disciplining toddlers

[olatt]

feeling lost ... my 2yr-old ds has only been naughty stepped twice really, both times for attacking his baby sister. but i'm confused. if he says sorry straight away (even though i doubt his sincerity) should he still go on the naughty step? should he get warnings before he goes on the step? how long should he stay? what if (as seems to be the case) he thinks the punishment is funny and/or enjoys the attention (he gets plenty of positive attention). feeling lost! he is still a baby after all.

[WinkyWinkola]

Yeah, he's still a baby.

I've got the same problem with a new baby and a resentful two year old. You've just got to keep showing your disapproval of any bad behaviour. Keep plodding on and it will pass if you're consistent. My DS shows now interest in my baby DD now after many explanations and tellings off. But I do think punishments are futile at this age.. .. . . . . . . .Just keep them apart as much as you can.

[FrayedKnot]

I think 2 is a bit young for the naughty step.

I don;t think most 2 year olds would understand why they are supposed ot be there or even "saying sorry".

DS is 3.4 and I do use time out on the stairs if he has a real trantrum and needs to calm down, and he understands why he is being told to do it.

At 2, he wouldn;t have had a clue.

[olatt]

so you reckon just say no and leave it at that? i agree, punishment seems useless, and he is in a phase where if i say 'not in your mouth' he can't get whatever choking hazard in his mouth fast enough so i kind of think it might be counterproductive anyway. i just live in fear of raising a nightmare child if we don't crack down on things now! too much supernanny?

[ubermummy]

hellllooo my daughter is 22mths and her friend is 2 years old, and they both spontaneously and unprovokely hit each other, not all the time, 65% of the time is great, I have a 3 year old son to and when they play together it is great but how do i disipline the hitting, havent done naughty step yet with daighter, and her friend dylan has a two minute time out but it only ends in massive tantrum and crying til cuddles are given.....help!!

[Tansycat]

My DD is nearly two and a half and I do use the naughty step with her although not very often. Sometimes I just find it helps to remove her from the situation to break the cycle, especially if there are lots of children around and it's getting a bit fraught! Don't know that she really understands but she doesn't like being taken away from the fun and it seems to work for us. I think if they begin to think its funny then its pointless though - my friends DS was the same.

[KTNoo]

For me the naughty step only worked from about 2 and a half.

My dd was just under 2 when ds was born and if she tried to hurt him in any way I just used to tell her no then pick ds up and walk away with him, and pointedly ingore dd for a few minutes. She was usually after my attention so I tried to make sure she got lots of it when she was being nice.

[forgottenfreetime]

I too had a problem with this. DS (2 years)was biting my newborn DD. We did do the naughty step, every time there was a problem. I think that being very consistent was helpful in two ways. It helped him know that he was never going to get away with it and therefore stopped the behaviour quicker than if disciplined sometimes and not others. And, it helped him know what the naughty step was about. We simply said No Biting, No Kicking etc.... or Too Rough, which was another problem. I also put DD in the playpen in her bouncy chair so DS couldn't get to her. When I needed to leave the room I took DS with me and left DD there. I found that trying too actively to seperate the children made the situation worse. Ds did want to cuddle her he just couldn't stop himself biting. We made a big fuss of teaching how we wanted him to behave - making her musical toy play, passing her teddy etc. 5 months on we never get any biting but he does still throw toys at her sometimes - this is harder now cos she laughs at him! I found it really upsetting at the time and worried that these were the first signs of DS being a troubled child. But I'm happy to say twas not so, I think it is just one of the ways that children react to a new sibling Good Luck with whatever strategy you decide upon.