you put both hands out in front of you, you twist (and twist, and twist and twist) your hands around like you were turning off water and you *********r face all up, then you blow the air out through your lips (I know... there will be a little spit!) but the kids really like that one and you can feel the stress and tension leaving your own body! (automatic stress relief!)
You can get the balloon and draining icons from:
http://www.beckybailey.com/documents/Icons.pdf
Eighth, say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't give a lot of warnings, give one and then act.
Ninth, plan for situations before they arise. Try to have some idea of what you will do so that you can stay calm and not react in anger. When you do need to change the child's behavior do so calmly and quickly. Pick up a young child and remove him from the situation or redirect him to some positive activity without yelling and without anger. Talk in a reasonable and normal tone of voice. Convey the message of love with your voice and your body.
Tenth, as your child grows, try to involve him in planning the rules that are necessary. Let him make some of the decisions within reasonable guidelines so that he begins to trust his own feelings about what is right and what is wrong. You can use role-playing and dramatic play to help your child figure out what he can do when situations come up that are difficult for him. Always involve him in solving the problem. Let him brainstorm different things he can do and then let him choose from the acceptable alternatives he comes up with.
Eleventh, make amends when you make a mistake. Apologize to your child when you have made a mistake. Accept his apologies gracefully as well. Encourage children to show they're sorry by taking responsibility for any harm they caused. They can get ice, look at the wound, say they're sorry, or do nothing-and live with whatever self-imposed guilt they might have. Don't force children to apologize. 'Sorry' is a word people can say insincerely to erase their responsibility and guilt.
Twelfth, give your child responsibility for real tasks that help make your family work. Chores help your child to feel she is a real part of
helping things run smoothly. Work out what chores she should do with her keeping them appropriate to her age and abilities, but allowing her to stretch. Don’t criticize her performance, let her improve gradually and be totally responsible for the chore. Don’t redo her work. Don’t tie chores to allowance in general. Allowances are better used to teach her to handle her own money responsibly. Extra money or rewards when she goes above and beyond the call of duty may be all right, but the idea of chores is to be responsible for helping your family work. Allowances (if you give them) should be something children get and are allowed to use in any way they wish although as they grow, they might be given responsibility to budget and pay for some things like their bus fare or school lunches. Still it should always be enough to cover the expenses and also to allow them their own spending money as well.
Children should experience the *natural consequences* of their actions, since that is how they learn. But making up logical consequences to substitute for natural ones often becomes a problem.
Cline and Fay (logical consequences parenting books) are worthwhile to read
http://www.loveandlogic.com/
This site has even better ideas.
http://www.naturalchild.org/
or these
http://www.empathicparenting.org/
http://www.flyingboy.com/relationships-parenting.htm
or this one for teachers
http://www.marvinmarshall.com/
Some good resource books are:
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. (already mentioned above)
By the same authors:
How to Talk So Kids Will Learn
Liberated Parents, Liberated Children.
Siblings Without Rivalry.
How to Talk So Kids Will Learn
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