Toddler behaviour - when time out doesn't work!

[Philippa1110]

My daughter is nearly 27 months and has a 5-month old baby sister. She was a late starter with crawling and walking (she was nearly 18 months before she started walking unaided) and has always had a strong personality to say the least.

In the last 6 months or so we have been trying to address unacceptable behaviour (principally hitting, scratching and pulling both adults and other children) by using the time-honoured time-out technique, but it seems to be having zero effect on her - she doesn't seem to appreciate that it is a form of "punishment" and it doesn't seem to deter her from repeating the behaviour. She sits and cries (not always with tears) and then gets up and kisses the victims - sometimes we catch her in time out just playing with her feet or laughing to herself, especially if she catches our eyes.

We know she has grown out of some bad behaviours of the past (like hitting her sister when she was feeding, which happened for a while when the baby was younger) and all we used was time out for that, but her behaviour towards others isn't improving at all. One of her contemporaries actually cried today when he saw her arriving for a play date and told his mum that he didn't want to play with her, which upset me hugely.

She does get frustrated at not being able to do things like dress herself or make toys work and that leads to tantrums too but that's not an explanation for unprovoked hitting which is the thing that is most problematic at the moment.

what alternatives to time out are others using? it would be possible for us to take away, say, disputed toys, or anything which has led to the tantrum/bad behaviour (or to put her in a playpen out of the room for her time out sessions when she's at home), but when she goes up to other children on play dates or at play groups and lashes out at them without warning it's difficult to know what we can do to make it clear to her that it's not acceptable and to put her off trying it again. All suggestions gratefully received.

she sounds just like my son with her behaviour and I was at my wits end trying to stop my son hitting, scratching etc it went on for two years because I tried everything. The naughty step made it worse everytime he got someone ad he went on the naughty step he would calm down say sorry, apologize and do it again. He got a terrible name for himself and we were ousted from several playgroups because of his behaviour. I had to eventually seek help from professionals and they said I was making it worse because I was giving him attention for his bad behaviour which is what he wanted. Apart from this one issue in his behaviour he was otherwise so well behaved so I had never had to use disipline before and he saw this as a fab why to get my attention. So I was advised to totally ignore him when he got someone, it so worked not the first time, but when I didnt interve he thought this is odd so went on to get someone else and that was it has never done it since. He realised he wasnt going to get any attention for doing it so what was the point!!! Horrible to stand back and do nothing but in my sons case it worked because he knew what he was doing was wrong as he had been disiplined so many times, the disipline to him was attention!! The family link worker explained to me that sometimes they are not lashing out coz of anger or bad behaviour they just havent learnt to communicate as well as other children and this is their way of communicating and using the naughty step is confusing to them as in their heads they are not naughty just exploring. You do have to be strong to carry it thru but it worked for us. Good luck xx

I wouldn't bother using time-out with such a young child. She's just a bit too young to retain what it's all about. The fact that she's complying with the punishment while still playing probably shows that she's not really understanding the message, just that she has to stay there until you say so.

Time out is better used when a child has lost control and needs some space to calm down and then return to the situation.

Ignoring is a very useful strategy if it is used in conjunction with praising the positive. You can show appreciation for hundreds of little good things a child does each day and then turn your back on the bad, sometimes literally by turning away from her and giving the victim lots of sympathy. That way the child begins to realise that good behaviour earn rewards (attention and praise, not sweets) and aggressive behaviour results in attention being withdrawn. After you've ignored her for a moment turn back to her and move her on to another activity without comment.

You can also use redirection very effectively but that takes concentration. You need to be focussing on the child enough to see the signs that they are about to lash out and quickly grab their attention with something different. This can be a good strategy in toddler groups where you don't want the aggressive behaviour to surface in the first place because of the response of other mums.

She is very young but at play dates and play groups you could threaten to leave if she does it again, and if she does it again then leave. I did this very effectively with my DD1 but I think she was a bit older than your DD is now.

It worked for me because I find it extremely stressful if she is horrible to others in public and was glad to leave if she did it - wouldn't work if it was punishment for you too though!