Even the best of parents struggle with how to discipline a toddler. Follow these simple strategies to keep your 2- and 3-year-olds in line.
Pick Your Battles
If you’re always saying, ‘No, no, no,’ your child will tune out the no and won’t understand your priorities. Plus you can’t possibly follow through on all of the nos. Define what’s important to you, set limits accordingly, and follow through with appropriate consequences. Then ease up on little things that are annoying but otherwise fall into the “who cares?” category — the habits your child is likely to outgrow, such as insisting on wearing purple (and only purple).
Keeping a good relationship with your child—who is of course in reality totally dependent upon you—is more important for growth than trying to force the child to respond in ways that he/she simply is not going to respond. You may worry that “giving in” will create a spoiled monster, but this common anxiety isn’t justified.
Know Your Child’s Triggers
Some misbehavior is preventable—as long as you can anticipate what will spark it and you create a game plan in advance, such as removing tangible temptations. For example, to a toddler, pulling toilet paper is irresistible fun, it is easier to take it out of his/her way than to fight about it.
Practice Prevention
Some children act out when they’re hungry, overtired, or frustrated from being cooped up inside. If your child tends to be happy and energetic in the morning but is tired and grumpy after lunch, schedule trips to the store and visits to the doctor for when the child is at his/her best. Prepare the child for any new experiences, and explain how you expect him/her to act. Also prepare the child for shifting activities: “In a few minutes we’ll need to pick up the toys and get ready to go home.” The better prepared a child feels, the less likely he/she is to make a fuss.
Be Consistent
Between the ages of 2 and 3, children are working hard to understand how their behavior impacts the people around them. If your reaction to a situation keeps changing—one day you let your child throw a ball in the house and the next you don’t—you’ll confuse the child with mixed signals. There’s no timetable as to how many incidents and reprimands it will take before your child stops a certain misbehavior. But if you always respond the same way, he/she will probably learn his lesson after four or five times. Don’t let your child’s tactics sway you—no matter how cute (or clever) they are.
Don’t Get Emotional
Sure, it’s hard to stay calm when you have to correct that child for the gazillionth time in a row. But if you scream in anger, the message you’re trying to send will get lost and the situation will escalate, fast. When a child is flooded with a parent’s negative mood, he’ll see the emotion and won’t hear what you’re saying. Indeed, an angry reaction will only enhance the entertainment value for your child, so resist the urge to raise your voice. Take a deep breath, count to three, and get down to your child’s eye level. Be fast and firm, serious and stern when you deliver the reprimand.
Listen and Repeat
Kids feel better when they know they have been heard, so whenever possible, repeat your child’s concerns. If your child is whining in the grocery store because you won’t let him/her open the cookies, say something like: “It sounds like you’re mad at me because I won’t let you open the cookies until we get home. I’m sorry you feel that way, but the store won’t let us open things until they’re paid for.” This won’t satisfy the urge, but it will reduce the anger and defuse the conflict.
Keep It Short and Simple
If you’re like most first-time parents, you tend to reason with your child when he/she breaks rules, offering detailed explanations about what he/she did wrong and issuing detailed threats about the privileges that will be lost if he/she doesn’t stop misbehaving. But as a discipline strategy, overt-talking is as ineffective as becoming overly emotional. While an 18-month-old lacks the cognitive ability to understand complex sentences, a 2- or 3-year-old with more developed language skills still lacks the attention span to absorb what you’re saying. Instead, speak in short phrases, repeating them a few times and incorporating vocal inflections and facial expressions.
Offer Choices
When a child refuses to do (or stop doing) something, the real issue is usually control: You’ve got it; the child wants it. So, whenever possible, give your preschooler some control by offering a limited set of choices. Rather than commanding the child to clean up his/her room, ask, “which would you like to pick up first, your books or your blocks?” Be sure the choices are limited, specific, and acceptable to you, however. “Where do you want to start?” may be overwhelming to your child, and a choice that’s not acceptable to you will only amplify the conflict.
Watch Your Words
It helps to turn “you” statements into “I” messages. Instead of saying, “You’re so selfish that you won’t even share your toys with your best friend,” try “I like it better when I see kids sharing their toys.” Another good technique is to focus on do’s rather than don’ts. If you tell a 3-year-old that he/she can’t leave a trike in the hallway, he/she may want to argue. A better approach: “If you move your trike outside, it won’t get kicked and scratched so much.”
Teach Empathy
It’s rarely obvious to a 3-year-old why he/she should stop doing something he/she finds fun, like biting, hitting, or grabbing toys from other children. Teach your child empathy instead: “When you bite or hit people, it hurts them”; “When you grab toys away from other kids, they feel sad because they still want to play with those toys.” This helps your child see that his/her behavior directly affects other people and trains the child to think about consequences first.
Give a Time-Out
If repeated reprimands, redirection, and loss of privileges haven’t cured your child of his/her offending behavior, consider putting the child in time-out for a minute per year of age. “This is an excellent discipline tool for kids.
Before imposing a time-out, put a serious look on your face and give a warning in a stern tone of voice (“I’m counting to three, and if you don’t stop, you’re going to time-out. One, two, THREE!”). If he/she doesn’t listen, take the child to the quiet and safe spot you’ve designated for time-outs, and set a timer. When it goes off, ask the child to apologize and give him/her a big hug to convey that you’re not angry.
Talk Options
When you want your child to stop doing something, offer alternative ways for him/her to express feelings: say, hitting a pillow or banging with a toy hammer. He/she needs to learn that while emotions and impulses are acceptable, certain ways of expressing them are not. Also, encourage your child to think up his/her own options. Even 3-year-olds can learn to solve problems themselves. For instance, you could ask: “What do you think you could do to get your friend to share that toy with you?” The trick is to listen to their ideas with an open mind. Don’t shoot down anything, but do talk about the consequences before a decision is made.
Reward Good Behavior
It’s highly unlikely that your child will always do whatever you say. If that happened, you’d have to think about what might be wrong with the child! Normal kids resist control, and they know when you’re asking them to do something they don’t want to do. They then feel justified in resisting you. In cases in which they do behave appropriately, a prize is like a spoonful of sugar: It helps the medicine go down. Judicious use of special treats and prizes is just one more way to show your child you’re aware and respectful of his/her feelings. This, more than anything, gives credibility to your discipline demands.
Stay Positive
No matter how frustrated you feel about your child’s misbehavior, don’t vent about it in front of him/her. If people heard their boss at work say, ‘I don’t know what to do with my employees. They run the company, and I feel powerless to do anything about it,’ they’d lose respect for him and run the place even more. It’s the same thing when children hear their parents speak about them in a hopeless or negative way. They won’t have a good image of you as their boss, and they’ll end up repeating the behavior. Still, it’s perfectly normal to feel exasperated from time to time. If you reach that point, turn to your spouse, your pediatrician, or a trusted friend for support and advice.