‘Disciplining’ a 2 year old

[Redhats]

DS 3 in May and I’m really struggling with disciplining him. This part of parenting has really crept up on me. He’s never had tantrums and up until now has been quite well behaved but this year his behaviour is going down hill.

2 examples from yesterday

• throwing a hard ball around the house while I was making dinner. I asked him to stop several times, completely ignored me. Starts throwing it with more force, laughing as he does it. I went over and said something along the lines of ‘we don’t throw the ball in the house X’ and took the ball off him. He laughs in my face says ‘we do throw’ runs across the room picks up his firetruck and starts chucking that around. I took that off him too and then he shouted at me for 20 minutes until dinner was ready trying to get it back.
• He pushes his 11 month old sister over , she falls backwards and bangs her head off wooden floor. Burst into tears, screaming and crying. I went over picked her up and took her into another room to calm her down. Went back into the kitchen, went over to DS and said ‘we don’t push X, you really hurt her’ he looked me dead in the eye and said ‘I want to hurt her’. He wasn’t remotely bothered that she was hurt/upset. This is quite common, when he hits/kicks etc he says he wants to hurt people.

Where am I going wrong? Is this normal behaviour?
I don’t shout/raise my voice, I grew up in a really shouty household and hated it. Plus it doesn’t feel right shouting at a 2 year old. But clearly what I’m doing isn’t working.
Is the naughty step still a thing? Do I need a reward chart?

I am in no way an expert but I found at 2 they aren't really logical enough to fully understand the consequences. I did a mix of distraction and choices.

E.g you can put that ball down and help Mummy make dinner or if you carry on Mummy will take the ball and you won't get it back for the rest of the day....or similar.

If he hurts his sister tell him "That's not nice, you've made her sad and that makes Mummy sad too. I want you to say sorry to your sister. If you don't do that Mummy won't be able to play games with you today.

Once when dd was 3 and kept running away on shops I told her we would go home (meant to be headed to a fun day picnic) she kicked me until I lost my grip on her arm and then she ran off so we went home. She screamed for the whole journey. Then apologised and said 'Can we go now' to which I said no. She is lovely now but was very challenging as a preschooler. You aren't doing anything wrong, it's developmental. Stay calm and keep repeating your expectations and consequences.

Hes too young to understand if you stay stop. You take the ball away, thats a consequence.

Don't give huge mouthfuls of instructions, he's too little.

You dealt perfectly with the ball and truck. The hurting is harder, I think you did the right thing removing her. Have you got a safe place you can put him eg bedroom for a couple of minutes? Shouting is OK once in a while too so he realises hitting isn't OK.

It's absolutely normal behaviour for a 2-3 year old.

Empathy in particular can develop at very different age depending on the child. So don't worry about the pushing too much, my eldest was the same and is now one of the most caring 4 year old ive seen! Just keep the baby away, I wouldn't leave them alone in the same room.

Regarding the ball, this is what I would have done with our 2.5 year old (it's an example, no one is perfect):

• take the ball away after the 1st request to stop if they continue
• Remind them that this is not an acceptable way to talk to me (with appropriate language)
• tell them that they'll go for a "quiet time on the step" if the bad behaviour continues - NOT the naughty step!
• try to distract them with something else (e.g. help cooking dinner or something like this near me).
• follow the "1, 2, 3" method for both the toy throwing and the language: that's basically 2 warnings, and the third time they go on the step (or whatever "quiet space" you can set up in your house).

We normally always follow the 1, 2, 3 method to stop bad behaviour. It works most of the time. Ultimately if they are overexcited, a quiet time it activity is usually the best way to calm them down.

I have twins and my god the age 2-3 years were awful in terms of parenting/ reasoning with them

I generally will say don’t do / please do x - if they don’t comply then I’ll say it again then I’ll count backwards from 5 explaining that on zero there will be a consequence. (Toy taken away, won’t go to the park, no pudding etc) At first they didn’t think I’d follow through - after a few times they finally twigged that if they were still acting out by 0 they weren’t going to like it

Praise the good ALL the time, ignore the merely annoying and use a very firm/scary voice/face for the non-negotiables (like pushing sister; simple consequences when appropriate). He needs clear right/wrong modelling from you, which is going to be mainly positive feedback, with a bit of nope for unacceptable stuff.

And when I say ‘scary’ I don’t mean terrifying, I mean extremely firm, but controlled.

It an help to make sure you're close enough when you ask them to stop. So if I see my 3 year old doing something I don't want I will go right over next to him before asking to stop. This way if he tries to do it again I can immediately stop him.
It's a really hard age and not all children test boundaries at this age with the same passion so it can feel like you're doing something wrong when other parent's advice doesn't work. It's not your bad parenting, it's not their amazing parenting it is different children exploring and learning in different ways.
Just focus on consistency with your approach and you will get there.

I would also say that whilst some 2 year old might struggle to understand consequences, plenty of them do understand very well.

They develop very fast at that age, a 2 year old is very different from a 2.5 year old or a 3 year old (e.g. language development, following instructions etc).

Every child will obviously be different, but introducing rules and methods now (whichever works for you and your child) is crucial if you want them to follow them later. They don't suddenly turn 4 or 5 and understand consequences, if you start now the behaviours will be established already.

What changes is the expectations, I absolutely do not expect my 2.5 year old to stop every time, the way I expect my 4 year old to. Consequences are different too depending on age.

Reward charts never worked for us at that age, but I think it does for some children so worth trying.

Impulse control doesn't begin developing until 3-4 years old, so no amount of talking will stop the behaviour. I do gentle parenting; this would be my approach:

First time he threw the ball: "Don't throw the ball, we don't throw balls inside".
Second time: take the ball off him, "we need to play with something else because you aren't playing safely".
Throws fire engine: take it off him, attempt to distract. If he follows you around shouting for twenty minutes, have a set phrase - "we don't throw in this house, play _ instead" - but it isn't the end of the world if he's having a whinge for 20 mins; the goal was to stop the dangerous behaviour, which you did ❤️

You did the right thing when he pushed his sister; you took her away from him. I don't think it hurts for him to see you comfort and reassure her - it won't work immediately, but eventually the connections will start to be made that he doesn't get attention when he hurts his sister. That's a long process though and you handled it well.

This is me with 11 years experience, though - I don't think I'd have handled it as well as you did in the trenches of toddler parenting! I think just holding those firm boundaries sooner with the toys takes away the unrealistic expectation of impulse control and stops the situation escalating.

There's a difference between a shouty household and a firm one.

Use a firm deep, controlled voice. "NO" to get his attention and know you mean business. Dont flaff about with heaps of talking like "oh that makes mummy sad etc..." theyre too little to empathise.

They are more like a "pet" at 2 - they need tone of voice change, immediate and logical consequence and a distraction- not always in that order.

I agree with @5humpedcamel - if you're taking a certain approach to disciplining a 2yo and it's not working, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the wrong approach. Sometimes there is nothing you can do that will immediately stop them. But you have to keep trying, being firm and consistent and following through with consequences, and in time it will start to have an effect. My DS2 went through a hitting phase at this age, I found it so stressful and tried SO hard to stop him. Then eventually he stopped and never hit another child - he's now a kind and gentle teenager.

I would have handled the ball and truck exactly as you did. Pushing his sister would have resulted in time out- I didn’t use it often, only if it was serious and there wasn’t an obvious thing to remove so I would remove DC instead. Then balance it out by when he is playing nicely with his sister (or even just occupying the same space without hurting her) then heap on the praise for how good he is. Reward charts are amazing for when you want them to do something very specific like wee in the toilet or tidy toys at the end of the day but I don’t know how you’d apply it in this situation.

Are you thinking it’s not working because he moaned at you for 20 minutes? I don’t think any child is happy when we discipline them - and that’s ok. He needs to know you won’t back down so don’t give him the toy back. In our house the toy went in time out for a while so I’d say the toy will be up in the shelf and we’ll try to play nicely later.

With the hitting/pushing he’s being honest - he wanted to hurt the person but he doesn’t realise yet that hurting someone isn’t ok. I’d keep instructions very short and remove him every time he hits or hurts. He’ll learn with time and consistency.

I would have taken the ball after second request. And truck after one throw. I would have told child he can't have them back until he is sure he wont throw them. He is old enough to understand throwing things can damage things.

I would have been much angrier about the pushing of his sister. I would definitely have raised my voice, not to shout or scream level but definitely loud, very firm, and showing anger. I would have said. NO! DO NOT PUSH YOUR SISTER. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO PUSH YOUR SISTER. WAIT HERE. Then I would have comforted the sister. Then I would have returned and spoken angrily and firmly and still loudly- 'We do not push in this house. In this house we do not hurt each other. I will not allow you to hurt your sister. DO NOT do that ever again.'

Then I would avoid leaving both of them alone until I'm confident he won't do it again. I would expect to have to manage this behavior for roughly a few months. But I would be doing my utmost to stop him from hurting her ever again.