How do you discipline your dc?

[imahippo]

I'm totally at a loss as to how we approach discipline/correcting behaviour for my almost 3 year old.

My parents were very shouty and ruled through fear. Smacked us a lot. I'm very against this method of parenting.

This has left me struggling to find the balance between being too soft and establishing some boundaries, to worrying that my dc will be scared of me of like I was with my parents.

Example.. we were recently at the forest and dc wanted to throw some pebbles into the stream. We were taking about it and having a nice time etc but he kept getting too close not wanting to hold my hand (fast running stream and a couple of feet drop from the edge). I told him to hold my hand, he refused and kept wriggling away. I again said you must hold my hand etc. Voice tone a bit firmer on my part, still absolutely refusing and I told him we'd have to leave if he didn't, still refused, so we left. He was so upset and hysterical, I felt really mean.

Was it too harsh? It would have been perfectly safe and fine if he held my hand, I made it clear several times that we'd go home. He still refused so we did.

Another example...dc kept throwing toys into the air at home. Asked nicely not to do that etc. He kept doing it. Told him they would be removed if he didn't stop. Kept doing it...so I removed them for a couple of hours and explained that if he couldn't play with them nicely he won't be able to. DH looked at me shocked and afterwards said that was a bit harsh.

I'm so confused! Trying my best to raise well rounded, happy dcs but everyone is telling me different things and my own childhood has left me scared to discipline my dc.

I was smacked and hit a lot. Mine are 12 and 15 and i think I've got a good relationship with them and the school praise their behaviour. I found having a baby and toddler hard work, sometimes felt i was just getting through the days when I was on my own with them. I always praised/gave attention for good behaviour and told off bad behaviour. I admit i occasionally shouted when at the end of my tether. I haven't done so for a while though. I just tell off bad behaviour but don't hold grudges or do punishments. Still praise and show appreciation

The book Divas and Dictators is helpful for positive methods and an easy read. The guy who wrote it charlie taylor has worked with all ages and has run a school for kids excluded from other schools so he knows his stuff

I think at that age distraction is better. So when he wasn’t listening at the river I’d have picked him up and said something like: let’s go and see if we can find some twigs / leaves / the way to the park (whatever else might be nearby and exciting). The toys: I’d have taken him to another room to do something.

Sounds appropriate to me. You warned him, you reinforced the warning more sternly, and then you responded with a consequence. In the case of the water you were keeping him safe, in the case of the toy you were removing the item he was misusing. The 2 hours thing wouldn't make sense because 2 hours in toddler minutes is a very long time, I would have just placed them out of sight until they were forgotten about, but otherwise sounds about right (and what I do roughly). I use a mixture of redirection, discipline, natural consequences, and lots of positive reinforcement and some sticker bribery (oh ok, chocolate sometimes too). I do use time out but it's not a punishment where I am counting down on my watch, it's a time to calm down in a different space or room IYSWIM

I was smacked as a child and lived in fear of my father's temper. I'm not 'soft' though.

Golden rule - don't make empty threats or promises.
Is there a correlation between the action and consequence? If mine are fighting about what to watch on TV then they don't get to watch TV. If they're fighting each other, I separate them
Lots of talking and reading about modelling the good behaviour, talking about emotions, getting them to understand social cues, read faces, etc.
Lots of modelling the right behaviour and giving them a chance to practice.

E.g. toddler group and my child snatches a toy. Give the toy back to the original child, give them the language of how to ask for a turn and then let them 'role play' it to see what a different outcome looks like.

Also, I would use this as an opportunity to start a conversation with your DH about discipline and what will work for both of you.

DH thought I was unnecessarily strict about bed time - my rule was that once you go up for bed you stay upstairs until morning. If they need something they call. The sacrifice was is going up and down (at times, not every night) to deal with them is disruptive.

However, by the time they were regularly sleeping through the night we had uninterrupted evenings. DH was very grateful when he saw the plus side after the work had been put in.

I used the guidelines in Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen. I think she does a special one for pre-schoolers too. It is the perfect form for people who don't want to use shouting and fear or slack indifference and neglect but have no experience from their own childhood of what should take the place of those.

FWIW, I think you did pretty well. They will test you and they desperately need to know you are in charge. In that stituation I would have a) accepted his emotional state b) explained why he couldn;t have what he wanted and c) given a choice.

E.g. 'You like throwing stones in the water don't you?? But the banks are slippery and that's dangerous. If you fell in you could get very badly hurt. I won't let that happen. You can either hold my hand and use your other hand to throw pebbles or you can not hold my hand but stay away from the water. If you go near the water without holding my hand we have to go straight home to be safe. Which do you want: Hold hands and throw pebbles or don't hold hands and run around over there?' (point away from water)
Usually that sort of reaction stopped tantrums. I had lots of friends who eye rolled at how much explaining i always did with my toddlers. But my two never had tantrums. Ever. Even though one is autistic. And I think that's why. Tantrums stem from communication fails, so the more you listen, acknowledge feelings and explain options, the fewer tantrums occur.

I kept getting stuck between different approaches when DS1 was that age. Had been doing gentle parenting (e.g. AhaParenting.com) up until that point with good results and suddenly my go to tricks - validating feelings but preventing actions, reasoning, removing from situation, distraction, redirection - none of them were working any more. But I'd read so much about punishment/negativity being bad and I was so confused with it all. Or I'd try to do something which felt reasonable/fair to me and he would explode like I'd done something terrible and I would end up feeling like the worst person in the world. Or he would just walk all over me and I would end up stressed and in tears. To be honest he is now 11 and I still struggle with this dynamic with him. Not quite as much because he's more reasonable these days, but there are still areas where we butt heads and I get frustrated.

Anyway this time around with DS2 I've come across a method which I really like, it's called RIE (if you google RIE toddlers, you'll get some useful stuff). It has the aspects of gentle parenting that I like (non-coercive, not using fear, not using adult strengths - physical strength, mental ability - against tiny children, feeling respectful, feeling meaningful) but it also has pretty clear guidance as to how and when to set boundaries, which in hindsight, was the piece of the puzzle I was lacking. It wasn't that I didn't want to have any boundaries, I was just totally lost as to how to actually enforce them without some kind of back up of a threat, which I really really didn't want to make/rely on!

Janet Lansbury seems to be the most accessible proponent of this - she has a website with loads of free podcasts which I really like and a couple of books, which are OK, but the articles and podcasts I've found online have explained things better.

There is also a really good book called How To Talk So Kids Will Listen (and a little kids version) - the original will be fine for you and last longer, but the little kids one is a bit more up to date and laid out in a slightly more helpful way as far as I can tell.

If you find you and DH differ in opinion about how to deal with things it can be useful to talk about it (away from children's earshot).

FWIW: You will get 100 different responses because there is a massive, massive range in what is acceptable/good parenting. There is simply not just one answer. What there will be is a place that feels comfortable and manageable to you, and that is what you should look for.

Essentially it's important to have some boundaries sometimes somewhere (but where they are, how many and how you enforce those can vary widely) and it's important not to use tactics that leave your DC absolutely wetting themselves in fear. Between those two extremes, you can't really go wrong.

I think what you did was fine and not too harsh. I would do the same with my 3yo. I think the consequences need to be warned (e.g. if you do that again then...), related to the behaviour (so not having pudding because they threw a toy makes no sense, they're unrelated things) and carried out as soon as possible so that they dont forget why.

I think you did well too. The only thing that sprang to my mind with the toys was that you could say “I can see you want to throw, but we don’t throw our soft toys as we could break something / they aren’t for throwing etc. Would you like to go in the garden and throw a ball / would you like to get your bean bags and throw them into the hoop” or whatever you deem a suitable alternative. If he didn’t choose / listen I would then do as you did and give a warning before removing, but I would try and acknowledge and facilitate his desire to throw first if I could.

Out of interest, what did your husband think you should have done instead?

Thank you all so much for the replies, it's really helpful.

Definitely going to read over some of the suggestions.

I think what you did was absolutely fine! What would your dh have done?

It's also important to remember that there are often times when we do, as adults, have to enforce boundaries and they will make a huge fuss about it, but long term, it's those boundaries that make them feel secure.

I think you handled both scenarios pretty well, both are logical consequences and you gave warnings. I would have done the same with my 3 year old.

I think you did perfectly toddlers have tantrums about nothing so don't worry about being harsh you definitely were not he has to learn danger n consequences and you are teaching him. Sounds like your partner didn't think there was much wrong in throwing toys and didn't need telling off rather than u being harsh do u think that was the case? If he was throwing a teddy playing that's just fun if he was throwing cars in the air or at stuff then needed to be told

He needs to know the difference obviously! When u took toys away did u distract him with something else or find something else for him to do or was he just left with nothing to do cos that would be harsh but doesn't sound like it was