Behavior detox

In the week after returning from and extended visit with family, we have been in a bit of detox program with River. He was exposed to bad behavior by relatives whose parents set different limits. They are allowed to throw, to hit, to run away and to generally cause quite a ruckus without consequence.

When we visited them for a day or two, several months ago, River looked at me with wide eyes when he saw them throw their toys across the living room. “No, we don’t throw,” I told him. But how is he supposed to understand that different households have different standards? When one of the kids stuck his face into his bowl of food at the restaurant, eating like a dog, River tried to emulate that. “No, we don’t do that,” I told him again.

Mark was up against a losing battle trying to prevent this influence over a period of a week. So it was no surprise that during our first few days back home, there was suddenly a lot of screeching and more testing of limits than usual.

“Screaming and crying will not get you what you want.” Mark and I set a united front on this one, and the yelling has now thankfully gone away.

Admittedly, his ball throwing skills have improved, and that is useful. So we’re allowing him to throw lightweight balls. But nothing else. The other day he whipped something through the air, not letting it go, but pretty close to throwing. I told him we don’t do that. He did it again. I gave him a warning. He did it again. It seemed like a minor offense, not really worthy of a timeout. But I had given him a warning and had to follow through. When he did it the third time, there was a look in his eyes as if to say – show me what the limits are.

He was so calm. He didn’t say a word as I carried him upstairs. He sat quietly in his crib for two minutes. When I took him out and explained that we don’t do that, he was fine with it and we went about our activities.

We are still having a bit of residual effects – things like saying “You’re stinky” or “you’re dirty,” to people, but I think we are pretty much reverting to normal. I was talking to a friend about it and she said, “Yes, that is why you want to control who they hang out with at this age. By the time they are teenagers you lose control, but at this stage, you don’t have to let them be influenced in that way.”

It’s tough though when you like the parents, but the kids are poor influences. It really makes me hope that if he does get a spot in preschool this fall, that the kids are well behaved. Countering negative influences is hard work.

Recognizing rules

I’ve lately been receiving signs that River understands and remembers rules and it’s an interesting development to observe. When I get him in the morning and his pants are wet, he says, “No pepe en los pantalones (no pee in the pants).”

The other day, I had to give him a time out when he was already dressed to go, with shoes and coat on. When I took him out of his crib and led him downstairs, he said, “No zapatos en la casa (no shoes in the house).”

“You are right,” I said, and carried him downstairs.

Part of me fears becoming like my mother. She didn’t allow shoes in the house either and we hated that rule. But another part of me just spent several thousand dollars refinishing the floors and would like them to last. Also, I’m so far from being the neat perfectionist on home-related matters that my mother is. I do think it’s good to have boundaries and for children to know what it expected. We’ll need to pay attention to set and enforce rules we think are important and be willing to bend on things that are less important.

In the meantime, it’s really cool to see evidence that at 28 months, River knows what is expected of him and makes an effort to comply.

Disciplining a Two Year Old in Public

When we have discipline problems at home, I use SuperNanny’s usual method – a warning, followed by two minutes in time out (in his crib, so he can’t get out or get into anything), followed by an explanation of why he was in there and a hug.

But what to do when one is not at home? I had issues with River not listening to me today. I won’t make empty threats because I think that will make things tougher in the long run. If I threaten something, I have to follow through. I could make a naughty area, but it’s hard to explain to a two-year-old that they have to stay in one place, and then to enforce it while other people are looking (and perhaps 2-year-old is screaming and annoying said others).

Without any effective discipline measures, I felt like I was receiving a lot of disapproving looks. At one point, when he threw a piece of coal on a tour for a second time (after receiving a warning) I left the tour with him (which was more of a punishment for me than for him) and put him in a time out on a bench. He couldn’t get down from the bench, so he did stay there. But he called out “Down! Down! Down!” for almost the entire two minutes and I’m sure people were wondering why I wasn’t responding.

I’m sure many others have dealt with this before. How do you keep your toddler in line when you are in public? How do you enforce the home rules (Ie. you must listen to your mother) outside the home? How do you deal with the reactions you get from others?

What do you do about yelling?

A corollary of the toddler behavior mentioned below has been a decent amount of yelling this week. If he’s demanding something, we’ll normally insist that he ask for it with a please or por favor before we give it to him. We tell him to speak in a lower voice. But in general, we’re kind of at a loss on how to deal with the yelling.

I’ve seen Supernanny list “no yelling” as a rule. Yelling then becomes grounds for a time out. I think that makes sense, but I find yelling a little more challenging to deal with than other behavior. If he throws a car, I can give him a warning. If you throw a car again, you’ll be going to the crib. He knows what that means and usually stops. But it’s hard to give a warning for yelling because once he’s done it, he’s usually in a state in which he’s not really hearing my warning. And then I wonder, where is the line between misbehaving and him expressing his feelings in his Neanderthal way?

During the terrible tantrum, I did give him a timeout and it wasn’t too specific. A kind of general misbehavior timeout. Two minutes later, when I took him out, he had completely calmed down and we had no further issues. Perhaps he just needed some space and time to cool off.

But since the times when the yelling occurs tend to be more stressful moments, Mark and I would like to have a unified strategy in advance. Any tips on how to react to yelling at this age (25 months)?

time outs

When to give the first timeout? A question that I’ve been thinking
about lately. I’d read age two and that was what I expected to do.
But recently, we’ve had some cases of River misbehaving or having
tantrums in which it’s pretty clear he is trying to manipulate us. He
does understand what we are saying and he is using poor behavior to
try to get his way. Giving in teaches him that such behavior results
in what he wants and encourages it. Walking away (which is the
technique I’ve been using lately) doesn’t work well in our tiny abode.
He’ll come after me and pull the same routine. Or put his head down
in trauma, then stop crying and call out pitifully, Mama, Mama. This
was what made me think that he knows what he is doing. When I did
some more googling, I found quite a few people saying they started
from 18 months and up, when the child was old enough to be
purposefully misbehaving.

Last night he threw his step stool down the stairs. I told him that
we don’t throw things down the stairs. A while later, he threw the
toilet seat down the stairs. So I gave him his first time out,
putting him in his crib for one minute.

He cried the whole minute and it was kind of pathetic when I took him
out to see his tears and to feel him clinging to me. He seemed so sad
and I felt bad. But he got over it very quickly. I try to remember
that it’s always sad to see a child unhappy. But that occasionally,
they have to experience moments of unhappiness in order to learn how
to function in a world with rules and other people who have rights and
desires too.

As for whether or not it has any impact on him throwing things down
the stairs, I’ll have to see. (postscript – in the 1.5 months since I write the post, he hasn’t done it again)

When did you start giving time outs? How did you decide when the
right time was? Did it work? Or do other techniques work better?