I have an almost 2 year old. I am needing to continue working on helping her learn appropriate behavior. Time outs definitely get her attention, but I dont really want to use that if I dont have to. I also dont want to use physical punishment. Yelling also doesnt feel right or effective.
I wish I had a better aresnal at my disposal. I want to do some more reading on the subject.
What do you do to discipline bad behavior/reward good behavior?
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts
@DillonLion: We used this training trick called "incompatible behavior" that helped a ton... where you find a way to prevent certain behavior. Like when I would cook breakfast, Charlie used to climb up on chairs and watch me and I felt it was dangerous. So I gave him some plastic "dishes" to wash and a bucket of soapy water, and he would do that instead of climbing up on chairs to potentially get spattered by grease.
The other big thing we used was listening techniques... we were definitely surprised at how much that helped!
pomelo / 5524 posts
Following this. We're struggling right now with 2 year old discipline.
nectarine / 2054 posts
We like the techniques in How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk. We're not huge fans of time outs, we've been using more redirection, offering acceptable choices, and taking away offending objects. We joke that J's toys go in time out.
As an example, yesterday (and this morning) he was standing on top of a big stuffed turtle and jumping off it. We wanted him to stop doing that, so we told him to stop jumping off the turtle, said he could sit on the turtle if he wanted, and said we'd have to take the turtle away if he jumped on it again. Of course he jumped on it again, so we took it away. He's started to get it too - he will say to us things like "J banged the toy on the counter and mama took the toy away".
Just one idea - not sure how well it will work in the long term, but it feels like something for now!
squash / 13764 posts
What specific behaviors are you struggling with? I generally try to make the space as "Safe" as possible so i need to do as little disciplining as possible, and beyond that, redirect if I see him getting into stuff. If he continues doing stuff that I don't want (climbing on the table, etc), I will remove him from the room or go outside if I can. For general disobedience (not wanting to get dressed, change diaper, etc), I struggle with this too! I have tried bribes (sometimes successful), warnings about time limits (not successful), and making it into a game (most successful). As for rewarding good behavior, I have noticed that he REALLY likes it when I "talk" about his good behavior to his stuffed animals or to other people. I think Happiest Toddler on the Block talks about this (although the caveman speak thing in that book did not work for us, I know others have really liked it!).
grapefruit / 4923 posts
i use a lot of redirection. i may be underestimating my LO, but i don't think he would get the concept of timeouts right now.
GOLD / eggplant / 11517 posts
@hilsy85: we have had a history of biting. That is the worst one. But it usually occurs because she is already frusrated about something else.
There arent any other major issues, but things like not paying attention to her when we try to cook dinner, so she has a meltdown. The only alternative seems to be one of us just stopping what we are doing to tend to her. I want her to beable to find something to entertain herself or behelpful to the dinner making process, but she cant do much at her age
pineapple / 12526 posts
We havent had a huge, huge issue but we've gone through a couple phases of bad behavior (like the 2ish months where I got hit in the face every. single. day.)
Time outs work really well for us (we do the super nanny method). We've honestly only had to do it a handful of times (maybe 5-6?), mostly for hitting or throwing tantrums. This is what cured our hitting phase. I think it took 1-2 time outs for it and it completely stopped.
Redirection still works pretty well, but less and less every day at 2.5 years old.
Removal of things worked really well too and we only had to do it maybe 2 times. Like when she's being destructive with a toy or wont pick up when we ask her to, we tell her that if she does not do x thing then we will put the toy up and she will not get it back for a couple days. I think Ive done it once at home and my mom did it once at her house. Now just explaining the consequence to her is enough to get her to listen.
We ignored tantrums generally. We would let her go for a few minutes by herself and then sit down and let her come cuddle so she could calm down. We found that if we went to her right away to calm her down, it just made it worse and she'd be screaming and thrashing against us.
This is just what worked for us. C is a pretty independent kid, so we dont have the same issues as some people do.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
@DillonLion: One thing that I did that has been a lifesaver is to set up a bin of arts and crafts in the kitchen, where my son can sit and be there in the same room while I am cooking. He'll play with playdough for over an hour, but he also has paper, glue, scissors, markers, etc right there so he doesn't have to ask me.
On a rare occassion he'll play in his room or the playroom without me, but when we're both home, he wants to be with us, doing what we're doing. It's a challenge, because some tasks just aren't toddler friendly, hello chopping!
GOLD / eggplant / 11517 posts
@looch: i have a littke table in the kitchen for her. Maybe i will put some items on it for her to 'cook' with
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
@DillonLion: What about setting up her play kitchen in your kitchen?
pomelo / 5628 posts
@mrbee: I've definitely tried some incompatible behaviors since your mention of it!
We don't have any "discipline." Time outs don't make sense to him and we definitely don't punish. So our discipline really is consistency. I was a psych major and worked with kids with autism for a year after college and I've watched A lOT of SuperNanny!
Consistency is key. Save no for when you really mean it and if you do say no or "you can't take you food with you if you get out of your chair," then stick to it even if there's a little tantrum.
I also really like an article I read that had four techniques, the two I remember where change the scene I.e. go outside or put LO upside down (if he likes it) to help calm him down. The other was to get on their level, so talk quietly and make eye contact down at lo's level when you really need him to listen.
eggplant / 11824 posts
@Mrs Green Grass: I agree with you; we also don't do any real discipline or time-outs yet because I don't think LO would really understand the concept.
I kneel down at her level and talk to her eye to eye. We talk a lot about thinking about other people's feelings and using our empathy - Daniel tiger has made that one easy, and one LO understands and processes into our of-the-moment issue/situation.
Also, redirection and changing the atmosphere like mrs.greengrass mentioned.
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