Hellobee Boards

@Tanjowen: i'm just going to assume you mean 25 month old...

with my 20 month old, i'll count to 3. i use this method for most requests/commands. i'll ask, and if he says no, i'll say "that's 1" while holding up my finger and showing him. when i get to "3", i pick him up. depending on what my initial request was, he'll either go to timeout for not listening, or i'll just make him do what i wanted (ie- put him in the carseat, leave the park...)

Giving a warning never worked for me until I added a step. I would tell DS "in 2 minutes, I'm going to say it's time to go and you'll say 'ok.'" Then he totally would! A warning went from about a 50% easy compliance chance to like 95%. It's like he felt he was expected to flip out, so he did. But once he was expected to simply say "ok", he did that instead. I also occasionally rewarded that behavior (after he did it) with a small treat or trip to the park. No guarantees, but it really helped us.

I bribe . The books call it giving an incentive, but its basically bribery. "Its time to go home for cake. Quick, quick, you want cake, right?". Or I make it a game - "quick, get into the pushchair before I count to ten" - E loves trying to do things before I reach 10. But, to be fair, 2 wasn't such a tough age for us - now, at three, she negotiates and it makes me rage

Edited to add, about the bribery, if she isn't good she forfeits the thing I've promised her when we get home. Her current love is money for her money box. I basically pay the kid to behave at the moment.... I miss the days when a chocolate button was enough!!

Here are things that worked for me at that age
A)countdown. "We are leaving in 5 minutes" and then three, then one. Then time to go. The minutes don't have to be 60 seconds. But it helps transition.
B) a timer. We picked a noise/sound on my phone that he liked. When we needed to leave or transition I would say "I'm going to set the timer, when you hear the motorcycle engine (his sound of choice) it will be time to x,y,z." Id remind him a few times before the timer went off "don't forget, when you hear the motorcycle it will be time to ...."
C) counting. If he didn't do what I asked, say, stop doing what he was doing I would say "mommy is going to count to three and then I'm going to help you stop. One, two, three." Sometimes I was still forcibly doing things, but lots of times he would chose to stop.