How to use these pages
Find the page that matches tonight. Read the five things in "in the moment" and pick one. Then, on a calmer day, read the rest. Every page is laid out the same way, because at nine in the evening nobody wants to hunt through an essay.
Change one thing, not five
The commonest mistake — and it comes from caring — is to read advice and change everything at once for three days. Pick a single change, do it the same way every time for two weeks, and only then judge it. Small children learn from repetition, and so, honestly, do the rest of us.
What these pages are not
They are not medical advice, they are not a parenting philosophy, and they do not assume you have unlimited time, a spare room, or another adult at home. They are the plain version of what paediatric and early-years guidance broadly agrees on — the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NHS, and the wider work on how children learn to manage feelings — written for the actual moment rather than the ideal one.
None of this is a sign you are doing it wrong
Tantrums, biting, refusing vegetables, screaming at the school gate and fighting sleep are what a healthy brain does while it is being built. They peak in exactly the years when a child's feelings have outgrown their words, and they fade as the words arrive. A calm adult nearby is not a small thing — it is the single biggest thing — and on the days you cannot manage calm, coming back afterwards counts just as much.
Why these eight
They are the ones families actually search for, in every country we looked at, and they cluster in the years between one and six for a reason. In that window a child has enormous feelings, very few words, almost no ability to wait, and a growing sense of being a separate person with their own plans. Every one of these eight problems sits exactly where those four things collide.
They all have the same shape
Notice, as you read, how similar the advice is across very different problems. Warn before a change. Use fewer words, not more. Offer a small choice at the moment control is being lost. Stay close and stay calm. Hold the limit but not the lecture. Come back afterwards and repair. If you learn nothing else here, those six lines will get you through most of it — which is also why we do not think parents need a course, an app subscription or a coach to manage the preschool years.
The part nobody puts on the poster
You cannot lend a child calm you do not have. Being hungry, short of sleep or on your own with it all day is not a character flaw, and it is the single biggest reason a hard moment turns into a bad evening. If you can, arrange one thing: twenty minutes when somebody else is in charge, a meal you did not cook, or a walk without a pram. If you cannot, lower the bar for the day on purpose — fewer outings, simpler food, an earlier bath — rather than trying to do a normal day badly.
If there are two of you
Children find two different rules much harder than one strict rule. Agree the answer to the two or three things that come up every day — the screen, the bedtime, the sweet before dinner — in daylight, away from the child, and then back each other in the moment even if you would have handled it differently. Disagree later, out of earshot.
A word about punishment
None of these pages recommend smacking, shouting or shaming, and that is not squeamishness. The evidence is unusually consistent: physical punishment stops the behaviour for a minute and makes it more likely over months, while teaching that the way to handle a big feeling is to make somebody smaller feel worse. Limits, on the other hand, are essential. A child needs the answer to be the same today as it was yesterday, and needs to hear "no" without hearing that they are bad. Holding a limit calmly, again and again, is harder work than a raised hand and it is the whole job.
Consequences that actually teach
The useful ones are immediate, related and small: the cup that is thrown goes away for this meal, the bike that is ridden at the road comes inside for today. A consequence announced at bedtime for something that happened at breakfast teaches nothing, because a four-year-old cannot hold the two events together. And a consequence delivered while you are furious is a punishment, whatever it is called.
The eight pages
Tantrums, bedtime battles, hitting and biting, sharing and turn-taking, crying at drop-off, fear of the dark, fussy eating, and turning the screen off. Each one takes about four minutes to read.
Now do it for real
When the screen goes off, do something with your hands. Try 🧵 Thread a pattern — an easy craft for ages 2-5, with every step read aloud in your language. You will need a shoelace or thick thread, big beads, pasta or cut straws; nothing that needs a trip to a shop.
There are 56 more on the things to do at home page, and free printable worksheets if you would rather have something on paper. Ten minutes on a screen and twenty minutes off it is a good shape for a day at this age.