Throwing!

[liamsdaddy]

Our 16 mo DS seems to have picked up some bad throwing habits.

He likes to throw his toys. I realise this is a normal part of development, but he seems to occasionally like to throw them at people (me and DW).

In the garden, he did have a habit of rearranging the decorative stones we have (too much In-the-Night-Garden?) but now he seems to have a habit of throwing them at the plants.

His latest trick, is when we give him his water beaker for a drink, instead of returning it nicely to you after he has finished his drink - he is likely to lob in in the other direction.

Some of this I suspect is testing boundaries and seeking automity - but it's still very annoying.

The current strategy we are mostly using is to give him his soft ball if he wants to throw something (although sometimes I just take away the toy).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we inhibit throwing objects (soft or not) at people and objects, but not completely inhibit throwing development.

He is 13kg+ so he has both the mass and strength to hurt somebody or something...

Keep doing what you are doing and he'll grow out of it.

DS went through a similar phase. We set some ground rules - no throwing of anything indoors, no throwing of stones. If he threw something that he shouldn't, it was removed. As he got older, he was expected to pick up what he threw.

Give lots and lots of opportunity for safe throwing. You might want to allow throwing inside but we found that it was confusing to DS and throwing a soft ball soon led to throwing anything he could lay his hands on so we banned throwing anything at all indoors.

Also lots and lots of praise when he passes you something nicely instead of throwing. DS used to lob his spoon at me after breakfast, so before giving it to him I'd say "can you please pass his back to me", then go mad with the the praise when he complied - clapping, smiling, cheering etc. It soon became part of our morning routine that DS would make a big deal of passing his spoon and I'd clap and cheer.

Keep calm and consistent and it will get better.

yes dont make huge deal from it as at first its just normal then they see reaction and it becomes fun and they do it then for reaction so when they throw say no and remove it and then nothing distract and praise for good behaviour

my ds threw everything at evereyone he grew out of it

i would ask for the cup and when he passed it to me would hugley praise for it if he threw it just no and take it away sometimes id play games with it i would pass to him and ask for it back and then really praise when he gave it back

i would expect him to do it for bit longer yet as its learning and testing just stay consistent do the same thing and he will soon get bored as no reaction is given he'll be onto the next thing

Ds did this, and still does sometimes! Like you say I think a lot of it is testing boundaries, and also trying out new skills. We used to take his toys off him if he was throwing them (after a warning) and put them away-but to be honest I dont think it made much difference as he'd often throw them again once he got them back. He also always used to copy other children, so if someone threw something at playgroup, no matter what I said he'd go and copy too. He did seem to just grow out of it (he's 27mnths)and prefers playing with them, so hopefully will be the same for you.