Toddler whacks my TV? How do I stop him? help!

[adamstorm]

Hi everyone. Need a bit of advice.

I have a 19 month old son, and he is great fun, and really well behaved. But recently he has started taking his toys and whacking them at our TV. He likes to bang wooden blocks, duplo bricks and other things onto the screen.

He doesnt hit other children or adults, and he even learnt "gentle" strokes for cats.

He has other "bashing" toys like xylophones and stuff, but he doenst really play with them all that much.

He only seems to bash the TV when its not on (we dont watch much TV at all, only a bit of timmy time or bob the builder, normally no more than 30 mins per day)

My main concern is that if he whacks the TV hard enough it will smash or get damaged, or fall on him or he will get broken glass on him or something like that.

He also likes to press the TV with his fingers.

I know most kids like to do this, and its perfectly normal, but how can I stop him before he destroys it?

When I tell him off he thinks its a game, and when I take the toy out of his hand he runs and finds another and does it again 30 seconds later. I have to physically take him out of the room to stop him.

Any advice?

Move the tv temporarily? It's become a game, and he's a bit young to understand the consequences, other than it gets your attention!

remove the toy straight away without question.

just seen his age - maybe move TV

Take his toys away.! Lol.

DD drew all over our tv with crayons so I took them away from her. Then she put stickers on it so they went as well!

Just keep repeating no firmly but surely and remove him from the tv every time and he should get the message.

You just have to keep moving him away from it, into another room if necessary, and distracting him. Maybe show him something he can bash or press when he does it? Like "No, we don't hit the TV, you can hit this drum instead."

He's a bit young to understand being told off so keep it very simple e.g. "We don't touch the TV." while moving him away. Always back up your words with an action at this age. Don't keep talking about it beyond this one phrase and action or you'll confuse him, just move on to something else.

We considered putting a fireguard round ours at one point!

DS gets two very calm but firm warnings, saying we will take the spoon/ brick/ toy etc away from him if he does it again. On the third occasion it gets taken away simply and without fuss. Ad infinitum... one day it will sink in.

Oh and explain why you don't like the TV getting hit ("it will break and then there will be no more In the Night Garden" or whatever)

Thanks so much for all the advice so far.

Its hard to put him in another room because our house is kind of layed-out weird, in that the downstairs is all open plan. I could put him in his room upstairs, but he really hates it when he is not on the same floor as us.

Also, Im not really sure that I could move the TV, so maybe some kind of guard/gate is in order.

When I take the Toys away he usauly goes back with his fingers.

I wonder if its because he has seen me on an iphone/laptop pressing screens to make things go.

thanks for the advice and its good to know that so many others have the same problem!

I have an 18 month old that recently used to turn the TV on and off and banged it with her sipee cup and was pressing all the sky plus buttons - she was very fixated, this would not be so bad if it was daytime but was often 8pm onwards so we calmly tell her she will go out if she does it again and after one time out of one minute only she knows the word out means out this has nipped it all in the bud so totally worthit we have our evenings back .

Ahh yes possibly if he's seen you with touch screen things. Could you download some apps for him to play with, under supervision of course?

Could you cover the tv? I have a roller blind fixed at the side of my TV and pull it over the screen in the mornings (I'm a CM). I find that out of sight does equal out of mind, and no-one touches the TV generally.

Ours has gone on the wall for just this reason - and because I was constantly petrified the TV would land on DS