The phrase ‘terrible twos’ is often used in discussions of children of Amy's age to index the emotional turbulence which seems to be especially marked at this time. When Amy was aged 2;5 and 2;9 a small number of incidents took place on the recordings which bring this phrase to mind. For a parent these incidents are not pleasant ones to report or analyse. A feature they share in common is the level of distress displayed by the child; in the course of them she becomes angry and upset. One place in which such troubles can occur in request sequences among children of this age is where a child's request is rejected. Indeed, such occurrences are to be found on our recordings, and at a later point in this chapter I shall have more to say about them. But the intriguing thing about the incidents in question here is that rather than occurring in circumstances in which the parent is thwarting the child's desires, rejecting a request, they occur in ones where the parent is actually attempting to grant the request, or assist the child in some other way. For this reason they usually seemed perplexing from a parental point of view, even infuriating at times. It is these incidents which are the focus of my discussion in this chapter.

In general, my argument will be that any account of the way these incidents work will need to make reference to the sequential expectations which the child brings to them.